Rare Entries Contest MSB72 begins
Mark Brader
so here's another one. If the level of participation is not
satisfactory, it will be the last in the MSB series. Please
consider entering even if you don't think you have good answers
for all the questions.
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Saturday, September 17,
2011 (by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend so post two reminders
before then. See below the questions for a detailed explanation,
which is unchanged from last time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0. Name something or someone that Google has commemorated
with a "Google Doodle" or "Google Holiday Logo" in 2011.
(See rule 4.4.)
1. Name a moon (natural satellite) of Mars.
2. Name a language whose English name obviously refers to
a specific country now existing, and which is the primary
language used in a different country. *NOTE*: For this and
the following question, the usual rule 4.1.1 does *not* apply,
so that "country" is not limited to independent countries
but may be used with any sensible meaning. (However, the
two countries must not share any part of their territory.)
3. Give a name (formal or informal, but not a nickname or
abbreviation) that is regularly used in English to identify
a present-day country whose largest city (metropolitan area)
is London. Again, rule 4.1.1 does not apply.
For example, if I had said "New York" instead of "London",
correct answers would include "United States" and "America",
but not "Stateside" or "USA".
4. Name a word that is a preposition and is 2 letters long.
Both letters must occur in the English alphabet.
5. Name a unit of pressure. You must be able, if asked, to cite
3 unrelated web pages where this unit of pressure is actually
used (rather than defined -- for example, they might be giving
a measurement, estimate, specification, or forecast).
6. Name a person who was President of the US and made at least
some attempt to run for an additional term of office that
would not have been allowed if the 22nd Amendment had been
part of the Constitution from the outset. In effect this
means he was president for 6 years or more and made at least
some attempt to run for an additional 4-year term.
7. Name a country existing in 1926, that in 1906 either did not
exist or was smaller in area (not counting dependencies).
That is, between those two years it was either created,
re-created, or enlarged. This time rule 4.1.1 *does* apply,
both in regard to what is a country and to whether two
countries existing at different times are the same country.
8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
produced and commercially distributed.
9. In some sports completing a specific task scores, all at once,
a certain number of points that is given specifically in the
rules of the sport. Give such a number that occurs in the
scoring of some sport. *NOTE*: You must also name the sport,
but it will *not* be taken as part of the answer.
For example, if darts was considered a sport, then you might
answer "25 (darts)", in reference to the score for hitting
the outer ring of the bullseye; but this would be counted
equivalently to a correct answer of 25 in conjunction with
any other sport. But even if duplicate bridge was considered
a sport, the 22 matchpoints that you might score (in North
American scoring) by beating the pairs at 22 other tables
would still not make "22 (duplicate bridge)" a correct answer,
because the 22 is merely a count of pairs beaten, and not a
number specified in the rules.
For purposes of this question "sport" does not include
competitions based only on mental skill and/or dexterity with
the hands and arms, such as card games, pool games, or darts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 1. The Game
As usual, for each of the questions above, your objective is to give
an answer that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW
other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material
you like to RESEARCH your answers; but when you have found enough
possible answers for your liking, you are expected to choose on your
own which one to submit, WITHOUT mechanical or computer assistance:
this is meant to be a game of wits.
* 2. Scoring
The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a
final score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.
If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
of people who gave that answer, or an answer I consider equivalent.
A wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty.
This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the highest score that anyone would have on this
question if all answers were deemed correct
* 2.1 Scoring Example
Say I ask for a color on the current Canadian flag. There are
26 entrants -- 20 say "red", 4 say "blue", and 1 each say "gules",
"white", and "blue square". After looking up gules I decide it's
the same color as red and should be treated as a duplicate answer;
then the 21 people who said either "red" or "gules" get 21 points
each. The person who said "white" gets a perfect score of 1 point.
"Blue square" is not a color and blue is not a color on the flag;
the 5 people who gave either of these answers each get the same
penalty score, which is the median of:
- number of entrants = 27
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rounded up = 6
- double the highest score = 21 x 2 = 42
or in this case, 27.
* 2.2 More Specific Variants
On some questions it's possible that one entrant will give an answer
that's a more specific variant of an answer given by someone else.
In that case the more specific variant will usually be scored as if
the two answers are different, but the other, less specific variant
will be scored as if they are the same.
In the above example, if I had decided (wrongly) to score gules as
a more specific variant of red, then "red" would still score 21,
but "gules" would now score 1.
If a wrong answer is clearly associated with a specific right
answer, I will score the right answer as if the wrong answer was a
more specific variant of it. In the above example, if there were
3 additional entrants who said "white square", then "white square"
would be scored as wrong, but the score for "white" would be 4, not 1.
"More specific" scoring will NOT apply if the question asks for an
answer "in general terms"; a more specific answer will then at best be
treated the same as the more general one, and may be considered wrong.
* 3. Entries
Entries must be emailed to the address given above. Please do not
quote the questions back to me, and do send only plain text in ASCII
or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, attachments, Micros--t character sets, etc.,
and no Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail to comply will be publicly
chastised in the results posting.)
Your message should preferably consist of just your 10 answers,
numbered from 0 to 9, along with any explanations required. Your
name should be in it somewhere -- a From: line or signature is fine.
(If I don't see both a first and a last name, or an explicit request
for a particular form of your name to be used, then your email address
will be posted in the results).
You can expect an acknowledgement when I read your entry. If this
bounces, it won't be sent again.
* 3.1 Where Leeway is Allowed
In general there is no penalty for errors of spelling, capitalization,
English usage, or other such matters of form, nor for accidentally
sending email in an unfinished state, so long as it's clear enough
what you intended. Sometimes a specific question may imply stricter
rules, though. And if you give an answer that properly refers to a
different thing related to the one you intended, I will normally take
it as written.
Once you intentionally submit an answer, no changes will be allowed,
unless I decide there was a problem with the question. Similarly,
alternate answers within an entry will not be accepted. Only the
first answer that you intentionally submit counts.
* 3.2 Clarifications
Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but I may fail
in this intent. (For one thing, in many cases clarity could only be
provided by an example which would suggest one or another specific
answer, and I mustn't do that.)
In order to be fair to all entrants, I must insist that requests for
clarification must be emailed to me, NOT POSTED in any newsgroup.
But if you do ask for clarification, I'll probably say that the
question is clear enough as posted. If I do decide to clarify or
change a question, all entrants will be informed.
* 3.3 Supporting Information
It is your option whether or not to provide supporting information
to justify your answers. If you don't, I'll email you to ask for
it if I need to. If you supply it in the form of a URL, if at all
possible it should be a "deep link" to the specific relevant page.
There is no need to supply URLs for obvious, well-known reference
web sites, and there is no point in supplying URLs for pages that
don't actually support your answer.
If you provide any explanatory remarks along with your answers, you
are responsible for making it sufficiently clear that they are not
part of the answers. The particular format doesn't matter as long
as you're clear. In the scoring example above, "white square" was
wrong; "white (in the central square)" would have been taken as a
correct answer with an explanation.
* 4. Interpretation of questions
These are general rules that apply unless a question specifically
states otherwise.
* 4.1 Geography
* 4.1.1 Countries
"Country" means an independent country. Whether or not a place is
considered an independent country is determined by how it is listed
in reference sources.
For purposes of these contests, the Earth is considered to be divid-
ed into disjoint areas each of which is either (1) a country, (2) a
dependency, or (3) without national government. Their boundaries
are interpreted on a de facto basis. Any place with representatives
in a country's legislature is considered a part of that country rather
than a dependency of it.
The European Union is considered as an association of countries, not
a country itself.
Claims that are not enforced, or not generally recognized, don't count.
Places currently fighting a war of secession don't count. Embassies
don't count as special; they may have extraterritorial rights, but
they're still part of the host country (and city).
Countries existing at different historical times are normally
considered the same country if they have the same capital city.
* 4.1.2 States or provinces
Many countries or dependencies are divided into subsidiary political
entities, typically with their own subsidiary governments. At the
first level of division, these entities are most commonly called
states or provinces, but various other names are used; sometimes
varying even within the same country (e.g. to indicate unequal
political status).
Any reference to "states or provinces" in a question refers to
these entities at the first level of division, no matter what they
are called.
* 4.1.3 Distances
Distances between places on the Earth are measured along a great
circle path, and distance involving cities are based on the city
center (downtown).
* 4.2 Entertainment
A "movie" does not include any form of TV broadcast or video release;
it must have been shown in cinemas. "Oscar" and "Academy Award" are
AMPAS trademarks and refer to the awards given by that organization.
"Fiction" includes dramatizations of true stories.
* 4.3 Words and Numbers
* 4.3.1 Different Answers
Some questions specifically ask for a *word*, rather than the thing
that it names; this means that different words with the same meaning
will in general be treated as distinct answers. However, if two or
more inflectional variants, spelling variants, or other closely
related forms are correct answers, they will be treated as equivalent.
Similarly, if the question specifically asks for a name, different
things referred to by the same name will be treated as the same.
* 4.3.2 Permitted Words
The word that you give must be listed (or implied by a listing,
as with inflected forms) in a suitable dictionary. Generally
this means a printed dictionary published recently enough
to show reasonably current usage, or its online equivalent.
Other reasonably authoritative sources may be accepted on a
case-by-case basis. Words listed as obsolete or archaic usage
don't count, and sources that would list those words without
distinguishing them are not acceptable as dictionaries.
* 4.3.3 Permitted Numbers
Where the distinction is important, "number" refers to a specific
mathematical value, whereas "numeral" means a way of writing it.
Thus "4", "IV", and "four" are three different numerals representing
the same number. "Digit" means one of the characters "0", "1", "2",
etc. (These definitions represent one of several conflicting common
usages.)
* 4.3.4 "Contained in"
If a question asks for a word or numeral "contained" or "included"
in a phrase, title, or the like, this does not include substrings or
alternate meanings of words, unless explictly specified. For example,
if "Canada in 1967" is the title of a book, it contains the numeral
1967 and the preposition "in"; but it does not contain the word "an",
the adjective "in", or the numeral 96.
* 4.4 Tense and Time
When a question is worded in the present tense, the correctness of
your answer is determined by the facts at the moment you submit it.
(In a case where, in my judgement, people might reasonably be unaware
of the facts having changed, an out-of-date answer may be accepted as
correct.) Questions worded in the present perfect tense include the
present unless something states or implies otherwise. (For example,
Canada is a country that "has existed", as well as one that "exists".)
Different verbs in a sentence bear their usual tense relationship to
each other.
You are not allowed to change the facts yourself in order to make an
answer correct. For example, if a question asks for material on the
WWW, what you cite must already have existed before the contest was
first posted.
* 5. Judging
As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct,
and whether two answers with similar meaning (like red and gules)
are considered the same, different, or more/less specific variants.
I will do my best to be fair on all such issues, but sometimes it is
necessary to be arbitrary. Those who disagree with my rulings are
welcome to complain (or to start a competing contest, or whatever).
I may rescore the contest if I agree that I made a serious error and
it affects the high finishers.
* 6. Results
Results will normally be posted within a few days of the contest
closing. They may be delayed if I'm unexpectedly busy or for
technical reasons. If I feel I need help evaluating one or more
answers, I may make a consultative posting in the newsgroups before
scoring the contest.
In the results posting, all entrants will be listed in order of score,
but high (bad) scores may be omitted. The top few entrants' full
answer slates will be posted. A table of answers and their scores
will be given for each question.
* 7. Fun
This contest is for fun. Please do have fun, and good luck to all.
--
Mark Brader | "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent...
Toronto | the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly
m...@vex.net | the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."
--David Dunning
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Mark Brader
level of participation is not satisfactory, it will be the last in
the MSB series. Please consider entering even if you don't think
you have good answers for all the questions.
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Saturday, September
17, 2011 (by Toronto time, zone -4). I intend to post two more
reminders before then (that's one more than I originally said, but
I accidentally made the contest period longer than I intended to).
Everything below this point is the same as in the original contest
announcement. See below the questions for a detailed explanation,
Mark Brader
the MSB series. Please consider entering even if you don't think
you have good answers for all the questions.
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Saturday, September
reminder before then (that's one more than I originally said, but
Mark Brader
If the level of participation is not satisfactory, it will also be
the final contest in the MSB series. Please consider entering even
As always, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to m...@vex.net; do not post to
any newsgroup. Entries must reach here by Saturday, September
you have a bit less than 5 days to enter.
Mark Brader
| As usual, for each of the items above, your objective is to give a
| response that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW
| other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material...
There were 25 entrants this time, and the winner is PETER SMYTH.
Congratulations! Dan Tilque took second place and Garmt de Vries-
Uiterweerd finished third.
These are their slates of answers (some abbreviated). As always, you
should be reading this in a monospaced font for proper tabular alignment.
PETER SMYTH DAN TILQUE G. DE VRIES-UITERWEERD
[0] Fernando Pessoa St. David's Day Jules Verne
[1] Deimos Phobos Phobos
[2] German Albanian Serbian
[3] Great Britain UKoGB&NI Britain
[4] Yn Ob An
[5] Ton/in˛ Millipascal Microtorr
[6] T. Roosevelt F. Roosevelt Grant
[7] Albania Rif Republic Greece
[8] Amstrad comp. game Radio Text-based game
[9] 36 4 6
| Please do not quote the questions back to me, and do send only
| plain text in ASCII or ISO 8859-1: no HTML, attachments, Micros--t
| character sets, etc., and no Unicode, please. (Entrants who fail
| to comply will be publicly chastised in the results posting.)
Erland Sommarskog, and Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd are all chastised!
You naughty people! Naughty, naughty!
To review the scoring:
| Low score wins; a perfect score is 1.
|
| If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
| wrong, or if you skip the question, you get a high score as a penalty.
| The scores on the different questions are *multiplied* to produce a
| final score. ... It is also possible that I may consider one answer
| to be a more specific variant of another: in that case it will be
| scored as if they are different, but the other, less specific variant
Here is the complete table of scores.
RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
1. 960 Peter Smyth 1 8 2 2 2 1 5 3 1 1
2. 2856 Dan Tilque 1 17 2 3 1 1 7 1 2 2
3. 7072 Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd 1 17 1 8 2 1 13 1 2 1
4. 7488 Duncan Booth 1 8 6 1 2 1 13 1 6 1
5. 11900 Lieven Marchand 1 17 1 5 1 2 7 1 5 2
6. 21420 Ted Schuerzinger 1 17 6 3 1 2 7 1 1 5
7. 29952 Dan Unger 1 8 2 3 3 2 13 1 4 2
8. 35700 Erland Sommarskog 1 17 1 5 1 2 7 6 5 1
9. 38400 Duke Lefty 1 8 2 8 1 1 5 6 2 5
10. 44200 Alan Curry 1 17 5 2 2 2 13 1 1 5
11. 57600 Haran Pilpel 1 8 2 5 2 4 5 6 3 1
12. 64512 Jonathan Dushoff 1 8 6 8 1 1 7 WR 2 1
13. 70720 John Gerson 1 17 5 8 1 4 13 1 2 1
14. 106080 Stephen Perry WR 17 5 8 1 1 13 1 2 1
15. 146880 Bruce Bowler 3 17 1 3 1 4 5 WR 4 1
16. 159120 Joshua Kreitzer 1 17 5 8 1 1 13 6 3 1
Tony Wright 1 17 WR 5 1 4 13 2 3 1
Nick Selwyn 2 8 6 3 2 2 7 2 4 5
Ruzica Obradovic 2 17 5 8 1 2 5 6 4 1
Martin DeMello 1 17 6 5 3 2 13 1 2 5
Don Del Grande 3 17 2 3 2 2 13 WR 2 2
Phil Carmody 1 17 WR 8 2 1 13 WR 2 1
Kevin Stone 1 17 1 WR 3 WR 13 3 2 2
334...@gmail.com 1 8 WR WR 1 2 13 3 10 1
Mike Jones 3 17 6 WR 1 1 7 6 6 2
Scores of 250,000 or worse are not shown.
And here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct
answers in the order worst to best (most to least popular). The
notation ">>>" means that "more specific variant" scoring was used.
| 0. Name something or someone that Google has commemorated
| with a "Google Doodle" or "Google Holiday Logo" in 2011.
| (See rule 4.4.)
2 Evliya Çelebi (2011-03-25, Turkey)
1 Bolivia Independence Day (2011-08-06, Bolivia)
1 Children's Day (2011-04-04, China etc.)
1 Dame Nellie Melba (2011-05-19, Australia)
1 Day of Slavonic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment & Culture
(2011-05-24, Bulgaria)
1 Dia Dos Namorados (2011-06-12, Brazil)
1 Fernando Pessoa (2011-06-13, Portugal)
1 Festival of Kites (2011-01-14, India)
1 Harry Houdini (2011-03-24)
1 Joaquin Sorolla (2011-02-27, Spain etc.)
1 Jules Verne (2011-02-08)
1 Mid-Autumn Festival (2011-09-12, China etc.)
1 Peruvian Elections (2011-04-10)
1 Republic Day (2011-06-02, Italy)
1 Richard Scarry (2011-06-05, USA)
1 Russia Day (2011-06-12, Russia)
1 St. David's Day (2011-03-01 UK)
1 Tarsila do Amaral (2011-09-01, Brazil)
1 The first World's Fair (2011-05-01)
1 Xu Beihong (2011-07-19, China etc.)
WRONG:
1 Vincent Van Gogh (2005-03-30)
I thought it might be interesting to see if any entrants collided
on this question, given that there are quite a large number of
possible correct answers -- and, as you see above, a few of them did.
Of course, you were more likely to collide if you didn't think of
trying logos not used in your own country.
I decided that answers like "Gregor Mendel's birthday" should be
counted as "Gregor Mendel", because the birthday or anniversary is
more a matter of when the honor is scheduled than of what's really
being offered.
The question was designed so that additional answers would arise
and become correct during the contest period, giving an incentive
for entrants to delay their entry and then choose those answers --
unless they were afraid others would use the same strategy and choose
the same ones. In fact only two entrants chose answers that became
correct during the contest period, and they did each score a 1,
but so did most of the others.
Currently there are 172 possible correct answers shown on the
three pages:
http://www.google.com/logos/logos11-1.html
http://www.google.com/logos/logos11-2.html
http://www.google.com/logos/index.html
(presumably the third one will become logos11-3.html at the end
of the month.)
By the way, Google themselves have used the term "Google Doodle"
inconsistently. Sometimes it specifically means the kind of logo
that "evolves" from one day to the next, as during the Olympics;
other times it's just used the same way as "Google Holiday Logo".
I meant the question to be understood inclusively.
| 1. Name a moon (natural satellite) of Mars.
8 Deimos
At one point early in the contest the score was 7-0 for Phobos.
Showing Deimos as _ for the sake of visual clarity, the complete
sequence in order of submission was:
P P P P P P P _ _ _ P P _ P _ _ P P P P P _ P P _
| 2. Name a language whose English name obviously refers to
| a specific country now existing, and which is the primary
| language used in a different country. *NOTE*: For this and
| the following question, the usual rule 4.1.1 does *not* apply,
| so that "country" is not limited to independent countries
| but may be used with any sensible meaning. (However, the
| two countries must not share any part of their territory.)
5 Greek (Cyprus)
2 Albanian (Kosovo)
2 German (Austria)
2 Spanish (Mexico)
1 English (USA)
1 French (Monaco)
1 Italian (San Marino)
1 Malay (Brunei)
1 Serbian (Montenegro)
WRONG:
1 Arabic (name does not obviously refer to specific country)
1 Croatian (primary language only in Croatia)
1 Tuvaluan (primary language only in Tuvalu)
Portuguese and Greek, eh? Hmm.
http://www.ethnologue.com was the source I relied on for most decisions
about what are distinct languages and which ones are primarily used
in what countries.
The most difficult case was Malay, which the site describes as a
"macrolanguage", which basically means that it's termed a single
language but there are reasons to disagree with that; in addition,
the name may refer more to the Malay people in general than to
Malaysia, but then -- unlike the case of Saudi Arabia -- Malaysia
is where most of the Malay people are. On both points I decided to
err in favor of accepting the answer.
I'm not sure, without checking, how many correct answers there might
be that weren't given.
| 3. Give a name (formal or informal, but not a nickname or
| abbreviation) that is regularly used in English to identify
| a present-day country whose largest city (metropolitan area)
| is London. Again, rule 4.1.1 does not apply.
|
| For example, if I had said "New York" instead of "London",
| correct answers would include "United States" and "America",
| but not "Stateside" or "USA".
5 England
3 United Kingdom
3 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
2 Great Britain
1 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
WRONG:
1 Blighty (nickname)
1 British Isles (not a country)
1 Her Majesty's United Kingdom (name and description)
That was fun. I love the way one entrant scored a 1 by including
the word "the".
| 4. Name a word that is a preposition and is 2 letters long.
| Both letters must occur in the English alphabet.
2 An (German)
2 En (Spanish)
2 Of
2 Yn (Welsh)
1 Ad (Latin)
1 At
1 Au (|Xam) (+)
1 Di (Italian)
1 In
1 Iz (Croatian)
1 Li (Kurdish) (+)
1 Ob (Latin)
1 Od (Czech)
1 Pa (Albanian)
1 Su (Italian)
1 Te (Dutch)
1 Um (German)
1 Zu (German)
This is another one with lots and lots of currect answers, and yet
people found ways to collide. English words that are correct
answers and weren't given include "as", "on", "to", and "up".
In two cases (marked +), entrants named words of at best dubious
correctness in the languages they cited, but which were correct
in other languages. For that matter, "an" was cited as German,
but is also correct in English, as in "miles an hour".
| 5. Name a unit of pressure. You must be able, if asked, to cite
| 3 unrelated web pages where this unit of pressure is actually
| used (rather than defined -- for example, they might be giving
| a measurement, estimate, specification, or forecast).
2 Atmosphere (101,325)
2 Millibar (100)
2 Millimeter of water (9.80665)
2 Pascal (1)
2 Pound per square inch (6,894.757)
1 Bar (100,000)
1 Centimeter of water (98.0665)
1 Copper unit of pressure (no single definition)
1 Gigapascal (1,000,000,000)
1 Hectopascal (100)
1 Kilopascal (1,000)
1 Micrometer of mercury (.13332239)
1 Microtorr (.00013332237)
1 Millipascal (.001)
1 Ton per square inch (13,789,515 or 15,444,256)
WRONG:
1 Kip (unit of force)
Yea, torr!
The parenthesized numbers show the value of each unit in pascals;
most of the ones that aren't powers of 10 are approximate.
Of the two entrants who named the millimeter of water, one gave
it with "gauge" and the other with "column", but the unit is the
same in either case.
The copper unit of pressure is used in connection with firearms, and
refers to a test involving crushing a piece of copper. I could only
find rather vague descriptions on the Web as to exactly how it works,
but the exact value of the unit apparently depends on the specific
configuration of the test device.
| 6. Name a person who was President of the US and made at least
| some attempt to run for an additional term of office that
| would not have been allowed if the 22nd Amendment had been
| part of the Constitution from the outset. In effect this
| means he was president for 6 years or more and made at least
| some attempt to run for an additional 4-year term.
7 Franklin Roosevelt (1940)
5 Theodore Roosevelt (1912)
Franklin Roosevelt, of course, was the only one to actually obtain a
third term, and a fourth too. Neither Grant nor Theodore Roosevelt
was able to obtain his party's renomination for another term;
Roosevelt ran anyway, starting his own party, and lost. Since Grant
wasn't actually a candidate by the time of the relevant election,
I wasn't surprised that he was the most popular answer, especially
among the later entrants. Using the first initial of each names,
this time the answers given in order of submission were:
F T F U U F U F T U U U T U T F U U T F F U U U U
As far as I know, there are no other correct answers among presidents
before Franklin Roosevelt, but there is one later one. Roosevelt's
successor, Harry Truman, was the last president eligible to try.
He didn't overtly campaign for renomination in 1952, but he did
allow his name to be placed on the New Hampshire Democratic primary
ballot, and I would have accepted him on that basis. (Truman was
beaten in New Hampshire by Estes Kefauver, and *then* announced
his non-candidacy. In the end, of course, Adlai Stevenson won the
Democratic nomination and lost the election to Eisenhower.)
| 7. Name a country existing in 1926, that in 1906 either did not
| exist or was smaller in area (not counting dependencies).
| That is, between those two years it was either created,
| re-created, or enlarged. This time rule 4.1.1 *does* apply,
| both in regard to what is a country and to whether two
| countries existing at different times are the same country.
Croatia, Herzegovina, etc. from AHE, 1919) [= Yugoslavia]
3 Albania (independence from AHE, 1912)
2 Denmark (gained North Schleswig from Germany, 1920)
1 Afghanistan (independence from BE, 1919)
1 Belgium (gained Eupen-Malmédy area from Germany, 1919)
1 Czechoslovakia (independence from AHE, 1919)
1 Finland (independence from Russia, 1917)
1 Greece (gained part of Thrace from Bulgaria, 1913)
1 Irish Free State (independence from UK, 1919)
1 Lithuania (independence from Germany, 1919)
1 Rif Republic (independence from Spanish Morocco, 1921)
1 Romania (gained Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania etc.,
1918-20)
1 Union of South Africa (independence from BE, 1920)
WRONG:
1 Austria (same country as AHE)
1 Republic of China (same country as previous China)
1 Turkey (same country as Ottoman Empire)
1 United States
I'm abbreviating the Austro-Hungarian, British, and Ottoman Empires
to their respective initials here and in the table above. Dates of
independence are generally dates when it was declared; in all cases
there was de facto independence by 1926 (although for the Rif it
ended the same year).
Big collision on the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes here.
I had to make a few close decisions on this one. Rule 4.1.1 says:
> Countries existing at different historical times are normally
> considered the same country if they have the same capital city.
is the same country as the KoSC&S, which did; and it's also the
same as the pre-WW1 country of Serbia. That ruling only benefited
the entrants who named Yugoslavia; but on the same basis, Austria
is the same country as the pre-war AHE, and the China's conversion
to a republic did not start a new country.
But note that the rule says "if", not "if and only if", and for that
matter it also says "normally", meaning that judgement is allowed.
I felt that Turkey was the successor to the OE at least as much as
Austria was to the AHE, even though it did not have the same capital,
so the scoring was more consistent if I treated those as equivalent
also. So that's what I did, and this decision is final.
Of course Austria/AHE, China, and Turkey/OE could still have been
correct answers if they gained territory over the 20-year period,
as Serbia/KoSC&S/Yugoslavia did. But Austria and Turkey were (and
are) much smaller than the respective empires, and as far as I can
call China did not gain any territory either.
As for the US, its territories were not dependencies, so the promotion
of some of them to states during the period did not imply any gain
in area.
| 8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
| to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
| produced and commercially distributed.
>>> 5 Book
>>> 2 Embossed Braille book [= Braille]
>>> 1 Paperback book
>>> 4 Comic book
6 Computer game [= PC game]
>>> 2 Text-based adventure game
>>> 1 5ź-inch floppy disk
>>> 1 Amstrad CPC computer game
3 LP album [= Vinyl record]
2 Audio cassette
2 Audio CD
2 Radio
This one clearly required general/specific scoring, so that's
how I did it -- unfortunately for the one entrant who "paper".
Note how the original radio series was one of the least popular
answers, while the TV and movie versions were not mentioned at all.
| 9. In some sports completing a specific task scores, all at once,
| a certain number of points that is given specifically in the
| rules of the sport. Give such a number that occurs in the
| scoring of some sport. *NOTE*: You must also name the sport,
| but it will *not* be taken as part of the answer.
|
| For example, if darts was considered a sport, then you might
| answer "25 (darts)", in reference to the score for hitting
| the outer ring of the bullseye; but this would be counted
| equivalently to a correct answer of 25 in conjunction with
| any other sport. But even if duplicate bridge was considered
| a sport, the 22 matchpoints that you might score (in North
| American scoring) by beating the pairs at 22 other tables
| would still not make "22 (duplicate bridge)" a correct answer,
| because the 22 is merely a count of pairs beaten, and not a
| number specified in the rules.
|
| For purposes of this question "sport" does not include
| competitions based only on mental skill and/or dexterity with
| the hands and arms, such as card games, pool games, or darts.
2 -10 (shuffleboard) (tennis)
2 2 (basketball) (rugby)
2 4 (cricket)
1 0 (freestyle wrestling)
1 10 (tennis)
1 11 (MotoGP racing)
1 12 (Formula 1 racing)
1 15 (tennis)
1 18 (Formula 1 racing)
1 25 (Formula 1 racing)
1 3 (American football)
1 36 (NASCAR racing)
1 39 (NASCAR racing)
1 40 (tennis)
1 6 (cricket)
1 7 (judo)
1 9 (pre-season Australian football)
On this one I decided I was willing to trust that the entrants
knew what they were talking about, and accepted all answers given
as correct rather than researching the rules of all those sports.
The entrant who said 0 cited a rule saying that "no points"
would be scored in a certain situation.
Nobody tried 1. In sports like baseball it might be disqualified on
the same grounds as 22 in the bridge example, but it's still a correct
answer in sports where you can score (say) 1, 2, or 3 points for
different specific actions -- such as basketball or Canadian football.
The most popular answer was 5. If the sport had been counted as part
of the answer, "5 -- rugby union" would have been the most popular
answer, given 4 times.
Other than 1, the only number from 0 to 12 that wasn't given was 8.
This is not a correct answer in any sport that I know the scoring for,
but that's all I can say about it.
To reduce the number of correct answers, I probably should
additionally have excluded tennis-style scoring, where "40" is
basically a fancy way of saying "3", and also car racing scoring,
where a number that's basically a count like the 22 in the bridge
example is looked up in a table. But (1) I didn't think of those
cases, and (2) the question was more than long enough as it was.
And that's MSB72 done. Thank you all for playing. Once again the
number of entrants has barely made it into the viable range, so
I guess I will continue this contest series sometime.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto This is a signature antibody. Please
m...@vex.net remove any viruses from your signature.
Dan Tilque
>
> There were 25 entrants this time, and the winner is PETER SMYTH.
Congratulations, Peter
>
>
> | 3. Give a name (formal or informal, but not a nickname or
> | abbreviation) that is regularly used in English to identify
> | a present-day country whose largest city (metropolitan area)
> | is London. Again, rule 4.1.1 does not apply.
> |
> | For example, if I had said "New York" instead of "London",
> | correct answers would include "United States" and "America",
> | but not "Stateside" or "USA".
>
> 8 Britain
> 5 England
> 3 United Kingdom
> 3 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
> 2 Great Britain
> 1 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
> WRONG:
> 1 Blighty (nickname)
> 1 British Isles (not a country)
> 1 Her Majesty's United Kingdom (name and description)
>
> That was fun. I love the way one entrant scored a 1 by including
> the word "the".
I did wonder whether Albion would have been a valid answer. But not
enough to risk getting a WR on it. It seems like it would be more of a
nickname than an informal name. The line between informal and nickname
is mighty thin.
Thanks for conducting the contest, Mark.
--
Dan Tilque
Keeping Pluto dead has taken a lot of work.
-- Mike Brown "How I killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming"
Phil Carmody
Oh, nose! Both my WR's are WR, so no self-supporting rant possible.
Hmmm, maybe there's some leverage in this direction:
> | 8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
> | to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
> | produced and commercially distributed.
>
> 10 Paper
> >>> 5 Book
> >>> 2 Embossed Braille book [= Braille]
> >>> 1 Paperback book
> >>> 4 Comic book
> 6 Computer game [= PC game]
Adams, or is it merely based on THGTTG?
> And that's MSB72 done. Thank you all for playing. Once again the
> number of entrants has barely made it into the viable range, so
> I guess I will continue this contest series sometime.
Phil
--
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
-- Napoleon
Duncan Booth
> m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) writes:
>
> Oh, nose! Both my WR's are WR, so no self-supporting rant possible.
> Hmmm, maybe there's some leverage in this direction:
>
>> | 8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
>> | to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
>> | produced and commercially distributed.
>>
>> 10 Paper
>> >>> 5 Book
>> >>> 2 Embossed Braille book [= Braille]
>> >>> 1 Paperback book
>> >>> 4 Comic book
>> 6 Computer game [= PC game]
>
> Is the computer game actually a version of THGTTG as written by
> Adams, or is it merely based on THGTTG?
Douglas Adams. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml
for an online playable version.
From an interview with Steve Meretzky:
> What are your memories of working on the game?
>
> The original goal was that we'd do the design together, Douglas would
> write the most important text passages, and I'd fill in around them,
> and I'd do the implementation (read: high-level programming, using
> Infocom's development system). Douglas came to Cambridge,
> Massachusetts for a week when we got started. Then we exchanged emails
> daily (and this was in 1984, when non-LAN email was still pretty rare)
> and phone calls approximately weekly.
>
> Around May 1984, with the game just a few weeks away from its deadline
> for start of alpha testing, and about half the game still undesigned,
> I went over to England. Douglas was behind schedule both with the game
> and the fourth Hitchhiker's book, So Long and Thanks For All the Fish.
> His agent had sent him to a country inn in western England, far from
> the distractions of London life. That's where I went, with
> instructions to camp out on his doorstep until the game design was
> done. We spent four days at this really pleasant inn, a former
> baronial mansion called Huntsham Court, sipping expensive wines and
> designing the game. How can life get any better than that?
>
> I then returned to the US and implemented the entire game in about
> three intense weeks, just in time for an abbreviated summer of
> testing. Douglas came back over in September for some final rewriting
> of key text portions, and it was done in time for a late October
> release. The game quickly shot to No 1 on the bestseller lists, and
> stayed there for months.
--
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com
Kevin Stone
> | abbreviation) that is regularly used in English to identify
> | a present-day country whose largest city (metropolitan area)
> | is London. Again, rule 4.1.1 does not apply.
incorrect to me.
Surely the British Isles could be considered an informal name for the UK?
--
Kev
Ted Schuerzinger
> Surely the British Isles could be considered an informal name for the
> UK?
--
Ted S.
fedya at hughes dot net
Now blogging at http://justacineast.blogspot.com
Mark Brader
>> | abbreviation) that is regularly used in English to identify
>> | a present-day country whose largest city (metropolitan area)
>> | is London. Again, rule 4.1.1 does not apply.
>> 1 British Isles (not a country)
> incorrect to me.
>
> Surely the British Isles could be considered an informal name for the UK?
--
Mark Brader | "...it doesn't even fulfill the most basic
Toronto | requirements for a good text editor, such as
m...@vex.net | having a built-in mail reader." -- Per Abrahamsen
Kevin Stone
The British Isles is the entire group of islands (around 6,000 of them).
--
Kev
Erland Sommarskog
> 1 Serbian (Montenegro)
Ouch! Don't say that in the wrong company, or you get a fizz in your
eye. ...then again, if you say it's wrong in the wrong company, you
get fizz in the another eye as well.
Anyway, according to Wikipedia the official language of Montenegrin,
but if you then look up that article, it starts
Montenegrin (Crnogorski jezik ...) is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian
language as spoken by Montenegrins;
So you could well argue that Montenegrin is not really a distinct
language. Then again, you could argue the same about Serbian... Yet
then again, if Serbian is correct, because Montenegrin is the correct
name, then so is Croatian...
> I'm not sure, without checking, how many correct answers there might
> be that weren't given.
we don't really know what you have approved. But here are a couple
possible ones:
Catalan, main language of Andorra. (I've seen referencs to Catalonia as
a country, but I don't know how common it is).
Swedish, the primary langauge of the Åland islands. Which has its own
country code.
Roumanian, also the primary language of Moldova. Where they cannot
agree on whether the language is to be called Moldovan or Roumanian.
Russian, could claimed to be the primary language of several ex-Soviet
republics, particular White Russia and Kazakhstan, although the answer
may depend on whom you ask.
Chinese, for practical purposes Taiwan count as a separate country.
Somali - but then you need to prove that Somalia is entirely disjunct,
which may be a difficult case.
I don't ask Mark to comment on all of these. All I can say there are
quite a few contestable ones, but with the entrants were mainly wise
to stay away from them.
> 3 Albania (independence from AHE, 1912)
> 1 Lithuania (independence from Germany, 1919)
Memel/Klaipeda by walking in there.
> 1 Romania (gained Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania etc.,
> 1918-20)
--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esq...@sommarskog.se
Don Del Grande
> Phil Carmody wrote:
>> Mark Brader writes:
>>
>> Oh, nose! Both my WR's are WR, so no self-supporting rant possible.
>> Hmmm, maybe there's some leverage in this direction:
>>
>>> | 8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
>>> | to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
>>> | produced and commercially distributed.
cassette releases; the one I was thinking of was the 6-tape release of
the original radio series, but after I sent in my answers, I
remembered that the LPs were also released on a 3-tape set.
>>> 10 Paper
>>> >>> 5 Book
>>> >>> 2 Embossed Braille book [= Braille]
>>> >>> 1 Paperback book
>>> >>> 4 Comic book
>>> 6 Computer game [= PC game]
>>
>> Is the computer game actually a version of THGTTG as written by
>> Adams, or is it merely based on THGTTG?
>
>The game was written as a join effort by Steve Meretzky of Infocom and
>Douglas Adams. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml
>for an online playable version.
Holistic Detective Agency" in London), and the last thing he said to
me was that they were just about ready to start work on a sequel
(which, alas, was never made). (He did help make another Infocom
game, "Bureaucracy".)
-- Don
gerson
"Mark Brader" <m...@vex.net> wrote in message
> | 4. Name a word that is a preposition ...
> 1 Au (|Xam) (+)
Mark Brader
>>>> | to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
>>>> | produced and commercially distributed.
But that doesn't matter, since it's the same medium.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "The E-Mail of the species is more deadly
m...@vex.net | than the Mail." -- Peter Neumann
Mark Brader
>> 1 Au (|Xam) (+)
> preposition in |Xam
Phil Carmody
> >> | 8. Name a medium in which a version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide
> >> | to the Galaxy" (written originally by Douglas Adams) has been
> >> | produced and commercially distributed.
> >>
> >
> > Is the computer game actually a version of THGTTG as written by
> > Adams, or is it merely based on THGTTG?
>
> The game was written as a join effort by Steve Meretzky of Infocom and
> Douglas Adams.
>
>
> > What are your memories of working on the game?
> >
> > The original goal was that we'd do the design together, Douglas would
> > write the most important text passages, and I'd fill in around them,
as it would already be written. It sounds like he's writing something
new.
Phil,
Mark Brader
> If it was a version of THGTTG, then he wouldn't need to write it,
> as it would already be written. It sounds like he's writing something
> new.
By that logic, he didn't need to write the books because he'd already
written the radio scripts. Adaptation for a new medium involves writing.
--
Mark Brader | "'"'Tisn't very easy to tell if a '"' or ''' mark
Toronto | is an opening or closing quote or ditto or prime,"
m...@vex.net | said Mark,' said 6'2" d'Artagnan," said Mark Brader.
Willem
) Phil Carmody:
)> If it was a version of THGTTG, then he wouldn't need to write it,
)> as it would already be written. It sounds like he's writing something
)> new.
)
) By that logic, he didn't need to write the books because he'd already
) written the radio scripts. Adaptation for a new medium involves writing.
Especially given the significant differences between the radio scripts
and the books. And the TV series. And the movie. And, yes, the game.
SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT
Matthew Russotto
>I remember talking to Adams in 1987 (at a signing of "Dirk Gently's
>Holistic Detective Agency" in London), and the last thing he said to
>me was that they were just about ready to start work on a sequel
>(which, alas, was never made). (He did help make another Infocom
>game, "Bureaucracy".)
released.
--
The problem with socialism is there's always
someone with less ability and more need.
Esra Sdrawkcab
<russ...@grace.speakeasy.net> wrote:
> In article <h3tf77p455qgarhc7...@4ax.com>,
> Don Del Grande <del_gra...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> I remember talking to Adams in 1987 (at a signing of "Dirk Gently's
>> Holistic Detective Agency" in London), and the last thing he said to
>> me was that they were just about ready to start work on a sequel
>> (which, alas, was never made). (He did help make another Infocom
>> game, "Bureaucracy".)
>
> The stub of the Hitchhiker's game sequel (milliways) was eventually
> released.
it was indeed stubby.
--
[dash dash space newline sig]
"Nuns! NUNS! Reverse! Reverse!"
gerson
"Mark Brader" wrote
> 1 40 (tennis)
Maybe a bit late, I know, but to get 40 in tennis you have
to have had 30 already, (so it's 10 more), silly though it
all is.
Mark Brader
>> 1 40 (tennis)
John Gerson:
You're right. The question required the points to be scored "all at
once", so that answer is wrong. However, rescoring it would not affect
any of the high finishers. And I did say
| On this one I decided I was willing to trust that the entrants
| knew what they were talking about, and accepted all answers given
| as correct rather than researching the rules of all those sports.
others, and frankly I didn't feel like it. I hate sports questions.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Close your tag and give it a rest, Jason"
m...@vex.net | --FoxTrot (Bill Amend)
Peter Smyth
news:4P6dnfzp-dOn0B7T...@vex.net...
>
>Mark Brader:
>>> 1 40 (tennis)
>
>John Gerson:
>> Maybe a bit late, I know, but to get 40 in tennis you have
>> to have had 30 already...
>
>You're right. The question required the points to be scored "all at
>once", so that answer is wrong. However, rescoring it would not affect
>any of the high finishers. And I did say
>
>| On this one I decided I was willing to trust that the entrants
>| knew what they were talking about, and accepted all answers given
>| as correct rather than researching the rules of all those sports.
>
>If I'd scored that one as wrong, I would've had to research all the
>others, and frankly I didn't feel like it. I hate sports questions.
In this case NASCAR racing covers every number between 1 and 43 so 40 would
be correct anyway.
Peter Smyth
Mark Brader
> be correct anyway.
--
Mark Brader | "...he entertained the notion that I was cribbing from
Toronto | other [students' exams] until it was pointed out that
m...@vex.net | I often had the only correct answer..." --Lars Eighner