Rare Entries Contest DZT02

[dtilque]

@panamajack

I find the make/model question to be the most annoying. As mentioned on one of the newsgroups, there’s a clear conflict between specificity and the parameters of the question. It bothers me that we were penalized for specifying our answers.

In your case and that of one other, I really hated to do that. If I could have seen a way to give you a better score while being consistent, I would have.

His answer was Subaru Alcyone. Alcyone is one of the stars in the Pleiades. The other answered Subaru Stella.

For chess, I imagine they were going for the competition scoring of 1 for a game and 1/2 for a draw. In my opinion that would be wrong as well. Otherwise any sport at all could qualify if it’s in a tournament. The World Cup for football/soccer, for instance.

The person in question emailed (his Usenet feed is broken or he would have posted) me that that’s what he had in mind. And my reaction was the same as yours. Those points are in the tournament, not in the game itself.

And unless it’s a typo in the write-up, I don’t think there is such a thing as “4136 Chromoly” used for bike frames (or “4136 steel” for that matter - note that 4130 ‘Chromoly’ would be the same thing as 4130 steel).

The contestant sent me a link supposedly of a bike for sale with that composition. I’m afraid I was negligent in checking it out earlier. It turns out that 4136 Chromoly is not mentioned on that page (4130 is). However, you will get a few hundred google hits for “4136 Chromoly”. It’s possible that all of them are typos for 4130, though. I suspect that the 4136 was a typo in the guy’s entry.

[Chronos]

Nope, it’s not meant to be Armstrong. It probably would be if he were the only famous astronaut from Ohio. But Glenn is also from OH, so they claim the astronaut figure represents all Ohio-related astronauts. 17 of them, IIRC.

He’s maybe there in honor of all the other astronauts, but the one pictured on the quarter is wearing an Apollo moonwalk spacesuit, and therefore definitely isn’t Glenn. In fact, of all the astronauts called out by name in the official description of the quarter’s symbolism, Armstrong is the only one who walked on the Moon. So I’d say it’s him.

Not that it matters, of course, given that nobody gave him as an answer.

[Gibbs89]

Thanks for running the contest, dtilque. I have never done anything like this and I really enjoyed it. Here are my thoughts on some of the questions from a virgin player’s perspective:

0. The day after I sent in my answers I thought of Earth as a possibility for this one and wished I had used it instead of the Moon. I thought it would have been a pretty clever answer. Now I’m glad it didn’t come to me sooner.

1. My answer was Lewis. I would interpret the description here: http://www.usmint.gov/historianscorner/?action=coinDetail&id=29197 to mean that the Missouri quarter does in fact depict Lewis and Clark. “It highlights Lewis and Clark’s historic return to St. Louis down the Missouri River, with the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch in the the background.”

I agree that the astronaut on the Ohio quarter is definitely Armstrong if you dig into the details, but I think the answer would still have to be scored wrong since “only a person that an image is meant to represent is a valid answer” and the image isn’t meant to represent just Armstrong, but all Ohio astronauts.

3. This simple-sounding question was probably the most confusing for me as a first timer. I wasn’t sure if the question was pigeonholing us into just choosing one of the five lakes on the US-Canada border commonly known as The Great Lakes or if other answers, such as the Great Salt Lake would be acceptable. I decided that if someone asked me to name all of the Great Lakes, I wouldn’t include the Great Salt Lake or any others in my answer so I just picked one of the five. I don’t fault the question, just my inexperience here.

4. The question does only ask for a make OR model, and I was one who gave both (Ford Orion) mostly just because that’s a common way to refer to a vehicle (make + model) and I didn’t read the specifics of the question very carefully. I will pay more attention to this in the future.

5. My answer was molybdenum and I knew it was iffy so I take no offense at the scoring. Your assumption that I was thinking of chromoly is of course correct, however I was hoping that maybe molybdenum could be considered a more specific answer in that case and, like Chronos pointed out, not knowing the number of entries that would be coming in made it an especially tricky decision.

[panamajack]

@Gibbs89

2. My answer was Lewis. I would interpret the description here: http://www.usmint.gov/historianscorner/?action=coinDetail&id=29197 to mean that the Missouri quarter does in fact depict Lewis and Clark. “It highlights Lewis and Clark’s historic return to St. Louis down the Missouri River, with the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch in the the background.”

You’ve also got the “westward expansion” nickel series, at least one of which has Lewis & Clark in a boat.

[dtilque]

Here’s a rescore of the Rare Entries contest.

I made two changes, both to Kevin Stone’s answer slate. One was to change Los Beatles to a 1, the other was to make 4136 Chromoly a wrong answer. After investigating, I determined that that alloy does not exist. As far as I can tell, all the references on the net to that alloy are either to this contest or a link to the same eBay posting. It’s obviously a typo.

The winners did not change. Stephen Perry moved from a tie for 10th to 9th; all the other changes in the standings were in places lower than that.

Top 3 slates:

   John Gerson         Dave Filpus          Haran Pilpel
0. Titan               Venus                Jupiter
1. Lincoln, NE         Jefferson City MO    Jefferson City
2. Sacagawea           John Muir            John Muir
3. Lake Superior       Huron                Superior
4. zodiac              Jupiter              Merkur
5. Six-red snooker     Rugby                Chess (W)
6. ruby                cardinal             raspberry
7. Laurier             Borden               King
8. With The Beatles    Rubber Soul          Yesterday and Today
9. 4130 steel          Magnesium            walnut

Revised table of scores. Names marked with an * are entrants from the SDMB. Those are their handles rather than actual names.

Those marked with < at the end of the line changed their scores, although not necessarily their position.

                 Item number--> 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

 1.     360  John Gerson        4  1  3  5  1  1  1  2  3  1
 2.     600  Dave Filpus        1  5  2  5  1  3  2  2  1  1
 3.    1800  Haran Pilpel       2  5  2  5  1  W  1  3  1  1
 4.    2500  Chronos *          1  5  2  5  5  2  1  5  1  1
 5.    2916  Mark Brader        9  9  1  3  1  1  2  1  1  6
 6.    4050  panamajack *       9  3  1  5  5  1  1  1  1  6
 7.    5040  Gibbs89 *          1  1  1  4  2  2  2  5  3  W
 8.    5760  Garmt de Vries     2  3  1  4  5  2  W  2  3  1
 9.    6840  Stephen Perry      9  2  5  1  2  2  1  1  3  6 <
10.    7200  Don Pivin          2  2  2  3  2  1  2  5  1  6
11.    8640  Duke               9  5  4  4  1  1  2  3  1  2
12.   12960  Rob Parker         4  3  3  5  2  1  2  3  3  2 <
13.   13500  Bruce Bowler       9  5  5  1  5  2  2  1  3  1 <
14.   19200  Maus Magill *      2  2  5  1  4  2  2  5  3  4
15.   28350  Kevin Stone        9  5  4  1  5  1  1  3  1  W <
16.   32400  Calvin             4  5  5  3  3  1  W  3  3  1
17.   38880  Nick Selwyn        9  9  1  5  4  2  2  3  1  2
18.   97200  Lieven Marchand    9  5  4  5  3  3  2  1  3  2
19.  100800  Björn Lundin       W  5  5  4  4  2  1  2  3  2
20.  103680  Joseph P           9  2  4  5  4  1  W  1  3  6 <
21.  324000  Peter Chapman      4  5  3  5  3  1  W  5  3  6

And the scores of the individual items:
0. Name a Solar System body that a spacecraft has landed on or impacted. Atmospheric probes count as impactors, although flying through the coma of a comet does not count as an atmospheric probe.

9 Earth
4 Titan
2 25143 Itokawa
2 Jupiter
1 Moon
1 Sun
1 Venus

W Io

---

1. Name a current or former capital city which was named for a US President.

9 Washington

• 2 Washington DC
• 2 Washington AR
• 3 Washington MS
  5 Jefferson City MO
  5 Monrovia, Liberia
  1 Lincoln NE
  1 Villa Hayes, Paraguay

---

2. Name a real person who was not a US president and whose image has appeared on a US coin issued for circulation. Models used by coin designers are excluded from this question; only a person that an image is meant to represent is a valid answer. Coins intended only for collectors and/or investment purposes are excluded.

5 Benjamin Franklin
4 Susan B Anthony
3 Sacagawea
2 Kamehameha I (Hawaii state quarter)
2 John Muir (California state quarter)
1 Jean Baptiste Charbonneau ($1 coin)
1 William Clark
1 Duke Ellington (DC territorial quarter)
1 Meriwether Lewis
1 Prince Whipple (New Jersey state quarter)

3. Name a Great Lake.

5 Huron
5 Superior
4 Ontario
3 Great Lake, Tasmania
1 Erie
1 Great Salt Lake
1 Michigan
1 Michigan-Huron

4. Give the make or model of an automobile or light truck which has an astronomical theme. The vehicle does not have to be currently in production.

5 Subaru (Japanese “Pleides”)
4 Galaxy
3 Astra (Latin “star, constellation”)
2 Gemini
2 Orion
1 Daewoo (Korean “great universe”)
1 Galaxie
1 Jupiter
1 Merkur (German “Mercury”)
1 Zodiac

5. Name an organized sport that has more than one mode of scoring. A mode of scoring is determined by the number of points (see definition 4.5) scored. All actions that score the same number of points count as a single mode. Administratively assigned points (e.g. for forfeits or penalties) do not count as a mode of scoring. Tennis is excluded from this question; it has only one mode of scoring, but has a funny way of counting to four. Target sports are excluded from this item.

3 rugby

• 1 rugby league
  2 bowling
  2 cricket
  2 hurling
  2 judo
  1 arena football
  1 Australian Rules Football
  1 (English) billiards
  1 Canadian football
  1 Gaelic football
  1 gliding
  1 Kabaddi
  1 (muggle) Quidditch
  1 six-red snooker

W chess

6. Give a word (definition 4.1) which has the meaning of some shade of red. Note that pink, orange, and purple are separate colors and not considered to be a shade of red.

2 cardinal
2 carmine
2 carnelian
2 puce
2 scarlet
1 coquelicot
1 flame
1 incarnadine
1 maroon
1 raspberry
1 ruby
1 vermilion

W rufous (adjective)
W ruddy (adjective)
W blood
W falu red (two words)

7. Name a prime minister of Canada who served at least 2 years in that office.

5 Sir John Thompson
3 Richard Bedford Bennett
3 William Lyon Mackenzie King
2 Sir Robert Borden
2 Sir Wilfrid Laurier
1 Jean Chrétien
1 Stephen Harper
1 Sir John A. Macdonald
1 Alexander Mackenzie
1 Brian Mulroney
1 Louis St. Laurent

8. Name an album released by the Beatles.

3 The Beatles [The White Album]
3 Beatles for Sale
3 Revolver
3 With the Beatles
1 Beatles 65
1 The Beatles’ Christmas Album
1 The Beatles’ Long Tall Sally (Canadian release)
1 The Beatles’ Second Album
1 Los Beatles
1 Magical Mystery Tour
1 Rubber Soul
1 Something New
1 Yesterday and Today

9. Name material that bicycle frames are made of.

6 bamboo
4 wood

• 1 plywood
• 1 walnut
• 1 Bubinga wood
  2 steel
• 1 SAE grade 4130 steel
  2 carbon fiber
  2 titanium
  1 6061 aluminium alloy
  1 magnesium
  1 plastic

W 4136 ChroMoly
W molybdenum