Learned League 73 - Official Thread

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MinnesotaMyron
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

jeff6286 wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 3:23 pm
jfrumkin wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:58 pm
triviawayne wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:40 pm I think many ML & 1DS are written very narrow to the niche of those that are fanatics. The Peanuts and Indy 500 are recent ones that come to mind--you may like those things, but not enough to even get half of the answers unless you are a true follower of the subject. But that's just this generalist D-rundler's perspective.

thoughts? :?
I think that's 100% true. I think people assumed (and it wasn't specified otherwise) that this one would be general TV and so the level of detail has been shock and awe, I just don't know that assumption is for sure the case.
She gave a very detailed explanation of what this was going to be, and nowhere in it did she say "the vast majority of questions will be about shows with varying degrees of cult followings, most will be critically acclaimed and very few will be highly watched." That would've been a pretty reasonable warning to a lot of people that this was going to be painful.
Yeah, I guess I have to agree.
WilliamsN wrote:I'm going to keep this ML fairly straightforward. You can expect a ModKos between PG and PG-13.
The ModKos scale (originally from 2010), for anyone who isn't familiar with it:
G (General Audiences): This is a Mini whose questions fall into the same broad category and difficulty base as a regular LL season. The recent 1999 ML is an example of this type; while there may have been some raised difficulty for players not alive (or not conscious) during 1999, the material covered the same territory as an ordinary LL, at roughly the same difficulty. (I am making one assumption here: that there are no MLs that will be easier than a regular LL season!)

PG (Pretty General): Akin to the Type B ML on the Kosman Scale, this is a MiniLeague whose content, while honed by a particular category, is designed to be accessible to the broad range of solvers. The harder questions will favor those with expertise in the ML category, but the easy-to-middle questions are targeted at the generalist. Games and Puzzles I think would get this rating.

PG-13 (Pretty General, but Unlucky for some): Intended for generalists, but with a harder edge than a PG mini. JI:Portraits might fall here, since even though the content was broad-based, the format - identifying faces - might have made it particularly hard for some players.

R (Restricted): Either by design, or because the category is outside the realm of most generalists, this type of ML will be challenging to those who don't have some knowledge of the subject. Opera and JI:Literature are examples of this type.

X (Experts Only): This is a full-on Kosman Type A, and non-aficionados are warned to tread carefully. If this isn't your subject, you're going to find even the easy questions challenging.
Just because you have some PG Qs, doesn't mean your ML is PG. This one is a hard R, saved from full X-dom by the opening credits picture questions, which have to be easier, since there'll usually be some TOM there. It compares in difficulty to the "Before and After" MLs, especially the second one. Anything that asks for character names is going to be at least a PG-13, and asking for producers and showrunners bumps it into R range. This one needed some sample questions, to be sure.

The thing is, you could have written basically the same type of quiz here, but in 1987, same level of detail, and I could have done well on it, then or now.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by goforthetie »

I'm not officially in the TV ML, since I don't watch a whole lot of it. But, playing from the sideline, I'm getting 2-3 questions right each day, not that much lower than my normal TV percentage. And that doesn't count a few questions that I may have gotten had I thought longer.

Maybe the ML is polarizing because what the smith considers to be the "New Golden Age" does not include the reality shows and CSI-knockoffs that are all over the listings.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by Volante »

I'm doing about as well as I expected in the TV one. I get the general questions but when they ask for the producer/actor, it's a clam.

What's annoying me is the American West one which I'm sure I have my highest TCA of the three...and yet it's the one I don't have a win in yet.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by RichmondJ »

Volante wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 5:10 pm I'm doing about as well as I expected in the TV one.
So am I ... which is to say that I'm absolutely laying an egg. But someone has to come in last! It may as well be someone who didn't expect to do any better.
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boson
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by boson »

My complaints about the tv mini league are more about my performance than the format or questions. It is hard, but so be it. I think the questions are fine - probably a little niche, but that is what MLs are for.

I'm a little distressed with the smith's comments about how few of these shows she has watched... I guess we are at the point where tv shows are now like novels: you can't read all the novels needed for trivia, so you learn stuff without reading them. You also can't possibly watch all these shows. Trivia is better if you have read the book or watched the show though.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by dhkendall »

jeff6286 wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 3:23 pm
jfrumkin wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:58 pm
triviawayne wrote: Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:40 pm I think many ML & 1DS are written very narrow to the niche of those that are fanatics. The Peanuts and Indy 500 are recent ones that come to mind--you may like those things, but not enough to even get half of the answers unless you are a true follower of the subject. But that's just this generalist D-rundler's perspective.

thoughts? :?
I think that's 100% true. I think people assumed (and it wasn't specified otherwise) that this one would be general TV and so the level of detail has been shock and awe, I just don't know that assumption is for sure the case.
She gave a very detailed explanation of what this was going to be, and nowhere in it did she say "the vast majority of questions will be about shows with varying degrees of cult followings, most will be critically acclaimed and very few will be highly watched." That would've been a pretty reasonable warning to a lot of people that this was going to be painful.
The preponderance of questions that require knowing executive producers as well probably has something to do with it.

And I agree with Myron, if this quiz is PG, then I'm Brad Rutter.
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Volante
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by Volante »

*Finally* A win in American West. Mission accomplished.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by quarterrican »

I love this TV minileague - I recognize now that it might just be me, but all of it is very in my wheelhouse as someone who reads (and tries to watch) a lot about this era of TV. I didn't realize most people don't keep track of tv creators like they would authors - if someone whose show I like comes out with something new, it's usually a sign I should watch it.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by This Is Kirk! »

My mini league season got off to a rough start since I was on vacation and never even thought about Learned League on Monday. Despite forfeiting match day one I'm still in second place in my group in the travel ML and only trailing the leader by one TCA. I'm currently in 5th place in my American West group. Had no interest in the TV ML, so didn't enter that one.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by BigDaddyMatty »

Buckaroo is one of my proudest gets in quite some time.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by morbeedo »

BigDaddyMatty wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:10 am Buckaroo is one of my proudest gets in quite some time.
And bucaneer was one of my saddest misses ever!
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by ElendilPickle »

BigDaddyMatty wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:10 am Buckaroo is one of my proudest gets in quite some time.
Same here. I got vaquero right away, but struggled to think of buckaroo. I finished my answers and was about to submit when the light dawned.

The TV ML is hard for me; I don't watch any of the shows (no cable and no interest in many of them), but at least I know a few of the actors, and have made some good guesses on the title credit stills.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by hbomb1947 »

On yesterday's Travel set, I was one of the LLamas who went with Zimbabwe for the country with the waterfalls. I thought the "dystopian" TOM was ambiguous -- sure, in retrospect I can see how it was intended as an allusion to the dystopian film Brazil from Palin's Monty Python compadre Terry Gilliam; but I don't think that was obvious ex ante. Zimbabwe is a pretty dystopian country, and Victoria Falls is a majestic assemblage of cataracts comparable to Iguazu Falls. I certainly couldn't tell the 2 waterfall systems apart based on what they look like, although that may change after I visit Iguazu in January. Damn you, pacek, for not holding off this question until the Travel 4 ML! :D

Also, I was surprised there was no MCWA -- namely, 4 -- on the math question, given that the calculation comes out to 4.62 (rounded off) and therefore 4 is the closest integer that's an incorrect response. (I screwed up the handwritten multiplication and came out with about 4.4, which led me to guess 4).
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by teapot37 »

hbomb1947 wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 9:58 am Also, I was surprised there was no MCWA -- namely, 4 -- on the math question, given that the calculation comes out to 4.62 (rounded off) and therefore 4 is the closest integer that's an incorrect response. (I screwed up the handwritten multiplication and came out with about 4.4, which led me to guess 4).
If each U.S. dollar (USD) is worth 6.65 Danish kroner (DKK) and each Euro (EUR) is worth 1.157 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), and if 1 DKK is worth 0.13 EUR, then what (to the nearest peso) is 5 USD worth in CUC?

I get 5 x 6.65 x 0.13 x 1.157 = 5.0011325
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by econgator »

teapot37 wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:13 am
I get 5 x 6.65 x 0.13 x 1.157 = 5.0011325
Correct
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by hbomb1947 »

econgator wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:31 am
teapot37 wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:13 am
I get 5 x 6.65 x 0.13 x 1.157 = 5.0011325
Correct
It turns out I didn't even do the math correctly on my calculator after submitting. :oops:
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by 1stlvlthinker »

hbomb1947 wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 9:58 am On yesterday's Travel set, I was one of the LLamas who went with Zimbabwe for the country with the waterfalls. I thought the "dystopian" TOM was ambiguous -- sure, in retrospect I can see how it was intended as an allusion to the dystopian film Brazil from Palin's Monty Python compadre Terry Gilliam; but I don't think that was obvious ex ante. Zimbabwe is a pretty dystopian country, and Victoria Falls is a majestic assemblage of cataracts comparable to Iguazu Falls. I certainly couldn't tell the 2 waterfall systems apart based on what they look like, although that may change after I visit Iguazu in January. Damn you, pacek, for not holding off this question until the Travel 4 ML! :D

Also, I was surprised there was no MCWA -- namely, 4 -- on the math question, given that the calculation comes out to 4.62 (rounded off) and therefore 4 is the closest integer that's an incorrect response. (I screwed up the handwritten multiplication and came out with about 4.4, which led me to guess 4).
This is where being not-as-well-traveled helps. It looked like Iguazu Falls to me, and I had never seen what Victoria Falls looked like. So it was a coin flip that I was on the right side on. Never considered any other waterfall, lol. Also don't know what the "dystopian" part of the clue actually means in this context.

When I did the pencil-and-paper math, it came out to 5.000something.

Somehow in 1st place in my group in American West. Last place in TV.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by Troydozzy »

I actually needed the dystopian clue on this one. I've seen all of Palin's travel shows multiple times. So, for me, this question was asking me to narrow down which of the shows this was from.
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by Volante »

hbomb1947 wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 9:58 am On yesterday's Travel set, I was one of the LLamas who went with Zimbabwe for the country with the waterfalls. I thought the "dystopian" TOM was ambiguous -- sure, in retrospect I can see how it was intended as an allusion to the dystopian film Brazil from Palin's Monty Python compadre Terry Gilliam; but I don't think that was obvious ex ante.
Mentioning 2012 seemed to hint to me that the country had big plans in store in the future and Brazil itself is dystopian enough without needing to be an oblique reference. (Part of the concern leading up to the World Cup and Olympics is if they could get things built and cleaned up in time.)
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Re: Learned League 73 - Official Thread

Post by boson »

These minileagues have been fun, but the contrast between them is impressive. I'm not doing much more than assigning defense for the golden age of TV league. I'm doing ok in the travel one, and it is a pretty good quiz. I'm really enjoying the American West league though - great questions that are accessible while still being obscure. Yesterday I got a 0(1) with some bad coin flips in my guessing, but I had a 9(6) the day before. I'm sure everyone else has a different opinion about the questions - I guess it is a good reason to have three minileagues in parallel when the writing is more varied than Thorsten's.
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