Posted it the other day.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Deal-or-No-Deal-21-looks-OK
*kill

>> ^Gimpy8877:
Yeah i'd be way too busy looking at their bewbs


I'd like to see your reaction(or lack of) when you realize it's your sisters bewbs.

Deal or No Deal is a totally idiotic game that promotes superstitious bullshit.

I get a kick out of moron guests on that show trying to pray or use ESP to figure out which case to pick instead of picking randomly.

The optimal strategy is to just pick a random case to eliminate every time, and only accept an offer if it exceeds the arithmetic mean of the remaining numbers, unless you prefer the certainty of a small reward to a higher expected value of a random variable reward.

If you want to take tax into the equation, only accept an offer if its after-tax value exceeds the arithmetic mean of the after-tax value of each remaining number.

This no educational value and a trivial optimal strategy, which makes it completely worthless except for the comedy of watching the spastic effusive moron guests. At least people might learn something by watching Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy, Millionaire, or Whose Line. But Deal or No Deal is braindead.

What makes the Price is Right so popular is that you show up at the taping, and if you don't swear every 5 seconds, and you compose yourself as a truly nice person, you just might get to play that day.

The other game shows --every last one of them-- have a grueling behind-the-scenes selection process.

Now some shows are even "recycling" contestants, the guy who lost big at "Who Wants to Have A Slim Chance in Hell of Being a Millionaire" suddenly shows up a few weeks later on "Deal or Yack For An Hour About How You're Not Greedy And Will Listen To your Friends, But Then Choose No Deal."

I dislike The Price is Right on so many levels. It's inane marketing propaganda masquerading as entertainment. The subject matter of the show is repetitive, useless, boring, and deceptive. It's almost as braindead as Deal Or No Deal. The sole redeeming quality of both shows is the comedy of watching the spastic effusive guests lose their composure.

Do yourself a favor and watch a show with real content instead of this content-free garbage. Perhaps TNG, DS9, TDS/Colbert, Frontline, Nova, Charlie Rose, etc.

Doc_M,

You really take John Bolton's views on foreign policy seriously?

There was no deal struck with Iran, the Bush administration has always maintained a policy of not engaging people they deem terrorists in diplomatic relations, the EU has been on the other hand negotiating. Which is the stupid way to project regional influence.

Saddam did not have WMDs at the outset of the invasion of Iraq, that is a fallacious lie spread by pro-war Bushies, no one listened to Hans Blix or Mohamed ElBaradei when both stated that Iraq had no weapons of WMD in 2003, both were dragged through the mud in the media. Look at Iraq war and it's lack of WMDs.

Mohamed ElBaradei again stated that Iran has no active nuclear program a couple of years back, again his name was dragged through the mud. The CIA now states itself that there is no nuclear program in Iran.

US friends to survive? You do realize that every international supporter of the current incursion in Iraq has lost their re-election campaign? UK, Spain, Australia...

The USA should be a chess player not a brute when it comes to power projection and influence.

No Deal.

Yes, that's right folks! I'm back for a imited amount of time (1 week) seeing as i'm on holiday now. Damn ive got alot of Sift Talk reading to do. Anyway, you may continue...

One other point: Someone mentioned Deal or No Deal earlier, but that is an entirely different set of probabilities. Keep in mind that in that game, the knowing host doesn't pick which cases to reveal, the clueless player does.

They'd love you on Deal or No Deal, Payback. ;-) Seriously though, with 100 doors, Monty knows which of the hundred doors has the car behind it. The chance you picked the correct door at the start is 1%. From Monty's perspective, the chance you picked the wrong door is 99%. He knows where the car is. He is not opening doors at random. He is eliminating 98 wrong doors. Now, the door you picked at the start had a 1% chance of being the car. Then, after eliminating 98 wrong doors, there is a 99% chance his remaining door has the car. If, from his perspective, the last door he opens will have the car behind it 99% of the time, why wouldn't you switch doors? With 100 doors, 99% of the time Monty will have a car behind his last door. With 3 doors, 66% of the time Monty will have the car behind his unopened door.

Or, something like that.

Bedtime...

Oh wait! Think of it this way... If you play the 3-door game, Monty has a 66% chance of having the car behind one of his two doors. You would trade your one door for his two doors if given the chance. Him eliminating a known bad one of his two doors doesn't change the odds that the chance of him ultimately having the car is 66%. You are still effectively trading your one door for his two, which is what Deano and rembar and others pointed out above, so if you read this far... sorry for the repetitive redundancy.

Ok... I just know I'm gonna be dreaming of goats. What's new, huh?

I agree with the 50-50's. As the rules are set before you even are asked to choose, the final odds come down to 50/50. Either you win, or you don't. Either you switch, or you don't. The third door is irrelevant to the question because it was always going to be eliminated.

It's like one of those word games where you do a bunch of math concerning $100 for three hotel rooms, and find you've lost $1 into nowhere. Extraneous info thrown in to confuse the question.

Someone should figure out the odds for Deal or No Deal. THAT actually is different from a yes or no choice.