[UA] Regis and such

[Kevin Elmore]

> Why wouldn't the cliomancer know his stuff?  These people
> are obsessed with 
> history as a path to supernatural power.  Knowing the
> answers is what a 
> cliomancer would do.

I wouldn't think that there would be a cliomancer out there
who didn't know his history.  

However, game shows do not ask questions exclusively on
history.  In fact, one thing that makes games like Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire and Greed so tough is that you
have to answer questions all up and down the scale.  You
have to be knowledgable or lucky on the whole range of
literature, sports, pop culture, biology, history, etc.

Now, a cobweb farmer can find you the answer to any one of
the questions asked on these game shows.  Greg does bring
up a good point on the fast finger round (which is not much
of an issue on Greed, though the Terminator can screw a
cliomancer).  

If the fast finger round asked you to place four historical
events in order, a cliomancer should have no problem.  It's
not even worth burning a charge.  How many historians,
librarians, and cliomancers can quickly tell you the order
of the four railroads in MONOPOLY?  This was really a
question on WWTBAM.  

And I agree with Greg that the Sleepers won't care if a
cobweb farmer gets a million dollars.  In fact, I doubt
they would even notice unless they knew him to be a
cliomancer.  Nothing supernatural would be obvious.

There are times you watch a game show and think to
yourself, "There is no way he could have known that!"  With
today's game shows aimed at the lowest common denominator,
that's not even an issue.  If someone gets an impossible
question right, it could be a lucky guess since we have
mostly multiple choice questions.

Kevin Elmore

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/

_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua