Learned League

Also I was in the 6% who put Friendly instead of Howard Johnson the other day.

I got it right, but I wasn't 100% sure about it.

(Pathé, that is.)

I have found the less I overthink defense and the more I just go with my gut, the better my defensive performance is. I have never heard of Charles Pathé before, even after seeing the answer it is totally unfamiliar to me and my lifetime film score is .776

dang, i somehow got to 5 and 0. pride goeth before a fall, i imagine i'm gonna get ganked now.

for every music nerd who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about dababy" there's a math dork who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about fundamental calculus concepts" etc. also "why did everyone else get this question wrong that i got right" inevitably comes off as bragging

on defense, i think 'age of opponent' is probably a more important factor than any particular subject percentage

lol, i seem to keep hitting the "most common wrong answer;" would not have thought a third of the missing group would've also gone with cornet!

also, i learned something on the "massif" question but holy shit are some of these questions ever posed in the most convoluted way possible

i don't worry too much about defense, i mostly focus on which questions seem hard/easy to me, factored through a glance at their strongest/weakest categories.

i went with cornet too. i overthought the "related to" aspect and the most trumpet-adjacent instruments i could think of were bugle and cornet.

Early in my LL career, I tried to figure out defense by researching my opponent, which is not against the rules (though some people think it should be). These days, I don't have time for that, so I mostly just glance at the info on their profile and occasionally look into their question history to see if their strengths lie more in Games or Sports.

also, i learned something on the "massif" question but holy shit are some of these questions ever posed in the most convoluted way possible

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, February 26, 2020 9:25 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This one didn't seem particularly convoluted? I think sometimes he just tries to provide a lot of information, to give players multiple ways to get to the right answer. ("Vinson" triggered "Vinson Massif" for me, so I didn't even read the second sentence.)

hey now's a good a time to ask as any. so cornet, 32%. does that mean 32% of people wrote that? or 32% of the 74% who got it wrong? either way i also wrote it lol and that's a remarkable mcwa

I also answered "cornet"!

For a MCWA, the percentage is of *all* players. In other words, more people answered "cornet" (32%) than "tuba" (26%).

A MCWA that's more common than the actual correct answer is not totally uncommon; it usually happens a few times a season. AFAIK, the most extreme example is still this question, in which the MCWA had 71% and the correct answer had 11%.

ok that is straight up a cruel question hahahaha

I think this was before MCWAs but I remember this question being very tricky - https://www.learnedleague.com/ll52/questions/md15/md15q2.php

I don’t want to do too much research against my opponent but if I have a history of any kind with them and remember to click on the appropriate button I find that useful.

Damn right I put "cornet," cornu is the one 5th declension noun I remember from high-school Latin! I was like "it's a horn, cornu, I GOT this."

I'm also in the "Pavlovian response to Vinson = Massif" crowd.

I'll give mine to you, Leee, since we've actually met IRL!

Thanks! My time in Chicago finally paying off!

“Age of opponent” is indeed useful info, but never noticed it in the profile.

for every music nerd who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about dababy" there's a math dork who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about fundamental calculus concepts" etc. also "why did everyone else get this question wrong that i got right" inevitably comes off as bragging

i had a clean sheet on a one-day once -- i don't even remember what -- and still finished like 23rd due to subpar moneyball choices

i've had a couple of clean sheets on one days! and i had a mini league where i was perfect through 7 or 8 days.

i have a niche.

I...
have...
a...
niche.

I've done 12/12 on a 1DS three times: Poetic Women, New Jack Swing, and Mystery Theme 22. But the first one is the only one where I actually finished on top (and it was a tie).

xp Ha, I always get the regular-season questions about video games wrong.

the regular season video games questions are usually pretty damn hard!! i think it's because they're written by someone who's like "uhhh i need a video game question" and asks about, like, the most popular free app in the apple store in 2018 or something lol

wow, i remembered that pretty precisely

i feel like there is/was a way to check what your wrong answer was on questions you blew. is that still hidden somewhere on the site?

https://learnedleague.com/thorsten/pastanswers.php

Yes, that’s always good for the current/past season. Keep meaning to train myself to review it but don’t quite care enough.

best i've done in a one-day was a clean sheet and 6th place overall in "rock 'n roll oddities"
best i've done in a minileage was 11 wins 0 losses, 1st place in my division, and 23rd place in the championship for "rock 'n roll." though i lost one day of the "indie rock" minileague but ended up in 7th place in the championship, so maybe that's better.
i also have a niche

at least when i get 9-6'd i don't have to worry about my defense

I got 9-6'd yesterday. :( Could've been a tie, but I second-guessed myself on "tomato" and went with "eggplant."

haha! i went with tomato in a total "there's no way it's right but whatever" kinda guess. haven't they been eating tomatoes in like italy for hundreds of years?

also was stunned to see vaudeville with a higher average defense/lower get rate than lyme. i for sure was guessing when i wrote lyme, but what other than vaudeville could q3 have been?!

i guessed "burlesque" :( i was so sure i had gotten it right and then i saw the answer and felt pretty dumb

on the other hand i was sure about lyme disease because it's crazy to me that it's only been around basically in my lifetime

"Vaudeville" was an almost perfect LL question in that once you think of it you say "aha, "ville," that's why they told us it was named after his hometown, I know I'm right" -- (or for that matter "massif," where the strange phrase "mountain MASS demarcated by FISSIONS and FRACTURES" was right there in the question.

I've noticed that a lot of LL questions are variations on "How did this thing get its name?" (often backwards: "This is the origin story for what thing?") They are satisfying because even if you don't know the answer, you feel like you've learned something. And they can often be puzzled out.

ohhhhhh i didn't even think of burlesque, if i had, that would've fucked me up!

and yes as someone who does a lot of trivia things (badly) and writes his own quiz weekly (not too badly) i am always VVVVV impressed by thorsten's writing. real good questions, multiple points of entry, feels like learning. top tier stuff

Also went with burlesque. I was pleased I remembered that Kwanzaa was a recent invention. 6-0! Though I think my reign of terror is about to end.

jaymc, did you send the invite? I don't see it yet. Might have to email me directly at leeeee at gmail.

i don't think the emails are actually sent out until april, although you can enter them now

Yeah, I sent you a message via ILX mail, but the message was just to confirm that that was still your email address! I'll go ahead and submit the referral, and then you should receive an official invite "no sooner than April 28." (The next season doesn't start until May 20.)

per the referral page

First rookie invitations sent:April 28, 2020
LL85 registration deadline:May 13, 2020
LL85 Opening Day:May 20, 2020

oops xp lol

jeez yesterday was TOUGH

Welcome to my world

1 of 6, only the gimme "lemon" question right... but i tied 1(0)!

IIRC, Thorsten has said that he aims for an average 50% correct rate across all questions on any given day. I'm consistently impressed that he actually achieves it most of the time. Looking at last season, the toughest day had 35% correct and the easiest had 59% correct, working out to 48% for the whole season.

When I have a particularly bad LL day, it makes me feel better to remember that it's actively designed to be difficult.

fucking musicals