There is good news for the fans going to the Japanese Grand Prix. It is highly unlikely that the event will have any serious weather problems. This is the typhoon season in Asia and thus far this year only a couple have made it to the Japanese mainland. There are on average two Category 5 tropical cyclones each year, known as Super Typhoons. The first in early September was called Sanba and hit Okinawa, the second was last weekend’s Super Typhoon Jelawat which hit the Japanese mainland on Sunday. This passed over Mie Prefecture, where Suzuka is located, early on Sunday evening and then moved on to Tokyo. It is now blowing itself out off the coast to the north-east of the Japanese capital.
The good news is that the race was not a week earlier…
What’s the bad news?
Hopefully it’ll be a typically great race at a fantastic track. Won’t be able to watch it sadly, as only have BBC.. *sigh*. Much like many of the younger generation that have little interest in formula one (as per your earlier post) and how will they if they can only watch half the season live and the rest as highlights.
http://www.wiziwig.tv
Thanks Mr Bedonde – From a fellow fone/facejacker fan
I never checked this out, but I think ESPN streaming service rolls month by month. That’s no good on the EU feed for F1, but I think Sky are missing something important, to not allow short term subs, or even PPV for F1. Just considering I struggle to set aside the time to watch every race these days. It;s a whopping price to have Sky, when you don’t enjoy other telly, and other sports are on a upgrade priced premium, and yet also available over the ‘net. For what use I get out of it, I think the Sky F1 combined with ESPN are worth 20 quid a month, not the 40 or so I am billed. Thing is, if you like US centric sport, the sheer variety on ESPN comes across as a great deal, maybe it’s priced lower because brits aren’t so keen ion baseball or college football, the baseball which I find entertaining, and there’s tons of it.
A few weeks ago, TATA boasted they were in a deal to work with Bernie for “super high speed networks”. I don’t think they count, in the big network world. It’s just a hunch and no analysis, but I reckon F1 would be better off streaming the pay races themselves. Karen pointed out very clearly, that it was the BBC doing that deal, not necessarily something Bernie wanted.
It’s been a very confusing story, how adland have dealt with massively multichannel broadcast. (I don’t do telly advertising, so this is very rough and personal impression) At first, everyone harped on about how the ads could be better targeted, but I think the rates have not been helped by such a mess of a variety of choice. Maybe I am a old fogey, but I so dislike the fiddling with menus and remotes that seem to take minutes to select a channel, I just don’t see how the experience is any better or more engaging. Typing in or clicking on a favourite web link seems far simpler and quicker to me. What I see is not even as fun as the original Bernievision. Not going to start on how stick in the mud Bernie was about producing in HD, even a lesser standard of “HD”, which can only imagine will look pretty rough if ever we have the ability in years to come, of reviewing the archives, courtesy our expensive subscriptions.
Most of the telly manufacturers, Samsung the most so, then Panasonic next, as far as I can see, are “internetting” their tellies. (Samsung are the 800lb gorilla in producing the basic kit, I don;t think even SONY make their own panels any more) and it makes a lot of sense to me that you can use a large screen, split it with the live timing, and so on. If FOM really wanted to sell expensive live timing apps, they’d hook that to your telly so you can press a easy button on your phone and get a spilt screen or PiP or something. I’m sure this is all doable right now, but software and electronics companies have perfeted the art of making you pay for top features which have no incremental cost for them to deliver (even camera companies play that game a bit much, they like to remove basic buttons and charge a huge premium for the “pro” model which only does what you’d expect from a camera 40 years ago in the film age).
There was a outburst of geek comment about HBO’s policies the other month. Simply tons of people bewailing they could not even pay HBO a sensible price to see the shows they wanted. Some of these companies are crackpot to realise so many viewers just want to see their show when it comes out, against which piracy rules the roost of immediacy. But we don;t have that issue in F1. Has to be live show, or nothing, if not nostalgia or a reviewing to see something you missed whilst distracted.
I don’t see how the Sky deal benefited anything other than the BBC’s counts. As far as I am aware, Sky just paid the BBC, and Bernie got nothing new. Bernie won’t slag off Ole Rupe, but I don;t think he’s so happy with the outcome. The stats Karen noted here were catastrophic. Almost any entertainment or drama show would have been axed pursuant to those declines.
Well, I don’t know any solution, just that the technology is almost everywhere a F1 fan might be living. You can even up the transmission quality, over the internet, if you wish, which is something satellite transponders do not do on a whimsy. Just about every big company approach to the internet and new media has been one foot in, one foot out, and in the shallow end the pool at that. I guess I really would like to just have streaming for the two sports channels that entertain my lot here. But the other complication is that because of massive multichannel, which has diluted audiences (long gone are the 10 million viewers watching a special Only Fools and Horses episode) so advertiser need or desire to be across every channel. That means, that to get the audience numbers, you get sold a package of everything else also, and whilst that’s perceived as a supposedly wonderful thing to have, you’ll only get charged for what you do not watch. I know the television ad market is not so simple as I describe, but it has to my mind some very contradictory and conflicting pressures. Anything which is created unevenly will distort a market, and so I think my little wish for paying a proportionate rate just to get one F1 channel, plus another sports channel (or channels they really broadcast a lot, do ESPN) is something of a dream.
Oops, long one again, not meaning to hit essay summary length, just I think there’s no easy solutions to this, without biting the proverbial bullet. If that involves irritating the business model of large television distributors, it’s not going to get fixed any time soon. What does surprise me is that not a single traditional publisher or broadcaster never took the possibly dangerous choice of going in at the deep end of the internet. If someone had done so, they might have been able to come back ahead by now, rolling in it. I reckon they’s not have destroyed so much capital as the Time – Warner + AOL deal massacred. The only positive to F1 we have out of that is Tony Fernandes saw that coming, and cashed out to go it alone, before the stock started to love penny amounts. Nobody in any commanding position in the media seems to have seen the idea of creative destruction. This was all against the backdrop of interest rates being pushed to zero, mind you, and that’s be a longer thought, but free money has not done much beyond distract people from their vocations. The other side of inflation which can be good, is that if you borrow to make a new business that has genuine output, your indebtedness is actually slowly reduced, if you make something chargeable at the going rate. Instead, when you can borrow at less than zero cost, bigger companies start thinking the best way is to buy out their market. Why innovate if you can engineer the financials, and near zero rates mean that the models say your stock is getting forever higher. That was all in motion 14 years ago. I don’t see a whole amazing new frontier of technology since then, at least not as affects who has a long copyright on their works, and though of course there’s ubiquity of nice computing things, something not to be sniffed at, there’s no correlation of that very interesting development to human time intensive effort such as writing or relaying a race. Anyhow, bottom line, I have not done all the research I’d like, but my intuition is that we have ended up with too many outlets for meedjya, split up the ad revenue too far, and gotten to having so many artificial barriers to just simple commerce, buying what you want, because of the outlet / channel proliferation. Big companies like News Corp had to be ruthless to dominate what they dealt with, draconian anti copying laws mushroomed, and although big media outfits survived, it’s kind of artificial and they are against the trend. I suppose also, anyone who knew much about how internet video works, or could have worked long ago, is not your regular customer also.
So endeth, not before time, but not before done, my lament. You could summarise it as “I hate flicking through too many menus on my television remote.” But that would have caused me to owe Victor Meldrew for my plagiarism . .
Ufff John…, I really don’t mean to be disrespectful, but your posts get heavier every time… This one is totally off-topic and convoluted (although maybe it is only for me, as I am not a native speaker). And man, comments that are way longer than Joe’s posts get a bit tiring…
I know, if I dont like them i should just skip them, but I still appreciate very much your thoughts and stories when you lay them clearly.
My view is that John does no harm. His stuff is often interesting and illuminating (not always) and there is no reason to reject it.
As said the problems to follow through Johns arguments are probably due to me not being a native speaker… and that after many years living in Germany I might have become a “stay on topic” freak.
My apologies John if my previous post can be considered rude, it was just some genuinely honest feedback.
Hi gond, I didn’t think your comment rude at all. Instead it’s helpful to be told, when I am not succeeding to be interesting, or good to read, or what I have written is just wrong thinking. But I should really cut down the length of my comments, including the reply I first pout down a few minutes ago, and hastily hit the “Post Comment” button for, as is recent habit I explained there. I want to make the best of any time here, and improve what I write, but writing that pleases a increasingly broad audience is not my “native language” also, as it were. It’s a labour of love, and takes a lifetime to get right, ask Joe. The only reason it may be of use to discuss (but not going on forever) this sort of “meta” subject is because to many internet discussion places have really been spoiled, by either people being too “dominant” (that I might allow could be me, some days by quantity – I really just type very fast) or spoiled by people throwing uncool personal comments to others (“trolling” or generally playing clever to cause disruption or distraction for bad reasons)
Anyhow, my comment was pretty awful boring, above, (and so it this, and my other reply) and deserved to be described as not good. I’m trying to write in a fresh but slower – but less edited before posting – way, but failed at that so far.
Also I don’t want to change my direction and style every time just one person reacts unhappily, because whilst most people are genuine, like you, I think some are not. You see, because I have always tried to adjust my comments to improve according to useful criticism, and I say I will do so, I have to be careful I am not being played with like a puppet. I made the gross mistake of being too personal earlier this year, and have not got my usual style back again. Maybe I swung too far from openness to boring caution. I even wonder if that didn’t spoil the more personal style of the comments generally, so that still worries me quite a bit. I think I may have spent too much time thinking that over. Basically, I shall certainly cut the length, so not such long ones which don’t fit well. I really have been “over thinking” too many things recently. It’s kind of a pain, because I do in every way to be responsible to this place I care for, but if a few people are determined to be insincere, and just trying to provoke me, I don’t get “angry” or make such insults but rather think out loud. I *am* getting the hang of managing that, however. I hope you don’t think I’m some egotist, and know that from what and how I write. But I did like a bit more my happier and stronger style of a few months ago. Some things in real life got me a bit more serious recently, that’s the temporary change I will change again.
Anyhow, you’ve absolutely no need to apologise to me! If anything I’ve sussed out a lot better how I thought about some not constructive comments to me can be better managed, and I hope by figuring this out, my contributions to the discussion will be less bothersome to Joe (I don’t see all the comments he deletes, so it’s tricky for me to guess if there’s really rude things being directed at me, or anyone else.) Please do criticise me, and in return, I promise shorter and easier to read replies! thanks for your kind thoughts ~ john
p.s. nope, there’s no way I am going to rehash or repeat these comments about myself and my comments again. Or respond unless I said something out of turn, to more of the same (see my thoughts how I might just be swayed too much by individual critiques, and get it all wrong, elsewhere) . .I think they’re done and dusted now, and need no revisiting or repetition. Thank you to who has been so patient, for being so patient. I can’t promise I’ll suddenly become cool again or whatever, but I got the issues I will address properly stored up for the future. I hope I’ll get my mojo or whatever it’s called back, and do a lot better! But honestly the toning down and pedantry were really in response to some who thought I was being a bit too effusive and personal, so I was listening to who meant well to criticise me! Just need rebalancing. But of course I want to hear if what I am thinking out loud is a load of rubbish. That’s what I want to hear, when I am wrong. Nice to know _why I am wrong, though, as well. Should not need saying, but I’m no sacred cow, I’m a visitor with a hall pass, just like you.
I’m working on a lighter more condensed style. But not being a professional writer, with my day arranged around it, it tends to reflect my mood, as in lately I have been a bit grinding, because my elderly mother has has had some I think avoidable, but not serious, bad turns in health. I was certainly more jocund sometime earlier this year, but other than mumsie being worn down, and I the only one on the spot, a long standing deal of mine not to be completed until next year got really convolute. So basically I can’t quite, or have not yet learned how to do a style on demand. If I manage that, I shall be really chuffed, and it’s a personal project to do better always.
I agree with the “(not always)” point Joe makes, definitely I sometimes drift off or choke on something I can’t put my finger on.
To be honest I should be drafting papers for my company’s website. But this sport is very much influenced by advertising, and so because it’s my pleasure, I’ve been thinking aloud over here, and there’d be next to no crossover, so here’s not idea practise. (my company website is utterly neglected, we’ve never been much for publicity and certainly not for “vanity” websites)
My above post was utterly dull (as is this one, I reckon), really not one I looked back at and thought, “hmm, not bad” ; instead I actually groaned a bit looking back. Last year, I had lots more free time, and would think more before posting – but then things like the Lotus mess and a few others I had a bit of a clue about, captured my attention generally. Not having a direct focus, I decided I would do my best with simply as direct, not pre programmed, comments, as I could. So recently I have been a lot more variable.
I don’t know what direction I can go in, because I am simply not a professional or expert writer. I’m defaulting to quick scribbling (my typos are way up lately) because I think that might be more genuine and varied. I dumped the personal commentary, because, well, if you look back, you know my mum likes F1 a bit, and no girl I meet lately seems to think it’s anything other than a romance killer. I scratched that too, because there’s so many more people here now, and no benefit arises from trying to keep a busier place like a speak easy or a clique-ish hideout, the new influx has a more beneficial input.
But I always note what people say. Honestly, my above post was dull as dishwater. But I try to keep within the idea that Joe has expounded, that F1 is not a island, and that with such a business angle to it all, you have to try to understand it in a wider context. Problem is, because I speak to sell to so many kinds of professions, I stretch that idea a bit far occasionally. Still, no other website has hardly a half hearted go at doing that wider context well, though maybe I try to round up too far fetched discussion which is not really meat and two veg, therefore not so satisfying to digest. In other words, I don’t mind adjusting my style to feedback or criticism, I’m just possibly not that flexible or able. I did have more fun with punning off of my love for cinema, though, just I had little time to indulge that lately. I enjoyed that as a novelty, and a thought process. I’ve not stopped to think of little vignettes or metaphorical notes, but I’ve been a bit distracted in mood lately to run that off the way I want.
Well, I cannot predict with certainty how my scribbles develop, or may be enjoyable or not, but I do think it’s time to cut the length again. I had a glitch, that when I was condensing things, I got misunderstood, maybe even thought of as a bit of a incomplete intellect, and then when I expended them again, it gets the “wall of text” problem. Also I do think one or two people who “dropped by” here on random occasions, tried to “troll” me, and get things down in tone if they had managed to evoke a response of a certain kind. (and for the most silly of excuses, I simply touch type at about the same speed I talk. Quickly.)
This is just my pleasure, maybe a bit too much a hobby, but I enjoy Joe’s permission to contribute here very much. Still, I’m not going to ignore what you say if I am hitting all the wrong notes. That would make it far less pleasurable for me, since I’m not here for egotistical reasons. (Okay, not saying it’s unpleasant when once or twice I have been complimented, but that’s not taken as a unqualified endorsement of any kind. It’s nice, but not conclusive.)
I owe as much to you guys, the silent majority, and all others here who have contributed regularly, as to anyone. If I can adjust, tweak or improve, tell me what to improve! I think the only bother with me this year is I lengthened my comments, to be more precise, and less chatty or personal. So they are a bit too much text, and if there’s no rewarding experience to read them through, that’s no fun for you at all. Maybe it’s a Goldilocks equation. But forward, I;d rather people said “oh, my that was a horrible and dull contribution” rather than said “you can be good, but this is too much” (awful paraphrase, but just trying to get the words out) because to me it would be more instructive if I was told “John, that one was awful” than balance it with my better ones. A few times I re wrote what I meant and that settled things to some apparent satisfaction.
I think in another comment today I suggested I was a jack of all trades, master of none. Apart from a few nuggets I keep quiet that pay my bills, I think that’s a fair description. Sometimes I see something in another field and just don’t grasp how to explain how I think it’s connected. I think those are the comments that really are disjointed, and get the most “WTF” sentiment. But I deliberately chose to try to be more generalist, and I think those comments with broad and maybe tenuous outlook need a bit more time to make good.
On a personal note, I’ve had a lot of “crunch” time this year in my life. That’s made for a less light hearted me, but that will correct itself as a problem, naturally.
Thanks for your feedback, gond, I totally appreciate it, and will have a quiet think over the next weeks how to lighten my approach, because there’s a bit too many ideas I am trying to stuff in at once, and I blame my own over thinking for coming out with turgid prose. This style of long pedantic comment is likely for the immediate chopping block – I’ve had enough of it myself! In any event, the best thing is the exchange of views, and I know that works better when I am concise. I do know what has le me to over work my prose, this year, but I don’t think I’m ready to make light of some personal things. I hope it’ll be obvious when a could of trying burdens are lifted. I’d rather make fun of myself, again, as I mostly did, but not got the angles down pat just now . .
all best from me ~ john
p.s. : admonishment to myself “if you are explaining, you are loosing”. AFAIK hat;s my own coined phrase, and what I meant when I thought it up was to avoid the traps of being stuck unravelling other people not sussing what you mean. That cuts two ways – you either are not doing a good job of presenting in the first place, or the other party just plain does not comprehend, or worse, the other party deliberately wants to spin what you just said. That last one I find all to common in business, increasingly prevalent since the economy got tougher and people want to fudge practical factors (I have done business with a few who I believe were genetically modified to never get to the point and simply try to use pseudo intellectual Judo to turn over any logic you might have) but it always comes down to if you didn’t do a good job, you’re stuck explaining away what you mean (even risking at work telling too many secrets) and so you must choose whether to bother. This place falls into the category of things I care a lot for, and so bother about. But not you, but on other occasions, there has been a noticeable element of non constructive reaction to me, I am very wary now to avoid this amount of distraction. Please, tell me like it is, I really would prefer if you have a pointed criticism, even if it’s “ouch, awful job, John, way too waffly / long / off topic” I’ll heed that, but not write again a lengthy reply like this. I mean, if someone is actually being insulting, they’d not suss my response if it was always this long . . poor joke, but hope you get my drift. So this is my last pedantic response for a very long while at the minimum. The contrary thing, is had we met and had this exchange, I would have probably managed by body language and simpler comments to convey almost as much. On the internet, everything from not knowing native languages to simply not hearing the tones of the talk, really mean that careful answers are this dull and lengthy. I feel like I am writing a constipated government department press release, so rest assured, there will be a change!
Sorry, I had to go to bed. I will probably miss episode (epistle) 4. but promise to do my best tomorrow.
Oh dear, LOL, you have to understand I often consider myself in a manner of self ridicule, and you hit the spot, for my sense of humour, perfectly!
Joe & John (Other John),
I think there may be a good book deal on offer here. Put John (Other John)’s (John’s (Other John’s)?) comments together in some sort of bound or electronic volume. A chapter per topic, yearly editions (a bit like Jeremy Clarkson and his motoring columns) and you’re onto a winner.
A signed first edition is all I ask (though how you sign an electronic version, I’m not so certain).
Nah, I’ll take a leaf out of the extortionate academic publisher’s game, and only give the abstract at the start, and maybe not a whole paragraph of that, link to a PDF it’ll cost you 35 bucks, and split the loot with Joe.
The genius in this idea, is that I could re use the same abstract over and over:
“A study of readers of a prominent sophisticated Formula One website’s comments section demonstrates that human tolerance for psychological self punishment by reading some kinds of extended epi – discussion is directly correlated with self description as a curious geek, and results show non causal outcomes that the same self identified character, “self punishing geeks” are highly correlated with emergency First Responder psychologists who are conducting work under a delusion of The Samaritan Syndrome. (In a series on whether there is a epiphenomenon that “geek awareness” has led to a subculture of a social intervention team to enforce subliminal rules of upholding standards of cultural identity described by self non-personification) . .to download the full article . .”
I owe you guys regardless!
I support John (other John)’s missives. I understand about 85% of them, which is a very good number in baseball. (Speaking of baseball, if you don’t have a fave team, pick the Baltimore Orioles… they’re good again, and your kids will like the hats.) If I’m not in the mood, there’s always the page-down key. I don’t see what the problem is…
p.s. Who is the guy who J(oJ) is other than?
Argh! I can never break the 85% ceiling! (Or are we talking volume weighted averages here, and what’s our sample time??!)
Going to look up the Baltimore Orioles when they play. They look like fun to watch. (No way familiar enough with MLB, still, just chill out to whatever games are on, it’s fun to watch something fresh I don;t have any prejudices about..)
Oh, regards the who I am “other than” there was a silly argument someone else wanted to be simply “John”, way back on this blog, and so I gave up, because it had become briefly oh – so – serious a argument, and therefore I am JOJ as a result. It wasn’t intended that way, but you could work a few comedy sketches into all that, and obviously I had something of a identity crisis at the time
Sky’s new Now TV service lets you do month by month subscriptions.
It’s currently just for movies, but sports are expected before next year.
http://www.nowtv.com
I’m so often picking up on comments that serious fans of telly just want to see their favourite series shows the same time as you can in America. So many pleas of “just take my money, already!” that I think these stations have their heads in the sand. Most detailed commentary describing the intricate absurdities I found, was at techdirt.com Not much different with ardent F1 fans. Why can’t the loonies who crave better coverage, and archives and all that, not subsidise who might want to just have a taste of it? I might well pay a ton of cash for being able to flick through the archives. Oh, but I pay 3 ton a year to merely watch half the season . . and aside, people like the BBC control far too much archive as well, and couldn’t care less to really open it up. They have far to much exemption from normal behaviour just by being state mandated, and abuse that power.
Whatever happened to the “green screen” advertising trackside that was suggested 10 years ago, that way different adverts can be seen in different markets, or even change mid race?
It was too complex to do at the time and, as far as I know, has not been revisited as yet.
It was also very poorly marketed. I very briefly got enticed and intrigued to work with a guy who had a top reputation, and was backed by the travel guide company once called Columbus Press, because Michael really was the top of his game then, had a real style to his work – a salesman, not in the graphics side, someone you could learn from how to interact with any world – and one of the things they had was a line to Allsport or whichever it was back then, McNally (IIRC Michael had organised a contract mag for FOM at our earlier company, we ended up selling the Monaco Open and some not top slots for Roland Garros) but this video overlay idea was being pulled apart by co-ordination problems. Mike was hot for it, he reckoned we could buy in to sell one billboard and resell many times. Bit like a derivative, really.
It was actually hard to explain the idea of the technology, despite who was developing it was stoked at the possibility, and the trials did not then not look very good unfortunately. (try 1995)
We got no traction because it was too confusing to the diaspora of brand managers and the idea that we were pitching to sell it to HQ, so bypassing the local turf managers.
Joe’s right, it really was a stretch. At the same time, ESPN had just perfected the superimposed Yellow Yard Line to illustrate the progress in a football (not soccer) game. I never saw one up close, but it was apparently a truck full of kit. That was just for one “simple” yellow line.
This was also about the time Silicon Graphic were chanting their last their hurrahs, their good people off to create what became nVidia (and SGI giving away OpenGL to Microsoft, so there was all kinds of unknown re-org stagnation on the tech front as well.) I had use of a SGI “Indy” computer, really a revelation back then what it did for the price, a few thousand rather than a few hundred thousand quid, ISDN card standard, wow! But it just occurs to me who split from Silicon Graphics to form nVidia might have been at their peak making cheap boxes like that, which I still get nostalgic about because it was such a break out machine in price – performance, hence I reckon they were funded to break away with hardly a bother than turning down investors.
This stuff is still not terribly easy or straightforward. Soccer games eventually seem to have settled on LED boards to get more variety of message across, rather than truing to custom it for every local channel. For one thing though, a rectangle pitch is way easier to play with in graphics than a undulating race track. One of the earliest things to alert me to all this fun (not so sure it is actually healthy fun) was when ee got a color television, and the BBC explained how they colored the pink and green balls, to suit the spectrum response of the cameras, so they would look very dull at the Curcible, but all right on your set.
Also, this is not really green screen, but real life backdrops. Not like if you are doing primary photography for The Matrix, a super controlled environment, the backdrop just isn’t a known consistent color, and that variation in the backdrop causes all manner of extra bother. Two colours, purple and brown, for example, are not things you an create on the spectrum, they have components completely a function of our perception. Real life had quite a bit of brown and purple (ground, grass, ditches, flowers) and without a dissertation I’d fluff because of poor memory, those stuff up color management systems still, but not long ago they were right painful to get right.)
But I think the real thing was push back from geo – local advertising buyers. If you did the overlay things well, someone could block buy it centrally. Very parochial bunch of funnies, the boys and girls in adland.
I usually joke, but seriously, it’s not working out which half of advertising is wasted, but you’re starting with 60 or 70% thrown away on overhead you should watch out for, well, there’s a cultural aversion to any form of automation or simplification, not to mention the difficulty of such automation, and it would be unfair to claim it’s so simple a business or that anyone who has any position is a slouch. I just think that the gap between media related qualifications and quantitative studies is still to wide.
Probably now, if they wanted, they could just about backdrop any race track with Star Wars like cities with Blade Runner shot quality computer generated ads for Coca Cola. But I am not certain anyone thinks this is what’s wanted. I cannot confirm any thesis how things like this never took off for billboard ads on the television, but my line-up of usual suspects often starts with “people, other people, more people, flaming turf wars, and since when were ad people displaying geek credentials” . .
Disclaimer: I have a love – hate relationship with my profession, and I think the love I found was in all sorts of technology because I had ditched a academic career for personal reasons, if indeed that is a properly accurate description of what do, because it’s a very silly game too often.
Think over once more any business that twisted almost prides itself on wasting 50% of any budget. Really? You’re going to create a logical culture out of that? The on-line game is even more full of stats (says me avoiding a very ride word) and before I start grinding my teeth trying to cut through all of this, I worked very hard to find any useful ready reckoning maths that stood up to anything, and they were more financial than the usual numbers (or pseudo numbers) the agencies like to collect.
One more consideration, just think how much bother it is to pitch a advert, then start asking “so do you want Timbuktu as well?”.
I think a lot of very neat sounding ideas got pitched when adland really didn’t understand what computing could or could not do. It’s a ongoing labour for me to just unravel how much that intellectual mismatch has screwed around with current advertising. I might just me a bit unusual , that I chose advertising for a career, to get me out of being a geek happier in a darkened room programming. There’s definitely fairness if anyone asks me if I am jack of all trades and master of none. But at least for a few things I really put in the effort to gain a could of specialities. I’m just saying that whatever insight I may have, it most certainly does not imply that what I say pans out to the wider world at all. I am grateful the ad market is really very big, and much bigger than the internet game alone.
Bottom line: I’d not care to revisit the idea, either.
V8 Supercars toyed with the idea as well, including deploying it at Bathurst one year. It sort of worked. So ads showed up and changed throughout the broadcast but they weren’t always steady and only worked from one camera (I assume due to cost of making it work on more), so some camera angles showed a green sign and in-car cameras too.
They also played with an overlay on the track surface but this had a problem in that it just didn’t line up properly and I don’t think the advertiser got any real value out of the deal as most times there were cars on top of the image.
I also heard the cost & hardware involved in getting the arrow that’s used in NASCAR coverage to track a specific car is still hideously expensive. Considering that’s a more consistent tracking of a car than most camera angles on a road or street course…
> At the same time, ESPN had just perfected the superimposed
> Yellow Yard Line to illustrate the progress in a football (not soccer)
> game. I never saw one up close, but it was apparently a truck full
> of kit. That was just for one “simple” yellow line.
It was hard because of (a) changing geometries and (b) because they had to worry about rain puddles, snow, and players-and-refs running/walking on top of it. With a mostly stationary target area that’s not on the ground, it’s ever so much easier.
Right now, virtually every nationally telecast baseball game (of which there are many) does green-screen ads on signs mounted to the low wall behind home plate, visible on every shot of the every pitch from the CF camera.
If F1 had vertical signage shown from a camera that didn’t pan like crazy, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard as what American football does with the yellow line. And even if it was that hard, so what? F1 can afford it if they want it, they take truckloads of stuff with them everywhere, what’s one more? If it’s at the top of the list for American football telecasts, why would it not be for F1?
US football now superimposes complex images on the playing field… looks like they’re painted there… they could make’em dance if they wanted to, but they want them to look like on-field chalk…
Perhaps no typhoons, but I’ve soaked my way through enough soggy GP’s in Japan (the 2007 debacle at Fuji and 2010′s cancelled qualifying at Suzuka come to mind). Perhaps you’d do well to invest in some Teru Teru bozu for this year! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruterubozu
has there ever been any thought given to moving the Japanese GP to avoid typhoon season? Surely it’s only a matter of time before an event is cancelled.
Exactly what I’ve been wondering. The people putting the race dates together seem to happily ignore the seasons when you should NOT try to run a race. And not only for the Japanese GP (see Malaysia, Korea…).
Hi Joe
On a completely unrelated matter, is there any progress on date/venue for the Austin Evening with? (for the 5 microseconds of spare time you have amongst your other work)
Working on it, but free enterprise means that nothing is free!
Joe..Give my regards to Sonia at the media center
Ouch, Joe, the early birds at Bloomberg note:
“Greece unblocked a subsidy of 28.9 million euros ($37.2 million) for the construction of an international-standard racetrack that can be used for staging Formula One car racing, the Ministry of Development said.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/greece-unblocks-subsidy-for-formula-1-track-construction.html
Which is stranger than most of my comments rolled into one. Over to you to come up with a better headline! (Has Bernie heard of this?)
This is an old project that was looking for money – if it is the one I think it is. I agree. Greece needs the money for other things.
I picked that up via ZeroHedge, where they compared it with Nurburgring, where they said (but no link to a report, not looked it up yet) apparently one of the key bosses retired “for health reasons” at the weekend.
They made a bit of fun how Germany will get stuck with bailing out everyone. This is backdrop that Germany used the Euro system to protect itself against currency fluctuations, whilst getting the EMF and all sorts of development banks to underwrite export of white good and plant machinery. One trick the smarter crowd used was to note that Germany guaranteed exports the former USSR. Some sharp magazine operators hammered that, though in the scheme of things, they hardly broke anyone’s bank, yet real manufacturers did extremely well to get hard currency guarantees on a plate, almost no questions asked. That scheme started with reunification, to try to bolster anything left in the GDR (the “ozzies”, east of course) but it struck me then as a lovely little currency credit derivative opportunity. Well, anyhow, two Bundesbank chiefs have resigned since, something unheard of in post war history.
Maybe not worthy of a full headline on the front page, but what these people are thinking, I have no idea. Apparently whole swathes of Greece are filled with half completed industrial estates full of top German machine tools, never having been put on stream to do anything. I sometimes idly wonder how much kit is out there, idle, that clever car designers might be able to use.
In a strange way, this makes me think of one of the fillips that were available to innovative types after the war: there’s just tons of plant sitting about. My cousin lucked into a deal to take over a bottling plant, flogged it to Coca Cola and held on to his stock. Over 50 years, that made him. But if he hadn’t done that, it’s have remained a abaondoned factory in Yorkshire.
It’s the poverty of riches, or the riches of poverty. Factories need staff and electricity and human TLC. But they also rust, as it were, too quickly for the idle or distracted or whoever thinks protesting about state provided amenities and income to grasp a hold the the nettle. I was reading the other week about the steel salvage boom, after the first war, and how that fed the industry around Sheffield with raw materials. Amazing bravado to retrieve scuttled ships in heavy seas. The other flip side to the end of a boom, is that if really there is a end to the boom, a fire sale, that gives opportunities to who gets a move on. As of now, well since the 30s, they set up systems to prop up the economy. Before the Fed Reserve and other central banks printed money, forced interest rates to their bidding, there were more crashes but they were shorter and you got rid of the bad and left it to who had the brains and guts to pick up the pieces.
Funnily enough, when F1 teams could swing for the boundary or go bust as quickly, it seemed a much more enjoyable sport. When I was saying split it all 60:10:20, a good use of the 10% reserve would be to tithe over employees of a bust team, so they don’t split away from the game or go get desk jobs. I’d underwrite the pensions also, for the rank and file. But I’d most assuredly let teams go bust more frequently. Bernie made a few too many private loans I think, even. Stuff this having to pay a bond to join, if there’s a place on the grid and you pass scrutineering. There’s another application for keeping a 10% reserve.
Nurburgring should rightfully go bust. But why should it not be bought out by someone new? You don’t need the theme park kept running, they lost their money on that already. Let someone else buy it for pennies and make it a success if they can. But keeping a reserve, my 10% idea, of the overall income, could be applied to give a leg up to who is trying for real and truly wants to be successful. Even just a modest fund to back someone’s pitch. In my experience, backing who is truly hungry – and usually young and apolitical – is far less risky than regular loans or equity. But I see everyone corrupted by things like the venture capital game where they only want one in a hundred firms they back to make some extraordinary profit – they live by such models, and stifle viable companies who won’t make the 10,000 percent return. And they keep the ones that are goers, so there’s no new stocks and shares for the public to buy. But I am really on a tangent now..
Yup, I think one of the comments I skimmed at the ZH site where I saw that was along the lines “soon they’ll not be able to afford to import baby milk, so WTF are they doing with some long shot to play around in fantasies with F1?”
Very sad. Not good publicity for F1, either. It reinforces the “Hail Mary touchdown” desperation that is the potentially ugly side of the positive. Surprised Bernie’s not kiboshed it, he’s be doing the regular folk there a favour this time.
Don’t speak too soon – there’s a storm brewing over the Pacific right now. Tropical Storm Maliksi is unlikely to reach Japan in time for Sunday’s race, but it could cause some disruption in Korea the week after.