Wednesday, March 9, 2016 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[OSXpert]

I'll beat skullturf to this one: Bill should not have gotten credit for greatest common denominator. Least common denominator on a clue for least common multiple, sure. But greatest common denominator for greatest common divisor makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, greatest common denominator makes no sense.

for FJ I said "The Cliffs of Dover" just to say something, although I said Mont blanc once he reacted to Matterhorn.

[Leander]

Really can't see missing that Sri Lanka DD. also a bad FJ wager from third place.

I though FJ pretty tough, but luckily I've been to Chamonix and Mont Blanc so this was almost an instaget for me.

[bpmod]

Wow! Two huge math errors.

There's the old story that the definition of mixed feelings is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff... in your brand new car. I am not sure which emotion is stronger right now, the satisfaction of knowing a bone-headed wager lost the game, or the frustration of knowing a (different) bone-headed wager didn't lose the game.

The only contestant who didn't fail in any wagering scenario finished third. Ouch.

ETA: Kinda sad, really. I was really rooting for Annie the whole game and was anticipating what she might do to ensure her math didn't fail tonight, seeing as she had already realized what a bullet she dodged yesterday.

Brian

[bpmod]

... a bad FJ wager from third place.

Umm... what game were you watching? In hindsight, it wasn't a great wager maybe. But it was by far the best of the three.

Brian

[Bamaman]

She is not bad at math, she just gave zero thought about wagering until her first episode.

[naurae29]

I'll beat skullturf to this one: Bill should not have gotten credit for greatest common denominator. Least common denominator on a clue for least common multiple, sure. But greatest common denominator for greatest common divisor makes absolutely no sense.

BTW, do you think they would have accepted meerkat for mongoose? As far as I can tell, meerkat is one species of mongoose and the given picture looked more like a meerkat than the other species shown on Wikipedia.

Do you have a bug in our living room? We both went "Now wait a minute!" on the GCD (even though they accepted my "lowest common multiple" rather than "least" a couple months ago) and expected a reversal. The GREATEST common denominator isn't a rational thing to solve for. Like, you can always make it bigger. I just... I can't even.

I also said meerkat.

I had a vague idea of where Chamonix was (from an episode of "Alias") but went with the Matterhorn.

When Bloomberg was a TS, I was so flabbergasted that my only explanation was that the picture didn't come up on the video screens in the studio. (When I taped, we were warned that that could happen, and we could opt to ring in and guess based on the clue Alex read if we wanted to.) Any chance that actually happened here?

[Ryno]

I had an Instaget in FJ, mainly by being such big fan of Olympics history. The first Winter Olympic Games in 1924 was held in Chamonix, France. From what I've read Chamonix is in the shadow of Mount Blanc.

[bpmod]

When Bloomberg was a TS, I was so flabbergasted that my only explanation was that the picture didn't come up on the video screens in the studio. (When I taped, we were warned that that could happen, and we could opt to ring in and guess based on the clue Alex read if we wanted to.) Any chance that actually happened here?

I have no idea what Bloomberg looks like. I got that based on the wording of the clue. The picture helped not one bit.

Brian

[opusthepenguin]

also a bad FJ wager from third place.

Really? That was the only wager that made any sense.

[Bamaman]

When Bloomberg was a TS, I was so flabbergasted that my only explanation was that the picture didn't come up on the video screens in the studio. (When I taped, we were warned that that could happen, and we could opt to ring in and guess based on the clue Alex read if we wanted to.) Any chance that actually happened here?

I have no idea what Bloomberg looks like. I got that based on the wording of the clue. The picture helped not one bit.

Brian

I think the clue said he was a mayor and very rich. Kind of narrows it down.

[hbomb1947]

I was rooting for Bill, whom I have the good fortune to know personally, and I was disappointed to see the result. He played well -- he played the game the way it was meant to be played -- and it was a tribute to his resilience that he was still in the mix going into FJ even after missing both TDD's. I also know how hard he prepared after he got The Call. Sometimes it just isn't your day; DH Kendall's sig line comes to mind.

Congrats to Katrina on the win, although her FJ wager was . . . perplexing. I had no chance on the FJ -- I never would have thought of a mountain as "lines" in a vale. Chamouni pointed me to France but I couldn't think of any "lines" in France.

[MDaunt]

Oof.

[DBear]

Got Chamoni(x), but like Monday was too general w/FJ, my response was "What are The Alps?"
Seeing Bill clank the DDs was painful to watch.

[Linear Gnome]

I'll beat skullturf to this one: Bill should not have gotten credit for greatest common denominator. Least common denominator on a clue for least common multiple, sure. But greatest common denominator for greatest common divisor makes absolutely no sense.

BTW, do you think they would have accepted meerkat for mongoose? As far as I can tell, meerkat is one species of mongoose and the given picture looked more like a meerkat than the other species shown on Wikipedia.

Do you have a bug in our living room? We both went "Now wait a minute!" on the GCD (even though they accepted my "lowest common multiple" rather than "least" a couple months ago) and expected a reversal. The GREATEST common denominator isn't a rational thing to solve for. Like, you can always make it bigger. I just... I can't even.

I also said meerkat.

Huh--I had forgotten about that clue in your first game. I mentioned skullturf because he is a Certified Math Guy, but I know you're no slouch--if I had thought about your LCM clue, I would have said "skullturf and naurae29". (FWIW, I had no problem with "lowest common multiple"; given the wording, "least common denominator" would not have fit, of course.)

[MarkyMarkm]

To play devil's advocate, the OED lists "a divisor" as a definition of "denominator." If we're going to accept meerkats because they're a subset of mongoose, seems like we'd have to accept denominator since its a subset of divisors.

[bpmod]

When Bloomberg was a TS, I was so flabbergasted that my only explanation was that the picture didn't come up on the video screens in the studio. (When I taped, we were warned that that could happen, and we could opt to ring in and guess based on the clue Alex read if we wanted to.) Any chance that actually happened here?

I have no idea what Bloomberg looks like. I got that based on the wording of the clue. The picture helped not one bit.

Brian

I think the clue said he was a mayor and very rich. Kind of narrows it down.

Yeah. Even for this foreigner.

Brian

[skullturf]

The GREATEST common denominator isn't a rational thing to solve for. Like, you can always make it bigger. I just... I can't even.

Yes, you can even. Just multiply by 2 if necessary, and that makes the denominator greater still.

[Linear Gnome]

To play devil's advocate, the OED lists "a divisor" as a definition of "denominator." If we're going to accept meerkats because they're a subset of mongoose, seems like we'd have to accept denominator since its a subset of divisors.

I don't think it's the same thing. I was speculating that the desired answer was "meerkat" and they took "mongoose" because it wasn't wrong. But, even though a denominator is a divisor because it's something you divide by, "greatest common denominator" still makes no sense (just as they should not give credit for "meerkat" if the picture is of some other species of mongoose).

[hbomb1947]

When Bloomberg was a TS, I was so flabbergasted that my only explanation was that the picture didn't come up on the video screens in the studio. (When I taped, we were warned that that could happen, and we could opt to ring in and guess based on the clue Alex read if we wanted to.) Any chance that actually happened here?

I have no idea what Bloomberg looks like. I got that based on the wording of the clue. The picture helped not one bit.

Brian

I think the clue said he was a mayor and very rich. Kind of narrows it down.

Yeah. Even for this foreigner.

Brian

Well, he was my city's mayor for 12 years, so even though I often have trouble on clues that involve recognizing famous people, that one was wheelhouse for me. I didn't even need any of the words in the clue.

[Vowela]

In the "one step forward, two steps back" clue, the graphic they used had two steps forward and one step back. I was half expecting "step out of line" to get overturned since it fit the graphic better than the actual answer did. Wasn't sure since it didn't really fit the clue, but still seemed possible.

The top step moved to the right(forward) while the bottom two steps moved to the left(back).

Left is usually front, and right is usually back. Using the opposite is visually confusing.