Cute movie. Very sweet. Enjoyed even by the kids.
I'd like to see The Muppet Show back on, but in limited runs. This is an idea taking hold more recently on US cable shows, but too many US shows are locked into old the idea of 20+ shows per year. In the UK no one seems to have any problem with the notion that you do a run of shows that is as long or short as required, then wait a while and maybe put together another.
So my idea for the Muppet Show would be a seasonal run, about 5 episodes year, running from Thanksgiving to New Year's. It would the old format, in the theatre. The show-within-a-show format is pretty adaptable, and fewer episodes would make it more likely to be something to look forward to, would make it easier to book multiple guests per each show, and so on. There's clearly a lot of affection for the muppets out there. Television would be the best vehicle to tap into that. It would likely take until Easter each year to get the theme song out of my head.
27 February 2012
25 February 2012
Mean Reversion
Neil Steinberg, my favorite columnist, writes a spot-on dismissal of the Oscar "curse", pointing out that for some, the oscar-worthy performance is the abberation, not the norm, but makes a common mistake on the subject of reversion to mean.
"So if you flip a coin and it come up heads five times in a row, while the odds are always 50-50 on your next flip, at some point you’ll likely have a run of tails, since the odds of heads will gravitate toward 50 percent."
Intuitively, and what I think he's implying, we expect that a run of heads now makes it more likely that a run of tails will later occur, as if there's some sort of mandatory balancing act and if we've just used up an allotment of heads there's a vein of tails waiting patiently for us to tap into, keeping our sums tidy as we tunnel into the future. That's not how it works.
If you get five heads in a row, you're no more likely to get a run of five tails than you were before [and that is actually fairly likely to begin with, but that's the subject of randomness]. You are, however, still looking at 50-50 odds. Mean reversion doesn't work by evening things out, it works because the odds don't change, and given a large enough sample, the mean will be as expected. In the example, suppose we start off flipping heads 5 times, then flip 10,000 times more. Suppose we get 5000 heads and 5000 tails, without a single "run" of tails. After 5 flips, we were at 100% heads. After 10,005 flips, we are at just over 50.02% heads. Continue like this for 10 million flips and we are at 50.00005%. Looks like mean reversion, without requiring any special "catching up" on the part of team tails.
In other words, the "reversion" is just averages acting like averages, rather than any cosmic compensation at work. Just like how it's possible for player A to have a better batting average than player B for the first half of the season AND for the second half of the season but have a worse batting average than player B over the whole season.
"So if you flip a coin and it come up heads five times in a row, while the odds are always 50-50 on your next flip, at some point you’ll likely have a run of tails, since the odds of heads will gravitate toward 50 percent."
Intuitively, and what I think he's implying, we expect that a run of heads now makes it more likely that a run of tails will later occur, as if there's some sort of mandatory balancing act and if we've just used up an allotment of heads there's a vein of tails waiting patiently for us to tap into, keeping our sums tidy as we tunnel into the future. That's not how it works.
If you get five heads in a row, you're no more likely to get a run of five tails than you were before [and that is actually fairly likely to begin with, but that's the subject of randomness]. You are, however, still looking at 50-50 odds. Mean reversion doesn't work by evening things out, it works because the odds don't change, and given a large enough sample, the mean will be as expected. In the example, suppose we start off flipping heads 5 times, then flip 10,000 times more. Suppose we get 5000 heads and 5000 tails, without a single "run" of tails. After 5 flips, we were at 100% heads. After 10,005 flips, we are at just over 50.02% heads. Continue like this for 10 million flips and we are at 50.00005%. Looks like mean reversion, without requiring any special "catching up" on the part of team tails.
In other words, the "reversion" is just averages acting like averages, rather than any cosmic compensation at work. Just like how it's possible for player A to have a better batting average than player B for the first half of the season AND for the second half of the season but have a worse batting average than player B over the whole season.
19 February 2012
Velodrome!
The London Olympic Velodrome just finished hosting the final round of the Track Cycling World Cup. This was one of many test events for the London Olympics, held in the run-up to this summer that tests venues as they come online.
Although we live within walking distance of the western edge of the Olympic complex, the site is still very much under construction, so to get to the Velodrome we had to take a bus to the opposite side of the site, in Stratford, walk through the new Westfield shopping centre [yeah, it's tacky that the transit hub and the Olympic site are linked via a shopping mall], enter the site near the aquatics centre, then take a shuttle bus to the velodrome.
The velodrome itself is fantastic. Seats around 6000. It's a 250m track that's getting good reviews from the cyclists, and seems to be very fast. I hadn't thought about it, but the track is kept warm and airflow is well managed, to the point of people manning double doorways for ingress and egress to avoid any errant airflow especially during timed events. It looks great on the outside and in.
Fun crowd and exciting racing. I'd never seen track cycling in person. The quality of competition was outstanding. Everyone wanted track time before the olympics. We didn't manage to get cycling tickets for the olympics, but anyone who did will not be disappointed.
 |
| Sir Chris easing around the track in the Individual Sprint quarterfinal. He went on to win gold. |
10 February 2012
Noises Off
Saw Noises Off in the Old Vic last night. It was brilliant. Pure, undiluted, trousers-dropping silliness executed with awe-inspiring craftmanship and energy. This by the same guy who wrote Copenhagen, a play we saw quite a few years ago and loved, but a different thing altogether. In any case, I didn't expect to laugh as hard as I did, at things such as a bag and box being on stage when they shouldn't have been. "They've *both* not gone!"
It's moving to the west end from March 24th. Heartily recommended.
It's moving to the west end from March 24th. Heartily recommended.
08 February 2012
The Social Network
Finally watched The Social Network the other night. Heartily recommended! Snappy dialogue that's not dumb, fantastic acting all around, and nicely filmed. Just a well-crafted exercise all around. It's fictionalized, stylized, alphabetized. Just enjoy it like a high-budget techie edition of Sports Night or something, rather than expecting it to be a documentary. There are enough facts to hang the structure off of and give it a little extra weight, but veracity is not crucial to its success. It's just a good movie.
I've read some comments along the lines of "I hate facebook so I won't see it". I'm not sure what the relevance of that is to the movie. I hate getting eaten by wolves but I still enjoyed The Grey [it's still not about the wolves].
Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer were all outstanding. And Justin Timberlake! His performance was astonishingly good, what a pleasure.
I've read some comments along the lines of "I hate facebook so I won't see it". I'm not sure what the relevance of that is to the movie. I hate getting eaten by wolves but I still enjoyed The Grey [it's still not about the wolves].
Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer were all outstanding. And Justin Timberlake! His performance was astonishingly good, what a pleasure.
01 February 2012
The Liver Test, or, Best Rabbit Ever
A measure of a restaurant for me is if I trust them enough to order the liver. I really like liver, but I'm particular, and it's one of those things I don't bother with cooking at home. As much as I loved Frock's before it closed shop, they overcooked their liver to my chagrin, and that by itself always made me cast a critical eye down the menu, ruling out the dishes that required too much finesse and attention to detail to get right enough to enjoy. Liver is why I'll not return to Bistrotheque. Veal sweetbreads were good, liver was bad. They just whacked a big chunk off a liver and fried it up, skipping the part about carefully trimming and removing any gristle. Which is why I don't bother at home, except on occassion. Which is why I do bother to order at a restaurant. Bistrotheque came through on the veal sweetbreads, but failed so disappointingly on the liver they lost my business, and that was a couple years ago.
Boundary, on the other hand, has never let me down. Went there (Shoreditch) tonight for the first time in nearly a year. Excellent. Native oysters followed by foie gras followed by duck leg confit and the Best Rabbit Ever. Confit is easy to make well at home but I still will order it in restaurants just because I love it. The rabbit, though, exceeded all expectations. Luxuriously tender, with a wasabi crust and served with a mustard sauce. I'm not sure how they did it. The only method I could think of as working that well would be to cook the rabbit sous vide, then finish it with the wasabi crust and a very quick roast. If they did it some other way, I have no idea how. Very impressive in any case. And worked really well with the aligot. Aligot is like a cross between fondue and mashed potatoes. Like an upmarket version of tartiflette, it's roughly on the order of 1/3 cheese and 2/3 potato, with butter and other top-shelf dairy contributors in there somewhere, pureed and blended to a decadent satiny creaminess.
Well, that was nearly it. Of course the St. Emilion au Chocolat was good, but then, of course it would be.
Boundary, on the other hand, has never let me down. Went there (Shoreditch) tonight for the first time in nearly a year. Excellent. Native oysters followed by foie gras followed by duck leg confit and the Best Rabbit Ever. Confit is easy to make well at home but I still will order it in restaurants just because I love it. The rabbit, though, exceeded all expectations. Luxuriously tender, with a wasabi crust and served with a mustard sauce. I'm not sure how they did it. The only method I could think of as working that well would be to cook the rabbit sous vide, then finish it with the wasabi crust and a very quick roast. If they did it some other way, I have no idea how. Very impressive in any case. And worked really well with the aligot. Aligot is like a cross between fondue and mashed potatoes. Like an upmarket version of tartiflette, it's roughly on the order of 1/3 cheese and 2/3 potato, with butter and other top-shelf dairy contributors in there somewhere, pureed and blended to a decadent satiny creaminess.
Well, that was nearly it. Of course the St. Emilion au Chocolat was good, but then, of course it would be.
28 January 2012
It's Not About The Wolves
I haven't even seen it yet [of course I will, and I will like it, because I'm a guy], but I can tell you The Grey is not about wolves. Predictably, tizzies, frenzies, and lathers are being worked up into. Typical headline about wolf experts unhappy, inaccurate portrayal, etc etc etc. Thank god for midwesterners: "It was a movie." And, from the first article as well, "Rasmussen said she doesn’t worry about wolves, even though she lives in
the country where packs run through the yard — but she does keep a close
eye on their little dogs."
Jaws is not about sharks
Blues Brothers is not about cop cars
Moon is not about cloning
Total Recall is not about getting your ass to Mars (ok, yes it is)
Jaws is not about sharks
Blues Brothers is not about cop cars
Moon is not about cloning
Total Recall is not about getting your ass to Mars (ok, yes it is)
23 January 2012
Pre-CGI Effects
Been introducing the young teenager of the house to some old favorites. I've been (possibly tediously) prefacing each viewing with a spiel about how the effects were not computer-generated. The movies are going over well. Blade Runner still looks incredible, to both of us. Road Warrior? Actual cars smashing into each other. After seeing a CGI Dodge chasing deer through Manhattan at approximately 100 mph [I'm pretty sure deer can't actually run that fast] in I Am Legend, the occasional botch in Road Warrior in which they try to make the cars go faster by speeding up the film ends up being charming.
(Want more cars getting wrecked? Try Blues Brothers. Astonishing and gleeful excess in that movie. I was giggling at the sheer volume of wreckage. Poetic, like the midwestern embodiment of a Hong Kong gun flick.)
(Want more cars getting wrecked? Try Blues Brothers. Astonishing and gleeful excess in that movie. I was giggling at the sheer volume of wreckage. Poetic, like the midwestern embodiment of a Hong Kong gun flick.)
22 January 2012
Requirements Analysis At The Butcher
The impulse of many good butchers is to provide a solution for you. I did not realize this my first trip to a proper butcher nearly a dozen years ago. My mistake was thinking that you go and tell the butcher exactly what you want and they simply provide it. In other words, I not only know all about my problem, but I have already decided on the exact solution. The butcher, who didn't know me, didn't yet trust me enough to let me dictate the solution. Maybe I'm asking for completely the wrong thing, it won't work out, I'll blame the butcher, and he'll lose a customer. Am I planning on using rolled brisket for steaks on the grill? Making a stew with onglet? (Providing exactly and specifically what the customer asked for and yet the problem fails to be adequately solved? Hm....)
So I got a bit of a quiz -- how many people? how are you going to cook it? -- before a specific type and amount of meat was suggested to me. Of course, I could have shortcut the process and just demanded this or that, but it was more interesting to figure out the protocol. At my current butcher, I just ask for very specific things. They operate fine in either mode, as many of their customers know exactly what they want, whereas plenty of others come in with a general statement of the problem -- lamb for the bbq for 8 people -- and the butchers are delighted to come up with solutions.
So: problem domain, solution domain. Where is everyone standing?
I thought of this while witnessing a suboptimal transaction at the butcher's. In retrospect it's clear the customer's problem was needing a kilo of cubed beef for a stew. The butcher could have provided this via a couple different alternatives. What actually happened was that the customer specifically asked for a kilo of a designated, sale price, cubed "beef for stew", pointing at the tray. Which would have worked out just fine if the tray hadn't had about 500g of beef left, max. An ask of "I need a kilo of beef for a stew, cubed" would have resulted in the butcher surveying the alternatives and making suggestions. Or asking for a specific cut, in stock, and having the butcher cube it would have worked. Instead a dialogue ensued in which it took a while to establish that the customer just needed a kilo of cubed beef suitable for stewing and was perfectly content to pay more, if required, than the price on the insufficient amount of "beef for stew".
All was well, I think, eventually. But the customer was a little bit frustrated in the middle. As grateful as they no doubt would have been, I did not afterwards lecture the butchers on how they could have handled that better. A teaching moment wasted. Bitter tears at the missed opportunity to bask in the warming glow of my wisdom. Right, off to whip up some oxtail tartar.
So I got a bit of a quiz -- how many people? how are you going to cook it? -- before a specific type and amount of meat was suggested to me. Of course, I could have shortcut the process and just demanded this or that, but it was more interesting to figure out the protocol. At my current butcher, I just ask for very specific things. They operate fine in either mode, as many of their customers know exactly what they want, whereas plenty of others come in with a general statement of the problem -- lamb for the bbq for 8 people -- and the butchers are delighted to come up with solutions.
So: problem domain, solution domain. Where is everyone standing?
I thought of this while witnessing a suboptimal transaction at the butcher's. In retrospect it's clear the customer's problem was needing a kilo of cubed beef for a stew. The butcher could have provided this via a couple different alternatives. What actually happened was that the customer specifically asked for a kilo of a designated, sale price, cubed "beef for stew", pointing at the tray. Which would have worked out just fine if the tray hadn't had about 500g of beef left, max. An ask of "I need a kilo of beef for a stew, cubed" would have resulted in the butcher surveying the alternatives and making suggestions. Or asking for a specific cut, in stock, and having the butcher cube it would have worked. Instead a dialogue ensued in which it took a while to establish that the customer just needed a kilo of cubed beef suitable for stewing and was perfectly content to pay more, if required, than the price on the insufficient amount of "beef for stew".
All was well, I think, eventually. But the customer was a little bit frustrated in the middle. As grateful as they no doubt would have been, I did not afterwards lecture the butchers on how they could have handled that better. A teaching moment wasted. Bitter tears at the missed opportunity to bask in the warming glow of my wisdom. Right, off to whip up some oxtail tartar.
15 January 2012
NFL, God, and Too Many Words
I was mostly successful at weaning myself from the NFL this season. I didn't renew the online viewing subscription, didn't do a fantasy league, and only watched a little bit on TV. I failed to divorce myself completely -- I did follow the coverage (albeit more casually), did a small bit of wagering at the end, and have kept an eye on the televised playoff games. The latter just reinforced the nagging thought that supporting professional American football is immoral.
Early in the New Orleans loss to San Francisco, Pierre Thomas took a hard helmet-to-helmet blow and, upon replay, was clearly knocked unconscious, the football falling out of his arms as his limp body fell to the ground, only to be buried by players scrambling for the loose ball. He got up and walked off the field, but didn't return, having been concussed. Yes, there are new rules for concussions and have been more player-protection rules. This has led to more passing, which in turn has led to commentators such as Bill Simmons to moronically decry this the era of "flag football". (Simmons is a talented writer who should know better. The frat-boy shtick and macho snideness is getting old for someone who is a father and ostensibly an adult now.) Watching guys doing long-term damage to their brains, and knowing this is a huge problem and starts at pretty early ages in the sport, makes it really hard to enjoy the game in any capacity. And there's no denying it's a brilliant game to watch on TV.
...despite the uniformly awful TV commentators. I can only conclude these blithering robots get paid by the word. They essentially spew a stream of unconsciousness so meaningless that viewers must just all spam-filter it by now. Here's a single trivial example, and know that any given game will have dozens of examples more egregious: in the New England v. Denver game, one of the announcers said, "This is New England's first third down situation." So let me ask, what does the word "situation" add to that sentence? Answer: nothing. It detracts. It muddles. It makes the dufus sound like a self-parody of someone attempting to come across as sophisticated. They should all be forced to read Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but that wouldn't help because they'd assume it irrelevant to speaking.
The brilliance of the NFL as spectator-sport on TV, in particular in HD (it really does look great, and the standards of camera work are consistently high), should also clue in the owners and commissioner of the league regarding the future of the in-stadium experience. Here's what they don't get yet and if they don't eventually get it it may be too late: the people who go to the games in person are the studio audience. This is true also for the NBA. (Not true for baseball, especially not true for afternoon games on a beautiful summer day at a ballpark in the middle of a real city, but still.) If having an enthusiastic studio audience for your live broadcast enhances the TV viewing experience, and if TV is by far your biggest and most important source of revenue, then treat your audience well, and figure out now how to attract and retain enthusiastic audiences. Steps 1-100 in this: make tickets free, or so close to free it doesn't matter. This will never happen (until, possibly, it's too late), but should.
Maybe it's just that god hates people who can't afford personal seat licenses. God seems to have a really keen interest in the NFL, at least according to the players, the most famous of which is now Tim Tebow. [Didn't Roger Zelanzy write a short story in which Death was a football fan?] Tebow has a cute little routine about praying to god whenever something especially good happens. Seems a bit inconsistent. If god is interfering, and everything that happens is god's will or part of a "plan", shouldn't Tebow stop and give thanks after god makes him throw an interception or get sacked?
This is a trite example of the incoherence of the belief that god is meddling with the world. If a plane crashes and, say, a single child survives, a chorus of credulous christian cretins will quickly claim the miraculous at work, the hand of the divine in action! Well, you can't get that without also indicting god as the murderer of everyone else on board. The only ways out of this are to decide god really does have a strict non-interference policy (yes, the Star Trek "prime directive"), or, more simply, that god doesn't exist.
But what am I saying, of course god not only exists but also interferes constantly AND loves the NFL. God clearly hates Pittsburgh but loves Boston, or is trying some tough love voodoo on Denver. Better luck next year, Broncos.
Early in the New Orleans loss to San Francisco, Pierre Thomas took a hard helmet-to-helmet blow and, upon replay, was clearly knocked unconscious, the football falling out of his arms as his limp body fell to the ground, only to be buried by players scrambling for the loose ball. He got up and walked off the field, but didn't return, having been concussed. Yes, there are new rules for concussions and have been more player-protection rules. This has led to more passing, which in turn has led to commentators such as Bill Simmons to moronically decry this the era of "flag football". (Simmons is a talented writer who should know better. The frat-boy shtick and macho snideness is getting old for someone who is a father and ostensibly an adult now.) Watching guys doing long-term damage to their brains, and knowing this is a huge problem and starts at pretty early ages in the sport, makes it really hard to enjoy the game in any capacity. And there's no denying it's a brilliant game to watch on TV.
...despite the uniformly awful TV commentators. I can only conclude these blithering robots get paid by the word. They essentially spew a stream of unconsciousness so meaningless that viewers must just all spam-filter it by now. Here's a single trivial example, and know that any given game will have dozens of examples more egregious: in the New England v. Denver game, one of the announcers said, "This is New England's first third down situation." So let me ask, what does the word "situation" add to that sentence? Answer: nothing. It detracts. It muddles. It makes the dufus sound like a self-parody of someone attempting to come across as sophisticated. They should all be forced to read Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but that wouldn't help because they'd assume it irrelevant to speaking.
The brilliance of the NFL as spectator-sport on TV, in particular in HD (it really does look great, and the standards of camera work are consistently high), should also clue in the owners and commissioner of the league regarding the future of the in-stadium experience. Here's what they don't get yet and if they don't eventually get it it may be too late: the people who go to the games in person are the studio audience. This is true also for the NBA. (Not true for baseball, especially not true for afternoon games on a beautiful summer day at a ballpark in the middle of a real city, but still.) If having an enthusiastic studio audience for your live broadcast enhances the TV viewing experience, and if TV is by far your biggest and most important source of revenue, then treat your audience well, and figure out now how to attract and retain enthusiastic audiences. Steps 1-100 in this: make tickets free, or so close to free it doesn't matter. This will never happen (until, possibly, it's too late), but should.
Maybe it's just that god hates people who can't afford personal seat licenses. God seems to have a really keen interest in the NFL, at least according to the players, the most famous of which is now Tim Tebow. [Didn't Roger Zelanzy write a short story in which Death was a football fan?] Tebow has a cute little routine about praying to god whenever something especially good happens. Seems a bit inconsistent. If god is interfering, and everything that happens is god's will or part of a "plan", shouldn't Tebow stop and give thanks after god makes him throw an interception or get sacked?
This is a trite example of the incoherence of the belief that god is meddling with the world. If a plane crashes and, say, a single child survives, a chorus of credulous christian cretins will quickly claim the miraculous at work, the hand of the divine in action! Well, you can't get that without also indicting god as the murderer of everyone else on board. The only ways out of this are to decide god really does have a strict non-interference policy (yes, the Star Trek "prime directive"), or, more simply, that god doesn't exist.
But what am I saying, of course god not only exists but also interferes constantly AND loves the NFL. God clearly hates Pittsburgh but loves Boston, or is trying some tough love voodoo on Denver. Better luck next year, Broncos.
14 January 2012
I Love Betfair
Heading into this weekend's NFL playoffs, I've locked in a little bit of [now] risk-free profit. Not quite enough to retire on.
12 January 2012
Work Footwear
It's (former) police. [from here]
Do you remember when police used to wear shoes?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)