Learned League

At minute 16.

i had no idea what devanagari was and guessed "bikram" lol

― na (NA), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:29 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I almost guessed "yoga," which I remembered was part of a set (the six orthodox systems of Hindu philosophy, though I couldn't have told you that). Then I changed my mind and went with "ayurvedic." Good question, though.

yup, that's the one.

I really enjoy those ones where I have no idea and I just let my mind relax and something like "Joker's Wild" bubbles up and I'm just like, OK, brain, I don't really know what that is but but if that's the response to the stimulus I gave you let's go with it

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:04 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha, that one was kind of the same for me. Although maybe in the back of my mind was a dim memory of when the same question was asked in 2014.

"Yoga" was my first thought, too. But then I reasoned "OK surely it's possible there is some set of traditional Indian physical/mental practices of which yoga is the most famous and devenagari is #3 or #4 but I can't think of any other besides yoga, and if divanagari were the #3 or #4 most popular type of yoga I would have heard of it, so it just can't be that." I think what really helped me is the word "system" -- not that many things are customarily described as systems. Yoga isn't, for instance.

when the same question was asked in 2014.

I didn't know they repeated questions!! I honestly feel kind of disillusioned.

I kind of love that best wrong answer though.

There aren't too many repeats. I'd say maybe a couple of times a season. And it's usually from at least a few years ago.

I do sometimes wonder to what extent Thorsten is aware of it, though. If I were him, I'd probably do a search of the archive just to see if and when a question was last asked, so I'm guessing that when it happens, it's because he figures it's been long enough that he can go back to the well.

my brain spat out this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYlcim0Dc60

and i WATCHED joker's wild as a kid so i KNEW that

thought the three mile island question was very awkwardly phrased too, although there remains only one reason to know the name of any island in the susquehanna

Upset! I won 6(3) to 5(4) against my 80% QP opponent. I have my pisspoor food and drink score to thank for giving me a 3 for Stroganoff, which was on my mind as I made a vegan version a couple weeks ago. Inexplicably got a point for Moors too, despite literature being my second best category.

Whoops, I got a 2 for Stroganoff, 3 for Uganda.

how in the fuc am i supposed to defend this

https://i.imgur.com/gCcK45C.jpg

hope for another velocity of money question?

invite them over for dinner

I faced the rundle leader yesterday, who ended up forfeiting. I know that other players often voice dismay at forfeit wins, but it's lifted me into the middle of the pack out of the relegation zone.

i shouldn't complain bc i've been on a hot run but i boned myself out of a 9(6) yesterday by misreading "formally" as "formerly"

Saw people talk about that on the LL Message Board.

And some of us who read it correctly were still thrown off by the word "formally."

(I feel like "formally" must have been included to guide people away from Seward's Folly, but it created the impression that the question was looking for something other than the common name of Alaska.)

yeah, i kinda hedged my bets with "Alaska Territory" which was taken. Having a lucky start to my season so far and cracked the top five.

let me tell you, i spent half the day trying to figure out the clay question and was deeply happy when my subconscious spat up "potsie"

After I submitted and read the question again and saw his last name I felt kind of bad.

Also I put the Gadsden Purchase, although I probably spelt it wrong, was hoping that was when they bought Alaska.

Also knew it was Alaska, took "formally" to mean I was supposed to say something else, got hosed

I thought yesterday's was gonna be hard and my 5/6 was a sure win, but no! How did all those people know Olivia Newton-John and semaphore? I was lucky to escape with a tie, lots of eggroll in my rundle.

i slightly misread the question and put "alaska purchase" but they gave it to me

I guessed Dolly for the ONJ question, but semaphore was the first visual communication system that popped into my head, and the word looked appropriately Greek.

props to monty python for teaching me about semaphore

5/6 for me too. for some reason i confused diebold and dominion.

the "(and appropriately so)" on semaphore was more confusing than helpful

i got ONJ based solely on her being in the biggest movie musical in 1978. once i remembered her, the country music stuff sounded familiar, like i had heard she was originally a country artist at some point, but i never would've gotten it based just on that info.

itt: many people who have never been mellow

NA that was my ON-J experience exactly.

I still don't get what work "and appropriately so" was doing for semaphore.

flagbearer and signal flag i guess

i interpreted that as just being that someone doing semaphore is literally bearing (holding) the signal (flags)

Knowing a couple of hundred Greek roots yields an inordinate amount of points over a few years of quizzing. Sem- = sign, as in semiotics (the study of signs) or semantics (signification); phero/phor = carry/carrier, as in phosphor (light-carrier), metaphor (over-carrier), pheromone (carrier-hormone), Christopher (Christ-carrier).

"and appropriately so" I took to indicate that practitioners of semaphore need to quite literally carry their signs with them.

xpost exactly

props to monty python for teaching me about semaphore

otm

only really thought of ON-J because i'd just posted a photo of her with joe torre and phil niekro on the baseball board

let's throw knuckleball, knuckleball
we're gonna throw knuckleball, knuckleball

Knowing a couple of hundred Greek roots yields an inordinate amount of points over a few years of quizzing. Sem- = sign, as in semiotics (the study of signs) or semantics (signification); phero/phor = carry/carrier, as in phosphor (light-carrier), metaphor (over-carrier), pheromone (carrier-hormone), Christopher (Christ-carrier).

Good shout -- I don't think I gave much thought to it, but if I had, I would've "translated" sem- as "meaning," as in "polysemous." Off to see if there are any Anki decks that have Greek roots.

Yeah, the "meaning" interpretation of sem- is also reasonable for most derived compounds I can think of, I didn't mean to imply the path from "sign" was obvious or anything.

Oh and consider doing some Latin roots as well; often very close to either ancient Greek or modern English (phero=fero, sem-=sign-); not free lunch, but lunch at massive discount.

Sometimes it feels like a cheat code really; another very boring cheat code is to actually, once and for all, cram the mapping from atomic numbers to names of chemical elements. For some reason, setters all over the world seem loath to write a question on an element without including the atomic number. I feel this is bad question setting, but it's not like I'm gonna refuse the points. (You probably kinda knew this already, but unless you've actually done the job, I'm not sure you realize how free-lunch this bit feels.)

re: atomic numbers and elements, not so much in LL though? (I've tried studying those a couple times but gave up pretty quickly.)

never heard of anki, is it free/safe as a download?

well i see it is. anybody wanna give me a primer on using it?

You can either download decks you find that you like or create your own.

A lot of them are hit or miss but they have star ratings, if that helps.

The Ultimate Geography deck is entirely responsible for me getting at least three Africa questions right, so if recommend that if geography is something you want to bolster.

Also, you use it like this:

Once you've imported a deck, you study a small set of cards each day (or as often as you can), and press the button that corresponds with how easy that flash card was. (You don't generally need to actually enter the answer into the app, because the idea is to work your memory, and topping in the answer would take up too much time.) The easier the question, the longer it'll be before the app shows you that card again, while harder questions will show up more often. And that's it.

Making a deck of your own is much less straightforward.