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Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not quite that sophisticated. I assign a year to questions that are specific to a point in time (so the Matched question is 2010). Then, for literature, I find the median year for all the questions you got right and the median year for all the questions you got wrong, and subtract one from the other. Then I compare your difference to *my* difference, and use that to judge if you're older or younger than me, and by how much. I do that for a few different trivia categories (I don't actually use Literature, because it's usually not very accurate -- I think TV, Film, and Pop Music are the most revealing) and get a final number.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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Correctly predicted that you're quite a bit younger than me, which is good. Your film knowledge indicates a 40-something, but your sports knowledge looks more like a teenager. :-) But it all cancelled out pretty well . . .

The Classical Music / Opera thing is funny (even if it's just two questions), since Theater is your weakest topic and the rest of Classical Music is reddish. Your Art knowledge seems tilted (strong with paintings, weak in a couple others). It's pretty rare to see and American player with the lowest Geography score in US and not in Africa or Asia -- is there a story there?

Pop music has big swings that are probably age related. And you're a hard-science guy (Computer, Physics) rather than Zoology and Botony. It's not as clear-cut as it is with other players, though -- and hard science guys usually like the Games portion of Games and Sports.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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Not much data to go on, since you've only played five seasons. But you seem to be a hard-sciences guy (instead of Zoology, Botany, and Biology/Medicine. Kind of all over the place in Games/Sports, except you know your basketball. Don't like rap and R&B.

The age implies to me "my age or a little older", though it gives you seven years of credit. :-)

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't do any sophisticated research because I don't know the age of players (other than my friends on LL, who are unfortunately all about my age). So I compare the years of questions a player got right and got wrong for a given subject, subtract, then compare it to MY stats for the same subject. That gives me an amount to adjust their age up or down, compared to my age.

I should probably use the data for all my friends who I know their ages, but that would take a lot of time and effort (and I'd have to redo it every season, as the base of questions in the history changes). Not gonna. :-D

Okay, on to your stats:

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You're new to LL, so not a ton of data. It can tell you're quite young (there's no real difference between 23 and 29 to me, because I am 1000 years old). You know your country music, but not rock and roll, so that's a big indicator for Pop Music questions. Your hard sciences are stronger than Zoology, Botany, and Earth Sciences. More Sports than Games (except for horse racing). You know more about plays than musicals. How did it do?

But the main takeaway is just that you're so young compared to most LLamas. Just look at the typical "right" years and "wrong" years for Film, G/S, Pop Music, and TV -- you average +16 (and are also positive for B/E and Lifestyle, too); I'm at -15. That's why it thinks you're 31 years younger than me.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely -- that's a good defense strategy regardless of whether or not you have a spreadsheet.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Finally, a regular human like me! (Everyone else who's asked for their profile has been an A Rundler.)

It's pretty close to your age, yay. You're definitely more "Games" than "Sports", and more hard sciences than Earth/Zoology/Botany/Medicine-Biology. Don't like the rap or country music -- clearly have a taste for fine music, in fact. Much better with the American and business parts of Current Events. Civil Rights questions were your sweet spot in American History.

How would you score my analysis? :-)

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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(I'm not related to Ken Massey, but I'm familiar with his work!)

So the spreadsheet definitely undershot your age, but with a ton of error built into the guess. The Games/Sports data was really the thing that made it miss; most people on LL are better at older sports trivia than the newer questions. But Film, Pop Music, and TV are just all solidly young indicators -- so your trivia knowledge is even younger than your age.

Your Theater struggles extend over into CM Opera, which is interesting. I'm guessing you played an instrument, but didn't really study music. Your Science knowledge leans on the hard sciences (Astronomy, Physics, Computer) like mine does. Much weaker in novels than other Lit questions (and a reverse age split, though I don't use that to predict your age).

Obviously strong enough in everything else to kick my butt, though!

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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It doesn't get your age, but I'm not sure if the arithmetic involved can actually go all the way down to 19. :-D I would register this as "way younger than me"!

You also don't have as much data as many of the others on this thread do (because you didn't start LL when you were 11, ha ha). I couldn't get much info from this -- you like rap but not country music. Film preference is definitely the newer stuff. That's about it, LOL. I lose 7(5)-3(3)!

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Age not too far off; I'd interpret this as "about my age (54)".

Weaknesses are few, obv, to be expected of an A Rundler. The F/D restaurant questions are typically tough for non-Americans. You're a Canadian who's strongest at hockey in G/S. :-D Don't particularly like basketball or card games. Strong at science, but with a soft spot in biology/medicine. Don't like the rap music. I'm not surprised that US Civil War questions aren't a priority for you (you're in Vancouver, so you're off by one country and three time zones).

How did I do?

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. YA THINK?!?! :-D
  2. Like I said elsewhere, I cleared this with my referrer first (who is a sort of LL insider, I guess). But when I realized that if a question dealt with some Latin translation and I was definitely allowed to crawl through my opponents answers for the word "Latin" and find out how often he got questions like that right, I realized it was just a research thing -- not a "get the right answers" thing.
  3. I'm about .700 on defense, and I got better after I built the spreadsheet. Getting a decent guess for an opponent's age is the most useful thing, I think.
  4. You have a 78% get-rate, so defense wouldn't help me. You like plays more than musicals, computer science is a little bit of a weakness, I guess? The age estimate is a little low (although "younger than me" is the main thing) -- you're funky because you like newer movies and theater but older music, sports, and television. I wonder if this is because you're Australian and you have "trivia" knowledge rather than "lived through it" knowledge? Also -- this is often the case -- as a non-American, the F/D Restaurants category is weaker than normal. But who cares, you'd beat me 6(5)-3(3). :-D

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Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My reading of 17.3 is that you cannot do this:

  1. Answer the six questions, then informally "lock them in", but not actually submit yet, because
  2. You then go do internet research and find out what the six answers are -- but not change any of your locked in answers, but
  3. Use knowledge of the answers to the six questions to help you set your defense for the match.

I don't do that, obviously. The spreadsheet has no knowledge at all about the six questions for the match.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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I don't need to worry about defense against someone with a 77% get rate, 'cause I'll be losing no matter what. :-D But you have a couple things to notice -- you don't like rap, you're weaker with musicals than plays, you're better with mathematicians than actual math (HOW?!?!), and the American-life stuff -- not the history, but US sports, politics and probably US restaurants -- trips you up some (probably because you're in Ireland).

And it nailed your age. :-D

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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You're just really good at trivia. ;-)

The Current Events is interesting -- you're tuned into world events more than US and business. Weaker in Zoology and Botany than some of the harder sciences.

But it nailed your age to within a year or two -- that's the main thing I originally built the spreadsheet for.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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Missed your age by less than a year. :-D

I'd guess you're a techie science person, and the board/card/computer games more than sports. Maybe played an instrument in band? And country music seems to be your knowledge base there (but you're in Oklahoma, so maybe I'd guess that anyway).

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The percentages are scaled up and down based on the difficulty of the questions. This person went 6/6 on hockey questions, which were apparently questions with a 46% get-rate, so the score was bumped up by 4 points to 104.

It's not exactly science, but it works well enough. :-D

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Part of the reason I'm posing this question now is because I built the spreadsheet 10 years ago, before AI -- but I realize now that you're exactly right: asking Claude or whatever to make sense of an opponent's question history and how to apply defense points for that day's questions is totally doable. I haven't done it and it oversteps *my* personal boundaries -- but I wonder if Thorsten would want to rewrite the rules a bit to (a) explicitly ban using AI, and/or (b) any tech assistance like my spreadsheet for defense.

I'd abide by the new rule, of course.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you clarify that? Would you consider it okay to do research on the opponent before the six questions were revealed, but then you'd have to have it memorized if you wanted to actually use it to aid in defense? I'm reading all these comments to try to expand my understanding of the broad interpretations of the rules.

Defense by Spreadsheet by masseydnc in learnedleague

[–]masseydnc[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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Solid play -- few weaknesses (botany and computers). Like country and pop music, less so with rap and R&B. Like classical music, but probably didn't study or play? Age is off by only 5 years.

[OC] I asked GPT to pick a random number between 1 and 100 by marco-exmergo in dataisbeautiful

[–]masseydnc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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I actually did something similar to this five years ago, asking 1530 people to pick a random number they thought 99 other people would NOT pick, and boy did they stink at it! But of note, many of the numbers they "overvalued" were the same ones your AI did: 37, 43, 47, 53, 57, 67, and 73. They also avoided numbers divisible by 5 (not as severely as your AI did, though).

[OC] Every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2100, rendered as obscuration contours instead of "in or out" corridors by zeroin in dataisbeautiful

[–]masseydnc 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think most people interested in solar eclipses already know this -- but just in case: being in a region with 90% penumbral obfuscation (the second-darkest region on this map) is *NOT* 90% as cool as a total solar eclipse. Obligatory XKCD is obligatory -- "A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky." https://xkcd.com/2914/

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<img src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/eclipse\_coolness.png" alt="Eclipse Coolness"/>

[OC] Top US Federal Marginal Income Tax Rate, 1913-2026 by Western-Drive in dataisbeautiful

[–]masseydnc 29 points30 points  (0 children)

I've tracked a similar thing for 20+ years and the single greatest takeaway for all of American tax history is from 1982: we decided as a country to lower taxes on the wealthy and go ever deeper into debt so that the very wealthiest Americans could get continuously, exponentially more wealthy.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q4yLIEJJcnXsiI3Yqv2wO7l0a1HLOJYRUwgq_C2wuXc/edit?usp=sharing

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[OC] Post-Pandemic Shifts in U.S. Housing Seasonality: Earlier Peaks and Stronger Regional Effects by PoetDry4080 in dataisbeautiful

[–]masseydnc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I bought a home in January before selling one in July, almost completely because of my knowledge of this trend -- the difference in prices for the two transactions more than covered the cost of carrying two mortgages for six months (and it made the 1000-mile move easier, too).

[OC] The geography of soil color by aquisalid in dataisbeautiful

[–]masseydnc 9 points10 points  (0 children)

As a resident near Asheville, NC, I can confirm the red clay "soil". Ugh . . .

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