S35.E07: Like Two Cats Fighting in a Car

[Ancaster]

On 11/10/2023 at 6:14 PM, PurpleTentacle said:

Seeing it written out, that's probably the most straight foreward way of doing it. My brain never was very straight foreward. XD

That's more symbolic than anything though. New electric car sales are growing exponentially. They are just way cheaper to fuel and maintain and now there are actually cars coming to market that have roughly the same MSRP as their gas equivalents (Citroen e-C3 for example). So it's a no-brainer. 99% of all new cars sold are going to be electric way before 2035. It's already 80% of all new car sales in Norway now.

But used ICE cars can be sold indefinitely, so if the race wanted to, they could keep stick shift cars forever. Though at some point there won't be any gas stations anymore.

yes

Except most people got it pretty quickly. So it can't have been that bad.

They are fed by production at pitstops, as you said there are meals on the planes and they weren't racing for very long that day, at that point.

That sounds like it was a while ago. Software engineering nowadays requires quite a bit of math, to get the degree, not the actual work, to be clear. Not like a physics degree or anything, but also not nothing.

Yeah, had to pause it and they said the 5 Groschen part pretty late. Phil did very much not say it during his long winded explanation.

I do appreciate it when people bring a voice of reason to these threads.  Sometimes I try, but I usually end up frustrated by the responses, when emotions start to take over, not logic, and I have to take a step back, because there really are bigger problems in the world . . . .

[Ancaster]

On 11/10/2023 at 8:37 PM, aghst said:

 

I think the brothers who won the leg got smart phone directions right after repelling and really pulled ahead to Cologne and all the tasks they had to do before the pit stop.

 

 

Okay guys, since this is becoming a thing and I am a bit of a control freak grammar nerd, I have come up with the following handy spelling mnemonic:

If someone repels you or is repellent, you say EEEEEEEEEEEEK or EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!

If someone rappels down a cliff, they say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH from fear or AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWE from mind-blowingness.

Does that help?  

ETA:  And two Ps in rappel because they're peeing themselves fear.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ancaster

[Ancaster]

On 11/10/2023 at 10:41 PM, aradia22 said:

Eh... We can make all the excuses in the world. Corey and Morgan flew through it. There's no reason they'd be less tired than the others. And remember how much they struggled at the word puzzle in episode 1? I think some of them just aren't very bright. When @PurpleTentacle wrote out the conversion, I did it in my head. And I'm not particularly good at math. I figured out how many witten = 1 groschen and then multiplied by 5. The only "difficult" math is 24/4 =6. Then you divide by 2 to get 3 witten. 3 x 5 = 15

I've been paying with cash at places recently for whatever reason.  I'm horrified but not surprised by how often the (yes, mostly young) people taking my money can't do the simplest maths.  It's so easy to figure out American coins with all the nice denominations fitting so well together.  And if you try to help them out by giving more than the check to get bills back instead of a bucket of pennies, heaven help us

[Netfoot]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:59 AM, JH Lipton said:

Maybe now that "Munchhausen by proxy" is a known psychological condition...

Munchhausen is a unique condition, It seems to me. It is the only medical condition that can not be faked!

Edited November 14, 2023 by Netfoot

[endure]

On 11/9/2023 at 6:05 AM, choclatechip45 said:

Great episode. I really liked Andrea & Malaina so bummed about how much of this leg was a disaster for them. 

Their whole race day unfortunately was off and it was touching at one point they actually thought they were in first place. We kind of knew then they were doomed, but they did pretty good overall and they had a fun time 🩷

Edited November 14, 2023 by endure

[PurpleTentacle]

11 hours ago, blackwing said:

Teams typically don't have issues finding people who can speak English who can talk with them.  I think the Race could be designed so that teams would have to find different ways of getting the information they need.  They could be supplied with a map, or told where to go to buy a map.  Or they resort to finding an internet cafe, if those still exist.  

They usually find people who can speak english well enough. You can do a lot with hands and feet and pointing at the word written out on the clue, usually even additionally in the countries alphabet, if that isn't latin.

But asking somebody for help and then trying to tell them they are not allowed to use their phones, that's going to be difficult and might come across as very rude. I don't want locals to come away with a negative impression of the race and/or tourists.

The only way to prevent this is if they weren't allowed to ask locals at all and I think the race would lose a lot if they had that rule. I'm already not a fan of the fact that the race disallowed Ferns. It really didn't happen enough to be a problem. There was maybe one Fern a season and it was always a highlight for me.

11 hours ago, blackwing said:

In the olden days of the Race I seem to recall many teams purchasing guidebooks or maps at the airport.  I'd like to see some more "old school" racing instead of just having teams automatically looking for the easy answers.  I guess I just miss the old days of the Race when I felt like teams had to be more self-sufficient, or at least had to ask questions of locals who wouldn't just automatically whip out a cell phone to look up answers.

They still purchase and print maps. They still google at the airport, in the time they have to wait for their flights. We get hints of it in talking heads and of course exit press interviews. The editors just don't show it anymore. They seem to think it's not enough drama. So this doesn't need a rule change, it needs a change in editing.

11 hours ago, blackwing said:

I also don't like how I don't think we heard any of the Racers say please or thank you, unless I missed it.

They still say thank you. Up thread somebody even complained that the racers mostly didn't say "Danke", but "thank you". Just to adress that real quick, I think that is just a case of when you speak with somebody in a certain language and they speak it well, you tend to stay in that language. It's kinda jarring when you switch languages and germans don't care. We care if somebody who has lived in germany for years still doesn't speak the language, but if a tourist says "danke" or "thank you", what's the difference?

Just a tangent: It's always a little weird when racers say "Dankeschön". I also hear it a lot in scripted american television. Pretty much nobody says "Dankeschön". People say "Danke" or if they want to put a little emphasis on it "Vielen Dank". Probably doesn't help that non-german-speakers generally can't pronounce "schön" at all. It has "sch" and "ö" in it and both are a trainwreck. Just stick with "Danke", guys. ;)

6 hours ago, Tango64 said:

Just don’t use clues or puzzles that require an internet search or even questioning a local. There have been plenty that involved counting visible items, etc. 

You can do that, but I think that would make the race a lot more boring.

6 hours ago, Ancaster said:

I've been paying with cash at places recently for whatever reason.  I'm horrified but not surprised by how often the (yes, mostly young) people taking my money can't do the simplest maths.  It's so easy to figure out American coins with all the nice denominations fitting so well together.  And if you try to help them out by giving more than the check to get bills back instead of a bucket of pennies, heaven help us

I guess that's the plus side of germany still using a lot of cash. Cashiers are lightning fast with their math and absolutely understand right away that you want a bill back, when you give them extra coins.

Edited November 14, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[ChiCricket]

On 11/9/2023 at 8:05 PM, aradia22 said:

Agreed, especially when three of them have lived in Germany. Not just vacationed, but lived there. 

Maybe they were stationed there on a US military base and didn't get out of the base much.

My Marine son and his family were stationed  there for 3 years and made sure to go out and about to the little villages, and to other countries.

 They did know some people that just stuck to the (English speaking) base the whole time they lived there. What a waste, huh?

[Good Queen Jane]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Just a tangent: It's always a little weird when racers say "Dankeschön". I also hear it a lot in scripted american television. Pretty much nobody says "Dankeschön". People say "Danke" or if they want to put a little emphasis on it "Vielen Dank". Probably doesn't help that non-german-speakers generally can't pronounce "schön" at all. It has "sch" and "ö" in it and both are a trainwreck. Just stick with "Danke", guys. ;)

Blame it on Wayne Newton. He did a popular song called "Dankeschon." I always thought that's how you say "thank you" in German. Thanks for letting me know otherwise.

[blackwing]

3 minutes ago, Good Queen Jane said:

Blame it on Wayne Newton. He did a popular song called "Dankeschon." I always thought that's how you say "thank you" in German. Thanks for letting me know otherwise.

I always thought "danke" was "thank you" and "danke schon" or "danke schoen" was "thank you very much".  It was always explained to me that "danke schoen" was a more formal version of "thank you".  It's not?

[Tango64]

8 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

You can do that, but I think that would make the race a lot more boring

More boring than, "Hey, can you look this up on your phone?" I guess we disagree.

[iMonrey]

12 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I'm already not a fan of the fact that the race disallowed Ferns. It really didn't happen enough to be a problem. There was maybe one Fern a season and it was always a highlight for me.

I wasn't aware that they made a new rule against Ferns. Was it because of Covid, or did the show just decide it was unfair?

12 hours ago, ChiCricket said:

Maybe they were stationed there on a US military base and didn't get out of the base much.

Todd played pro basketball in Germany. I'm not sure why though.

[dgpolo]

9 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I wasn't aware that they made a new rule against Ferns. Was it because of Covid, or did the show just decide it was unfair?

It's not new, it happened somewhere around season 18. Around that time also it was disallowed to hire a cab to lead you somewhere.

[aghst]

6 hours ago, Tango64 said:

More boring than, "Hey, can you look this up on your phone?" I guess we disagree.

They also sometimes ask if they can borrow their phones.

I would not want to hand over my phone to some stranger, even if you see that they're being filmed for a TV show.

In this leg, one of the teams asked a guy and he looked it up for them.  The racers probably would not have been able to spell the name of the German place they were looking for that easily.

Plus if his phone was set to German, they might recognize the icons for navigation apps and have an approximate idea for searching but if they had to transcribe turn by turn directions and write down German road and street names, that might be tricky.

[SG429]

21 hours ago, Tango64 said:

More boring than, "Hey, can you look this up on your phone?" I guess we disagree.

I'm sure similar discussions have been going on since Season 1. Even without a Fern Factor, the BCE (Before Cellphone Era) featured teams pestering hotel concierges to use Netscape to print out a map and highlight a route, for example. Navigation tasks, trivia tasks, etc. encourage the "out-of-towners" to approach locals, as racing in a TAR bubble was never the intent of Bert and Elise; we saw how unsatisfying that was during COVID.

 

[aghst]

What is Fern?

[Guest]

In Season 2, Danny & Oswald enlisted a young woman named Fern to help them; she ended up staying with them for an extended period, providing help where she could. This was seen as a smart move, so you didn't have to keep asking new people for directions to each destination on the leg. Later, other teams employed the same strategy of recruiting a local as a temporary "third teammate" to stick with them as long as they could, and the fanbase took to calling these locals Ferns, after the initial person.

[proserpina65]

On 11/9/2023 at 2:51 PM, kitkat343 said:

The producers need to decide if they want to allow racers to randomly guess or if they want to assess. a penalty for guessing.  In the task from the earlier season where the team quickly sold their fruit at a discount price, they first checked the clue to make sure they wouldn't incur a penalty for doing so and that TAR allowed them to immediately get more fruit baskets until they eventually earned the amount of money required by the clue.  It's a producer decision, and they will either tolerate random guessing in the future or assign a penalty/redesign the task in the future if they don't want this to happen again.

I don't disagree with this.  But we don't know everything that's in the clue so it might have made it clear for this clue.

On 11/10/2023 at 9:05 AM, chaifan said:

Also, Phil likely needed to move onto the next location. 

This is why teams who are still in the field (literally in the case of Lena & Kristy and the haybale task from hell in TAR 6) when all the other teams have checked in at the mat are Philiminated where they are or as they arrive at the next task.  Phil needs to move on to the next location on the Race.  The only times this hasn't happen have been either non-elimination legs or keep racing legs.

On 11/13/2023 at 9:43 PM, Ancaster said:

So it's a no-brainer.

Not with the sticker price of electric cars, it isn't.

5 hours ago, SG429 said:

I'm sure similar discussions have been going on since Season 1. Even without a Fern Factor, the BCE (Before Cellphone Era) featured teams pestering hotel concierges to use Netscape to print out a map and highlight a route, for example. Navigation tasks, trivia tasks, etc. encourage the "out-of-towners" to approach locals, as racing in a TAR bubble was never the intent of Bert and Elise; we saw how unsatisfying that was during COVID.

 

It has.  Hell, the winners of the very first Amazing Race borrowed someone's cellphone at one point.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 11/14/2023 at 4:51 PM, Good Queen Jane said:

Blame it on Wayne Newton. He did a popular song called "Dankeschon." I always thought that's how you say "thank you" in German. Thanks for letting me know otherwise.

I think when he made that song it still would have been in very frequent use, but that was 60 years ago. :D

(and just to be clear: It's not pronounced Danke"shane" and certainly doesn't rhyme with pain. XD)

On 11/14/2023 at 4:55 PM, blackwing said:

I always thought "danke" was "thank you" and "danke schon" or "danke schoen" was "thank you very much".  It was always explained to me that "danke schoen" was a more formal version of "thank you".  It's not?

"Vielen Dank" Literally translates to "many thanks" and the closest real english translaten would be "thank you very much".

"Dankeschön" is just more old-timey. It's still somewhat in use, but not quite as often. It literally translates to "beautiful thank you". I don't think that really has a real english translation and tbh doesn't even really make sense in german, when you think about it. It's just from a different time and I have no idea what the etymology of it is. You could also use "Schönen Dank" which would then literally translate to "beautiful thanks".

In conclusion: While nobody will tilt their head, as if you just used a completely outdated phrase, as it's still somewhat in use, they might tilt their head at your pronounciation. If you don't speak german and you want to say "thank you very much", I'd recommend using "Vielen Dank". ;) (There the problem might be that english speakers have problems with the long "i" (ie), but that is nothing compared to the "sch"+"ö" combination. [Pronounciation help: It is pronunced closely to how you'd pronounce the "ee" in "meet"])

Of course, in the end this doesn't really matter. Worst that will happen is that the german you are talking to, is going to do a slight double take. Nobody is going to be offended or think about it for more than 5 seconds. I also only talk about it here because I think languages and their many quirks are fun, not because it's actually an issue.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:35 PM, Tango64 said:

More boring than, "Hey, can you look this up on your phone?" I guess we disagree.

Yes. Without interactions with locals they could literally film the race on a studio backlot in San Francisco. (okay sometimes there would still be beautiful vistas, but that would be about it)

Like I said, I think the race should actually loosen some of those rules again, instead of introducing new ones. Allow Ferns again, who can show the teams around, make the clues harder in turn, etc.

Another big part would be editing. Don't edit out the parts that made this show feel like a race around the world, instead of a generic gameshow set in multiple countries, just because you think these parts aren't high drama enough.

On 11/14/2023 at 10:18 PM, iMonrey said:

I wasn't aware that they made a new rule against Ferns. Was it because of Covid, or did the show just decide it was unfair?

No, that was like a decade ago. I'm not sure why they made the rule. I think the speculation was that some teams became too pushy in trying to get locals to come with them. But production never actually said anything about it. We only know through the grapevine (past racers) that it isn't allowed anymore.

I think teams being pushy is a corncern here, but I also think here a rule of "you can only ask a person once" would be easily enforcable.

16 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

This is why teams who are still in the field (literally in the case of Lena & Kristy and the haybale task from hell in TAR 6) when all the other teams have checked in at the mat are Philiminated where they are or as they arrive at the next task.  Phil needs to move on to the next location on the Race.  The only times this hasn't happen have been either non-elimination legs or keep racing legs.

While that is often true, the race isn't as tight as it used to be, so sometimes it's just about "we can't keep all these (amateur)-actors here for just one team, it would blow the budget and be unsatisfying anyway. So let's get Phil out there so everybody can go to bed."

16 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Not with the sticker price of electric cars, it isn't.

You might have missed it in my post, but as I said, sticker prices are coming down. The Citroen e-C3 is now close to ICE equivalents. With incentives in germany it's actually cheaper than a new ICE car of the same class. On top of that you get cheaper fuel, cheaper maintenance and no car tax till 2030.

[blackwing]

31 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Like I said, I think the race should actually loosen some of those rules again, instead of introducing new ones. Allow Ferns again, who can show the teams around, make the clues harder in turn, etc.

Another big part would be editing. Don't edit out the parts that made this show feel like a race around the world, instead of a generic gameshow set in multiple countries, just because you think these parts aren't high drama enough.

No, that was like a decade ago. I'm not sure why they made the rule. I think the speculation was that some teams became too pushy in trying to get locals to come with them. But production never actually said anything about it. We only know through the grapevine (past racers) that it isn't allowed anymore.

I think teams being pushy is a corncern here, but I also think here a rule of "you can only ask a person once" would be easily enforcable.

I was never a big fan of Ferns.  I am not sure about the timing, but I think one of the reasons why Ferns might be banned now is because of Rob Mariano.  I think he said that locals would recognise him and Amber from "Survivor" and want to help them and show them around.  I remember thinking that was really unfair, so maybe TPTB banned Ferns just to level the playing field more?  If it wasn't because of him, later on, more and more reality show teams started getting cast, so some teams might have more of an advantage in attracting Ferns than others.

I think it's a good rule, it's not interesting to me to watch someone local lead a team around and help them and show them exactly where to go.  Same as paying a taxi to drive somewhere while teams follow on foot.

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

You might have missed it in my post, but as I said, sticker prices are coming down. The Citroen e-C3 is now close to ICE equivalents. With incentives in germany it's actually cheaper than a new ICE car of the same class. On top of that you get cheaper fuel, cheaper maintenance and no car tax till 2030.

They're still much more expensive in the US, which is what I meant.  And while there are more charging stations than just a few years ago, it's not a given that you'll find one in more rural areas here.  I can see them being more reasonable in Germany and other parts of Europe, though, just not in the US.

[PurpleTentacle]

31 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

They're still much more expensive in the US, which is what I meant. 

I originally replied to a poster who said manual cars will go away with the adoption of electric cars in germany (and the EU) and thus the race won't have the option for manual cars anymore, at some point. So my post was specifically about germany and I thought you were also talking about germany. Thanks for clarifying.

Don't worry, cheap (well as cheap as ICE cars) electric cars will come to the US eventually. Hopefully soon.

Also hopefully the charging network will get better with the adoption of NACS by all manufacturers and economic preassures to expand and maintain the network. At least all cars will soon have access to Tesla super chargers, which is a pretty big deal in the US, if I understand correctly.

2 hours ago, blackwing said:

I think it's a good rule, it's not interesting to me to watch someone local lead a team around and help them and show them exactly where to go.  Same as paying a taxi to drive somewhere while teams follow on foot.

Not being able to pay a taxi to lead is fine and probably a good rule. Not having locals accompany teams is quite a bit of loss of local flavour, in my opinion. I'd like to see locals interact with the teams for more than 5 seconds.

It probably comes down to what you want out of the race. A game show, or a race around the world. I'm far more interested in the later. I think Survivor does the game show thing far better and when I'm in the mood for that, I'll watch that. YMMV.

[proserpina65]

58 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Don't worry, cheap (well as cheap as ICE cars) electric cars will come to the US eventually. Hopefully soon.

Also hopefully the charging network will get better with the adoption of NACS by all manufacturers and economic preassures to expand and maintain the network. At least all cars will soon have access to Tesla super chargers, which is a pretty big deal in the US, if I understand correctly.

The charging network will still be an issue outside of major population centers.  One of the biggest reasons I don't think gas powered vehicles are going away anytime soon in the US.  It's a big country with a lot of rural areas.  Plus, the current type of batteries are expensive as hell and from what I understand, hard to replace.  I think hybrids are more practical for the foreseeable future here.

As for the Ferns, I loved the first one traipsing around Singapore with Oswald and Danny, and still like to see a level of interaction but not to the point it had gotten before the Race producers banned them.  Some teams did almost none of the navigation themselves and just relied on locals to guide them around and that got boring.

Edited November 16, 2023 by proserpina65

[aradia22]

Quote

Not having locals accompany teams is quite a bit of loss of local flavour, in my opinion. I'd like to see locals interact with the teams for more than 5 seconds.

I feel like this could be better incorporated into the race design. For instance, make something like the shopping for groceries task mandatory. And we don't always see it, but choreography tasks involve interacting with locals rather than just doing tasks and then getting judged. They're very different shows so I don't expect identical challenges, but they could also take a page from Taskmaster. Getting certain pieces of information from someone who can only speak/write in their native language would be interesting.