h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The common format is deeply unsatisfying: the panel compete to gain the most points for a prize, sometimes with no chat about the matter in question. Then they go home.

QI is one that meets the real requirements.

My first thought about these is that the last ten minutes or more are given to the competitors, these extremely knowledgeable people, for them to talk about what they like. Their imaginations would have been fired during the (needed?) competition. There has to be a real conclusion and did they really get the chance they hoped for? General Knowledge types have a lot to say if they want to share, more specialist types also do but to a smaller audience.

My second thought is private, like the common format.

The web forum Yahoo Questions (as I call it), has many people who have somehow answered tens of thousands of questions, hoping for points. But they have asked very few, tens or less. Is this a dumbing down of creativity, or adding to that dumbing? Yahoo penalises people for asking questions, my questions would reach 1000 before that many answers, but I've lost all points and can't answer many more.

Child Genius could have a clear improvement. It needs a mock test, the same but without the audience. Then they could decide whether to enter the public contest for that category, depending on the mock result. If a good mock result and the child falls to pieces in public, they could have their successful result displayed alongside to save the embarrassment and future nervous breakdowns back at school.

University Challenge, Mastermind, Eggheads, and more. Do you just want to hear questions answered, or even less from them, or more free talking, I guess hearing them blurt out nonsense would appeal to those in want of knowledge or friends.

Is there a ban on edible cake? Why is there, whose making that decision? As is often the case, the number of views considered seriously is few: programme makers, viewers, contestants, TV company, major investors. Is that the full list and how many are satisfied?

Blurting out nonsense used to be Gracie Allen's specialty. She was taken from us far too young.

Speaking of youthful geniuses, I sometimes wonder what those formulae on the blackboard in "Hidden Figures" really meant.

When those child prodigies are employed later in life, will they be under the pressure of a large audience and TV broadcast? No, so no need to avoid a programme format that would be safe.

And when you're as long in the tooth as I am, wisdom is likely to look like a better acquisition that knowledge.

Yes, and I just heard that on an audio book about Benjamin Franklin, who was like a Western Confucius.

Last post, I meant that the programme makers are being really thoughtless, not making that safe option.

paulh - a picture was tweeted by the Royal Institute, of an astronaut holding up a towel marked "DON'T PANIC", and the text read "when we had the chance to send something up to xxxxxx, this is what we sent". I think that is a good demo of wisdom over knowledge. Not that towels aren't well thought out or anything! But that image goes a long way when understood.

Douglas Adams was top-of-the-spectrum brilliant. If I live to be 100, I will still continue realizing the meaning of his apparent jests to the very end.

The towel issue may mean that you sweat a lot when you're under stress, hence the need for a towel to dry you off. But if *don't* panic, you won't need the towel. This is sort of a catch 22. The message on the towel, if heeded, makes the towel itself unnecessary, just as is carrying an umbrella to ward off rain.

There seems to be a lot more going on online these days than on TV. Maybe the BBC and others will catch up, but I doubt they'll be able to reach the niche granularity required.

Best we can hope for is that some of the great programming being made, can be made to broadcast more nationally when it's value become apparent.

Also DNA rocks.

They've been trying to compete with what's online for years. Policies and intentions are the biggest problems.

Do the things people say or do online have any lasting value? We can still see early movies or classic TV shows of the 50s and 60s. But once you've posted something to a blog, once others have read it an reacted, isn't it pretty much gone as far as anyone remembering or appreciating it?

No. I re-read a few of the thing I wrote all those years ago here on h2g2. I mean I was basically an idiot right, but there the content is for anyone to consume.

Same thing for videos and many other media online. It might be more fragile than physical media as it's copies are ephemeral, but the lasting nature of it doesn't change.