Results to Common Entries Contest MOJO2
These are the results for the Common Entries Contest MOJO2.
And as long as you're reading this, I'd like to plug Common Entries
Contest MOJO3, which I have just posted (separately from this post).
There 54 entrants. The winner was Eric Maddy with a remarkably high
score of 113 billion (billion=10^9). 113 billion is about 30% of the
maximum possible score of 372 billion. He gave the best possible answer
on six of the questions, and second best on three others. Second was
Andrew Krywaniuk, with a score of 26 billion -- his was the only entry
which could have won first place by changing only a single anwer. Third
place went to Gerrit de Blaauw, with 14 billion.
1st: Eric Maddy 2nd: Andrew Krywaniuk 3rd: Gerrit de Blaauw
0. dead duck dad daddy dad dad
1. blue book red book red book
2. Germany Germany Germany
3. web web spider
4. Canberra Canberra Canberra
5. car object thing
6. blind love blind
7. SPLHCB The White Album Thriller
8. C C C
9. FMDIDGAD I'll be back I'll be back
Here, SPLHCB=Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and
FMDIDGAD=Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
And because there were a lot of entrants, here are the next three winners:
4th: Rick Zepp 5th: Joseph Marriott 6th: Dave Gates
0. dead duck do dog Donald Duck
1. red book red book red movie
2. England Germany England
3. web house web
4. Canberra Canberra Canberra
5. object car computer
6. blind NHTSYS love
7. Yellow Submarine The White Album The White Album
8. D C D
9. I'll be back FMDIDGAD FMDIDGAD
And here, NHTSYS=never having to say you're sorry.
Here is the complete list of scores. Entries are in order, from best, to worst.
The first line, "Hypothetical Maximum," refers to the highest score for each
question. If someone had picked the best answer for each question, they
would have gotten 372 billion (ignoring the fact that they would be
raising the scores for those answers). The last column gives the ratio of
the contestant's score to this hypothetical maximum score.
Of the 540 answers, 145 (27%) were unrepeated (getting scores of 1).
Only three of the contestants (Eric Maddy, Gerrit de Blaauw, and Heidi
King), were able to avoid getting a 1 on any question. Nine other
contestants were able to get by with only a single 1.
And here is the complete list of scores:
Name #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 Score Fraction of max
"Hypothetical Maximum" 5 16 22 13 47 6 13 13 31 11 3.71832e+11
1.Eric Maddy 4 10 22 13 47 5 13 13 31 8 1.12676e+11 0.30303
2.Andrew Krywaniuk 1 16 22 13 47 6 6 10 31 11 2.64022e+10 0.0710059
3.Gerrit de Blaauw 2 16 22 4 47 3 13 8 31 11 1.40812e+10 0.0378698
4.Rick Zepp 4 16 8 13 47 6 13 1 23 11 6.17343e+09 0.0166028
5.Joseph Marriott 1 16 22 2 47 5 8 10 31 8 3.28233e+09 0.00882746
6.Dave Gates 5 1 8 13 47 6 6 10 23 8 1.61891e+09 0.00435387
7.Andrew Hartley 2 16 7 13 47 3 1 8 31 11 1.12009e+09 0.00301237
8.Mark Brader 4 10 3 13 47 1 8 10 31 6 1.091e+09 0.00293413
9.Heidi King 4 2 7 2 47 6 13 8 31 8 8.14614e+08 0.00219082
10.Kev Stone 1 1 22 13 47 1 13 8 23 11 3.53686e+08 0.000951199
11.Paul Guertin 2 16 22 13 47 1 1 4 23 6 2.37439e+08 0.000638567
12.Oliver Gaul 1 16 22 2 47 1 13 4 23 6 2.37439e+08 0.000638567
13.Harold Buck 1 10 2 13 47 6 13 1 31 8 2.36384e+08 0.000635728
14.Monsieur Bottineau 4 1 4 1 47 5 13 13 23 11 1.60766e+08 0.000432363
15.Jacob Sone 3 10 5 13 47 6 6 1 31 1 1.02281e+08 0.000275075
16.Keith Redo 1 16 8 1 47 3 13 13 31 1 9.45535e+07 0.000254291
17.Geoff Roe 2 16 8 1 47 2 4 8 23 3 5.31333e+07 0.000142896
18.Andy Jakcsy 1 10 7 4 47 1 8 13 31 1 4.24278e+07 0.000114105
19.Barbara Grenier 5 16 8 1 47 5 4 1 23 3 4.15104e+07 0.000111638
20.Brian Coombs 3 10 7 13 47 1 6 1 23 2 3.54136e+07 9.52409e-05
21.Nick Fleet 2 16 22 2 47 1 1 8 31 2 3.28233e+07 8.82746e-05
22.Maree Cassidy 1 1 22 1 47 6 2 10 23 11 3.13922e+07 8.4426e-05
23.Xho 2 10 22 13 3 6 13 1 23 1 3.0785e+07 8.2793e-05
24.Boolbar 2 1 22 3 47 6 1 13 31 2 3.00025e+07 8.06886e-05
25.Kacky Croydon 5 1 8 2 47 5 1 8 23 8 2.76736e+07 7.44251e-05
26.Paul Atkinson 1 16 4 1 47 1 8 13 23 3 2.15854e+07 5.80516e-05
27.Albert Hattingh 5 16 22 1 47 1 1 1 23 11 2.09282e+07 5.6284e-05
28.James Dean 1 2 22 2 47 1 2 13 31 6 2.00017e+07 5.37924e-05
29.James Dreier 2 1 3 4 47 1 8 4 31 11 1.23087e+07 3.3103e-05
30.Tim Vaughan 1 2 22 4 47 1 8 8 23 1 1.21764e+07 3.2747e-05
31.Steven Sousa 1 16 7 13 2 2 4 13 31 1 9.38829e+06 2.52488e-05
32.James Morse 1 2 8 2 47 2 8 4 31 3 8.95181e+06 2.40749e-05
33.Steve Allen 1 1 22 1 47 1 4 13 23 6 7.41998e+06 1.99552e-05
34.John Gerson 1 2 1 1 47 3 8 10 31 8 5.59488e+06 1.50468e-05
35.Eric Jensen 1 2 5 1 47 1 13 13 31 2 4.92466e+06 1.32443e-05
36.Byron Calver 4 16 5 1 47 2 1 4 31 1 3.72992e+06 1.00312e-05
37.Brian Dunphy 1 1 22 3 47 2 1 10 23 2 2.85384e+06 7.67509e-06
38.Phil Carmody 1 1 22 1 47 1 1 10 23 11 2.61602e+06 7.0355e-06
39.Mary Ellen Foster 4 1 22 1 47 1 1 10 31 2 2.56432e+06 6.89646e-06
40.Cameron Crofts 1 16 22 4 47 1 1 1 31 1 2.05146e+06 5.51717e-06
41.Jacqui 5 1 22 2 47 6 1 1 31 1 1.92324e+06 5.17234e-06
42.Daniel Lesage 1 10 2 4 3 6 6 4 23 2 1.58976e+06 4.27548e-06
43.Neil Sunderland 1 2 5 1 47 1 1 13 23 8 1.12424e+06 3.02352e-06
44.Tom Salinsky 3 10 7 1 2 1 6 13 31 1 1.01556e+06 2.73124e-06
45.Cvv 1 1 4 2 47 2 1 13 31 3 909168 2.44511e-06
46.Josh 1 10 22 1 3 1 13 4 23 1 789360 2.1229e-06
47.Matthew Grieco 1 1 22 4 47 1 1 4 31 1 512864 1.37929e-06
48.Jeromy Labit 2 1 4 1 47 3 1 1 23 11 285384 7.67509e-07
49.Michael Crowder 1 2 7 1 47 1 13 1 31 1 265174 7.13156e-07
50.Leo Breebaart 1 2 5 1 47 3 1 1 31 6 262260 7.05319e-07
51.Mike Shreeve 4 2 1 3 47 1 1 1 31 3 104904 2.82128e-07
52.David Hill 2 1 8 1 47 6 1 1 23 1 103776 2.79094e-07
53.Jim McAdams 1 1 3 4 2 1 1 10 31 2 14880 4.00181e-08
54.Richard Heathfield 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 31 1 124 3.33484e-10
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here are the detailed results and rulings for each question
>0. Write two words which both begin with the letter d, separating
> the words with a space.
> (Entries which give the same two words as each other, but in
> opposite order, will NOT be considered the same when scoring.)
5 Donald Duck
4 dead duck
4 dirty dog
3 d d
2 dad dad
2 ding dong
2 dog day
2 dog dog
2 dog duck
1 da da
1 dad daddy
1 dad day
1 dad dinner
1 day dream
1 daisy daisy
1 Daffy Duck
1 dark days
1 dead dog
1 deaf dumb
1 do dah
1 do did
1 do differences
1 do do
1 do dog
1 do don't
1 dog days
1 dog do
1 double decker
1 double diamond
1 double double
1 double dutch
1 down down
1 Dumb and dumber
1 dungeons dragons
1 Dunkin Donut
1 duran duran
1 dysfunctional data
Here I was trying to get as many 1s as possible, and as small a
maximum score as possible. This task is harder than it might seem,
since if a question is too obviously difficult, it invites people
to answer it in intentionally incorrect fashion. Here, it turns
out that there are a surprising number of phrases that feature two
words starting with d, such as "double dare," "dust devil,"
"dastardly deed," "dynamic duo," "dilly dally," "double down,"
"dum dum," "doo doo," and "deep doo-doo," as well as the phrases above.
Plus, of course, there are a number of ways to pick two common d words
and it's not clear if the two words should be the same or not.
>1. Give an antonym of "blue book" which does not include the letter
> sequence "blue book" in it, either forwards or backwards.
16 red book
10 blue book
2 black book
2 koob eulb
2 orange book
2 red page
2 red paper
1 a book not blue
1 book blue
1 cheat sheet
1 oboe bulk
1 pink book
1 red ink
1 red movie
1 red radio
1 red rag
1 Red Sea
1 red television
1 red tree
1 unblue unbook
1 yellow cancel
1 yellow leaf
1 yellow letter
1 yellow magazine
1 yellow pages
At least in Southern California, a "blue book," is a common 25 cent
booklet that many undergraduates are supposed so write in during their
exams. I believe that "blue books" are common in universities throughout
the U.S., but not in non-U.S. countries (true? false?). So I had hoped to
trick a fair number of people into picking exam-related answers,
such as "Scantron." But I had only one such answer ("cheat sheet").
Perhaps I've been in college too long, and this parsing of "blue book" is
not as common among the general population as I thought.
>2. Name a country in Europe other than Lichtenstein or France.
22 Germany
8 England
7 France
5 Spain
4 Italy
3 Switzerland
2 Lichtenstein
1 Andorra
1 Great Britain
1 Portugal
For reference, here's the similar question that was asked in MOJO1,
and the results to that contest:
>> 6. Name any country in Europe other than Andorra.
> 38 France
> 6 Germany
> 5 England
> 4 United Kingdom (UKoGBaNI)
> 3 Andorra
> 3 Spain
> 1 Belgium
> 1 Britain
In that contest I was both surprised that Andorra did so badly, and that
France did so well, since I had thought of France, England, and Germany
as all roughly equally good. There were a number of explanations for why
France was the best. One was that "other than Andorra" biased the reader
to pick countries that bordered Andorra. So I decided to try this new
question.
Lichtenstein borders Switzerland and Austria. Switzerland is obviously
a better common answer than Austria -- plus, Switzerland borders France
as well, making it doubly good. However, as you can see, Switzerland
did not do too well. And Spain, which one might have argued was helped
in MOJO1 by its proximity to Andorra, actually did better this time.
Incidentally, in MOJO1 I lost a bet that Andorra would be one of the top
three answers, and in this contest I lost a bet that Switzerland would be
one of the top three answers. I do a distressingly poor job of predicting
answers in my own contest.
The results in MOJO1 can also be used to argue for France, Germany, or
England. France was the #1 answer last time. Germany was the top unbanned
answer. And if the UK, GB, and England respondents had combined their answers
to the most common UKoGBaNI-related answer of England, England would have
beaten Germany last time. So these three answers all make sense. However,
I am confused as to why Spain and Italy would do better than last time.
>3. Complete this analogy: pig is to web as horse is to ______.
13 web
4 beauty
4 spider
3 water
2 email
2 house
2 internet
2 stable
2 velvet
1 blue ribbon
1 boy
1 car
1 cart
1 farm
1 fly
1 ftp
1 hutch
1 kennel
1 man
1 Microsoft
1 net
1 nest
1 pages
1 rider
1 search engine
1 stone
1 sty
1 usenet
1 world
Basically my interest in this question was to see all the different
ways to get scores of 1 and 2 with esoteric reasoning. I have trouble
following the logic behind many of the answers above :)
When I came up with this question, the "correct" answer I had in mind was
"beauty," because a pig is the major animal in the children's book
"Charlette's Web," while a horse is the major animal in the children's
book "Black Beauty." Despite the fact that this was my logic when I came
up with the analogy, I considered the reasoning too esoteric for anyone
else to get, and thought that "web" was the best answer. I was quite
excited to see that "beauty" did reasonably well. And I assume that the
answer "velvet" refers to "National Velvet." And perhaps "boy" is because
a boy is the main character in "Black Beauty"?
>4. State the capital of Australia.
47 Canberra
3 Sydney
2 Melbourne
2 A
I thought that this question posed a harder problem. I expected that most
people in these newsgroups would realize that Canberra was the capital, or
that if they didn't know, they would be suspicious enough to do a 30-second
web search and find the correct capital. But I thought Sydney was still a
good answer, in that it's the first-response populist answer, which seems
appropriate for a Common Entries Contest. When I tested this question
on my friends, everyone knew that the capital was Canberra (except one
guy who though it was Perth), but over half of them chose Sydney as the
best answer. I would have chosen Sydney myself. I guess this falls
under the heading of "outsmarting yourself."
>5. Name a type of object.
6 computer
6 object
5 car
3 ball
3 thing
2 direct (= direct object)
2 solid
2 tool
1 a type of object
1 alive
1 apple
1 book
1 char *
1 class
1 common
1 cube
1 definite
1 food
1 household
1 inanimate
1 indirect
1 monitor
1 name a type of object
1 noble
1 physical
1 plastic
1 puzzle
1 recordset
1 rock
1 sphere
1 spoon
1 table
1 unidentified flying object
This question was intended to be hard, but I didn't expect it to be this
hard. I had envisioned most entrants choosing various concrete objects,
like balls, trees, apples, and cars. I had not expected that classes of
objects (alive, solid, inanimate, etc. . .), grammatical classes (direct,
indirect, etc. . .), or abstract classes (object, a type of
object, etc. . .) would all do reasonably well.
You'll note that "object," "a type of object," and "name a type of object"
are all considered different. I figured that these are all different
things, and that there was no reason to be overly generous with these
sorts of answers. If you give a "trick answer," it's a given risk that
other people may give somewhat different trick answers.
>6. Please help me define love by completing the sentence
> "Love is __________," without anywhere re-using the word "love."
> (Entries must be identical, except for possible minor punctuation
> differences, to be considered the same).
13 blind
8 never (=not) having to say you're sorry
6 love
4 a many-splendored thing
2 all you need
1 .....
1 a four letter word
1 a game
1 a warm puppy
1 an emotion
1 beautiful
1 expensive
1 forever
1 futile
1 having to say you're sorry several hundred times a day
1 illogical
1 in the air
1 insane
1 kind
1 look together in the same direction
1 marriage
1 patient
1 real
1 strange
1 sublime
1 where you find it
I debated whether the additional comment "without anywhere re-using the
word 'love'" made "love" a better or worse answer for this question. I
decided that it made it a better answer, but I'm still not sure.
There are lots of enjoyable answers here. And for your enjoyment, here are
some other definitions of love. These quotes appear in Chapter 6 (on love)
in the textbook "Sexuality and Gender in Society" by Carroll and Wolpe.
Love is a grave mental disease.
Plato
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
Jules Renard
Love is the triumph of imagination over inteligence.
H. L. Mencken
Love is an egotism of two.
Antoine de la Sale
Love is a hole in the heart.
Ben Hecht
Love is not love until love is vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
Love is a kind of warfare.
Ovid, Ars amatoria
Perhaps that is what love is -- the momentary or prolonged refusal to
think of another person in terms of power.
Phyllis Rose
Love, such as it is in society, is only the exchange of two fantasies,
and the contact of two bodies.
Sebastian R. N. Chamfort, Maximes et penses
I thought "Love is patient" would do better. I guess these newsgroups
are full of heathens. :) In case you didn't know, the following Bible
quote appears on numerous cutesy embroidered kitchen hangings in
Christian homes:
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable
or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the
truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NRSV translation
>7. Name a musical album.
13 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
10 The White Albumn
8 Thriller
4 Abbey Road
4 Dark Side of the Moon
1 A hard day's night
1 A musical album
1 bad
1 Bat Out of Hell
1 Beatles: 1
1 Beethoven's 9th symphony
1 Greatest Hits
1 Jesus Christ Superstar
1 Nevermind
1 Rising
1 The Wall
1 Their Greatest Hits
1 Two Against Nature
1 Yellow Submarine
1 (blank)
Not surprisingly, the Beatles dominate this listing.
One person left this entry blank. I should point out that the rules
state that leaving a question blank results in a score of 1 -- so this
would have scored 1 even if other people left the question blank.
I ruled "Greatest Hits" and "Their Greatest Hits" as distinct answers,
for essentially the same reasons that I ruled "object", "type of object",
and "name a type of object" different in question 5.
>8. Consider the following game. You and nine other readers from rec.puzzles
> and rec.games.trivia are placed in separate rooms, and given two buttons,
> "C" (for cooperate) and "D" (for defect), and given ten minutes to decide
> which button to press. If everyone presses "C," you will all get
> $1000. If at least one person presses "D," then everyone who
> presses "D" will get $100, while those who press "C" will get
> nothing. Which button you pressed will not be revealed to the other
> players at the end of the contest. Which button do you press?
31 C
23 D
I am asking this question again in MOJO3. I think that this is one of the
few Common Entry questions that would potentially be interesting to repeat.
I would appreciate it if people could hold off discussing this question or
results until MOJO3 is completed. Thanks!
>9. Quote a line or sequence of lines from a movie.
> (Entries which differ slightly in phrasing or which quote different
> lengths of text will be considered the same as long as the material
> quoted is sufficient to make clear the scene and movie being quoted.)
11 I'll be back.
8 Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
6 Play it again, Sam. (=Play it, Sam)
3 Go ahead, make my day. (=Go on, punk, make my day)
3 Hasta la vista, baby.
2 Hello. My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
2 Luke, I am your father. (=I am your father)
2 May the force be with you!
2 You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!
1 A line or sequence of lines from a movie
1 Do you feel lucky, punk?
1 Have fun storming the castle!
1 Here's looking at you, kid.
1 I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
1 I have a bad feeling about this.
1 I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
1 I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. I said "either your brains or
your signature are gonna be on this contract."
1 Quote a line or sequence of lines from a movie.
1 Rosebud.
1 There can be only one.
1 What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
1 You fool! You just fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most
famous is to never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly
less well known than that is this: Never go in against a Sicilian when death
is on the line!
1 You talking to me?
1 (blank)
I think every line I even briefly considered as a good answer for this
question is listed here. I did not consider the "Indigo Montoya" line,
which, in retrospect, is a good answer, because the line appears about
a billion times in the Princess Bride. I thought lines from the Star
Wars trilogy would do somewhat better.
And yes, I know "Play it again, Sam" appears nowhere in the movie
"Casablanca." Even with my parenthetical comment in the rules above,
it's not clear that "Play it, Sam," and "Play it again, Sam" are the
same answer, since "Play it again, Sam," makes clear the movie being
quoted, but not the scene (since there is not such scene). Of course,
it clearly refers to a certain fictional scene, but I believe in the
fictional scene, Rick says "Play it again, Sam," while "Play it, Sam"
is only said in the movie by Ilsa. I'm not sure, and it doesn't matter,
since I decided to rule these entries the same anyway. Incidentally, only
one person gave the correct quote, while five people gave the incorrect
quote. Ironically, the one person who gave the correct quote mentioned
that he actually thought "Use the force, Luke," would be a better choice,
but that he had to pick "Play it, Sam," for personal reasons! I wonder
how many of those five realized that their quote was incorrect.
That's it. Thanks to everyone who entered! As I mentioned earlier,
Common Entries MOJO3 is already out now, and I hope you'll all enter
again!
Momo