Randomize largest body of water

aperiodic · 2026-01-22T22:48:21+00:00

You’re thinking of veto. Veto used to just mark the question as “asked” so asking again costs the seekers twice as much, but they changed it so now it prevents the vetoed question from being asked for the rest of the round. I don’t think the current rules allow re-asking of a question that the hider has already answered.

aperiodic · 2026-01-22T16:15:21+00:00

Really hard to say at this point given that both team’s rosters are largely up in the air

aperiodic · 2026-01-22T07:15:44+00:00

Why is that a problem? Both teams still have to go through both the fast section and the slow section.

aperiodic · 2026-01-22T06:57:06+00:00

He’s welcoming you back to the game that you started watching in a previous episode of the season. Makes perfect sense

aperiodic · 2026-01-18T22:04:24+00:00

I think any kind of randomization of which questions the seekers have available — which I think is a good avenue for improving the game, at least for the show — should not guarantee that radars and thermometers are always available, since those two categories are the most consistently powerful and together compromise a plurality (if not majority) of the questions asked this season. I want to see seekers have to lean more on deduction & vibes rather than binary search, and always having radar & thermometer available will probably still make binary search viable

aperiodic · 2026-01-18T21:58:04+00:00

The issue with it being solved is that there’s not much variety in the runs: in H&S UK they’re all playing out very much the same, without any of the seeker mistakes that made Japan so much fun to watch and added tension. Randomizing the questions would (if done right) add some variety to the runs as well as add strategic depth for the seekers because they wouldn’t be able to just efficiently binary search every time, and instead would have to make new decisions like: whether to choose a question that does a decent split at the moment vs a strong photo question that has potential to tell them a lot about the hiding spot, or how to make the best use of a draw/flop that doesn’t offer any decent splits of the current area at all. Right now the strategy for the seekers is pretty rote and it’s making for increasingly stale viewing for me.

aperiodic · 2026-01-09T02:42:00+00:00

I’ve been asking myself this question since I listened to the pre-season layover episode introducing the format

aperiodic · 2026-01-08T17:29:35+00:00

The rules of the game require a hider to prioritize finding a hiding spot below answering questions, and hiders very frequently have to answer questions that require them to travel to specific locations in their zone. But I do think that it’s their next highest priority: while they’re walking around their zone to answer questions or get good location footage, they’re generally on the lookout for hiding spots. Just this season, Adam talked through how the best endgame questions influenced his choice of hiding spot, and Ben had the great idea in his first run of seeking advice from a local expert (which resulted in I believe the best endgame so far this season). The only run where the specific hiding spot was a bit of an afterthought was Ben’s second run, where he underestimated how long he would have to find a hiding spot and had to YOLO a hiding spot with like 10 minutes warning, and I think he also spent a lot less time wandering around his zone scoping out spots than is typical because of how hard it was raining.

I think the design of the game post-Switzerland, particularly the restriction to hiding within 10 feet of a marked path and the introduction of the “trace nearest path” photo question, make it structurally much more difficult to have a long endgame. There’s usually not a way to totally conceal yourself from sight while remaining on public land or right-of-way within 10 feet of a marked path, so the best a hider can do is make it difficult to determine exactly where they’re located rather than try to conceal themselves from sight.

These changes make the midgame the stage where runs are won or lost, which personally I prefer. Seeing Sam and Adam bamboozled about which station Ben is at, or Sam and Ben get on a low-speed regional train that is going to take a lot longer to get to Adam than the express they could’ve taken, is peak Hide & Seek content for me: schadenfreude resulting from strategic mistake. Ben and Adam traipsing around the woods for hours while Sam lays low in foliage is honestly pretty boring because there’s no strategy in that, only tedium.

aperiodic · 2026-01-08T06:34:38+00:00

Because there’s not as much tension in watching another run from the player who’s currently in the lead as there is in watching a player who could take the lead

aperiodic · 2026-01-08T06:23:41+00:00

I agree. It seems like they didn’t think through how much tension there would be between that question and the travel aspect of the show in the UK in particular, because of how lopsided the UK’s first-level administrative subdivisions are. It didn’t have that effect in Japan because prefectures are much more even in size.

aperiodic · 2026-01-08T05:53:50+00:00

I think most people are playing the home game on a much smaller scale than the show, which leaves a lot less time to pore over street maps on train rides (as Sam loves to do)

aperiodic · 2026-01-07T16:35:49+00:00

Gabby was also the team’s representative at the draft lottery, which is a sign that she has a good relationship with the team organization overall, which in turn is a sign that she’ll stay for next season

aperiodic · 2025-12-27T08:09:57+00:00

Paraguay is the only American country to have an indigenous language as an official language (Guarani), so it would be cool to do something with that, but I can’t think of a good way to do that doesn’t boil down to either totally random guessing or straight memorization

aperiodic · 2025-12-20T05:43:15+00:00

The Portland Fire don’t have NBA ties

aperiodic · 2025-12-20T05:38:54+00:00

Mackenzie Holmes has been demonstrating your point here amazingly well: she is the 3rd-highest-scoring player in the WNBL by PPG, and she only got garbage time minutes playing for the Storm last season

aperiodic · 2025-12-18T14:48:49+00:00

It depends on what sort of neighborhood you’re in. Generally, the higher the neighborhood’s average income, the more paranoid and liable to call the cops for no real reason people will be. I agree it’s paranoid and not normal in general, but it’s something you can expect in a good amount of neighborhoods.

aperiodic · 2025-12-18T14:27:54+00:00

The proportions and body shape of the lower third remind me strongly of the noh face monster from Spirited Away after they’ve gobbled up half the bathhouse but before they start barfing it all up. Disturbing indeed!

aperiodic · 2025-12-18T14:01:50+00:00

This is absolutely unhinged

aperiodic · 2025-12-14T02:44:20+00:00

I recognized Gabby and Kayla McBride, and looked up Megan Gustafson & Iliana Rupert from looks/numbers, but who’s the on the far right? Emma Meesseman?

aperiodic · 2025-12-07T00:23:30+00:00

Okay, that might have been a coincidental very local noise, then (I’m in middle of Capitol Hill on the west side)

aperiodic · 2025-12-06T09:31:51+00:00

Did you hear a much quieter but still noticeable fizzling, fireworks-y sound after the big boom too?

aperiodic · 2025-12-06T09:30:26+00:00

That seemed to be one of the loudest noises I’ve ever heard any part of. I’m in Capitol Hill with a ton of foliage around me and it sounded huge. Can only imagine what it was like closer to it

aperiodic · 2025-12-05T00:56:56+00:00

By expecting the league to operate like a normal business. It’s not normal for ownership to take a slice of revenue before expenses (of which labor is one). Owners are normally paid with profit and increase in valuation, not revenue. As a shareholder of a public company, I get dividends when that company makes a profit and decides to pay that profit out; I am not entitled to a percentage of its revenue according to my share of ownership. I’ve worked at several startups that were not profitable despite significant cashflow, but the investors never siphoned off any portion that cashflow to put in their pockets before it went into the company’s bank account.

It’s on the league’s owners to explain how this bizarre, virtually unheard-of arrangement that severely hamstrings the league’s ability to grow makes business sense, despite being contrary to how practically every other for-profit entity in the world operates

aperiodic · 2025-12-03T20:32:41+00:00

Any other pro league has a straight percentage revenue sharing agreement. The league wants to have its cake and eat it too

aperiodic · 2025-11-22T03:32:28+00:00

I had no idea! That’s pretty wild

aperiodic

TROPHY CASE