Learning Things
Jun. 17th, 2007 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksThe home page of Live Journal has "featured" pages that change from week to week. Unsurprisingly, this esteemed tome, like the blog on how to preserve ferrets in formaldehyde, or the blog on horses, innocently titled "Grooming in Difficult Times", has never been included.
Instead, we get such riveting stuff as "Learning Things", where "A Girl In Finland Posts One Thing She Learned Each Day". Unless (and I suspect this is not the case) this is some kind of blog journey of personal bodily enlightenment, (I have to avoid the 's' word, because that generates buckets of spam posts linking to rather undesirable sites hosted in Russia or the Ukraine) then, well, a blog devoted to what some kid in Finland got taught in school today is not my idea of fun. Actually, it's probably worse than that, with the blog consisting of an adolescent's startling "insights" into how the world works.
I can just imagine my own version of this "A GOM's View Of The World". Every day the blog would be something like: "Yep, world is definitely going to hell in a handcart. Thought so".
There's an old Hungarian "joke" (remember, this is the country that I think vies with Finland for the highest suicide rate in Europe) which is recounted in Tibor Fischer's great novel "Under The Frog". Apparently a standard greeting amongst elderly men goes something like "Jamshak! How's It going?"
To which Jamshak replies: "Ahh, middling. I'm worse than I was yesterday, but better than I'll be tomorrow".
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I finally got to see the Louis Theroux show on Las Vegas last night. None of the guys who work in Vegas came across very well, partly because Louis kept, gently, pressing them when they came out wityh the stock line of "we like to see our customers happy. We like them to win, because then they come back".
Louis, unfortunately for the LV publicity machine, doesn't take this bullshit lying down in the way that it's churned out on the Las Vegas promotional sites (and a few of the blogs), and asks, in his infuriatingly innocent fashion: "But they have to lose overall eventually, right? It's their money you want."
What surprises me is that none of the PR guys can bring themselves to tell the simple truth, which is that "Look, these high-rollers have quadzilions. They lose a million dollars to us, and we make them feel like a million dollars. It's a fair exchange". Instead, everything is covered in platitudes, rather than the simple truth that many of these gamblers are lonely people willing to pay for friendship, rather than for company at night.
Las Vegas did not come out of the show well. However, the Blackjack-playing duo were entertaining. As I looked at these gamblers, it was comforting to note there must be at least some people like that playing online, just because there is no casino nearby. Eventually, they lose patience, play a hand they shouldn't, or play too high, and they go broke. Las Vegas knows that, which is why it exhibits infinite patience.
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Instead, we get such riveting stuff as "Learning Things", where "A Girl In Finland Posts One Thing She Learned Each Day". Unless (and I suspect this is not the case) this is some kind of blog journey of personal bodily enlightenment, (I have to avoid the 's' word, because that generates buckets of spam posts linking to rather undesirable sites hosted in Russia or the Ukraine) then, well, a blog devoted to what some kid in Finland got taught in school today is not my idea of fun. Actually, it's probably worse than that, with the blog consisting of an adolescent's startling "insights" into how the world works.
I can just imagine my own version of this "A GOM's View Of The World". Every day the blog would be something like: "Yep, world is definitely going to hell in a handcart. Thought so".
There's an old Hungarian "joke" (remember, this is the country that I think vies with Finland for the highest suicide rate in Europe) which is recounted in Tibor Fischer's great novel "Under The Frog". Apparently a standard greeting amongst elderly men goes something like "Jamshak! How's It going?"
To which Jamshak replies: "Ahh, middling. I'm worse than I was yesterday, but better than I'll be tomorrow".
+++++++
I finally got to see the Louis Theroux show on Las Vegas last night. None of the guys who work in Vegas came across very well, partly because Louis kept, gently, pressing them when they came out wityh the stock line of "we like to see our customers happy. We like them to win, because then they come back".
Louis, unfortunately for the LV publicity machine, doesn't take this bullshit lying down in the way that it's churned out on the Las Vegas promotional sites (and a few of the blogs), and asks, in his infuriatingly innocent fashion: "But they have to lose overall eventually, right? It's their money you want."
What surprises me is that none of the PR guys can bring themselves to tell the simple truth, which is that "Look, these high-rollers have quadzilions. They lose a million dollars to us, and we make them feel like a million dollars. It's a fair exchange". Instead, everything is covered in platitudes, rather than the simple truth that many of these gamblers are lonely people willing to pay for friendship, rather than for company at night.
Las Vegas did not come out of the show well. However, the Blackjack-playing duo were entertaining. As I looked at these gamblers, it was comforting to note there must be at least some people like that playing online, just because there is no casino nearby. Eventually, they lose patience, play a hand they shouldn't, or play too high, and they go broke. Las Vegas knows that, which is why it exhibits infinite patience.
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Las Vegas knows that...
Date: 2007-06-17 11:12 pm (UTC)On a ridiculously unrelated matter, I persist in my doomed attempt to suggest to the producers of "Have I Got News For You?" that they should feature the excellent magazine, "Total Carp." It seems to be very popular in Birmingham.
But ... your argument that Las Vegas tackles high rollers by the simple expedient of waiting for them to lose patience and make a mistake is surely wrong, isn't it? Ignoring side-shows like poker, this is a business which is almost purely statistically driven. Given a small percentage either way, the guy with sufficient funds will win every time: thus, "The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo." The next obvious step, from the point of view of the casino, is to add table limits (and, if necessary, a professional on the roof opposite, with a Herter S27).
I can understand where the House patience comes in, but the punter's mental attitude seems irrelevant.
Re: Las Vegas knows that...
Date: 2007-06-18 09:53 am (UTC)Kerry Packer was another player who insisted on his limits being raised and who, as a result, inflicted some damage on casinos' quarterly figures.
As a result, table limits tend to be rigidly enforced these days.
PJ