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I have been quite looking forward today. Today it stops. A green salad and a glass water sounds really appealing. After a month of overeating and solid drinking, after several months of not watching what I'm eating ... I'm quite looking forward to a simpler diet.

That is till I realise all the lovely restaurants I can't eat at. Loving good food and drink is a curse I tell you.

Weight in this morning was 74.0 kgs (only 1 kg over what I thought I was) with 17.5% body fat (ug).

Target is 70.0 or less by the ski trip (March 19th). Target is tough.

Method is mostly sensible eating, plus hitting the gym 4-6 times a week.

Sensible eating means

• No chips, no crisps
• No sweets
• No pizza, burgers, curry nights, junk food or take out.
• No pastries, muffins, cup cakes
• No cheese (queue weeping)
• No beer, less wine. Whiskey and Gin and Slimline Tonic ok.
• No sandwiches, paninis, white bread
• Small portions, less overeating
• 1 glass of sparkling water for every alcoholic drink
• More cooking, less going out
• No non diet soda drinks
• Muesli/Porrage for breakfast (stops me getting hungry and snacking)
• No drinking nights without food (as that ends up in MaccyD's)
• 1 guilt free night a week
• Exceptions for my birthday

One day I'll master the art of eating lovely lovely food out and losing weight. Doesn't appear to be anytime soon though.

Quick

Most things (metal, ice, plastic, cheese) get soft when you heat them. What gets harder when you heat it.

Cryptic

It's oft said that you lose most of your body heat through your head. Why is this both true and false. Or put another way, what is both true and false about this. Bonus points for citing reasons without google it.

I'm not a gamer. But I've probably bought 10 games in the last 6 months, which probably exceeds all the games I have ever bought, ever. Why? Because there are iPhone games, which I tend to play on tubes and trains and bored in bars. And sometimes for 5 mins in bed, before going to sleep.

And for a few bucks, it's not really breaking the bank. There's a lot of money in iPhone development at the moment, particularly because it's the new frontier, it's a growing market, and a £2.99 hit that a million punters buy is about £2 million smackeroos.

I think we're in the first wave of apps. It's a new system (in a scientific sense) and it will take a while to reach equilibrium. I think there next phase (or a next phase) will be federated services and frameworks.

So for example, the three games I'm playing at the moment are * Chess with friends (networked) * Frenzic (networked scores) * Fieldrunners (no networking)

The important thing here is not the games (although theory are all great, go and get them) but my comment in brackets after the games.

Most games can be enhanced with some sort of networking. Playing a friend always beats playing a computer. At the very least being higher than a friend on a scoreboard is always good fun.

Now running and maintaining your own online networked score board isn't easily. Sure it might not be hard, but you could be a great indie game developer but a lousy web guy.

This is where I think a range of federated services and frameworks are going to come in. Some really smart web guys can build and license this to some really smart app guys, and you have a new business model. Hell if I had a packet of VC this is what I would be doing.

There is also significant first mover advantage here, as who ever builds the biggest network first, becomes the network everyone wants to use. Note, this isn't about building a social network. It's about building the framework, and letting other people build the social layer. Think for Fireeagle than Facebook.

So lets use the leader board as an example. Fenzic has one. But I want to know who my friends are, and what there scores are. To do this I have to go to each friends and find out if they have the game. And the same for every other game I play.

Much easier if there is a federated leader board framework. On this system, it knows the games I play and it knows my address book (hashed,secured, private, protected etc). I upload my Frenzic score, and it knows which of my friends also play the game and what there scores are. The games could then build in features like "Destructor just PWND your Frenzic score" etc etc ...

The framework could then also monazite further by Amazon / Last.fm style recommendations, as it would know what games you play "a lot" and what games other people who play the same games "a lot" like. Those recommendations have marketing value.

The federated system could also be extended by providing further game network features to game developers for different licensing costs. Board games have different requirements to FPS games, but the requirements aren't so different for each category.

The whole ideology can be of course extended beyond games too. Games just make it easy to explain.

In ‘crossword format’

Quick

The government just announced a reduction in VAT from 17.5% to 15%. How much money do you save per £100?

Cryptic

You’re at a magic show. The magician asks you to shuffle the cards (a normal 52 card deck) and hand them back to you. He asks a member of the audience to name a card. The audience member names the Ace of Spades. The magician draws a single card out of the deck. What is the chance (odds?) of the card drawn being the card named?

EOD: Answer Update (after 9 comments)

Quick

The papers/press/media have all been reporting that with a 2.5% reduction in VAT you’ll only be saving £2.50 in every £100 by working out the complex equation of “What’s 2.5% of 100?”. Of course this is clearly wrong.

In £100 payment inclusive 17.5% tax you’re paying £14.89 tax such that the item value would have been £85.11

A 15% tax on £85.11 would result in £12.77 tax.

£14.89 - £12.77 = £2.12 savings.

Of course as Nigel points out, there is actually a more complex answer here too (based on my question), and that even for a specific right answer, there can be multiple right answers.

Also everyone has been writing in to letters pages commenting how pointless the reduction is, as £2.50 is not a lot of money. Which proves my point that most people are idiots who don’t understand anything. I wont explain here why a 2.5% decrease is significant, just to say image how people would have reacted had VAT gone UP by 2.5%.

Cryptic

The question really is about how we evaluate risk. And how we consider the factors involved. There is no real right answer here, the right answer is in how we explain the answer. Of course some answers are more right than others.

Marc was the most correct here, or put another way, had a most correct answer.

A simple way of looking at it is like this

• The random chance of pulling a specific card out of a deck is 1 in 52
• However we know we are at magic show and we know a magician probably knows what we are doing so we could consider the odds are then really 1 in 1.
• However looking at the factors again, we know a magician probably is going to not pull the card out the first time to build suspense, so we could say the odds are 0 in 1.
• Or we can factor together different tricks (as Marc did) and calculate even more precise odds.

So those are the two answers (or two of the answers) to today’s Friday Pop Quiz questions. I’ll be honest I stole the questions from the BBC R4 More or Less podcast. If you want to listen to more detail you can watch it on iPlayer or download here

I quite liked pop quiz Friday. More for the debate and interesting perspectives (including @Jack (2)’s). I might do this every week. If I can think of enough interesting questions.

You know … sometimes a man has to make his mark … and write a top 5 list.

1. Ice Cold Coke, in a 300ml bottle, from the back of the fridge set to cold.
2. Glass of red wine. Probably Pinor Noir.
3. Freshly squeezed orange juice. Not too sweet. In a frosted cold glass. Really cold. So it’s both fresh and cold.
4. Coffee. It’s dark. It’s bitter. It’s lovelyu.I should say expresso, but I’m a dry cappuccino man.
5. Whiskey. Single malt if it’s Scotch. Close to single Malt if it’s Irish. Expensive if it’s bourbon.

Honourable mentions should go to beer. And when I say beer I mean lager. In a bottle. And cold. It’s a most versatile drink, and goes well wiht moth social events and does sport better than any other. But I can’t recall any memorable beer moment, where everything else I mostly can. Sorry beer, you’re best of the rest.

Cocktails got considered for the list too, cause I love me my cocktails. But, they’re not quite simple and all the other drinks seemed purer. I just couldn’t really put it on.

Not even getting a look on

• Champagne - is and always will be mostly a mystery too me. Sparkling overpriced white wine. I’d rather have been and that didn’t even make the list. I drink it as part of a celebration because that’s what’s done., but … don’t get it.
• Gin / Vodka etc - bland bland bland. I mean nice as a drink, but nothing overly special about them.
• Water - venerable old H₂0, I mean we need it to live right, and it’s fairly nice after a long run, but it’s tasteless. I could live without it.
• Tea - don’t make me laugh. Like you can have a nice cup of TV but …. well lets be honest, it’s a bit lame. The the dweeby brother of coffee. I can’t think of one thing about tea, that’s worth a mention. It’s not that I dislike tea, I don’t. It’s just nothing more than ‘nice’
• Ale - Surely, you jest?

So why the five?