So currently airing on British TV is a show called KIng of the Nerds, an adaption of an American property - a reality/game show about a bunch of nerds living in a house and competing in a bunch of challenges. It's quite fun, and quite silly, and I'm on it so I thought I should share :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IMrKX0bxaQ
I didn't see a blue haired meerkat that can use a computer.
Edit: In seriousness, congrats for getting on the show. I'm going to have to watch that later.
That's pretty cool. I liked what I got to watch of the U.S. version so it will interesting to see what is done differently here. The odd part to me is that typically it seems the U.S. does adaptations of UK shows not the other way around.
Who should we be rooting for?
Watching now. It is very cool that you are on it. I have some questions, but I am guessing you can’t answer them yet.
My biggest question is why on Earth did nobody remove their glasses once they knew that they were about to be covered in paint?
Man, you're popular. You seem to be having more cutaway time than anyone else. The leader of the blue team is up there quite a bit aswell.
So the first episode matched what normally happened in the U.S. version. I'm not fully sure who you are in it.
Well, BlueHairedMeerkat is a playtester. Grab a rulebook and see if any of the names are there.
And if he's not in that one, choose a different rulebook.
I was pretty impressed by the music quiz performance. It seems like Kevin shot himself in the foot by (a) scheming and (b) letting others notice.
I'm not sure if he wants his name posted here, so I won't do it. However I did recall him mentioning what his name starts with... I'll just leave that here. https://greaterthangames.com/comment/21227#comment-21227
Ronway, you have mad skillz. But yes, I am Curtis, and yes I do get rather a lot of screen time in this episode...
Had I remembered the playtester names were in the rule book I would looked it up but I did not until after I read other comments this morning. The piece I find odd in this and the US show was that they say this takes place over eight weeks. However, each episode seems to only occur over a day or two at most. You probably can't answer this now but what is done during the rest of the time?
So what kind of math are you studying? They really didn't let you say much, in a fairly annoying way.
It's THE MAGIC OF TELEVISION! Each episode is filmed over two days (day 1 - Nerd War, day 2 - Nerd Off), and then the next day is another episode (except Sundays, which the cast got off).
I guess they must mean that there is one episode coming out over the period of eight weeks and not that you guys are there eight weeks. Keep posting the video links I'm curious to see how it turns out. I'll be rooting for you.
There were a couple points during the video where I had to pause it to verify that the music was coming from the video, and not my own music.
I must say, though. They called the place "Nerdvana", but I didn't see either their library or their board game collection. They had those, yes?
Nope! There were a few books and no board games (except the Bananagrams, which we used to put messages and nicknames above each other's pictures instead of actually playing). To be fair, we were filming sixteen hours a day, so there wasn't really time to play games. (Though one of our sponsors was a board game company, oddly...)
Hmph!
If I may use the words of King Arthur, “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”
Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhcBtnj_E94
Considering what else was out together for costumes, why was a roll of duct tape used for your time machine? In the U.S. version the nerd off at the end wasn't always a quiz and had some unique challenges, I wonder why the UK version is only doing straight up quizzes for the nerd off. Nice touch at the end, bluehairedmeerkat, putting Bon Voyage on Ryan's plaque.
Time constraints, I think. The UK version is doing straight quizzes largely for budget reasons (my views on this are mixed; on the one hand, some of the American challenges were pure luck and this avoids that, but on the other hand it meant that, as you'll see, quizzers would sometimes not get put in simply because people didn't see the point of it).
Did you ask the producers if you could keep the dragon?
The big problem I see with always having quizzes is that it means that the same people (namely Matt the Trivia Nerd) will always have an advantage when they get called up.
As far as the duct tape time machine goes, it makes perfect sense to me - duct tape holds the universe together after all!
Yup!
Any more episodes to share?
Sure! Here's some castle building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLnImJmIbxY
Yikes that is some trivia domination. Glad to see you survived another week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z3dFeQBHtE&feature=youtu.be - MOAR
Does it count as precognition if it was obvious?
Also, I find it interesting that Matt thought that the coach of two nerd-off champions and Carrie's remarkable success in the debate (even considering the judges' bias towards ties) would be the easiest pickings on the team.
Woot you survived another week and Matt's scheming didn't put you in the nerd off. Considering how well those under your tutelage have done I think you would be scary to deal with in the nerd off. I'm not sure that the prize for winning the debate at the Nerd War was all that impressive compared to the last few weeks. Looking forward to the next episode.
Sadly timed trivia is not about knowledge and training as much as recall speed, which is a natural ability honed with experience, and as we saw with Karen, has a lot to do with the ability to drop things quickly and move on.
Knowledge and comfort in your subject is key, but I don't see anyone topping Matt unless he faces a good opponent and struggles with the subject.
Of course ticking off enough people that no one will help him could bring that about.
Curtis, you are my favorite person on that show.
Aww, shucks :D
You really are the best one on there. Just quietly going about things the right way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj8JemG5n2g
And you bring in another victory in the nerd off! Although I'm not sure how much credit you can take for that one.
Also, nice shooting!
Awesome shooting man! The nerd off confuses me a bit. Sometimes there a bonus round before the fast fire trivia and other times not. Having the bonus round cost Yasmeen.
You survive another week and I'm hoping you win it all.
Incidentally, I think that it would have been amusing if for this week's challenge (when there was seven people) to have been an individual challenge, with everyone playing Diplomacy. First two players out enter the nerd-off.
Yes, it probably would have made for boring television, but it would have been fun to see all drama and politics the game would cause.
So, uh, Emily ... she seems nice.
Talk about blowing up the whole thing, Diplomacy would do it.
That was a great show, and as a person who found out at 17 that I was a really good shot I loved seeing Curtis crush their team.
I have been harboring suspicions that Curtis would do poorly in the nerd-off, but that cool display has changed my mind.
According to the Wikipedia page, sometimes they simply don't air the wild_card round.
That seems weird as that could impact who wins the nerd off unless they tied in that bonus round.
Your team name is the better name, too!
She doesn't like Sentinels. 
(As for the story behind the bit you're presumably referencing, production were trying pretty hard to ship us [although not groundlessly, admittedly], and so we did ridiculous over-the-top confessionals and annoyed the hell out of them. Unfortunately, they managed to use some of it…)
As for the Wild Card round, it always happened. If it's not shown, assume a draw.
I thought that might be the case where producers are trying to add drama that might not be there but I didn't really want to speculate on it.
Speaking of not showing things, we’re the debates really just opening statements, or was there actually some, you know, debate?
That's hilarious!
Do you think that pissing them off changed how they portrayed you?
Given that, shipping aside, I come across pretty damn well, I'm guessing probably not.
Episode six: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k7qYn0eNjA
(In my defense, some of my confessionals were filmed when I was just talking to the camera guy, and had been explicitly told we weren't filming. The b*****d.)
Once again you're the one to tutor the winner of the nerd off. It was interesting to see you volunteer yourself to be on the blue team but I understand it. It certainly put the red team in a it of a panic from what they showed. Watching those two items dropped I'm surprised that the teddy bear broke through that many panes of glasses.
What happens if both teams were to choose the same player for the Nerd-off? Would that person have just gone home without a fight? If so, that seems like the best way to get rid of Matt.
Also, speaking as someone who spent last summer breaking glass, you were way overthinking that challenge. Glass, especially low quality glass, is extremely variable in it's impact resistance. The drop-weight tester that I was using dropped weights from heights ranging from 2 cm and 30 cm, and I had some samples break at 2 cm, and some that refused to break at 30 cm, with no obvious differences between the samples.
Did they give you any information about the glass itself -- anything about how much force it would be expected to take to break?
I don't imagine so; they'd probably just take one team's second choise. It never actually happened, but I imagine they'd always want the quiz one way or another.
Well we didn't have much else to do in that time 
Seriously though, what they didn't show is me doing a bunch of maths to calculate the conditions at which it would hit the glass, and then going "…Eh. Then stuff happens." We guessed, basically.
We had measurements, but nothing like that. That would have ben useful.
The sense I'm getting is that the people making this show were kinda bastards. They were really digging to try to find something they thought was dramatic, funny, and/or interesting to portray and they had little or no qualms about lying to you or misrepresenting you.
ALSO, a lot of the show seems awfully ... hokey. There's a lot of very cool things in nerd culture and they did a lot of cheesy things with them. It looks like some of the stuff you got to see or play with was legitimitely cool, but only some. What did you think?
Fixed that for you.
The term "reality show" is an oxymoron.
Yep. This show has been one of the better ones, it hasn't actully portrayed anyone as soulless and evil yet. You can always do that. Doesn't seem like a stressful schedule either. They have to sell the show without having enough time to really let you know the characters, so they play what angles are easiest.
There was an episode of “This American Life” where they talked to a reality show producer, and she specifically mentioned doing things like taping over the REC light on cameras or faking a loud phone argument to get contestants to make frustrated faces. At sine point she described editing together a “feud” that never existed off camera.
So, this sounds pretty standard fir reality TV to me.
Yeah, there was a fair bit of bastardry, but some of the people were quite good. There is a lot of misrepresentation but I don't think anyone's portrayal is entirely unlike them.*
RE hokey, yeeaah… it does play on a lot of stereotypes and squanders some opportunities to do show off actual nerd culture (not to mention creating drama and focusing a whole bunch on that kind of thing), but at the same time it avoids a lot of the denigrating pitfalls it could easily end up in. It could be tonnes better, but also I think tonns worse.
It was hella fun, though.
*Matt is not as "evil" as shown, but he did play the game, and did kind of go in trying to be the villain.
I might be sympathetic. After all, I've played Diplomacy.
It's one thing to be crafty, self-centered, and persuasive, and quite another, however, to lie.
Well, it was a good run.
One thing amused me, though. When Matt was studying, one of the factoids he mentioned was that 'Humphry Davy discovered oxygen'. This is amusing because although three different scientists can lay claim to the title of 'Oxygen Discoverer', Davy is not even close to being one of them.
Carl Scheele discovered oxygen by 1773, but never gets credit for anything*, Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen in 1774 but published first, and Antoine Lavoisier coined the term 'oxygen' in 1777, finally discrediting phlogiston theory. Humphry Davy was born in 1778.
*A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson puts it the best:
Scheele… discovered eight elements - chlorine, fluorine, manganese, barium, molybdenum, tungsten, nitrogen, and oxygen - and got credit for none of them. In every case, his finds were either overlooked or made it into publication after someone else had made the same discovery independently. He also discovered many useful compounds, among them ammonia, glycerin, and tannic acid, and was the first to see the commercial potential of chlorine as a bleach - all breakthroughs that made other people extremely wealthy.
I was hoping you'd be victorious but at least you'll show up for what I believe is the finale.
Spoilers! Jeez!
Oops, sorry. I wasn't thinking.
Final Episode http://youtu.be/HJmo1VXqacE
I'll only say that I hope if they do any more seasons they go lighter on the quizzes. The final nerd off competitions should've been used in earlier nerd offs instead of just quizzes.
I realize that I'm an engineer, but I have a very different idea of what a 'brain-meltingly hard' math problem is.
Also, I'm really disappointed that we weren't able to see the potions riddle (which somehow they managed to present without mentioning Snape's Philosopher Stone Challenge, which boggles my mind) so that I could try my hand at solving it.
Also, bravo on calling out Kenny's attempt at manipulation (and bravo for Mark for being honest about his politicking)
And yes, that chess match looked rather sad.
Yeah I was hoping for a bit more information on the other competitions they had. I feel if Curtis made it to that final Nerd off he would have had good chances to win.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Curtis, I think you really gave a great showing, both in terms of what you achieved in the competitions and helping others in the nerd-off and in simply being an awesome person.
How do you feel about it?
I thought last week it was a mistake for Kenny to pick Curtis and since it was more quizzing to be the final two I think it cost him.
That math problem was sad, I cubed was always a favorite of mine, but wow.
I suck at Chess, and I would have crushed that game. Mark was the perfect example of the flaws of the show. All he was good at were quizzes.
I think the show could be really good, esp. if they themed the shows better, like stick to the theme the whole episode, and vary the elimination challenges with some randomness.
Then the finale could use a challenge from each day's theme.
Overall it was a good show, and Curtis was one of the better characters on it. I hope those friendships last after it ends, seemed like a lot of good people.
Weeelllll…
On the one hand, it was a fantastically enjoyable three weeks. We did all sorts of weird and cool things, plus spending time with so many wonderful people was great. On the other hand, it was tiring having to be 'on' for sixteen hours a day, and having to deal with producers (not all of them, but enough) trying to manufacture drama and such. On the third hand, I have made a bunch of really good friends out of it, and watching in on television was incredibly surreal and entertaining.
As for the show itself? I enjoyed watching it, certainly. I think it was decent fluff television. Its view of geek culture is a bit reductionist, certainly, but I think ultimately it's a net positive. Not that it didn't squander a lot of opportunities, but geekdom was genuinely celebrated rather than just mocked.
Finally, here's my favourite reaction to the finale: x.com
Wow… You really did do some weird things. Where exactly did you get your third hand placed?
The United Kingdom, more evolved than the US.
I think I'm evolving right now, as it happens. Yep, that's it just there, just grew an additional appendix. It's completely useless, but I might want a spare in case I ever have to have the other one out and I miss it being there. Strangely enough, it also works as a metaphor for the UK in the modern age 
It's been fun following along. Thanks a bunch for sharing this.
Thanks as well BlueHairedMeerKat. Now I'll read your posts from now on with your voice in my head.
This. So much.
Does that mean that if I type 'it's so pretty, it's so pretty'...
They really liked that quote, didn't they?
Yes, it does.