I thought the last series started to pull it back a bit but I agree after a fantastic first season it went completely down hill.

The New Trailer For Mike Judge’s First HBO Series SILICON VALLEY!! - NSFW

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/66287

Matt Ryan cast as Constantine in new DC show

http://www.totalfilm.com/news/matt-ryan ... ew-dc-show

Fantastic Horizon this evening on the work of Daniel Kahneman, the only psychologist ever to win a Nobel prize after his theories on how we make decisions were found to have profound implications in Economics. It basically showed how we miss things that are important, aren't actually that different from monkeys, and how 'light regulation' on our financial centres was a certain recipe for disaster. And there's also a demonstration on the phenomemon of confirmation bias that would scare the bejesus out of you.

For some reason it's on again at 11:20 this evening and on iPlayer for the rest of the week. Very, very much worth viewing/recording. It will make you a better person. Although then you'll be subject to The Psychologist's Curse : knowing why humans make all sorts of bad decisions but also knowing that as a human being yourself, you're still going to make those bad decisions anyway .

Horizon's just awesome. The Mars mission episode was especially good.

I thought that the Placebo one was also very good.

It's in my list.

It relied a lot on anecdotal evidence and not much real science to back it up. It took an hour to tell us pretty much what we already knew - placebos can work. Not the best Horizon I’ve seen recently.

You do get the odd Horizon that takes an hour where half would have done, if even that long

I'm sorry Paul, but that's just wrong. It pretty much assumed people knew what the placebo effect was and then spent most of the hour showing us - using admittedly small scale studies - that the received wisdom about what it is and how it works isn't necessarily true. There are two generally accepted facts about the placebo effect :-

1) The placebo effect is purely mental. No, as the evidence of actual chemical changes in the brain of the man with Parkinson's showed.
2) The placebo effect requires misdirection i.e. it's basically 'fooling' the patient. No, as the evidence of the trial where subjects were told it was a placebo but who still seemed to have a beneficial effect from the 'treatment' showed.

Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure of the relevance of the last section about how bedside manner affects outcomes - I'm of the opinion that's pretty much obvious and not entirely related to the placebo effect. But the idea that it spent an hour telling people what they already know is bunk. It spent most of the hour telling people the things they already know about the placebo effect are probably wrong.

Ripper Street to return:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26351457

Disney to Spend $200 Mil on Marvel Series for Netflix Set to Film in New York

http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/disney ... 201121502/

Mr Norton has some great guests tonight if you wanna google it.

Has he taken from Naomi Campbell of any object that can be thrown?

Channe 4 seems to be running a "James Corden Night". They can sod right off.