Design Contests & Competitions
January Caption Contest: Break the tie
Naomi Price
2/17/2012 11:15 AM EST
As of 8:30 am here in chilly Massachusetts, we have the oddest tie I've ever seen going on in the caption voting: out of the 9 captions that made it to the finals, two have received 25% of the votes, two 13%, and four 6%. It's a beautiful thing but, like everything so magically aligned, it just can't last. By the end of February we need to have a clear front runner so we can, finally, award the first caption winner of 2012! Click here to go to the ballot!
Contributor-extraordinaire David Ashton offered to help pick our final January captions for voting and so forsook his chance to win this month -- in exchange, I took his suggestion of adjusting our number of finalists depending on the total number of captions submitted -- once again, check out the comments below for details.
MarkBort's caption, "While very eager to impress his staff, yet mesmerized by the product's
excellent realism, Jack cleanly sent his lucky ball into the R&D lab's new
65-inch flat screen" didn't make it into the finals, but it did bring us an entertaining story from zeeglen: "Mark, this brings to mind an off-topic episode of a similar nature. Long ago my
TV Sales-and-Service boss was called to a customer's home to inspect a fracture
of the CRT screen of a brand new TV set. He remarked that it looked very much
like a foreign object had been propelled at the screen and thus was not covered
by warranty.
Later the customer interrogated his kids. They finally admitted that yes they had been playing hockey in the living room using glass marbles for pucks. Your caption brought that memory back."
So, please head over to our ballot, choose your favorite caption, and cast your vote. The winner will receive a color print of the cartoon from Daniel Guidera with the winning caption proudly in place
Here are our January finalists and another link to the ballot.
You can see all the January captions here.
Contributor-extraordinaire David Ashton offered to help pick our final January captions for voting and so forsook his chance to win this month -- in exchange, I took his suggestion of adjusting our number of finalists depending on the total number of captions submitted -- once again, check out the comments below for details.
MarkBort's caption, "While very eager to impress his staff, yet mesmerized by the product's
excellent realism, Jack cleanly sent his lucky ball into the R&D lab's new
65-inch flat screen" didn't make it into the finals, but it did bring us an entertaining story from zeeglen: "Mark, this brings to mind an off-topic episode of a similar nature. Long ago my
TV Sales-and-Service boss was called to a customer's home to inspect a fracture
of the CRT screen of a brand new TV set. He remarked that it looked very much
like a foreign object had been propelled at the screen and thus was not covered
by warranty.Later the customer interrogated his kids. They finally admitted that yes they had been playing hockey in the living room using glass marbles for pucks. Your caption brought that memory back."
So, please head over to our ballot, choose your favorite caption, and cast your vote. The winner will receive a color print of the cartoon from Daniel Guidera with the winning caption proudly in place
Here are our January finalists and another link to the ballot.
- The software for that tee accelerometer keeps calculating a hole-in-one. The wind simulation code must be buggy. (zeeglen)
- Dave really enjoys performing the sudden acceleration tests. (JOtt)
- "I thought we asked HR for a gofer..." (Kenlbear)
- Due to budget cuts, NASA is studying new methods for launching their satellites... (phoenixdave)
- I’m sick of this! First Dave gets a BarcaLounger, now he is playing Golf! Meanwhile, last month, they completely throw me to the sharks! I get no respect! (jkdrum)
- Uh, what part of "test drive the circuit" didn't Rob understand? (seaEE)
- Molly, I am convinced that only proper drive termination will correct his overshoot. (egagnon)
- I asked him to go to the lab and characterize the T off times.. In hindsight maybe I should have written that down... (Arjun763)
- Who let the Sales guy in??? (MVorhis)
You can see all the January captions here.
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kteam42
2/10/2012 3:18 PM EST
Not a fan. Nothing wrong with the old method.
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WireMan
2/10/2012 3:42 PM EST
Here's a definition of a programmer: Someone who spends two weeks automating something a secretary takes 10 minutes to do every six months. But now it takes the secretary an hour with the new "programmed" method. I won't bother to vote with such an awkward "system."
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bwmetz
2/10/2012 5:05 PM EST
I offer this augmentation to your definition of a programmer: "Someone who's boss tells them to spend two weeks automating..."
In my experience "real" programmers are inherently lazy, which is why we're drawn to automating the mundane. Unless we're faced with an apparently insurmountable technical hurdle, in the face of which we become very stubborn, that ultimately makes use better programmers, we eschew wasted cycles such as you suggested.
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David Ashton
2/11/2012 5:44 PM EST
Hmmmm... a bit clunky Naomi, and I'd tend to agree with Wireman. I got to the page and when I logged in it took me back to a different page. How do you actually vote? When I clicked on a caption it took me to making a comment.... Also, I think you'd have to put all the captions in every month, I'm not enough of an egotist to put my own ones in.
I think you're going to have to get on to those web programmers of yours.
I hate criticising without being constructive, so.... interim suggestion: select 10% of the captions at the end of every month and submit those to a vote as usual. So for January there are 90 captions, so vote on your panel's top 9. Bit more choice than 5. For December where you got 207 captions, put out 20 for voting.
Another suggestion to avoid the programmers... get a panel of readers and EE staff (you could basically have whoever wants to do it, not limited to any number) who submit their list of their top 10% of the captions. You then add together the votes from those readers and select the top captions from that list, the number being 10% of the total number of captions. So in a field of 120 captions, your panel would pick 12 each, and you'd wind up with a list of 30 or 40 probably. Arrange those by number of votes and pick the top 12 of them, and get the readers to vote on them as usual. I guess this is basically what you're doing at the moment but your panel size would be far larger (hence, hopefully, more democratic)?
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David Ashton
2/11/2012 5:50 PM EST
Oops...just saw your instructions on how to vote. But when I logged in IO got taken to a different page, and when I clicked back to get back to the EET page I think it logged me out again, so I couldn't use the arrows....aaarghhh!!
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phoenixdave
2/11/2012 7:45 PM EST
Sorry, nothing I do seems to work correctly to allow me to vote....figures...(my first time in the top five)...:-(
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David Ashton
2/11/2012 11:35 PM EST
Well when I click on the up arrow next to yours, Dave, the number beside it goes from 1 to 2. If I click it again it goes back to 1. I just got in again and your number is a different colour, so I think it remembers me. What does it do for you?
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phoenixdave
2/12/2012 12:05 PM EST
David...I got the same thing, although not really sure what that means??? I believe I was able to register a vote per Naomi's instructions above... I think...
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David Ashton
2/12/2012 5:02 PM EST
I tried to access it on my work PC this am, but I just get a text page. My work PC has "issues" but everything else seemed ok, so not sure if this is the PC or the page. Will try again tonight.
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Naomi Price
2/13/2012 9:19 AM EST
Well, we've gotten a few votes and someone added a new caption to the list, so some progress has been made. Though from what you've said it sounds like the votes may not be very accurate. Is anyone in favor of sticking with reddit?
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phoenixdave
2/13/2012 10:25 AM EST
Naomi...I applaud your efforts, but either reddit is just not ready for "primetime" or many of us have become too accustomed to the easy user interfaces in our lives. I personally am not in favor of keeping it in it's present form. Other opinions?
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Robotics Developer
2/14/2012 1:19 PM EST
I am not a fan of yet another site to go to and log into.. I can not keep track of all the sites/usernames/passwords (even with Firefox help)! I would "vote" for keeping it the same (please).
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Naomi Price
2/14/2012 2:24 PM EST
OK, back to Google Docs we go. I like David's idea of narrowing down to 10%. Anyone volunteering to help choose the top 9 for January so we can really get this vote underway? Send me an email at naomi.price@ubm.com with your top 9 pics and I'll have the form ready by Friday's newsletter.
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