Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by bpmod »

TenPoundHammer wrote:I've had over 9000 instances of blurting something out confidently, only to realize I misread the clue or got two pieces of info conflated. And that's why I clam about 50 times per game. Once bitten, 9001 times shy.
At the very least, if you continue to leave it blank, simply do not post to tell us about it. Dozens here have given you advice because each time, it seems that advice is called for. But you seem to throw it back in our faces. As somebody upthread mentioned, it seems like this is a game you play to make us all annoyed. I'll tell you this much: That's exactly what it does.
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Me too.

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Volante
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Volante »

TenPoundHammer wrote:
reddpen wrote:TPH, the last graf of your first post is either a case study in how to fail at FJ, or the brilliant culmination of a years-long prank at the board's expense. I'm betting on the former, but jeeeeez.
Do any of YOU put down an answer that every single cell in your body is screaming "no, that's absolutely friggin' wrong, don't you dare put it down"?
The only times I leave FJ blank are when I can't come up with an answer that I can't unequivocally say is wrong.

But there's a difference between what I think is wrong and what you think is wrong.

In your mind, Nielsen is wrong because you do not know he took ratings for radio before TV. You're guessing it's wrong.
In my mind, I cannot rule out Nielsen because, while I know he worked in TV ratings, I do not know for a fact whether or not he's worked in radio.

There. My dirty secret. I know as much about Nielsen's history in radio work as you do.
TryphonTournesol wrote:
bpmod wrote:Here is the Greenland clue, just in case anybody was wondering about the wording:

Image

Brian
I like it even less now. "Even though it's 1,300 miles away" from what? Canada? The territory? Extremely vague. And while "just off" is obviously subjective, the only place where Greenland is even remotely as close to Canada as St. Pierre is is way up in the far north of Ellesmere Island, a place absolutely nobody lives. None of this makes the answer wrong, but it's just a terrible clue that indicates to me that the writer(s) had no idea that St. Pierre was a thing when they wrote it. Otherwise I think they would have recognized that the clue was what we used to refer to as a "binary screw" in quiz bowl and included another piece of information that would have made Denmark the more obvious choice for someone who was familiar with both territories.
Point of technicality, that's not the *entire* clue. The way they worded the category, it's meant to precede each clue, so I think you need to read the clue, in full, as:
"The E.U country that [h]as a territory just off Canada even though it is 1,300 miles away."

Not sure if this helps you or not, but helped me.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by econgator »

Volante wrote:The only times I leave FJ blank are when I can't come up with an answer that I can't unequivocally say is wrong.

But there's a difference between what I think is wrong and what you think is wrong.

In your mind, Nielsen is wrong because you do not know he took ratings for radio before TV. You're guessing it's wrong.
In my mind, I cannot rule out Nielsen because, while I know he worked in TV ratings, I do not know for a fact whether or not he's worked in radio.

There. My dirty secret. I know as much about Nielsen's history in radio work as you do.
That's pretty much what I would have to say on the subject, too.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TryphonTournesol »

Volante wrote:Point of technicality, that's not the *entire* clue. The way they worded the category, it's meant to precede each clue, so I think you need to read the clue, in full, as:
"The E.U country that [h]as a territory just off Canada even though it is 1,300 miles away."

Not sure if this helps you or not, but helped me.
I still don't know that that truly clarifies, from a grammatical standpoint, whether it is the territory or Canada that the EU country in question is 1300 miles away from. But even if it does, a raw mileage number is a bad "giveaway" when there are two potential answers.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Bamaman »

econgator wrote:
reddpen wrote:NHO of Bock's Car before -- too bad that didn't get on the poll, so AP could have another sole solve.
Wouldn't even have been close to a sole solve. I'm shocked you haven't heard of it -- I'd've called it common knowledge for this crowd.
I've never heard of the Nagasaki plane, either. Not saying its obscure, but its strange I've never run across it when the Enola Gay is something I've seen a million times.

I was also unaware Nielsen tracked radio ratings, but I still got FJ.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TryphonTournesol »

Bamaman wrote:I've never heard of the Nagasaki plane, either. Not saying its obscure, but its strange I've never run across it when the Enola Gay is something I've seen a million times.
I blurted out Enola Gay and then immediately caught myself since (a) I knew that wasn't the Nagasaki plane and (b) I knew it was named after the pilot's mother or something like that. I think I may have heard of Bock's Car before but even given infinite time I wouldn't have come up with it.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Dr. J »

Volante wrote:
TenPoundHammer wrote:
reddpen wrote:TPH, the last graf of your first post is either a case study in how to fail at FJ, or the brilliant culmination of a years-long prank at the board's expense. I'm betting on the former, but jeeeeez.
Do any of YOU put down an answer that every single cell in your body is screaming "no, that's absolutely friggin' wrong, don't you dare put it down"?
Several times, all broadcast on national TV! :). The last one in the ToC actually got examined by the judges for five minutes, although I was convinced it was wrong. As skullturf said, no answer is always wrong, but a WAG just may get you something. (And if nothing else, show you where you're going wrong over the long run.)

For the love of jboard, please write something down!! (And if you can't get it right, might I suggest trying to at least make it funny?)
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by seaborgium »

TryphonTournesol wrote:
Volante wrote:Point of technicality, that's not the *entire* clue. The way they worded the category, it's meant to precede each clue, so I think you need to read the clue, in full, as:
"The E.U country that [h]as a territory just off Canada even though it is 1,300 miles away."

Not sure if this helps you or not, but helped me.
I still don't know that that truly clarifies, from a grammatical standpoint, whether it is the territory or Canada that the EU country in question is 1300 miles away from. But even if it does, a raw mileage number is a bad "giveaway" when there are two potential answers.
The clue already said how far away it is from Canada: "just off." If you read "1,300 miles away" as being the territory's distance from Canada, depending on how you perceive a distance of 1,300 miles, the clue is either redundant (with an "even though" that makes no sense), or self-contradictory.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by teapot37 »

I also put down answers I knew were wrong just to say something. (Once I literally put down "something".) Any answer has a better chance of being right than no answer at all.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Paucle »

Bamaman wrote:I've never heard of the Nagasaki plane, either. Not saying its obscure, but its strange I've never run across it when the Enola Gay is something I've seen a million times.
What was the name of the LEM from Apollo 11? OK, fine. Now how about Apollo 12?

The original Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition/ 1984 asked what Bockscar dropped. Can't remember how much info the question offered. (That edition also asked the "only" year there were three American Presidents. I was asked that and was taken aback a moment then thought that maybe Garfield didn't get killed as quickly as I'd thought. So I said 1841, and of course the card had 1881. That's the first time I realized it had happened twice, but couldn't sell anyone in the room on that fact.)

Interesting thing about Bockscar- it was named for its pilot, but Bock didn't drop Fat Man that August. There was a crew swap, and Charles Sweeney was piloting Bockscar. Bock flew Sweeney's craft, Great Artiste, which flew instrumentation support. (All those mushroom cloud videos you see from the only two wartime N-explosions were probably from Great Artiste.)
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by TryphonTournesol »

seaborgium wrote:
TryphonTournesol wrote:
Volante wrote:Point of technicality, that's not the *entire* clue. The way they worded the category, it's meant to precede each clue, so I think you need to read the clue, in full, as:
"The E.U country that [h]as a territory just off Canada even though it is 1,300 miles away."

Not sure if this helps you or not, but helped me.
I still don't know that that truly clarifies, from a grammatical standpoint, whether it is the territory or Canada that the EU country in question is 1300 miles away from. But even if it does, a raw mileage number is a bad "giveaway" when there are two potential answers.
The clue already said how far away it is from Canada: "just off." If you read "1,300 miles away" as being the territory's distance from Canada, depending on how you perceive a distance of 1,300 miles, the clue is either redundant (with an "even though" that makes no sense), or self-contradictory.
I think you misunderstand me. The doubt over what the 1300 miles refers to is: does it refer to the distance between the territory and the EU country, or the distance between Canada and the EU country?
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by billy pilgrim »

I also wondered '1300 miles from what'?, but quickly decided it meant from the near-Canada territory to the EU country. Greenland-Denmark. Done. I'm not sure how they could have worded it better, but it was clumsy at best.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Volante »

TryphonTournesol wrote: I think you misunderstand me. The doubt over what the 1300 miles refers to is: does it refer to the distance between the territory and the EU country, or the distance between Canada and the EU country?
I would imagine you'd be hard pressed to find an EU country proper that's 1300 miles from Canada.
Maaaaaybe Iceland; I don't know a good place to jump off for arbitrary distance calculations on earth.

Edit: http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-googl ... ulator.htm
Looks like you CAN get Iceland to within ~1000 miles of Canada (Baffin Island) (I was eyeballing on a Mercator previously...so that was my first mistake...)
And you can connect the tippy top of Canada with the tippy top of Norway in 1400 miles, and anything past that it's all turtles.

But neither of those have territories abutting Canada either.
Last edited by Volante on Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by billy pilgrim »

Better wording: This EU country has a territory 1300 miles away, just off of Canada.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by seaborgium »

TryphonTournesol wrote:
seaborgium wrote:The clue already said how far away it is from Canada: "just off." If you read "1,300 miles away" as being the territory's distance from Canada, depending on how you perceive a distance of 1,300 miles, the clue is either redundant (with an "even though" that makes no sense), or self-contradictory.
I think you misunderstand me. The doubt over what the 1300 miles refers to is: does it refer to the distance between the territory and the EU country, or the distance between Canada and the EU country?
I did misunderstand. My apologies.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by dhkendall »

billy pilgrim wrote:Better wording: This EU country has a territory 1300 miles away, just off of Canada.
Still wouldn't stop the France confusion, making it negbait. (France would, of course, be wrong, with that "1300 miles" in there, but not obviously so.)
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Volante »

dhkendall wrote:
billy pilgrim wrote:Better wording: This EU country has a territory 1300 miles away, just off of Canada.
Still wouldn't stop the France confusion, making it negbait. (France would, of course, be wrong, with that "1300 miles" in there, but not obviously so.)
How close do people think Europe is to Canada?...
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by jeff6286 »

Does anyone know how the programming works for sites like Google Maps? I brought up Greenland, zoomed out far enough to see Denmark, and used the miles scale on the screen to confirm that the 1,300 mile figure was an accurate number for the nearest distance between the two. I then used the same method to confirm that France was much further than that from its North American outpost. Would I actually get accurate readings using the scale shown on Google maps, or would their maps be similar to the Mercator projection and show vastly skewed dimensions of the areas near the poles? Basically I guess I'm asking, is the earth shown on Google Maps round or flat? The fact that the 1,300 miles seemed almost exactly right makes me think that I was seeing an accurate representation of Greenland and Denmark, but how exactly can they make the curved surface of the earth show up correctly on a flat screen?
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

jeff6286 wrote:Does anyone know how the programming works for sites like Google Maps? I brought up Greenland, zoomed out far enough to see Denmark, and used the miles scale on the screen to confirm that the 1,300 mile figure was an accurate number for the nearest distance between the two. I then used the same method to confirm that France was much further than that from its North American outpost. Would I actually get accurate readings using the scale shown on Google maps, or would their maps be similar to the Mercator projection and show vastly skewed dimensions of the areas near the poles? Basically I guess I'm asking, is the earth shown on Google Maps round or flat? The fact that the 1,300 miles seemed almost exactly right makes me think that I was seeing an accurate representation of Greenland and Denmark, but how exactly can they make the curved surface of the earth show up correctly on a flat screen?
The link for this distance calculator was passed along to me: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html if you need a second opinion.
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Re: Friday, March 1, 2013 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by jeff6286 »

MarkBarrett wrote: The link for this distance calculator was passed along to me: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html if you need a second opinion.
I've seen sites like that before, but it isn't really helpful for what I was trying to do, measure the shortest distance from the coast of Greenland to the coast of Denmark.

Upon further review, I believe Google Maps does indeed use the Mercator projection, or at least something like it. I looked at the size of Greenland relative to Africa, and they appeared to be relatively similar. I learned from The West Wing that Africa is roughly 14 times the size of Greenland, but Greenland appears much larger than it actually is because areas near the poles have to be stretched out to make the earth appear on a flat surface. So I guess it was just coincidence that the 1,300 mile figure appeared to be correct, or it was at least close enough that my unscientific measuring method didn't detect a problem.
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