what I don't get is - we were shown interviews with the girls , very pleased at their performance , but when were these interviews done ? after all 2 girls arrived late for the boardroom ... ?

You're the one saying that Jamie's failure to find 3 items would 100% doom the project. In practice, it wouldn't. They'd have contingency plans. It's not like the items didn't exist. They just couldn't find a supplier that day who would permit filming. The fines reflected the (lack of) seriousness; in effect, being charged the list price implies the item was available at that list price and the (purely imaginary) project not doomed, just slightly over budget.


Apart from being less dramatic TV, losing that element of uncertainty would have robbed us of a chance to see how the candidates dealt with risk.

You argue that it was luck that Jamie's team wasn't late. It looked to me as though they set off slightly earlier than Liz's team. Liz's team took the time to drive to another location; Jamie's team looked for a vendor where they were. We get a clip of Liz judging the costs and benefits of their trip. If they don't go for it they definitely get a £50 fine and pay the list price. If they do go for it and fail they pay a £50 fine, but avoid paying the list price; and there's a chance they'll succeed and avoid the £50 as well. It's a calculated risk and I think they make the right call. It's interesting. We learn a little more about the candidates.

Even though it was Liz's team that was late, we see earlier that they planned their day around the logistics. They picked priority items which determined their basic route, and then tried to find less important items near the same locations as the important ones. Jamie's team didn't mention doing this, but it seems they did have an awareness of their distance from the office through the day and made sure they weren't too far away when the deadline loomed.

It's maybe worth pointing out that it's not the late fine which determines the result. They'd have lost anyway. You talk like you think it ruined the task. It was just £50 on top of the £1000+ they'd spent - under 5%.


I didn't say the Jamie's team was penalised for time. They were penalised for not getting 3 items. I said both teams paid penalties, which was true.


As far as I can see, TheNetworkBabe hasn't commented in this thread. I assume you mean in Are they not allowed to use Google?. I've already read that, and posted and commented to it there. Briefly, it's missing the point. All of The Apprentice tasks combine multiple elements to put pressure on candidates in different ways, so that we can learn about them. Then Lord Sugar decides. The actual task winner and loser isn't as important as how they perform.

On this occasion, Laura got fired even though her performance on the task wasn't as bad as Stella's. I think Liz and Joanna came out of it quite well despite being on the losing team. The big picture matters.


I disagree that it was random. The late fine, which you seem to have so much trouble with, didn't even affect the result.

(I agree with your reservations about the stories Chris and Stuart told to get the discounts. I've been arguing against that elsewhere. I think it's a different issue, though.)


I didn't. The context is in this thread. I included a link to it, so anyone can find exactly what you said and where you said it. The link also made it clear I was now replying to a different message.

Generally, because we all have access to the entire thread, I only quote the minimum necessary to indicate what point I am replying to. (It actually annoys me when people quote entire posts indiscriminately.) I didn't feel I misrepresented you; my apologies if you felt it did.


Is that a problem? Am I not allowed to agree with you now?

For what it's worth, I do often agree with you. I (usually!) enjoy reading your messages because they are well-argued and backed up with observations from the show.

Making a dogmatic statement like that is absurd. You can't possibly know unless you know what the actual project was. You're just assuming that in r/l and deadline wouldn't matter.


Now you simply speculating and deciding that something you cannot possibly know is definitely the case to try and make you point. Nice try but no cigar!


Well, the boys didn't take any risks, failed to get almost a third of what they were asked to get and still won. That's why it was an absurdly badly designed task.


It looked to you? Just as it didn't matter that they didn't get all the items and the reason they didn't get them is because people wouldn't let them film. Honestly, if you are just going to make up whatever it takes for you to believe what you have decided you want to believe, go ahead but it's not going to persuade anyone.


Again, you seem to be seeing just what you want to see. The way it was edited it looked more like a race. You seem to have decided that if they were further away it proves your point and so they were further away.


No, the task was so badly designed that far too many elements were random and the task itself became meaningless. If the boys had happened to encounter some holdup and the girls had been luckier with their route the result would have been reversed purely on the random state of London rush hour traffic.

That's plain daft.


Then the tasks should be designed so that he can compare like for like, not so that you get a whole bunch of random effects such as who happens to ask who first. And if you think it's about overall performance, why have a fine that is more to do with the minutia of rush hour traffic? You can't have it both ways.


It may not have affected the result but the point is if traffic conditions had been different it could have done and then you'd have a 'Peking Butterfly' effect as the teams/contestants would have been different from then on.


Likewise. I feel that we really get into a problem and gnaw away at it. Sometimes I may come across as a bit tetchy - that's probably because I've been arguing with an idiot on anther forum and haven't adjusted to discussing things with someone who talks sense.

Just because they had to be back at a certain time doesn't mean that that's when the boardroom is due to start.

People keep calling elements on the task "random", but I don't think that's a fair assessment. There's a slight element of randomness to the traffic, but not much really. At that time in London you can expect it to be very, very busy. The traffic would have been the same had they been going for a job interview at 9 in the morning, and I'm reasonably sure that people would agree that a potential employer would look unfavourably on someone being late for a job interview, particularly if the reason for that lateness was that they hadn't accounted for the usual amount of traffic they could reasonably have expected to find in that location at that time.

No other elements were random at all. Both teams had access to the same information and the same resources. It's what they did with that information and those resources that determined the outcome.

I can't agree with that.

On the traffic front, had one team made it back to the boardroom with half an hour to spare and the other been half an hour late then, yes, you would be correct. However, as both teams cut it very fine the traffic was close to becoming the deciding factor entirely by itself. (i.e. had the journey times been reversed the result would have been similarly reversed.)

The other things that were effectively random and made a nonsense of the task were:

1) Who each team spoke to to find out what things were meant it was just chance that the girls got the correct answer for the 'Blue Books' straight off whereas the boys got a plausible but incorrect answer.

2) Because of the timing constraints it was not really possible for the teams to compare suppliers which meant there were further random elements:

3) It was chance who happened to pick the supplier who had the lowest price to start with.

4) It was chance who happened to pick the supplier that was most amenable to giving a discount.

5) For the really difficult items it was chance who happened to pick the supplier who had the item from a long list of suppliers who hadn't.

So that's a total of six things than effectively randomised the result making the task all but meaningless in terms of measuring of what it set out to measure. Even if we adopt the attitude that it wasn't intended to measure anything but to observe how the candidates behaved under the various pressures involved it was random because each team and sub-team were subjected to different pressures because of the same random elements.

Well, OK; just insert the word "probably". It doesn't change the point. You have argued that failing to get items is worse than being late with them because it would cause the project to fail. Since there is no real project, there's no real basis for saying that. Neither of us can be dogmatic here.

What we know is the rules of the task, and the penalties for failing to acquire items, and they support my position rather than yours.


The boys won because they did a lot right. I think it was a deserved win (leaving aside the issue of lying).


It mattered, to the tune of the fine. And that's all it mattered. According to the rules of the task, that's all it could matter.

Maybe you think it would have been a better-designed task if the fines for missing items were much higher than the fine for being later. If so, that's your privilege, but I'm not sure I agree.


I don't see where I said that in this thread, and I doubt I would have put it quite like that. It is an issue which makes the task harder, but it is the same for both teams.


Well, yes. The editors like to make it look dramatic. But really what we know is the result: the boys weren't late and the girls were. You want to say it was down to luck. I'm pointing out it needn't have been. Especially as we see the choices they make: the boys started earlier in the morning; the girls chose to drive to a different location right at the end of the day.


Often on a task the teams finish very close. However, it reached that point as the result of many decisions taken through the day. The girls could have chosen to skip the final item and pay the missing item fine. If they had done that, they could have virtually guaranteed being on time. They knew the deadline; it was their choice to cut it so fine that the traffic conditions became a factor.


It wasn't that random. The girls used the first hours to do research. The boys didn't. They lived and died by their choices.


As I've argued above, it was only about the minutia of rush hour because they made it so. And the late fine was only £50. Had they negotiated better earlier, it would have been irrelevant. Part of the interest is in seeing how they cope with deadlines, how conservative or risk-taking they are, whether they've read the rules, whether they assess the consequences astutely.

Anyway, it's impossible to eliminate random factors entirely, so if the teams are close enough the difference between winning and losing can always be down to happen-stance. (Not that eliminating randomness and uncertainty would be a good thing; I'm just saying it wouldn't be possible.)

It was a task of two parts: Get the items, get them for a good price. The boys failed the first part and won the second by dishonesty.


I have been arguing that the rules of the task were rubbish. As was Sugar's not doing anything about the dishonesty.

Obviously the rules of the task support the idea that the winners won - how could they do anything else?


ROFLMAO!

Of course if you ignore dishonest behaviour the win becomes more deserved. They could have stolen the items and it would have been a deserved win if you ignored the dishonesty.

It reminds me of the hilarious statement made by a somewhat desperate New York tourist authority some years ago: "New York is actually safer than London if you ignore the murders".

The boys won because they were prepared to act dishonestly,


The rules should have increased the fines for failing to get the items so that they were progressive. Having a task where the team that actually completes the assignment loses to the team that only completes 70% is absurd.


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...5&postcount=27

"It's not like the items didn't exist. They just couldn't find a supplier that day who would permit filming."


As I've said elsewhere, just because something could have been down to skill doesn't mean that the task design wasn't badly designed because it equally could have been down to random chance.


You're still not getting it, are you?

We can see from each team's behaviour in the taxi that they both cut it very fine. If you know London traffic you know that under those circumstances it was pure good fortune which team got the green lights (or, whatever). If it had gone the other way and their arrivals were reversed then so would the result of the task.

Thus the result was down to something entirely random and this the task was stupidly designed. Particularly because it would have been just as easy to end the task by only counting items bought up to a stated deadline.


We're just going around in circles here. It was random because they were prevented from using available resources in their research and they were deliberately given ambiguous or incomplete descriptions. It made the result devolve to good fortune as to whether they picked good or bad information providers and cheap or expensive suppliers from the plethora available.


And in this case, both teams did exactly the same, cutting it very fine, so the outcome of the entire task was determined in large part by who happened to get the lightest traffic.


Of course, but had the people designing the task used just a little bit more intelligence the teams would have been guided to certain actions which would have allowed us to make like for like comparisons.

And who was it who had to weigh up those probabilities and decide whether the risk was worth it?


And, of course, it's not down to the boys at all for not checking the answer with anybody else.


Nonsense.


Nonsense.


Nonsense.


Nonsense.

I'm really not sure you understand what the word "random" means.

The teams.

And they both decided that it was worth the risk.

And on the particular day in question at the particular time, one team got back on time and the other team didn't. On another day at the same time with different traffic conditions the result would have been reversed.

So both teams made the same decision but the random effects of the traffic favoured one team on that day. Had it been the other way around the result of the whole task would have flipped.

So, in the end, the result of the task given the decisions of the teams that day was effectively random.


Again, you do not seem to appreciate that in the time frame it isn't possible to contact every source of information and if you are unfortunate enough to get incorrect information from one or more sources then you are at a serious disadvantage. Whether you happen to pick the people who are going to give you the correct answer when you only have time to phone a small subset of all possible sources is a matter of good luck. (Also know as random chance.)


ROFLMAO.

Way to go when you've got out of your depth and haven't the intellectual capacity to continue the debate in a sensible fashion.


I'm 100% sure that I do.

You, on the other hand, have demonstrated over and over again that you don't.

Right. And they were both right, as the fine for being late was £50, and the fine for not getting an item was £50 + the list price.


You're assuming that. We don't know that the two teams left at comparable times. We do know, however, that the girls left later than they calculated they would have to in order to get back on time.


You keep making statements like this which are contradicted by what was shown in the programme. What you've put here simply isn't true.

Again, you do not seem to appreciate that in the time frame it isn't possible to contact every source of information and if you are unfortunate enough to get incorrect information from one or more sources then you are at a serious disadvantage.[/quote]

They didn't check it at all, though. They asked one person, took the first answer they got and then approached all other potential vendors using that information. It was only after spending a couple of hours getting blank looks that they started to wonder whether the information they'd first got was actually what they were supposed to be looking for.

Really, it was called a "blue book". What is the probability that there has only ever been one publication with that name in the history of the world?


I figured that seeing as we were already discussing all of those points in depth in another thread that it would be a waste of both of our time to say the exact same thing in two threads.

Now, seeing as you've subsequently decided to ignore my latest post discussing those points (made before the one you're replying to here) in the other thread, do I get to call you childish names? Okay, you smell.

They may well both have been correct.

That doesn't alter the fact that the outcome was randomised by the traffic.


We know that both teams knew that they had cut it very fine because of the histrionics in the taxis.


Nope. See below:


Oh, good grief!

I suppose I'll have to take you through it step by step.

The figures we have including all penalties are:

Girls = 1094.40
Boys = 1020.50

Boys won.

Now, if the girls had been more fortunate with the traffic they would not have had to pay the late fine so their total would have been: 1094.40 - 50 = 1044.40

And, if the boys had been less fortunate with the traffic they would have had to pay the late fine so their total would have been: 1020.50 + 50 = 1070.50

And the girls would have won.

So the result of the whole task was decided by the random effects of the traffic.


Except that he wasn't getting blank looks, was he? He was being told that it wasn't something that each seller was likely to have in stock. They seemed to know what the item he was asking for was.


Quite small. It was just random chance that he happened to ask the wrong person first and yet received a plausible answer.


Then maybe it would have been a good idea to say so rather than demonstrating your ignorance by making a series of silly one word responses not backed up with any facts or logic?


As you said, this has now split across two threads and since you seem to be making exactly the same mistakes over and over again in each it there seemed little point duplicating the effort.


Well, it's up to you. I didn't call you any names but if you wish to descend to that level, go ahead.

I'm afraid I won' be joining you, though.

And that's what makes this task such a brilliant task!

We know the boy's team cut it fine. We know that girls team left after they had calculated was the latest they could leave in order to get back in time. It's not safe to infer from this information that they both left at comparable times.


You do, actually. You think, for example, that Jamie not being told that the kitchen counter was a size that needed to be specially made until it was too late was down to "random chance", even though the reason he didn't find out until it was too late was that he didn't phone anybody about it until it was too late. That the girls got it and he didn't was entirely down to the decisions of Liz and Jamie as PMs. Yet you continue to insist that it was "random chance".


Or the result of the whole task was decided by all the deals the contestants found and negotiated.


Some of them did. Some of them also said that they thought it was something else. It was an American literary magazine, an American military magazine, and a British magazine, too. And some of the vendors said they'd never heard of it.


And it was also random chance that they decided to run with that answer rather than to continue asking. No, wait, was it?


They were backed up by facts and logic. In a different post which you've still continued to ignore.


Then maybe it would have been a good idea to say so rather than demonstrating your ignorance by ignoring a series of well-reasoned counterpoints backed up by facts and logic?


No, of course you haven't. Calling someone lacking in intellectual capacity and ignorant isn't name-calling at all. Please. I have, at least, the intellectual capacity to understand that.

Anyway, as we're now well into the "arguing about arguing" stage, I think I can't be arsed with this any more. Tell you what, let's just assume you're right about everything from this point forwards.

Wise decision. You appear to be banging your head up against a brick wall. It's pointless trying to debate with someone who ignores facts and logic. Sadly its a common theme on many threads with several posters!

ROFLMAO.

Yes, you mean in the same way he repeatedly said that I was wrong about the potential of the journey timing to flip the results of the task until I used facts, logic, and basic arithmetic to walk him through it one simple step at a time.

Or the way he repeatedly ignores the explanation that unless you know a certain set of facts you cannot possibly state that a given result is down to decision making and not random factors.

Or the way the he does not seem to be able to grasp the fact that if you several factors it only needs one of those factors to be random to make the entire result random.

It seems to me that you suffer exactly the same blind spots as he does and choose to offer you support with an ad hominem that is totally devoid of the facts and logic that you accuse others of ignoring.

It's quite clear that all you want to do is argue for the sake of arguing!

Again, you are making an ad-hominem attack without any attempt to demonstrate an error of fact or logic.

Seems to be a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.

To break down the different possible scenarios...

Boys arrive on time, girls arrive on time: Boys win
Boys arrive late, girls arrive on time: Girls win
Boys arrive late, girls arrive late: Boys win
Boys arrive on time, girls arrive late: Boys win

Even if you do want to call the traffic "random" - which it wasn't, btw, and could've been planned for - the boys still had a 75% chance of victory.

The result of the whole task was unchanged by the "random effects" of the traffic.

Technically, the result of the whole task was unchanged by both teams neglecting to really project the travel times in any meaningful way (although, note that three out of four subteams did arrive on time), but whichever way you slice it there's only one particular scenario in which lateness would've swung it, and it didn't arise.

As it happens, the late penalties had no effect whatsoever on the result.



Your argument against something hinges on a very particular exception that didn't even happen, and could only have happened given the principles you're arguing against. The task didn't hinge on anything you're talking about. The fines were irrelevant, in the end. It's a moot point.

That's just Nick you're talking about isn't it??

Really, you are backing up my point about randomness.

Let's suppose that, apart from the late penalty, you are 100% happy with the result.

Are you saying that you think it's sensible that in 25% of cases that result would be overturned on the basis of when each car happened to be held up at lights or whether one team or another was held up by a breakdown?

I'm putting the issue of dishonesty aside because it is separate to the issue of the editing or of whether the boys won purely through luck.

Although I don't approve of the tall stories Stuart and Chris told, equating that to theft or murder is silly.


I disagree. Mainly because part of the fine was to pay the list price of the item. This meant, in effect, a bigger fine for the more expensive items. This give candidates opportunities to prioritise, ie get expensive items first even at the risk of not getting cheap items at all. (I believe this is why Jamie spent so long on the worktop.) Adding £50 for each item means even the cheapest items are worth getting. Adding a progressive factor would mean the item's values would quickly get swamped and we'd lose the benefit of prioritising.


No, for the reasons I've given. It reflects many real-world situations.


That's correct. Note that the second sentence remains true if they didn't find any suppliers at all. I have not claimed that they found suppliers but those suppliers wouldn't allow filming, which is what you said I'd said.


It's not possible to eliminate all chance. In this case, the randomness of the traffic was only a factor because of choices made by the teams. Which is interesting: it tells us something about the teams. For that reason I think it would be wrong to eliminate randomness.


The resources and descriptions were adequate. They all had opportunity to consult several information providers, and to pick the vendors. Part of the purpose of the task was to test how they performed under pressure, out of their comfort zone.


We can make comparisons. It was close because both teams chose to cut it fine. That's a choice the teams had; that they'll always have, and how they make it tells us something about them.

Yes! I am. If you know you've got a really tight deadline you factor it in. You either chance an extra couple of quid and cross your fingers for good traffic, or you acknowledge that rush hour traffic can be a bit of a nightmare and pack up in good time.

It's a gamble that they chose to take. If it swings the task - and it didn't, so this a totally hypothetical conversation - then it was still the team's choice to take that chance. They weighed up the pros and cons and took a gamble.

The candidates know roughly what rush hour traffic's like. They know that it's a wee bit volatile, they know that London's gonna be dense, and they know how far away the boardroom is. They chose to roll the dice and slip in an extra purchase. It's not like they were blighted by random accidents.

It's like if I were to leave my essay to the last minute. If my printer stops working, it's still my own fault. Not in a linear cause and effect way, I didn't make the printer malfunction, but it's my own stupid lack of foresight that'd cost me the marks. I'd've still missed the deadline and still have to take the penalty. It's a known entity, and it can be planned for. And many people do. If you're travelling through London at 6pm, it's a fair wager that the streets aren't going to be empty. In fact, you'll probably end up in at least one traffic jam. That's information you know before you leave. If I was really nervous about the fine, I would've left in plenty of time.

In 25% of the cases, had the subteams chosen to try their luck, the result would've been overturned. And that's essentially the concept of a deadline.