Fun Trivia Tourney

Working out math problems is not "trivial"

2005-04-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

I don't like this new subject for the tourney. Working out math problems is NOT the same thing as trivia. Trivia is supposed to be unimportant facts that you either know or you don't know. What is the capital (capitol?) of Urugauay? (<--That's actually 2 trivia questions rolled up into one!)

More players

2005-03-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

We need double jeopardy, where the scores can really change.

Fun Trivia Tourney

2005-03-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

I kept track in excel, and tried to prove some different things.
I missed a day or two of tracking.
I proved:
1. I cannot track well
2. I still get third place
3. First and second was close, missing a few days skews the results from the the tourney score.

Results for those that played 5 games or more..

Sum of Score

applecore 16054
funnyclock 15636
rcmucic 15388
erect 13692
bc 8293

Sum of Pts Awarded

funnyclock 104
applecore 102
rcmucic 100
erect 86
bc 61

Sum of Correct

applecore 195
funnyclock 188
rcmucic 181
erect 158
bc 98

Count of Pts Awarded (how many times a player played)

applecore 26
rcmucic 26
funnyclock 25
erect 20
bc 14

Average of Score: 622

erect 685
applecore 617
funnyclock 625
rcmucic 592
bc 592

Drinks to the winner for March

2005-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

These questions will be fast and fun for a few days. Don't be afraid. F's are good.

In spite of Matt's best efforts, and thanks to Dylan's speed and panache, February brought us a tie.

Had he played every day (Bobby do you have the excel results?) it would have been his. M-F is easy. SS is harder.

Buena Suerte.

February is over!

2005-02-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well done Matt.

I will do a better job of changing the question pool every week or more often. If they aren't working well or whatever, it's easy to change them, just speak up!

I almost forgot to take the quiz yesterday, it wasn't until 8:50pm that I remembered. The best way to get the most points is to play every day. I think funnyclock Matt even missed a day!

March starts in a few hours, will there be strong performances from Dr. Knowledge, Mr. 1600, and Three Degrees by 22? Or will it just be the usual suspects?

In honor of Ascorbic Acid

2005-02-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

***Chemistry*** is the theme for the next few days...

Chemistry :: Specific Elements :: Mixed Elements :: Periodic Table :: Chemistry Mix :: Chemical Names and Formulas :: Organic Chemistry :: Specific Chemicals and Compounds :: Acids and Bases :: Metals :: Biochemistry ::

Good luck.

Sorry, Movies it is

2005-02-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

We'll do something else next Friday...

Statistics

2005-02-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

Bobby is tracking in Excel points, times, # correct, etc., and at the end of the month we can perform analyses to confirm that Brett is dumb for Googling, and Brian is fastest in spite of being a moral policeman.

We have everyone's email but '88'. Who the hell is that?

btw, changing question pool to Movies or something tonight.

It's hot in this kitchen

2005-02-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

If it cost 10 points for each second lost in researching an answer, and you took 70 seconds using your brain and Google to get all ten answers right, you'd get:

Number right	Time elapsed	Points awarded
10	70	300

The above table follows the 100 points/correct answer that in the current (-1 point/second) system would yield:

Number right	Time elapsed	Points awarded
10	70	930

Clearly, the current scoring system yields an advantage to researchers who can improve the number of correct answers by researching each answer in under 80-95 seconds.

When I set up this tournament in response to Matt's email containing 20 trivia questions, I had two goals:

1) Have fun
2) Learn stuff

FunTrivia.com's competition *system* is a nice bonus, and perhaps an incentive to be consistent with 1) and 2) above.

There will be at least two people drinking a beer or two in early March. Only the strong survive.

Who's gonna play Saturday & Sunday?

2005-02-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

Everyone has more time during the week; what's happening to productivity of the world's workforce?!?

Brian's scoring system of #pts^2/#gms will help the fast players who don't play the weekends.

Today was pretty damn fast - 6 of 8 got all 10 right.

That will almost certainly change tomorrow. I think General Trivia: More Difficult will be our question pool, changing in three hours. Let's see what happens...

There is an error in your query

2005-02-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

Error Occurred While Processing Request
Error Executing Database Query.
General error: Can't open file: 'quizindexT.MYD'. (errno: 144)

The error occurred in /home/trivia/www/private/qns.cfm: line 71
Called from /home/trivia/www/private/play.cfm: line 132
Called from errno: line -1
Called from /home/trivia/www/private/qns.cfm: line 71
Called from /home/trivia/www/private/play.cfm: line 132

Get on it!!!

Questions change...

2005-02-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

I think the question pool should be changed Friday night - the 4th.

I will wait until 7:45pm, after everyone has had a chance to play Friday.

Or should it stay the same for a couple of weeks, or maybe the whole month?

...and after 5

2005-01-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

It was 5,5,4,4,4. Strange.

After four,

2005-01-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

It's 4,4,3,3

Points and priorities

2005-01-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

The points are a bit more complicated:
Yesterday, with 6 people, it went 6,5,5,5,4,4
applecore just played, and changed it from 2,2
to 3,3,2.

Since the tournament only tracks points, that is what we've based the winner on. When this started, Bobby had 27, Matt 25, and Barry 6 or something. Matt is now four points behind with seven days to go.

Since they're so easy, there's a premium on speed, though it may be worth the time if a 15-sec Google can get you from 9/10 to perfect.

Next month we could change it up, but since this is just for fun, and an excuse for me to have a 60-second escape each day, and a competition, and a way to share a drink once a month with the winner, I don't care, as long as everyone is happy.

And your proposal to allow points for scores above 940 is I think because when many people play, the winning score is more likely to be above 940. (If one plays, it could be as low 831 and still win). But if only one plays, then they only get one point (maybe 2?).

For this month, just keep it at most points, and we can engage over infinite scoring possibilities over drinks.

2005-01-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

can anyone explain how the point system works?

i get something like highest daily score gets one more award point than the next best score. 3-5 next lowest scores are chunked. and grouping continues on down.

what do you guys actually care about? wins? awarded points? time points for a single game record? i was thinking of something like number of times you score over 900 to number of times you dont---in this case there would be the slight possibility of googling an answer (1.4 minutes, but it seems unlikely). maybe some suitable threshold could be discovered---winners seldom get below 940.

maybe sum of all time points plus 2 times tally points over 940?
or final score point plus one for every game w/ time points are over 940?

bc

bc

2005-01-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

bcanother try....

The gap narrows

2005-01-24T09:48:00.000-08:00

Looks like this is the week that I get caught.
Brett thinks the questions are getting harder.
I think that they are not hard enough, we get 8-10' and our curve is too high.

First post

2005-01-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

There must be an easy way to have blogger allow multiple posters.

How many tourneys is too many?

35 seconds has been scored a couple of times, faster is possible, but I have to be methodical about clicking the radio button. It's easy to miss, which is infuriating to see a 9/10 after reading & answering all of the questions correctly.

Damn you, cushman.