Alternate idea: create a bot to open new twitter accounts and tweet ever increasing numbers until you win.<p>EDIT: Bonus points if you use another bot to exclude all guesses that have already been submitted by others.
This is a modern version of the 1975 Caltech Sweepstakes caper. I think that was the first use of a computer to enter a sweepstakes.<p><a href="http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_caltech_sweepstakes_caper" rel="nofollow">http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_caltech_sweepstakes_...</a>
I would guess the best strategy for this is to simply make an educated guess, soon.<p>There likely will be way more competitors (at least a hundred thousand, I would guess) than possible halfway decent guesses (maybe a few thousand?), and it’s first past the post, so having the correct answer isn’t enough; you have to beat the other correct answers.
Another trick would be to take the average (excluding outliers) of as many guesses as possible since they're all on twitter. The Wisdom of the Crowd should get very close.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd</a>
Prediction: Mountain dew will announce a winner. Then, they will have to demonstrate/prove it. Then, computer analysis will show that they miscounted/or the number will be disputed.
I tried applying the wisdom of crowds idea instead :D
<a href="https://twitter.com/SmittyW62858649/status/1358926582513995777" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/SmittyW62858649/status/13589265825139957...</a><p>Not sure if taking a median is the best idea. I figure a gamma distribution might work better!
<a href="https://www.lifechangingdew.com/rules" rel="nofollow">https://www.lifechangingdew.com/rules</a><p>"The Twitter account must be set to Public/Unprotected"<p>"Go to your Twitter Account, Settings, Privacy and Safety, Direct Messages, and make sure “Allow message requests from anyone” is checked"<p>"the potential winner consents to such a background check"<p>"the prize will be divided evenly among all verified Winners"<p>"Proof of sending or submission will not be deemed to be proof of receipt by Sponsor"<p>"Winner grants permission for Sponsor and those acting under its authority to use their name, and address (city and state), photograph, voice and/or likeness, for advertising and/or publicity purposes, in any and all media"<p>Yeah. No.
I thought this was the best ad of the superbowl. Probably the only one I actually remember. I've heard a lot of people say the commercials have gotten worse over time, but I think it's actually just that we hate commercials a lot more than we used to.<p>One thing I really hate which is growing in superbowl commercial ethos is the advent of meta commercials, and expanded cinematic universe commercials.<p>On the other hand, the superbowl is the only event I watch for an entire year that has actual TV-style commercials anymore.
Their annotation methodology is flawed:<p>From the rules:
> Correct Bottle Count will include bottles shown from the cap/top of the bottle to the bottom of Mountain Dew label<p>Also, I'm pretty sure it thinks John Cena's right ear is a bottle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Its not clear to me from the walk-through how they ensured they were only counting each bottle once? Is that something they automated or is it left as an exercise for the reader?<p>How would you go about automating the unique count when you are sampling the video 3 times a second?
I saw their promoted tweet about this contest the night before and primed a tweet for when it aired live. I had a number just pop into my head: 206. Number of bones in the human body, felt good enough for me.<p>I just checked, and, to my best ability to determine, I believe I was the first legit 206 guess.<p>When I went and did a basic manual count, I came in closer to 216 or 220 or so, but it's really hard to tell, and when I did a painstaking frame by frame count, I came in closer to 221, but there are a few I'm _really_ confused about in terms of being a repeat or not.<p>And counting the bottles coming out of the trunk was hell... I used the promo tweet where Cena is counting out loud and up to 36 as a shorthand for one of my guesses. In my frame by frame analysis, I counted 45 but 3 are flying out when it first opens up, and then 42 more join in the next cut.<p>Similarly, on the final look back after the end marquee, there are 2 on the side that I don't know if they're recounts or not, and then the gearshift and flag itself are... two, which put me closer to 224/225. There's one other scene where I wasn't sure about as many as 5 possible dupes, though.<p>The "don't count the same bottle twice" gimmick is infuriating because it's really difficult to ascertain what's bedrock in the scene. They use the roller coaster example as 3 that persist throughout the entire commercial, so all bets are off.<p>Here's my notes if you want to insanely check my work:<p>Car: 4 wheels
License plate: 5<p>36 opening frame<p>2nd scene: 47 total<p>whack a mole: 66 total<p>birds:..13 actual birds - 5 architectural = 18 = 84 total<p>overhead car: 1 in cupholder = 85 total<p>passenger side car: 7 = 92 total<p>dance hall dog: 13 color changing, 2 ticket booths, 1 necklace = 16 = 108<p>facing forward car marquee = 5 right neon = 2, roller coaster cars = 3<p>right parking neon = 3<p>left building neon = 3 left billboard = 1 left marquee = 3 = 20 = 128<p>facing car: hood = 5 right marquee = 2 pakace = 1 left box office = 4<p>passenger holding: 1 = 141<p>passenger bottle = 1 behind = 8 = 150<p>key chain: = 1 cena hold = 1 = 152<p>sunglasses: 2 = 154<p>cena talking = bg 2 = 156<p>back of car scene: 8? 5 possible dupes<p>trunk first open 3 fly out<p>trunk wide shot right side lit marquees: 7<p>left neon = 1<p>building neon = 2<p>flying out = 45 - 3 flying out already = 42 = 219<p>final marquee: 2<p>final look back: 2 on side?<p>flag post and flag content = 2
The title is missing a key word "help". The prize doesn't appear to have been won yet- not sure if the original article changed their title.