{"id":1770,"date":"2010-01-15T15:49:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T15:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/15\/here_be_dragons\/"},"modified":"2013-08-17T23:56:11","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T23:56:11","slug":"here_be_dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/15\/here_be_dragons\/","title":{"rendered":"Here be dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I first came across the BBC&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dragons%27_Den\"><em>Dragons&#8217; Den<\/em><\/a> on a work trip home a few years ago. I instantly loved it; I was working in marketing at the time, and I genuinely did learn a lot from the successful pitches. But, of course, the real fun comes from those awful, doomed pitches, and the complete lack of self awareness of some participants.<\/p>\n<p>I was really happy when the CBC came up with its own version of <em>Dragons&#8217; Den<\/em> the next year, and I watch or tape it every Wednesday night. I no longer pretend to gain any career-related benefits from the show, and treat it as pure entertainment.<br \/>\nBut this week&#8217;s episode was a little more serious. See how the Dragons deal with a snake-oil salesmen claiming to have a miracle cure for cancer, arthritis, heartburn, and pretty much everything else under the sun:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/youtu.be\/B8Ig4Yj1Fqs<\/p>\n<p>I have to say I was impressed. If only <em>all<\/em> sources of product development funding were so hostile to the woo-meisters and people sucking money from desperate patients. It helps that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dragons%27_Den#Canada\">Jim Treliving<\/a>, the Dragon who kicked the guy out, is a former cop who presumably has little patience for fools and knaves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first came across the BBC&#8217;s Dragons&#8217; Den on a work trip home a few years ago. I instantly loved it; I was working in marketing at the time, and I genuinely did learn a lot from the successful pitches. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/15\/here_be_dragons\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}