Random Thoughts

There was a story in the news yesterday about a South Korean woman who had finally passed her written driving test on the 950th attempt.

It's here if you missed it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8347164.stm

This is a multiple choice test with a pass mark of 60%.  I have to admit that my first thought was that, given nearly a thousand goes, I would be fairly confident about passing a test about anything under these conditions - even in if it was written in Korean.

Surely even the chance of fluking it is better than 1 in 950?

Well, apparently not - and significantly so.

I couldn't remember the quick way to calculate this but fortunately Claire knew which buttons on the calculator did it, and she also found a web site that gave the same answer: http://stattrek.com/Tables/Binomial.aspx

It looks like this:

A probability of success of 0.25 assumes there are four answers to choose from.  I don't know whether this is correct and haven't been able to find out, but it seems feasible.

In fact, an older article says that her scores in the first 771 failed tests were typically between 30% and 50%.  With such a sample size, that distribution suggests she might have a little knowledge of the subject.

A straight one-in-three or one-in-four guess would produce a range of results centred around 33% or 25%, so it sounds like it wasn't complete guesswork but perhaps she wasn't picking up some of the fundamentals as quickly as she - and other road users - would have liked.

Still, I was intrigued to see how long it would take infinite monkeys to pass this test.  Could a Korean zoo actually stand a chance of getting a driving licence?

The bottom number produced by the calculator - P(X≥30) - is the significant one, and it's miniscule.  This is the probability of achieving a passing mark of 60% or higher, purely by picking answers at random.

It equates to odds of greater than six million to one!

And so, if our heroine was indeed just turning up and attacking the test with a ham-fisted crayon, she was running seriously ahead of expectation.

I wonder if we'll hear more about her exploits the first time she guesses wrong at which pedal is the brake...

I hoped I'd have something to say today about Derren Brown's latest TV stunt: How to Take Down a Casino. 

The idea was that he would predict live on TV the next number to be spun on a roulette wheel in an actual casino somewhere in Europe by placing a bet of £5,000 using money that he'd previously stolen from a viewer without them realising.

Sadly, I just didn't get it.

If you didn't see the show, the only copy on YouTube currently that Channel 4 haven't zapped yet has embedding disabled, so click here while you can for the anti-climactic final moments. (Or find it on 4OD for the next week if you want to watch the whole show).

And then the credits rolled.  The end.

What we apparently saw was Derren with a hidden camera up his sleeve and one other undercover cameraman filming him using his super-charged brain to assess the velocity of the wheel, calculate the speed and rate of deceleration of the ball and then compute where it was going to land.  Except he didn't - he was off by one.

There are indeed computer systems designed for cheating a casino that can do this, and they only aim to predict a segment of the wheel where the ball is going to land.

Even Jessica Alba's super cat-person mind can't be any more accurate than that:

I couldn't find a version of this clip with the sound (a song in the background got it removed by YouTube), but you can read the script here.  Spin to about 2:00 for the start of the action.  At 2:20, she says "I can tell you where it's gonna land, but I can't call the bounce".

On a side note, I noticed that the TV gambling channel SuperCasino.com has a "live wheel" roulette game with an automated wheel, where the ball gets to orbit the wheel at least a dozen times before it's too late to place a bet.  If this game is fair, it should be beatable by anyone with a home computer and the right software.  And yet they're still in business...

Clearly I can't say for sure how it works in every European country, but I thought that in the same way that American casinos offer European or American roulette, in Europe the choice is generally between American or French roulette.  While American Roulette may indeed have a layout printed in English, and I guess you may even find those dealers speak in English, the game would have a double-zero wheel.

Not to mention that before Derren is even playing at that table, you hear the dealer announce "sixteen, red".  In English, and English only.

But, most importantly, isn't it lucky that the table he'd singled out, that he'd been watching for weeks had a spot open at the right moment he needed to place the bet live on TV?  Not only that, it was a spot that gave his hidden camera an excellent view of both the part of table he was moving his chips into, and the wheel itself.

Assuming that this bet was not taken by a real casino, it actually makes sense that he would plan for the result to be not quite correct.  Otherwise, with a perfect prediction, it would be Channel 4 who would had to find £175,000 to pay out to the mug who apparently bankrolled the stunt.

Coming close by one is the next best thing to getting it spot on, but if that's the end of the show and the result of an hour of hype is "close but no cigar" (rather than revealing the actual number that was spun had already been written on a nearby chicken, or something) it's rather lacking in both flair and impact.

Which, frankly, fits in with the other shows in this latest series.

I'm a big fan of Derren Brown.  I've seen three of his stage shows, two of which were amazing and the other was pretty good but spoilt, I thought, by an obvious switcheroo as part of the final big reveal. 

Until now I've loved the TV shows and they're still among the very few programmes I make a point of watching.  I know the tricks he does are almost never anything at all to do with what he says they are.  But if he's still producing an illusion that makes you think "how the hell?", or just creating compelling TV, I don't really care.  He is a fantastic entertainer.

In fact, the part of last night's show where he made a girl throw a squash ball into a court and accurately predicted where it would finally come to rest after several bounces on a numbered grid was an impressive piece.  Of course it had nothing to do with his explanation of extreme mental physics calculations.  That's just Derren's "Abracadabra".  But it was an illusion that made me think "that's so cool" while scratching my head over how it was really done.

However, I was left thoroughly disappointed that his lottery prediction stunt gave me no reason to believe that it was anything other than a camera trick.

His attempt to control the nation using a subliminal film (which "won't work if you watch it on the Internet" - despite YouTube now being able to carry a better quality picture than terrestrial TV) left me feeling like I'd wasted an hour because it didn't do a thing for me.

Then his attempt to project an image into the minds of viewers was so blatantly obvious that I wondered how on earth only about a third of people actually got it.

This week I've gone full circle.  There's absolutely no reason to think this wasn't another camera trick.  Either the casino scene was pre-recorded all along, after as many takes as it took to get a spin where the bet placed was one away from the actual number, or the film was switched out (like they do to Dennis Hopper in Speed) to show an earlier spin once Derren had placed the bet on a neighbouring number.

The interference on his hidden camera feed (which I don't believe is genuine anyway, they had weeks to plan this and work out how to get a good signal) would have made it easy to splice that in, and there's no communication with the guy in the truck once the casino cams go live. 

While the lottery prediction at least had an initial "wow" factor because it was done live at the same time as the actual draw (before he completely spoiled it in the reveal show with a preposterous explanation), going to so much effort to make it look like he missed a spin of a roulette wheel by one number is just, well, meh.

OK, I guess I did have something to say about it after all. 

The radio had been washing over me all day and I hadn't really been paying attention until I heard the sound of dice.

Radio 1 DJ Greg James was doing a puntastic feature called "Dice Another Day" where he was going to throw the bones to determine which Madonna song to play from a list of 12 possibilities.

Two dice make just about the worst random number generator you could come up with to pick a number between 1 and 12 and I have to admit I was shouting at the radio for quite a while about how wrong this was, while also inwardly cheering for him to roll Vogue the hard way.

What can I say?  It gets lonely working from home sometimes, and it's quite likely that I've played too much craps.  If that's actually possible.

At least he realised part of the problem eventually, at 0:59 in this clip: "I'm guessing it's not going to be number 1".

Something I'm sure Madonna was delighted to hear a Radio 1 DJ say about her new album.

But, in context, good guess, imo.

Thanks to Geoff for sending me the link to this article.  I actually didn't think to ask how he found it, but that's probably a good thing.

Just in case you had any doubts about it, I am not the devil.  Google says so.

OK, so it's an imposter.  This is the guy whose book on snakes appears when you search for me on Amazon.

So maybe I should go and check for horns after all...

Free beer.  It almost exists, thanks to Tesco.

Bonus Clubcard point offers returned to the shelves last week after a long absense, and they came back in style.  There's some fantastic value among them.  The full list is here:
http://www.supermarketspecialoffers.com/TescoPointOffers.aspx

For example, 6 bottles of Heineken for £7.34, with bonus 200 clubcard points untll 21st July.

Points are worth 4p each if you spend them on Clubcard Rewards, so you get you £8 back for every £7.34 you spend. Although £7.34 is not a great price for 6 bottles of beer, it effectively costs you nothing.

Buy 7 packs and you not only make enough on top to cover the delivery charge, the £50 spend should also trigger a 5p per litre fuel discount voucher.  There are also voucher codes floating around for discounts or further bonus points when you spend £50 or more.  Each time you do this, you get 42 bottles of better-than-free beer.

Claire and I a serial multi-accounters with Tesco, and two of our accounts accepted a "Save £10 when you spend £50" coupon!

If wine is more your thing, there's a bottle of Rose or Brut for £10.99 with 300 free points (worth £12) and some kind of red wine for £5.99 with 150 points back (£6).

Or, slightly more mundane, there's several offers on washing powder.  Don't knock it, you'll always use that sort of stuff eventually and it doesn't go off.

What's this got to do with the kind of stuff I usually write about, apart from being a fairly oblique +EV play?

Well, there are now two ways that Tesco Deals can get you to Las Vegas (or many other placed in the world, if you're that way inclined) which is why I'm now trying harder than ever to eek every last point out of the system.

As well as Virgin Holidays (who I'm not a fan of) you can convert your points to British Airways Executive Club miles.  BA start flying non-stop from London Heathrow to Las Vegas in October.

Free beer if you buy a holiday, or a free holiday if you buy beer.  Whichever way you look at it, that's a superb deal.

As well as recording myself playing the fake drums, I decided another good way to put my new camera through its paces was to see how it coped with some fast action shots.

A roller coaster that accelerates from 0-80 mph in less than 2 seconds seemed to meet the brief. That would be Stealth at Thorpe Park, and as I couldn't be bothered to queue for 90 minutes to get on the ride, trying to take pictures of people's scared faces was the next best thing.

This is one of my favourites:

The picture looks a bit crappy this close, but it was taken hand-held from the ground to the very top of a 200ft high ride against nothing but bright sky.  I don't think I can grumble given those conditions.  Certainly not going to cry about it, like this fella.

The pictures where I didn't have to zoom so much or point at the sun gave better results.  Watch the guy in the red shirt, looking all excited as it starts to launch...

... and screaming like a little girl on the way down.

This could become one of my new favourite pastimes.

What I want to know, though, is where did his glasses go?  I didn't actually believe this could happen until now...

OK, I lie.  I sweat plenty.  But it's been quite a warm day and the so-called air conditioner I've put in this room is basically just a little fan in a box.  What can you do?

The reason for this video is two-fold.

1. I wanted to try a few different video recording modes on my new digital SLR (Canon EOS 500D) and specifically to see how the 1080p mode (at a reduced 20 frames per second) compared to 720p (at 30fps).

2. I wanted to find out whether it was going to be possible to edit HD video in Vegas on my now-aging laptop, or if it would be a job for my (almost as portable) Mac Mini.

So, in the absense of anything resembling live action going on around me, I thought I'd record a few songs with different settings.  But I only went and aced Reptillia, so I thought that I really should share this achievement with the world and modestly declare just how much I totally rock.

I'd been thinking about making a Rock Band video when Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" becomes available for it.  But although it's on the list of upcoming songs, there's no release date set yet - and of course no guarantee I'll be able to play all four parts well enough, which is what I wanted.  Let's hope this still happens, eh?

Anyway I only picked up the Mac so I could try to learn how to write software for the iPhone (which is going horribly; the language may as well be Martian compared to what I'm used to) but now it's looking likely it will be coming on holiday with me (I'll need to pick up a cheap monitor over there for it), and after that I fear it may only be a matter of time before it becomes the main machine on my desk.

What's that I hear?  A gazillion Mac owners saying "I told you so"?

I never doubted you.  I just liked having two mouse buttons.  And now I realise that I actually still can.  And that I don't actually need a keyboard with that funny squiggle key on it.

Here's the thing.  My PC, which is a dual-core thing with 2Gb RAM and is a little over a year old, struggled even with the lower quality format.  The sound wasn't quite in sync at times and it certainly wasn't playing at the full frame rate.  My laptop (3 years old, mobile Celeron something) didn't stand a chance - what I saw could barely be called video.

Whereas the Mac - on paper a less powerful machine than my PC - lapped up the full HD format without even blinking.  I was even dragging it around the screen manically (even between two monitors) while it was playing - not a hiccup.

So I loaded the clip into iMovie (which I'd never used before), trimmed off the ends (which took literally 20 seconds), hit a button and it went straight up to YouTube.

Well, not quite straight away.  It took nearly an hour to render and upload in top quality, but that didn't matter so much.  I could actually do other things at the same time.

Oh. My. God.  It could be only a matter of weeks before I'm fully converted.

A trip to San Diego isn't out of the question this summer.  It might just happen!

Mmmmm.  Mexican bread.

At last I got a final decision from the Financial Ombudsman Service in response to my complaint about MBNA trying to stiff me on a refund for flights I lost after Maxjet went busto, which I wrote about in this post.

I can live with FOS being somewhat on the slow side to get things done (it's nearly 15 months since I complained and 6 months since MBNA rejected their first adjudication) when they make great decisions like this.

The ombudsman said MBNA's handling of the matter with regard to, like, you know, the law and stuff was "disappointing", and that they now have to pay me:

- The £1649.48 difference in the cost of the replacement flights with BMI - something I probably wouldn't have realised I was entitled to if they'd just refunded me like they were supposed to.

- Interest on the above at a stunning 8% per year from 31/12/2007 to the date of payment.  Take your time please, it's already about £200.

- Another £200 for the inconvenience.  Although I like to think of this as a fine for being arseholes.

The ruling is binding if I accept it.  Are you kidding me?  I snap call.

Full copy of the FOS letter is below.  Click a page to enlarge.

Just been looking through some of the pictures I took at Cheltenham last week.

Although the majority of bookmakers have embraced technology...

... running a portable, electronic operation with a laptop hooked up to an LED sign board...

... with a small printer, and a big wad of cash ...

... there's still a few guys who prefer to kick it old school.

The man with the flip-chart is pretty brave - there's no easy way to update his prices as the money comes in.  Tippex required, probably.  If you want your market to be able to move, dry-wipe is worth the investment. 

And if you want an eye-catching sign to alert punters which race is up next, you definitely need some clamps.

Some of them even still do tic-tac...

... but apparently there are some things you just can't say by waving your arms about.

I learned two things at the races today.

First, my dad explained to me the difference between a hurdle and steeplechase.  I wasn't sure if it was a daft question, so I'm glad it wasn't.

Hurdle: all the jumps are the same height.  Steeplechase: fences vary and usually include a water hazard.

In my head, sharks with frickin laser beams are a possibility.

Second, I learned the name of jockey Ruby Walsh, who the crowd loved and chanted "Roo-Bee" at any availably opportunity.

The only name from the racecard I actually recognised was The Queen (obviously an owner, not a rider).

See, I really wasn't kidding before when I said I was clueless about horse racing.

Walsh rode two of the winning horses.  This one is American Trilogy:

My sister backed this at 20/1, which meant she won enough to pay me back for the ticket.  So I felt like a winner too.

This is Kauto Star:

Everybody in the world seemed just keep on piling money on him, despite horribly unattractive odds of 2/1 or lower (I saw it as low as 13/8 with some bookmakers).

Perhaps if I'd bet on "Kay-tow" (as it was pronounced, but somehow with at least three syllables, by hundreds of Brummies on my train) instead of the three-legged beasts I actually picked by pretty much sticking a pin into my computer screen, I'd be able to afford a faster zoom lens with funky image stabilisation that would have turned this blurry photo into the triumphant shot that it should have been. 

Squint a bit, it helps slightly. Maybe there's enough detail to use some clever "watercolour" filter in Photoshop and make it look intentionally like a painting.  Worth a go, I guess.

I'm going to the Cheltenham Festival next Friday for the Gold Cup.

I'll admit this isn't my usual scene, but it's for my Dad's birthday present and, really, what kind of son would I be if I didn't tag along?

I've been to the races exactly one time before and I did enjoy it, but I'll openly admit to being totally clueless where horses are concerned.  Here's what I know: the ones with the best names probably run the fastest.

I've studied the form guide and I think Snoopy Loopy is a dead cert.  Get a bet on now at 66-1 before everyone realises.

The only other tip I have so far is for getting there by train.  It looks like there's no such thing as a day return to Cheltenham Spa.  I guess it's just not a popular enough destination the 51 weeks of the year that it doesn't have a racing festival to warrant such a thing.

However, you can get a day return to Birmingham from almost anywhere - and if you're travelling from the North or East, there's a good chance you'd have to change trains there anyway.

For my dad, a return ticket from Leicester straight through to Cheltenham Spa costs £34.50.  However, a day return to Birmingham New Street is £9.40, and then he can go from Birmingham to Cheltenham for £19.40.  Total: £28.80.

That's a saving of more than five quid over doing it the "proper" way.  As there's no direct route from Leicester, he'd always have to change in Birmingham so it's a no-brainer.

For me, Stoke to Birmingham costs £12.20.  A ticket straight through would be £42.50, so I save £10.90 by splitting the journey.

Admittedly, there are some direct trains from Stoke to Cheltenham, but the time difference is only 5 minutes (1:44 vs 1:39) and on this occasion I'd choose to meet my family in Birmingham anyway.

As far as I can tell, these are all flexible tickets with no commitment to travel on a specific train.  The Birmingham-Cheltenham leg is good anytime after 9.30am and although the other tickets can't be used between 3.30pm and 6pm, that's not going to a problem with the last race at 5.15pm.

I can stick the tenner I've saved on a long shot, but as it's Friday 13th I will accept there is a small chance it might not win.

A little bit of white stuff on the ground and the nation goes bonkers.

Eight of the top ten stories on BBC News right now are about the snow, or obvious consequences of the snow.

It must be because of the unique way that the BBC is funded that they can manage to find eight different angles on one day's winter weather.

And, evidently, the licence payers love it.

Frankly, I think it's a disgrace that we'd rather read about what we can already see outside the window than about real news, like porn interrupting the Super Bowl.

Snow is settling everywhere except in my yard.  What's down there that's so warm?