pre

If we had topic-headings here, I'd be suggesting a new one: I changed my mind today. Being rational is all about chainging your mind, right? It's about re-assessing in the face of some new evidence. About examining the difference between your assumptions and the world itself. Narrowing down the difference between the model and the reality, the map and the territory. Maybe your 'karma' should reflect how much you've told us when you changed your mind? Certainly I'd like to know when people change their minds about things more than when they just agree with me. In fact, I think that is probably the thing I most want to know about from any of the people whom I know primarily because of their professed rationality. Especially if they explain why they changed their minds, and do it well. With that in mind, and introducing the new acronym: ICMMT I Changed My Mind Today! Or at least I revised my opinion. As you may know, the UK TV channel "Dave" recorded and then broadcast three new episodes of "Red Dwarf" this Easter. If you didn't know that, your time is better spent tracking down those shows and watching them than reading the remainder of this article. Come back when you're done. If you haven't even watched the BBC originals then, um. Enjoy! See you in a year or so. Anyway. I enjoyed the new episodes, laughed a lot, reminisced a lot more, but was left somehow feeling more *flat* than when watching previous shows. I didn't really even know why, until a friend pointed it out: > The new shows have no 'laugh track'. As soon as she said it, I knew that I'd heard mention that this was the first time they'd shot the show without a studio audience. And that she was right. And that the "laugh track" had been an important part of that show to me right from the first episode. Now this was a revelation. Until now, when I've noticed a laugh-track or when a laugh-track has been talked about by others, it's been to bitch about "canned laughter" being really false and it