The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

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MinnesotaMyron
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:39 pm So is that all the game really is? Making totally ex-recto WAGs from the vaguest of notions? Why not make every clue "It's a thing" at that point? Because you might still be able to eventually guess your way to "what is stroopwafel?" from that.
You're coming dangerously close to insulting the hundreds and hundreds of players who have put the effort into getting good at this game by basically accusing it of being random. Maybe dial your "incredulity" back a notch or 3. Since you're obviously not genuinely interested in learning how the clues are structured, there's no reason this thread should always be the first thing people see when they log in here. I truly don't believe you are posting in good faith, and I suggest the mods lock this thread.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by mikebdoss »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:39 pm So is that all the game really is? Making totally ex-recto WAGs from the vaguest of notions? Why not make every clue "It's a thing" at that point? Because you might still be able to eventually guess your way to "what is stroopwafel?" from that.
If everyone was making WAGs, then no one would be good at Jeopardy, and obviously a lot of us are. TOMs and wording are hugely important, as least as much as simple recall (though you certainly have to know things, too).

IMO, Jeopardy has remained relevant and watchable all these years because the writing staff is amazing - they're able to create clues that require both recall as well as on-the-fly mental processing, all while not making it impossible to figure out (plus making questions of different difficulties for different clue values). Getting good at Jeopardy involves both knowing a lot of things (and being honestly interested in learning new things in many fields) and figuring out how the game works. Not everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by TenPoundHammer »

mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:07 pmNot everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
Then why have I consistently gotten worse and worse despite watching it regularly for about 15 years?
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:10 pm
mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:07 pmNot everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
Then why have I consistently gotten worse and worse despite watching it regularly for about 15 years?
[citation needed]
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by MarkBarrett »

seaborgium wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:25 pm
TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:10 pm
mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:07 pmNot everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
Then why have I consistently gotten worse and worse despite watching it regularly for about 15 years?
[citation needed]
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by TenPoundHammer »

seaborgium wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:25 pm
TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:10 pm
mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:07 pmNot everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
Then why have I consistently gotten worse and worse despite watching it regularly for about 15 years?
[citation needed]
I used to keep track of my score all the time. 10 years ago, it was rare for me to have a NHOI or "thing I probably have heard of but didn't internalize" in the top box, but now it happens almost daily. Rare was the time that I would go 0/5 on FJ!, but now it's a constant. My only 5/5 on FJ! was the week of 12/17/07. I constantly have increasing amounts of logic fails. (Keep in mind I stopped tracking my Coryat years ago because it was already falling off a cliff, and I had $0 or negative Coryats multiple times.)

I don't remember having to "Read between the lines" nearly as much 10 years ago. It feels like when I first started keeping track, most of the clues were more direct. But lately it just feels like more and more, every clue I miss is a matter of rampant hairsplitting that leads me to wonder how ANYone can manage to jump through the thousands of hoops supposedly required to get to even a top box response.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by alietr »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:00 pm I truly don't believe you [TPH] are posting in good faith, and I suggest the mods lock this thread.
No, the thread will not be locked because the whole point of this thread is that TPH can ask his questions (over and over) and people can answer them if they choose to do so. This thread has eliminated a lot of the back and forth in the daily threads that used to make them utterly unreadable and infuriating. This way, if you choose to venture here (and woe be to you), you can participate, but you can also ignore it should you choose to do so.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by mikebdoss »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:42 pm I don't remember having to "Read between the lines" nearly as much 10 years ago. It feels like when I first started keeping track, most of the clues were more direct. But lately it just feels like more and more, every clue I miss is a matter of rampant hairsplitting that leads me to wonder how ANYone can manage to jump through the thousands of hoops supposedly required to get to even a top box response.
Then may I humbly suggest that it's you, not Jeopardy, that's changed? I've been watching the game nightly for almost 20 years, and while I never keep track of my score, the show seems just as hard now as it used to be. I've been taking the Jeopardy test since before they offered it online, and it was a whopper then just like it is now - I didn't get an in-person interview until last year.

The simple fact is that almost all of us on this board are getting the questions that you don't get, and the contestants certainly are too. That doesn't mean it's easy (Jeopardy is supposed to be difficult), but it's certainly not as impossible as you're describing.

If it's gotten harder or changed in terms of directness or hairsplitting, then it hasn't affected the rest of us. Some days are a breeze, some days the categories don't speak to me. But I don't see that the format/style has changed significantly.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by 1stlvlthinker »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:10 pm
mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:07 pmNot everyone will be good, but everyone can get better.
Then why have I consistently gotten worse and worse despite watching it regularly for about 15 years?
In the last 15 years, there have been 15 years worth of more information out there. If you don't learn it, you'll fall behind.

I'm thinking of statements like "NHO Ryan Gosling"
Now swimming in the J! pool.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by TenPoundHammer »

mikebdoss wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:51 pm Then may I humbly suggest that it's you, not Jeopardy, that's changed? I've been watching the game nightly for almost 20 years, and while I never keep track of my score, the show seems just as hard now as it used to be. I've been taking the Jeopardy test since before they offered it online, and it was a whopper then just like it is now - I didn't get an in-person interview until last year.

The simple fact is that almost all of us on this board are getting the questions that you don't get, and the contestants certainly are too. That doesn't mean it's easy (Jeopardy is supposed to be difficult), but it's certainly not as impossible as you're describing.

If it's gotten harder or changed in terms of directness or hairsplitting, then it hasn't affected the rest of us. Some days are a breeze, some days the categories don't speak to me. But I don't see that the format/style has changed significantly.
That still doesn't answer why I've gotten worse and worse? We're 27 episodes into 2018 as I write this and I still haven't gotten an FJ! right. Looking at them:

1/1: Crimea was unfamiliar to me
1/2: Didn't know Virginia Woolf was a real person
1/3: Brain turned off entirely at the category being "Opera". I know the "Figaro Figaro Figaro" thing, but it just didn't surface in 30 seconds.
1/4: Didn't know that the Corvette had an emblem
1/5: Couldn't get out of the Marvel/DC infinite loop

1/8: Couldn't think of a reason why anyone would "become an ex-President" in a plane except for a plane crash, and I was pretty sure no President had died in a plane crash.
1/9: NHOI
1/10: NHOI
1/11: NHOI
1/12: Seemed like a total guess. I didn't realize any of Africa's countries were that big

1/15: Correct response was vaguely familiar but didn't surface
1/16: Heard of it, but it didn't surface
1/17: Didn't realize Veterans' Day used to have another name, although "Armistice Day" rings a faint bell
1/18: "Three times" got me stuck on "zweiback" which I knew was wrong, but just couldn't budge. Especially humiliating since I eat about three boxes of Triscuits a week on average.
1/19: Totally failed to process "Algonquin" and got nowhere

1/22: Failed to spot the cognates in "Novosibirsk"
1/23: Can't say that I've heard of Mycroft
1/24: Got hung up on "magazine subscriptions" and failed to process "publishing company offering prizes"
1/25: Didn't know Van Gogh had a brother or that he went mad
1/26: I know literally nothing about Pippi Longstocking

1/29: Whiffed on flags.
1/30: NHO the correct response
1/31: Totally failed to process "Ore-Ida" as referring to Oregon + Idaho so the picture meant nothing to me
2/1: "Jazz musician's style" led me nowhere, even though I know Kerouac + beat. Just didn't click
2/2: None of the words meant anything to me

2/5: Already explained my lack of thought process on this
2/6: Looks like a lot of people are claiming NHOI too.

So it seems that mostly, I'm just failing to process some fairly basic information a lot of the time. It's happening so often lately and I dunno why.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by heppm01 »

How many times over that impressive list did you bother to guess something - anything - just to have a response?

How many times over that impressive list did you take the time - as much as necessary - to think of how you (not any of the rest of us) would get from the clue to the correct response? Do you just give up after a minute or two or do you roll it over in your brain all day, coming at it from different angles? Even if you don't find a path to the correct answer, do you at least get any closer to a reasonable guess?

You are not going to suddenly get better over night. Most of us boardies have been ravenously curious our entire lives and enjoy making or learning the connection between what first appears to be unrelated pieces of information. If you haven't built up that library of connections then you are at a disadvantage, reduced to either yes, I know this or no, I don't know this with no chance of trying to tease it out.

I'd worry less about what you know and more about how you can learn to make deductions and eliminate possibilities. And a good way to do that is to pick a few clues from every game and think about them throughout the day, coming up with ways that you, personally, could get to a reasonable response.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by RKane »

MinnesotaMyron wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:00 pm You're coming dangerously close to insulting the hundreds and hundreds of players who have put the effort into getting good at this game by basically accusing it of being random. Maybe dial your "incredulity" back a notch or 3. Since you're obviously not genuinely interested in learning how the clues are structured, there's no reason this thread should always be the first thing people see when they log in here. I truly don't believe you are posting in good faith, and I suggest the mods lock this thread.
Oh hey man you're a very good champ and if they ever brought back "one-hit wonders" for some kind of special event I would hope they would invite you! Cheers.

Anyways you are absolutely right, I can't tell if it's the most long-winded trolling attempt in the history of the Internet or not, but I doubt it, because, frankly, there are larger forums out there that would be much easier to troll. I think he's just severely autistic or something - and I don't even mean that in an offensive way, but if we believe, for example, that he tracked coryats for several years for no apparent reason (he seems to not want to be on the show) and he clearly does watch every episode of the show and spend time here posting about it, for what appears to be no real reason, I don't even know what else to conclude.

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 4:36 pm 1/2: Didn't know Virginia Woolf was a real person
1/4: Didn't know that the Corvette had an emblem
1/25: Didn't know Van Gogh had a brother or that he went mad
I mean, some of the FJs this year were harder than others, but come on.

The 1/2 one? Come on. I can understand not getting the right answer, but not knowing Woolf was a real person? That's pretty much inexcusable. To the point where, despite what I said above, I think you may be trolling.

The 1/4 one? I mean, it's a car company. They all have logos. Again, it's one thing not to get the clue, but this lack of knowledge is, frankly, unbelievable.

The 1/25 one? Again, not getting the clue is one thing, and not knowing van Gogh had a brother is one thing. But not knoiwng he went mad? Even among non-J! watchers that is more than common knowledge.

And, not to harp on this, but I have to say it again: If you legitimately did not know that Virgina Woolf was real I don't even know what to say.
I'm done. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by Peter the accountant »

RKane wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:02 pm The 1/2 one? Come on. I can understand not getting the right answer, but not knowing Woolf was a real person? That's pretty much inexcusable.
There are plenty of smart people who don't know Woolf was a real person. I consider myself to be fairly bright, but lacking in my knowledge of literature. I've heard of the book with her name in the title, but I honestly didn't know she was a real person. However, in contrast to some folks, I take the miss as a learning experience.
The 1/25 one? Again, not getting the clue is one thing, and not knowing van Gogh had a brother is one thing. But not knoiwng he went mad? Even among non-J! watchers that is more than common knowledge.
I suppose details of artists is another hole in my knowledge base. I had no idea he had mental health issues. I thought the ear story was fable rather than truth.

On the other hand, I make up some of those deficiencies with knowledge in other areas. We all have our strong and weak areas. I am not going to put someone down because they don't know something I do. There are almost certainly things they know that I don't, even if that knowledge isn't relevant to some silly game on TV.

I think a little more compassion and empathy is called for here.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by RKane »

Peter the accountant wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:22 pm I think a little more compassion and empathy is called for here.
Maybe.

I certainly didn't mean to offend you with respect to the van Gogh thing you do seem like a good faith poster and pretty cool guy.
Peter the accountant wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:22 pmI am not going to put someone down because they don't know something I do.
Neither am I. I am, however, not above putting someone down because they spend several years and well over 6000 posts, including a specific topic that has run over 100 pages, flaunting their ignorance.
I'm done. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by mikebdoss »

Peter the accountant wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:22 pm
RKane wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:02 pm The 1/2 one? Come on. I can understand not getting the right answer, but not knowing Woolf was a real person? That's pretty much inexcusable.
There are plenty of smart people who don't know Woolf was a real person. I consider myself to be fairly bright, but lacking in my knowledge of literature. I've heard of the book with her name in the title, but I honestly didn't know she was a real person. However, in contrast to some folks, I take the miss as a learning experience.
The 1/25 one? Again, not getting the clue is one thing, and not knowing van Gogh had a brother is one thing. But not knoiwng he went mad? Even among non-J! watchers that is more than common knowledge.
I suppose details of artists is another hole in my knowledge base. I had no idea he had mental health issues. I thought the ear story was fable rather than truth.

On the other hand, I make up some of those deficiencies with knowledge in other areas. We all have our strong and weak areas. I am not going to put someone down because they don't know something I do. There are almost certainly things they know that I don't, even if that knowledge isn't relevant to some silly game on TV.

I think a little more compassion and empathy is called for here.
Agree totally. Virginia Woolf is a name that's also in a play/movie title, and unless you're familiar with her works, you can miss that she's actually a person, not a character.

I think it's great that TPH is here and contributing. Very few of us are readily willing to admit what we don't know, much less in a forum like this. There's no way he's trolling, regardless of what you all think of him.
Last edited by mikebdoss on Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by econgator »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:39 pm So is that all the game really is? Making totally ex-recto WAGs from the vaguest of notions?
That's the secret. You know it all now. We can go ahead and close the thread down.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by twelvefootboy »

RKane wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:02 pm And, not to harp on this, but I have to say it again: If you legitimately did not know that Virgina Woolf was real I don't even know what to say.
Just don't tell us anything about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny :lol: I'm neither proud or ashamed that I didn't know this was a real person, but I've heard the name from an old movie (?). Think about how/why you happen to know VW is real. A lit class? Are you an avid reader? Of early 20th century fiction? You get the point.

I also didn't know Van Gogh had a (real) brother, or Sherlock Holmes had a (fictional) brother. This is one reason I watch the show :D
Disclaimer - repeated exposure to author's musings may cause befuddlement.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by TenPoundHammer »

heppm01 wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:38 pm How many times over that impressive list did you bother to guess something - anything - just to have a response?

How many times over that impressive list did you take the time - as much as necessary - to think of how you (not any of the rest of us) would get from the clue to the correct response? Do you just give up after a minute or two or do you roll it over in your brain all day, coming at it from different angles? Even if you don't find a path to the correct answer, do you at least get any closer to a reasonable guess?
No, because so many of them are so obscure that no amount of guessing will ever get me to the right response. I can't ever guess Apologia if I've absolutely never heard of it, for instance. No amount of guessing is ever going to get me to colors on NYC's flag if I didn't even know NYC had a flag.
RKane wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:02 pm The 1/2 one? Come on. I can understand not getting the right answer, but not knowing Woolf was a real person? That's pretty much inexcusable. To the point where, despite what I said above, I think you may be trolling.
I've heard of something called "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" And knowing that there is a work of fiction by that name led me to believe that Virginia Woolf was fictional.
RKane wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:02 pm The 1/25 one? Again, not getting the clue is one thing, and not knowing van Gogh had a brother is one thing. But not knoiwng he went mad? Even among non-J! watchers that is more than common knowledge.
I knew he cut off his ear, but I thought it was just a one-off thing.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by dhkendall »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:31 pm
heppm01 wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:38 pm How many times over that impressive list did you bother to guess something - anything - just to have a response?

How many times over that impressive list did you take the time - as much as necessary - to think of how you (not any of the rest of us) would get from the clue to the correct response? Do you just give up after a minute or two or do you roll it over in your brain all day, coming at it from different angles? Even if you don't find a path to the correct answer, do you at least get any closer to a reasonable guess?
No, because so many of them are so obscure that no amount of guessing will ever get me to the right response. I can't ever guess Apologia if I've absolutely never heard of it, for instance. No amount of guessing is ever going to get me to colors on NYC's flag if I didn't even know NYC had a flag.
The things that frustrates most of us is not that you don't know things, is that you won't learn things. I told you in the game thread (50 lashes for me) that New York has a flag. Next time this comes up, will you know that NYC has a flag? Probably not. Why? Past experience. If you ask us the same thing all the time, albeit in different ways (and, as the icing on the cake, be sarcastic and rude and argumentative when we try to answer the questions you pose) we aren't going to want to help you. Because why would you want to even ask for help if you won't accept it.

As much as I appreciate this thread (for my own benefit too, I know I have some TPH-shaped holes in my knowledge that I'm learning how to fill from this thread), the above makes me want to join the "Mr. alietr, close down this thread!" crowd.
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Re: The Official TPH Education Thread (POTENTIAL GAME DAY SPOILERS)

Post by seaborgium »

TenPoundHammer wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:31 pm I can't ever guess Apologia if I've absolutely never heard of it, for instance. No amount of guessing is ever going to get me to colors on NYC's flag if I didn't even know NYC had a flag.
A) You've heard of the word "apology," though, and the clue hinted that the title was at odds with the quote "I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times." (If you had said "One Life to Live" I would have called it a fine guess.)

B) I thought I already explained this to you: lack of knowledge of a fact in the clue is irrelevant. Why should it matter whether you know that New York City has a flag, when the clue tells you that it does?
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