Random Rants LXXII - What is wrong with us?

[Broken_Erika]

People buy games they don't want?

That's how i ended up with Daikatana.......

 

[JohannaK]

The Count of Monte Cristo is awesome. 18th Century British novels are impossible. I was gonna make my final paper on Robinson Crusoe and Coetzee's Foe, then started reading Robinson Crusoe in the original English... and immediately decided it was not to be.

 

[Arakhor]

It wasn't until the 19th century that sentences hit peak length.

 

[sophie]

We had a multiple choice question at trivia today.. "Which one of these was not originally written in English?"

6 possible answers. My team picked "Ivanhoe". It didn't feel right to me but that's not enough to overrule the consensus (of 7 other people). The consensus was based on not much at all and I knew it. But my objection was based on pure emotion and...

"The Metamorphosis" was on the list. I was like.. "I've had 3 beers but that sounds familiar. KYRIAKOS. My brain is telling me that this book is related to this person. Why. I don't know. It's probably Greek."

But I couldn't figure out how to explain this to my team in any way, and this all happened in the span of seconds.. so we didn't go with it. Turns out it was KAFKA. Right. Yeah that sounds exactly right, which it is. Too bad. We got 4th place (out of 13-14 tems today) by 3 points anyway, our worst performance in I think 2 years

Dude. Rough. Metamorphosis is a Kafka novella, originally published in Austria-Hungary as Die Verwandlung.

In other news, my last two times at the super-hardcore University of Chicago pub trivia have resulted in wins. We've been going every week since like mid-November, and our team of 4 history students (one specializing in history of navigation and science, me specializing in Medieval/Early Modern with a decent knowledge of literature, language/linguistics, and music, one specializing in Revolutionary France and also well versed in Chinese culture and history, and one specializing in modern history, with a really good knowledge of broad trivia topics and geography) has been hitting top 3 pretty consistently. We added 4 other sciency/economics people for our last two go-rounds. We won the final session of the Spring quarter (in a field of 15-20 teams) in a tiebreaker (see below), and absolutely crushed with a similar team this week in a much smaller field (like 6-7 teams).

Our tiebreaker was: how many words in Oh the Places You'll Go? Closest to the actual wordcount wins. We answered 900 and there were iirc 915. Another good tiebreaker we had once was "How many miles of alleys and driveways are there in the city of Chicago?"

 

[JohannaK]

those are just absurd...

 

[sophie]

those are just absurd...

Yeah, it's weird, sometimes the questions are really good - cryptic, but if your knowledge extends into that topic you'll probably get it. There are a fair few you can logic through with some decent background knowledge and a perceptive analysis of the question.

e.g.: "What is the name of Odin's spear in Norse mythology"?
"What film released in the early-mid 2000s was the first ever animated film to win a Hugo Award"?
"Four townships were annexed by the city of Chicago in 1889, including Hyde Park (neighborhood University of Chicago is located in). The names of two of them still remain as the names of Chicago neighborhood areas. Name any one of the other three townships"
"One US senator has a surname which is a perfect rhyme of the state he represents. Name this senator"

Other times the question seems like it'll be really good but they tip their hand at the very end and it ends up being very obvious.
There was one such example from this week's, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

 

[Takhisis]

Germans have words for everything.

Surely they'll have to come up with one for ‘the curse that makes reigning world champions or Confederations Cup champions and that aren't Brazil unable to pass even the first round’ by now?

People buy games they don't want?

Why else do we have a Gifting Keys thread?

In other news, my last two times at the super-hardcore University of Chicago pub trivia have resulted in wins. We've been going every week since like mid-November, and our team of 4 history students (one specializing in history of navigation and science, me specializing in Medieval/Early Modern with a decent knowledge of literature, language/linguistics, and music, one specializing in Revolutionary France and also well versed in Chinese culture and history, and one specializing in modern history, with a really good knowledge of broad trivia topics and geography) has been hitting top 3 pretty consistently. We added 4 other sciency/economics people for our last two go-rounds. We won the final session of the Spring quarter (in a field of 15-20 teams) in a tiebreaker (see below), and absolutely crushed with a similar team this week in a much smaller field (like 6-7 teams).

Our tiebreaker was: how many words in Oh the Places You'll Go? Closest to the actual wordcount wins. We answered 900 and there were iirc 915. Another good tiebreaker we had once was "How many miles of alleys and driveways are there in the city of Chicago?"

How 'Murico-centric are these things?

 

[Arakhor]

I remember that Odin's spear is called Gungnir, but that's hardly common knowledge for anyone else who hasn't actually read any Norse mythology.

 

[cardgame]

I read Robinson Crusoe in third grade, really enjoyed it and it basically made me the reader I am today.

Easily could have been an abridged/modernized version though. Probably was, though not that abridged - it was still quite thick, not a children's version.

 

[Zkribbler]

Our tiebreaker was: how many words in Oh the Places You'll Go?

Whoa! I count 5.

 

[r16]

have you people ever encountered that "Prove you're not a Robot" thing ? While a web cafe indeed provides extra challenges , with game upgrades going on at the same time and the like , ı can't get behind unsolveable puzzles . Which ı could previously . 2 or 3 failed sets and one would come in the end and you would go . If people don't want people do stuff they shouldn't give the appearance that they could , right ? So , no claims of unfairness , when it happens . Much like the Deposit stuff in this country .

 

[JohannaK]

I did read Robinson Crusoe at like age 7 or 8, but I did so in Spanish. I do not think it was abridged, but it was a quite recent edition so probably modernised. I loved it. That is why I wanted to do my paper on it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I did read Robinson Crusoe at like age 7 or 8, but I did so in Spanish. I do not think it was abridged, but it was a quite recent edition so probably modernised. I loved it. That is why I wanted to do my paper on it.

I have a copy around somewhere, but never got into it. I remember back about 45 years ago, one of my elementary school teachers asked me in class, "____, you read a lot, have you ever read Robinson Crusoe?" She was a bit put out when I said no, as she'd been trying to interest some of the other kids in reading it.

In the meantime I'm still working my way through the Outlander novels and might get them done some time next year (they're very thick books and I don't read much at a time).

I've been taking a hard look at my book collection in recent months. I'm actually a bit horrified now at some of the stuff I read during my childhood years as some of it's very definitely racist by 21st century standards. So out went the Bobbsey Twins books, the Donna Parker books, and the Nancy Drew books are going as well. At least my favorites have withstood scrutiny.

Interesting note: Laura Ingalls Wilder's name was recently removed from a children's literature award because some of her writing was deemed racist. While the TV show was okay, some of the books weren't. It's not something I noticed myself, since I only read one or two of them, and it was decades ago.

 

[Lexicus]

I've read Robinson Crusoe, not in the original English, but my enjoyment of it went way down when I realized that it's basically propaganda about the worst parts of classical liberalism.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I've read Robinson Crusoe, not in the original English, but my enjoyment of it went way down when I realized that it's basically propaganda about the worst parts of classical liberalism.

do tell

The only thing I can remember being like forced to read the entirety of in school is the saga about Gunnlaug Serpent-tounge

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Whoa! I count 5.

Does a contraction count as only one word, or as two? A case would be made that the title has 6 words total, even if an apostrophe is used to indicate that two of them are sort of slurred together.

 

[Arakhor]

If you're doing strict word-counts, it's usually better to count a contraction as two, rather than one.

 

[sophie]

Does a contraction count as only one word, or as two? A case would be made that the title has 6 words total, even if an apostrophe is used to indicate that two of them are sort of slurred together.

Yeah but how many morphemes though?

How 'Murico-centric are these things?

We've brought along international students before and they've complained that it's extremely America-centric. There's a fair bit of like English-lit/Western myth/Euro history in there too. Lots of Chicago questions. French Revolution specialist is Chinese and for the most part he doesn't seem to mind, although he gets annoyed when he knows the Thing in Mandarin and doesn't recognize the English name. There was a question on the Chinese national anthem one week which he missed for precisely this reason.

I remember that Odin's spear is called Gungnir, but that's hardly common knowledge for anyone else who hasn't actually read any Norse mythology.

Like I said: it's pretty simple if it touches on a topic which you have knowledge of. If not it's very "WTH who could possibly know that"? They've asked a fair few Norse mythology questions. We got into a pretty heated argument with the runners one time over a question (we were right on) which they refused to give us credit for.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I love how they let you buy space on the rocket on their website. If I could afford it, would they send up something really stupid for me?

No, I don't think they're allowed to launch humans on it.

They wouldn't allow humans on that rocket but it doesn't have the lift capacity to launch a person anyways. I actually think if you have enough money, they'd send up whatever you want within reason and as long as it wouldn't make them look bad by association.

Their first successful launch carried a space disco ball (called the humanity star) that the company founder put on there as kind of an art piece meant to drum up public enthusiasm for space. There was actually a pretty big backlash from the astronomy community as this thing had the capability to absolutely wreck star observations under its flight path. As it was, they launched it into an orbit where no one could see it anyways and it de-orbited quickly so it wasn't a big deal. But yeah it makes me think they would launch something silly that you put together if you paid for the launch. Whatever you launch would be vetted aggressively to make sure it couldn't hurt any of the other payloads on accident, however.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17144208/rocket-lab-humanity-star-satellite-new-zealand-astronomy

 

[Traitorfish]

We had a multiple choice question at trivia today.. "Which one of these was not originally written in English?"

6 possible answers. My team picked "Ivanhoe". It didn't feel right to me but that's not enough to overrule the consensus (of 7 other people). The consensus was based on not much at all and I knew it.

Wait, seriously? Ivanhoe is the most embarrassingly English book ever written. It has Robin Hood! Crusades! Norman yokes! It's so profoundly, offensively English that they had to get a Scotsman to write it, because any actual English person would have suffered multiple fatal seizures trying to suppress the cringe.