Are you known for your graphic representations of the human skeletal structure?
Hmm. The word "graphic" made me think of Tom o' Finland. But I don't know who you mean, LB.
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what a first-order question is.
Just that it has to have a specific person in mind?
First order questions describe someone you are trying to stump me with--like LB's. Second order are yes or no questions designed to get closer to my person.
Are you a composer with several ballets to your credit?
designed to get closer to my person.
Hott!
It's a question including enough information to pick out a particular person with the correct initial. If the person playing can't come up with an answer that matches the question, they can then be asked a second-order question about their own person.
Clearly you aren't David Copperfield's classmate, Traddles.
Are you alive?
No, I'm not Tchaikovsky. (Suddenly unsure of spelling.)
So I'm still at first-order questions, yes?
Was I precise and mathematically gifted?
Are you someone Bill Mahr listed in his book as an example of the kind of person our society should be treating as a hero?
14- No, I'm not, um... was there a mathematician named Tauber?
Hey could I make a request as to your answer format: it would be really useful and helpful if you boldfaced your answers to 2nd-order questions. This would allow quick perusal of the thread thus far without getting sidetracked by the 1st-order stuff.
18: then you must not be Templeton. Are you European?
20: You're not Pat Tillman.
Are you real?
22- Yes, I am European, and, to recap, I am not alive.
Were you wrongly suspected of killing the ambassador to the U.N.?
First order: did you once help to rescue someone with your foraging skills?
(Someone may argue this is illegitimate. I'll let ac decide.)
Thanks -- that makes this game way more fun.
Jeremy, is the UN ambassador in question Bernadotte? I don't know who was suspected of assassinating him.
30: then you must not be Roger Thornhill. Do you write books?
Oh, right, from North by Northwest. The fictional thing makes it tricky. But I'm in favor of fictional possibilities here.
I guess I don't understand the rules on this: what is the impact on my question of ac's saying she wasn't someone I wasn't thinking of, and can't judge if did or didn't meet my criteria?
32- I'm almost certain that I have written a book.
31: No, Templeton the rat from Charlotte's Web, but I guess you gleaned the origin of my doubts about its legitimacy. Do you want to accept anthropomorphized animals?
Are you a painter commonly associated with a particular color?
If I meet the terms of your question, whether or not you were thinking of that person, you don't get a second order. I was guessing, though. If there's no Tauber mathematician--which I grant you leave to look up--you win the point.
You need to figure out if her answer did meet your criteria (through googling, conversation, however.) If her answer works, your first order question fails (but you could re-ask a similar question, aiming at the same person, with a smidge more information to exclude the answer she just gave). If her answer doesn't work, she fails and you get to ask her a 2d order question.
I'm staying away from google myself, though, so other people will have to look things up and correct me.
(I can't remember an incident in which Thumper rescued someone through foraging.)
I'll allow anthropomorphic animals. And ok, Thumper didn't rescue anyone. (???)
There was, according to Wikopedia, a mathematician named Tauber who died at Theresienstadt in 1942. There is no description of his personality, although "mathematically gifted" may I suppose be inferred.
If you want, though, you can re-ask 14 if you add another fact that differentiates your guy from Tauber. (Or so I've always played.)
I think I have to give up already. Mine was too easy.
*delurk*
There was in fact a mathematician named Tauber.
Are you a Scandinavian who's associated with penguins?
Huh? We haven't even gotten close yet -- how can it be too easy?
48: Has someone guessed it? You can start again, and you can play with My Alter Ego's variant to make it harder for the questioners.
Yes, someone has guessed it. Remind me of My Alter Ego's variant?
This feels stilted even to me, Mr. Stilt: Given your reputation, what you are famous for, were you surprisingly preoccupied with measure and calculation?
(well, I certainly don't know who you're talking about, so I could keep playing, but...)
My Alter Ego's variant is to restrict the questioners to questions about people who fit the description of your person thus far. So if we know your person's a woman, only women, etc. That would be really hard, but maybe fun.
And I couldn't think of someone else who worked at BP with a T. An H! A J! But no T.
That's so funny; I thought of asking a first order about Turing but I didn't know how to phrase it so you wouldn't know exactly who I meant.
I did have an alternate person, starting with a C. But up to you guys.
I win! Totally inadvertant victories count, right?
But was JM's question a first or second order? You could have said "No I'm not Turing" to a first order question.
Sure, let's go. Are you wearing a hat in the most famous image of you?
Well, I was wondering if I could do that, I know it was discussed on the other thread. But it seems too confusing.
Did you ever describe the flight of a projectile in exasperating detail?
I did have an alternate person, starting with a C.
Are you a Panamanian in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Are you guys giving me a second chance? Really?!!! O frabjous day.
63- Not Churchill.
65- Um? No idea.
66- Yes, go ahead, stump me with sports questions. No idea.
Did you finish out your days in exile? (And BTW, are we doing the MAE variant discussed above? I'm not clear whether or no.)
I don't think we need to do the MAE variant.
Oops, ignore 70 -- it is based on an incorrect memory.
You're not James Fenimore Cooper.
Are you a woman?
Maybe I'm showing an ugly Canadian streak here, but the most famous image of Churchill is Youseff Karsh's portrait. No hat.
I demand satisfaction, or would, if I wasn't a Canadian. Gee, it would sure be nice if somebody felt there should be some satisfaction somewhere...
Does asking a second-order question mean that the questioner then returns to a first-order question next?
77- Ask your person question differently, I shouldn't be that hard to stump.
I realize I never answered the Borked question above, but that was for the first person anyway. (And I wasn't Clarence Thomas.)
81- Other people clearly know more about Mutombo's sexings than I.
82 - I was thinking John Tower. Thomas got confirmed.
Were you once Donald Rumsfeld's protege?
True! I owe you a 2nd order and you can cash in now, if you like.
Ha HA! So you aren't Dick Cheney.
2nd order: Did you write books?
I didn't have anyone in mind, just thought it had to be asked.
You judge performances that often mock you?
you can cash in now, if you like.
That's okay. Was a movie made about you last year?
Hmm, do you judge such performances, and have a receding hairline?
(True confession: I had to look up Simon Cowell.)
Were you both a consul and a dictator?
You're not Clive Anderson.
Did you write your best-known works in a language other than your native one?
You're not Clive Anderson.
The letter isn't A, SB.
Whoops! It has to be last names? I suck.
I probably didn't make clear that the last name of the person you think of for first order questions should be the same as the letter the answerer gives you.
I would commence the disemboweling but I don't have a willing second to finish the job.
103- That's first order, right? No, I'm not Lewis Carroll.
Were you exceptionally tall for your era?
Ha HA! You're not David Copperfield, then.
2nd order: Were you alive in the 20th century?
110- No, I was not alive in the 20th century.
Did you write a primer for making sweet sweet rhetorical love?
106 - yeah, that was first order and it was Carroll.
First order: were you a 14th-century author?
Oh and 101, looks like I stumped you; I was thinking of Cincinnatus. So I get to ask a 2nd-order question! Here goes: Were the books you wrote per 90 works of fiction?
(Come on, Castro was never consul!)
Ok, so you're not Andreas Capellanus.
New 1st-order: Were you old and in the way?
I'm not Chaucer, if so. I was guessing on Castro.
115- I believe I wrote fiction, among other things.
First-order: Were you a founder of the Romantic movement?
119- Thinking of people known for oldness... ??? Nope.
121- I'm not Coleridge. Or Constable, for that matter.
2nd order: Were your better-known books published in the nineteenth century?
124 -No, not originally published in the 19th century.
Did you ever have a beer named after you?
126- Did Castro have a beer named after him? I don't know.
I think I'm just going to say Castro for everything, and let you argue with me. Ha!
Did your books seem to go against the spirit of the times, certainly in your own country?
109: Then you're not Charlemagne.
2nd order: were you British?
1st order: Did you write a biography of Kant?
127- I don't know either. "Castro Beer" got quite a lot of hits on google, but I didn't find any evidence of an actual beer.
I was thinking of Billy Carter.
Are you best know because of a translator/interpreter in English?
Are you best know as the English interpreter/translator of another?
122 -- I guess you must not be Vassar Clements. Were you a politician?
Oh, sorry. I don't know. You get a second order.
Ok, you're not Ernst Cassirer.
To recap, you're a dead British man who wrote both fiction and nonfiction books that were originally published before 1800.
2nd order question: were you considered a scientist in your time?
You are recapping correctly, but while I'd say I'm known for my writing, it's not for something I'd normally refer to as fiction or non-fiction.
I've got to get offline now, so someone else will have to solve the mystery.
And I have to go out and get lunch but will be back in half an hour or so.
You can all speculate while I'm gone, of course.
When you get back -- were you rolled in a carpet?
Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
Hey 'Postropher, did you know you're close to the top of the Google result set for "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" That seems to me like something to be quietly proud of.
Consider yourself informed. (You should have an entry in your referrals log to reflect it now.)
2nd order question -- Did you write poetry?
Did Samuel Johnson write your biography?
149- No carpet-rolled persons coming to mind.
ac.. im confused: were my 156 and 157 inadmissable?
1st order -- were you ever world chess champion?
159: given that you weren't Cleopatra, did you write in Modern English, or in some earlier variant?
Dramatist--I'm not Chekov. (Not MAE version, I remind you.)
You've got me on the Johnson biography, though.
Austro--I just had a woman come into my office demanding attention, sorry for the delay. Picture me at my computer hiding from ten million people knocking on my door.
Sorry.. it wasnt meant to pressure.. i just was not sure about the degree of first oderness..
So do I get a 2nd order question?
Did you write a poem about a million slimy things?
(or, at least, a poem that mentioned them?)
I'm just painting a picture. I have actually had about twenty-seven conversations with people who are angry with me while playing this game. One or two screamers in there. So this is far more pleasant.
169 is your second order, LB? (Before I bold it.)
169 is a first order. I spent my second order on the Modern English question.
Did you have Prince Albert in the can?
Is an area of London's Docklands eponymous with you?
1st order: Did you collaborate in the writing of a famous hymn?
As far as I know, I did not write about a million slimy things and don't have a part of the Docklands named after me.
Also first oder: Did you take opium for more than 40 years?
180, you are mixing up first and second orders again I think.
Oops. I mean, I don't know who you're talking about.
Is that an 'I don't know' to my first order 169?
Also first oder: Did Elisabeth Barret Browning write about your grave?
Yes, it's an 'I don't know'.
(And I wasn't drinking at lunch, I swear.)
So you aren't Coleridge ("a thousand thousand slimy things, lived on, and so did I...").
Did you write plays?
181 - Actually.. i was not thinking of him. So are you stumped by the opium or not? i guess i remain at first level
I don't know whose grave Barret Browning wrote about, so that's two 2nd orders for you, Austro.
In re the Opium: Are you George Crabbe?
In re the EBB: could you be William Cowper?
Don't know a chess champion with C. So you guys should fire ahead on the 2nds.
I don't think I wrote any plays, or at least, that's not what I'm known for. But I wrote a few different kinds of things, so maybe there's a play in there.
I'm going to count both of Austro's as 2nd orders. No, I'm not Crabbe or Cowper.
yes, they were the two seconds owing. Oh dear. Seem to be barking up the wrong period! :)
193: So, I guess you are not Jose Capablanca.
2nd order -- Did you live in the 18th century?
Was my first too easy and my second too hard?
Would i be likely to confuse you with a travel agents?
194, are you trying to dig at my choice of article? Because I will maintain that the error in 150 is the form preferred by juvenile prank callers across the country. Google returns 800 hits for the indefinite-article form, only 100 hits for the definite-article form. And the 'Postropher post which I mentioned in 152, uses the indefinite article.
Are you breaking my heart, and shaking my confidence daily?
201- No, I'm not Thomas Cook? (That's what they're called, right?)
203- No, I'm not Cecilia.
Right, ac, thats what they're called.
Ooh, have a feeling I know what you're referring to slo, but can't think of it.
1st order -- did you direct Beauty and the Beast?
Well, I was asking if you're Clarissa.
Were you based in Bristol and did you write an epistle to Reynolds?
I'll tell you, I'm having trouble answering Austro's question.
202--No, I was suggesting that my comment was a deliberate play on your earlier comment, wherein my change of the tense of the question and to the definite article altered the meaning of the phrase.
218- Don't know.
214- I'm assuming I don't know. But although it's a first order I'll tell you've got the birthplace.
Oh, Sorry.
Umm I was aiming for William Combe.
And if you're not William Combe, did you die in mysterious circumstances?
219 -- ok, you lost me now. I got no idea what's going on anymore.
I don't think my death was actually mysterious to anyone, but if it had happened nearer our time would have been investigated by the police or there would have been some kind of inquest.
Is there a painting of you in the Tate by Henry Wallis?
220: So you're not Art Carney.
2nd order -- Are you Thomas Chatterton?
Damn.. that was meant as a first order!..so 225 is by way of going round again!
So with that, I'm off to bed.
Thanks for the game, ac.
223--
You were asking AC if she had either a)a tinned tobacco product in her posession or b) a member of the royal family locked in the bathroom.
I wasking ac if she'd ever fucked said royal family member in the butt. I'm sophisticated, see.
234 -- got it, ok. A curious purple light is dawning on the horizon.
Looking back, I wonder why on earth I thought of Combe before Chatterton. That thing with Bristol was a pure fluke!
I did not sex Mutombo, or Prince Philip. Or Chatterton.
Sexing Chatterton could have been severly detrimental too your health!
Did he definitely have a disease, or is that speculation?
I was going to say -- a triumphant entry into commenting here, peep.
(And seasonally appropriate, too! I never knew marshmallow chicks could type.)
When I read about him, there was "evidence" (I dont know what that might be) to suggest that his symptoms of starvation were aggravated by gonorrhoea.
So I guess it is speculation. The arsenic made it academic though, huh?
Peep, the swing from Art Carney to Chatterton was inspired: Well played, and welcome!
Thanks! It was pure improvisation. I was just trying to stump ac.
I didn't think I knew of any other 18th century English poets that started with a C -- but then I remembered Chatterton.
Yeah, I was taking pot shots with the first order questions at the 18th Century poets i'd read all those years ago. It never occurred to me to take a blind route to them. I like the tactic. Cool. Once more. Well played.
AC: You should do this more often, if you have the time.
I'm glad y'all liked it, after my too easy first attempt, and temporary post-lunch befuddlement.
I didn't play the second game, but despite the happy post game afterglow here I wonder if we shouldn't clarify, for future Botticelli's, who's a good mystery person, because I don't know this Chatterton fellow and wouldn't have been able to guess. If I'm a tiny minority, that's okay, but if I'm not, I think it's usually better to pick someone you're pretty confident a large minority of your questioners would know.
To fess up, I only sort of know who he is -- that is, the name rang a bell as '18th C British writer', but I don't know a blessed thing beyond that, and wouldn't have had a hope of guessing it. I don't think it was too hard, though -- it's supposed to be a stretch.
Hm. The way I play it's not supposed to be. I got totally annoyed with an exboyfriend once and I got all the way to ancient Greek rhetoritician starting with "D" and I was like, who the hell are you talking about? I don't know any Greek rhetoriticians. And it turned out to be Demosthenes, but I wouldn't have had any way of getting to that.
At least Austro loves me.
Chatterton's poetry might be obscure, but that painting of him is quite famous.
Yeah, I'd say Demosthenes is absolutely okay. Once you start worrying about keeping it too narrow, you take all the fun out of it. And we've got enough overeducated weirdos here that someone will know everything.
Well, alright, I mean, whoever's running the game can pick the rules they want, but I guess I'd want to know the understanding we were operating under. I suppose it's different when getting to the answer is a large cooperative effort--maybe having your small part in it is gratification enough, but I think I still might want to know I had a chance at getting it if I played. So whoever's the answerer can just say the rules they're playing with at the outset. Certainly Demosthenes was not okay for my ex boyfriend to pick, because he knew I wouldn't have known ancient Greek people, since he made a point of picking classics stuff to stump me with when I was answerer.
Both T & C have kind of a gay martyrdom thing going, so I thought I was being too obvious.
It's a matter of audience, though. Picking someone he knew you wouldn't know when it was just the two of you playing was bullshit. Picking someone because they're obscure enough that you hope no one playing will have heard of them is likewise bullshit (Max Mason, president of the University of Chicago in the late 20's, for example, would be a sucky choice.)
But Chatterton or Demosthenes are both people that a randomly educated person has a fair shot of knowing about, and if you're going to try to restrict it to people that you're really sure almost everyone knows, it gets very restrictive.
I suggested "you'd guess 85% of the readers would know" in the first B thread. Anyway, answerers can do what they want, but I do think they should be transparent about what they're doing, in case people care about having strongly favorable odds of knowing the person. I mean, I care, so someone else might. It's just a matter of saying what you're about when you start.
But see, I did my version of 85% of people would know, and got discovered very quickly.
Yeah, I never would have guessed that people would have come up with Turing so quickly.
Anna Freud took longer, and I think 85% of the people have heard of her.
People, people--do what you want; just make your rules clear; that's all the humble blogger wants.
It seemed implicit that I was choosing someone harder the second time around, no? And to state it too much outright gives a big hint as to who it is, ruling lots of people out.
I just mean for future games. All you have to do is say your general philosophy of the rules; it won't have to mean anything about who you're picking.
I'm thinking of a person starting with O.
That new shipment of clever was supposed to get here days ago. Sorry everyone.
Look over there, it's a baby walrus!
omigod i used to have a very similar baby walrus when i was a kid except this was before beanie babies and it was much bigger probably i got it at seaworld and called it walry i was never very creative with stuffed animal names like the one that looked like a sponge i called woodstock i mean one time i walked into the kitchen while my mom was doing the dishes and said quiet and martyred why are you washing the dishes with woodstock that is so cute i should really be working on this fucking paper about the painted mule and the zebra and whether i have hands
No Marcel, please continue.
The experiment requires you to continue.
Weiner -- what happened to all your capital letters?
I don't know what the hell happened in 267 but I like it. More! More!
There's no time to hit the shift key when you're caught up in the tidal bore of Cute.
Wein-of-consciousness: hott!
Obviously you have hands -- how else are you going to paint the stripes on the mule?
i rpresent the firm of becks urplw and weiner our cient ahas retained us for specil sekrito lpruposes we cannot reveal shushs!!
And, oddly, while I still can't get over the concept of Adult Matt having a cat, I can totally picture Wee Matt caring for his stuffed animals.
I could go for a Bud. Anybody else want a Bud?
I want a new job, and a work ethic that would have let me get this piece of shit done when I should have, weeks ago, and a brain transplant to get rid of this headache. But not a Bud. I hate Bud.
Last night I was drunk, and I wrote little poems about colors. Tonight I am stone cold sober and procrastinating as usual, and that unlocked the seam of what appears to be inspiration.
(and, 277, I had a lot that stayed on my bed. I called them my throng, because that's what Snoopy called all the birds clustered around him when he slept on his doghouse. I was way into Peanuts.)
(And the procrastination has not even been so severe tonight, as I have actually written several sentences of this alleged paper.)
I could go for a Bud, but only if I'm helping set up a Standpipean witticism.
Those are some wild Thursday nights in Lubbock, eh?
281 - Did you get them to marry one another?
I don't like Bud either, but something about Becks' comment had me craving the king of beers.
I just got 278. I'm slow tonight.
I wasn't even that drunk.
I don't doubt it.
Hey, I just came back from seeing Brick with ac and the woman behind us was talking about Ben Domenech. She said, very disdainfully, that he had gone to her college, though he didn't finish. She added helpfully that he was a total jackass.
Hey, I just came back from seeing Inside Man with Ellen and I was worried at first that the couple behind us were going to be talkers. But they quieted down just a minute or so into the titles, before I even had the opportunity/obligation to fix them with a dirty look.
(There was no blogospheric discussion overheard though.)
I had a lot that stayed on my bed. [...] I was way into Peanuts.
Try to butch it up a little, Matt.
Oh and BTW Tia: Inside Man went a little way toward winning me over to your view of sentimentality. There were a lot of moments in the film that I would describe as manipulative. But is was done in such a way that I felt no problem in giving my puppet strings over to the movie and letting it tug me around as it liked.
Here are my brief notes on the film.
256: people that a randomly educated person has a fair shot of knowing about
Well that "randomly educated" has me pinned to the board. My education was random, full of holes and one sided: British, in other words.
On that basis I think it fair to say that the a priori probability of the frat haus being able to solve Turing is not far removed from that of being able to solve Chatterton. There are large sections of the populace would have a hard time with, sa,y Husserl. A pound will get you a penny that ain't so here.
Happy Saturday, people.
