king of research - season 2

Hihihi,

This is a new round of king of research - old competition had many great champions, but no winner. My fault!

Rules - each time there is something that contestant must find. First round is casting, then each round one candidate is knocked out, until king of research is found.

Casting Round

Easy round to start, ilx must simply find CD album by person or band, with link to buy. Number of letters in name of album must be same as letters in name of performer or band. No single, EP - only album counts. But compilation of single artist is okay! Self-titled not okay, too boring.

Here is famous example.

Deadline is end of Wednesday!

<3 u maps.

The Rolling Stones - Bridges To Babylon

Gas - Pop

don't have time to play, but good luck researchers, I will be watching with keen interest.

fall out boy - folie a deux

Disco Inferno - Technicolour

my favourite album this year so far!

dawn richard - goldenheart

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-elNAXdGL.jpg

Superchunk
"On the Mouth"
http://www.mergerecords.com/store/store_detail.php?catalog_id=708

I'm going to crash badly right away but I missed the first go round and this fascinates me.

Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear

Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now

Stereolab - Sound-Dust

From the description and the other entries I'm assuming we count only letters as letters, and no punctuation etc, right?

Yes, punctuation is free! Sound-Dust, good.

Also as an aside I am thinking maybe I know who maps is but I could be wrong.

Oh go on then.

Peter Hammill - The Future Now

Tho

I'm going to crash badly right away but I missed the first go round and this fascinates me.

― taxi tomato or bag tomato (Trayce), Tuesday, 10 September 2013 11:38 (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

Elton John - Blue Moves

do numbers count? because then

Rush - 2112

"The winner will be Alba"

Madonna - Erotica

Van der Graaf Generator - H to He Who Am the Only One

Os Mutantes - Tecnicolor

New Order - Movement

New Order - Republic

New Order - Get Ready

Acid Mothers Temple - Are We Experimental?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones

OK GO - Oh No

not actual entries but

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61N92CNZBHL._SL500_.jpg

Michael Doughty - Haughty Melodic and Imogen Heap - I Megaphone are both anagrams

Ha, I got curious about anagrams and googled around to find those, too. But I didn't post 'em in case anyone else wanted to use them for real entries.

Magic Dirt - Snow White

Luna - Live

in case that's cheating:
Aesop Rock - Labor Days

Goldfrapp - Tales of Us

Moodles, that counts.

yessssss

Microdisney-Crooked Mile

There are a lot of entrants this time around.

Deadline is end of Wednesday!

*bump for any late entrants*

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Nanda Collection

Round is closed! Thank you emil.y for kind bump at the end.

Good that so many want to be king!

Ailsa
Noodle Vague
Johnny Crunch
Conrad
Lex
Trayce
Blandford
Mordy
Emil.y
Fizzles
Eyeball Kicks
Moodles
JBN
Oystein
Merdeyeux
Neil S
Abanana
Anatol_M
eephus
Sunny Successor
Milo
Z S
bends
ShariVari

Did I miss anyone? New round, divisions tomorrow morning.

God, I've just read through the first king of research thread (I'd only looked at the first couple of questions on it before now), and I wasn't exactly confident about my chances to begin with, but I would like it put on the record that I am not expecting to do very well at this, just in case I look hubristic when I got knocked out in the first round.

Still want to take part though, to be clear.

wait how is wednesday ended?

http://www.musicstack.com/item/75480191

I have no confidence in my abilities either but I think I'll go hard with the hubris anyway. I'm gonna walk this thing.

wait how is wednesday ended?

― zvookster, Thursday, September 12, 2013 3:08 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait how is wednesday ended?

― zvookster, Wednesday, 11 September 2013 21:08 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the quiz-runner gets to set what time zone the quiz is in, imperialist schweinhund.

http://elasticwitch.bigcartel.com/product/chelsea-wolfe-pain-is-beauty-lp
http://elasticwitch.bigcartel.com/product/belle-and-sebastian-the-third-eye-centre-lp

but i have bonus beats!

Oh, have you not been enrolled? For some reason I thought you were just being a US pedant. Maybe Maps will let you in if he (?) sees yr entry before sorting the divisions?

Might have a go at putting together what would have been my answer had I been able to do the round prior to this. Still genuinely a bit cross with myself for not arranging internet access on holiday, tbh.

We never did get to see the entries for last round, did we?
Who got first place?

OK to get the ball rolling here's a little placeholder. Pretty sure I could tighten this chain up, but it'll do for a start:

ilxor Stevie D(eux) with Tavi Gevinson: link

Tavi Gevinson with Gloria Steinem: link

Gloria Steinem with Roberta Flack: link

Roberta Flack with John Lennon: link

John Lennon with Ringo Starr: link

Ringo Starr with Vivien Leigh: link

Vivien Leigh with George Bernard Shaw: link1,
link2

Very reassuring to see that I would have been completely destroyed by the last two even if I'd made it through the planes/trains/automobiles round.

Chain of 7, with 17 people in photographs - very good!

We never did get to see the entries for last round, did we?
Who got first place?

Anatol (229) chose public hygiene route: http://postimg.org/image/69qbd7lvr/

Lex (589) and EK (202) chose collage option: http://postimg.org/image/8kiwuhl19/ and http://postimg.org/image/xmn87n0az/

A thousand cats!

ilxor VegemiteGrrl with Orlando Bloom
Orlando Bloom with Jack Black
Jack Black with Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine with Anthony Asquith (page with identity confirmation)
Anthony Asquith with George Bernard Shaw (page with identity confirmation)

so many cats!

Small clarifications re: round 6

The route also cannot go through any of the candidates - if Lex has photograph of himself with Lloyd George, he cannot use even if his 'ilxor' is a photograph of someone else.

Celebrity ilxor must be 'verified' in some sense - assumed to be parody unless strong evidence otherwise. Dr Freud - not convincing.

Might have to resign myself from the battle, since I don't come back from holiday till it's over, and I'll probably get sacked if I try too much beforehand. One last push tomorrow I think and then I'll be done.

trawling WDYLL threads felt a bit weird but this is possibly the most enjoyable round for me, love finding connections between celebrities - kind of wanted it to go through personal favs though *side-eye at Jack Black*

EK, if you find a really good entry I can reserve it for later posting on Sunday?

ilxor White Chocolate Cheesecake with Susanna Hoffs (far right)
Top photograph: Susanna Hoffs with Michael Ontkean in The Allnighter (1987)
Michael Ontkean with Wendy Hiller in Making Love (1982)
Wendy Hiller with George Bernard Shaw in or related to Pygmalion (1938)

Chain of 4. Total head count: 6 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 15.

Oh wow, that one is hard to top!

Tuomas, if you were still in this competition you'd be looking at a LOT of old pictures of yourself!

I imagine those of us still competing are busy googling very similar pools of people. In anatol's possibly unbeatable entry, Susanna Hoffs and Wendy Hiller are names I've typed a lot lately - well done for connecting them. There are other names I could mention that I'm sure anatol and lex would recognise right now. So far I can match the chain of 4, but with a total head count of about 22 - 15 of those in one crucial picture (again it would not surprise me if at least one of you knows what I mean by this).

OK, I will post the above-mentioned chain, even if it's not a winning entry, just to book my ilxor:

ilxor kingfish 2.0 with Patti Smith
Patti Smith with Marianne Faithfull (and 14 others goddamit)
Marianne Faithfull with Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott with George Bernard Shaw (and one other)

Chain of 4, with 2 + 16 + 2 + 3 = 23 faces.

I am sure there must be a picture of PS and MF together, but I haven't found it yet. I won't have time to do any serious research while on holiday, but I am hoping the picture might come to me (I have even tried to contact MF herself), and if it does I might get a chance to improve this entry. Otherwise, I'm done.

Good luck to the other contestants!

Closes in a few hours!

Is anatol champion, or will the quiet Lex steal the title?

ilxor Ned Trifle II with Neil Kinnock
[Removed Illegal Link]
[Removed Illegal Link]
Winston Churchill with Arthur Balfour

total people in photos: 2+ 4 + 3 + 2 = 11

I would like to take this opportunity to spit on the Royal Fucking Family, would far rather my path went through the photo of Tracer Hand with Eve that I found (that took five links though) *guillotine face*

SIGH let me try that shit again

ilxor Ned Trifle II with Neil Kinnock
[Removed Illegal Link]
The Duke of Edinburgh with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill with Arthur Balfour

FUCKING HTML

ilxor Ned Trifle II with Neil Kinnock
Neil Kinnock with the Duke of Edinburgh
The Duke of Edinburgh with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill with Arthur Balfour

The webpage for the second image is http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/about/history/royalvisits/y2000/[hidden]dukewiththeuniversitypresidentneilkinnock/index.html - I think it's the weird square brackets in the url that make it ~illegal

COMPETITION CLOSED

Lex entry - CONFIRMED.

RESEARCH HAS A KING

:D

I think I have been the Ruby Tandoh of this series...

Don't be so down on yourself Lex, everybody doesn't hate you.

Long live the new king!

NB: there is actually a possible chain of 3. I only noticed after I'd got my final entry and it would've involved glomming off anatol's entry too much, but basically - there's a picture of an ilxor with Michael Ontkean.

RESEARCH HAS A KING

WELL DONE LEX!! :-D
Special kudos for ending up with someone not Shaw, ie someone who died more than twenty years before him.
Chain of 3: woah, crazy.

More than happy to reach a podium place in this company. Thanks, Maps!

Huge congratulations, lex, I feel honored to have shared the arena with you

Yes thanks to maps for organising! This was tremendous fun.

Special kudos for ending up with someone not Shaw, ie someone who died more than twenty years before him.

Inspired to try this when I found a picture of an ilxor with a famous retired Canadian hockey player - thought that they must have met the Canadian PM at some point, who must have met...the Queen? who is a pretty good bet to have met a lot of people? In the event I couldn't actually find a photo of that hockey player with any Canadian PM, even though they must exist somewhere, but Queen-Churchill-Balfour were pretty easy links to find - so anyone in an ilx picture who would have been likely to meet the Queen was really the dream. Bizarrely could find no picture of Kinnock with the Queen but her racist husband did the trick.

My actual favourite chain was longer but:

ilxor Tracer Hand with Eve
Eve with Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig with the Queen
The Queen with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill with Arthur Balfour

(obviously it was my favourite because 1) EVE 2) daniel craig shirtless 3) corgis)

Well done lex. This was all great fun.

Sneaking Lex from the shadows was a great drama, because in previous competition semi-final he had winning entry, and held it for the last second, only for JayMC to steal it away! Great to see redemption for map of Arabia.

Once again, thank you to all competitors, and see you for Season 3!

(If any - watchers or candidates - have any final feedback/suggestions for questions etc, please let me know, so I can do better next time!)

i didn't intend to hold it for the last minute - just hadn't found any winning entry by fri afternoon and had no research time til sun evening!

do any research kingz think they could find out how many people have been killed in branches of mcdonalds or as the result of violence inflicted in mcdonalds restaurants, or as the result of culpable negligence by mcdonalds employees or fellow customers?

enjoyed this a lot maps - thanks v much. impressed to the point of fear by lex's ability despite time to come up with the goods, but all the finalists made me go "ffs you BASTARD" at some point.

xpost

no.

Oh man, definitely not.

For those who were stymied by the initial encoding on the second-to-last round: the reason I recognized it so readily was because it was used a great deal on usenet/newsgroups.
Its primary function there was for hiding spoilers etc. It was common enough that most clients for reading news had a shortcut built in to rotate highlighted text. (e.g. in Forte Agent you could press ctrl+3)

What makes rot-13 so useful is that it's cyclical over the 26 letters of the English alphabet. To encode/decode, you just swap each letter with the one 13 places after it in the alphabet -- starting at A again after Z. So ABBA becomes NOON becomes ABBA. For the challenge I used rot13.com.
Any symbol not in the English alphabet simply gets ignored, so my name becomes Ølfgrva.
Uh, so that's today little history lesson for those who didn't feel like looking it up after it was revealed.

it's also used to drop answers on the xword thread so I was a little surprised lex wasn't aware of it.

i've never encountered it in a crossword...

no, just used in the thread when giving an answer so it doesn't spoil it for people still solving (but might not have been used recently)

oh, i don't think it's been used recently but if it was i wouldn't have known what was going on anyway

i was genuinely surprised to find out that these codes were well-known to the point of being obvious for so many people - it does feel good that this raised my awareness of them though!

> i've never encountered it in a crossword...

then you've not been on the receiving end of one of ledge's tiny rot13 crosswords...

I... have no recollection of those!

^ old age

Damn was this great. Maps isn't on ILX anymore, right? I crave a new season of King of Research.

Yes, I often think of King of Research. Might be the most fun I've ever had on the internet.

^same

I was under the impression 'Maps' was only a King of Research persona for another ilx0r - were they a regular under that name? I bloody loved these threads.

This was loads of fun, yeah.

Amazing! This thread just obliterated my afternoon in the best way.