The Googlimpics

for some strange reason, I feel a shortage of petty geekiness in my life. If I don't have enough, you don't have nearly enough.

I wonder about possible Geek competitive activities.

I propose the googlimpics in which Geeks compete in their command of the google.

Here is the idea. There is a google dual (written google* of course).

Contestant A attempts to find a very obscure fact on the internet on a page with no onbviously related words. Contestant finds a question to which this fact is the answer. Judge C agrees with contestant A that the fact is the answer to the question. Contestant A asks B the question and challenges B to find the answer googling. Contestant B finds a candidate answer after X minutes of googling. Judge C decides if it is a correct answer to the question. If yes, B's score is minus the time it took to find the answer. If not B tries again. If the second answer is correct, B's score is minus total time minus a penalty. B has N tries to covince C that he or she has found the correct answer. B's score is - infinity if B gives up. Then the roles of A and B are reversed.

Actually the game becomes much more game theoretic if the roles of A, B and C rotate so there is a shifting alliances side game based on how much judges lie.

OK so do the googlimpics already exist ? If so what are the rules.

It's time for a google. Time stamp 3:28 AM Rome time.

Wholly Banana Slug, there is only one google hit for Googlimpics (heyyy once I post this I will be at least the second ranking hit for googlimpics).

http://www.google.it/search?hl=it&q=googlimpics&btnG=Cerca+con+Google&meta=&aq=f&oq=

time stam,p 3:30 AM Rome time.

The impulse to write the post came to me as I was writing the comment below on Kevin Drum's post googling metaphorical wars.

Yeah but my question is how many victories have been declared. I know Armistice day, VE day, VJ day but what about VT day, VP day ? What is VC day ? Victory against Christmas, cancer or crime (actually it is clearly the day they evacuated the US embassy in Saigon and the VC's allies the NVA won the war. Bit of a Pyrrhic Victory that as the Viet Cong were incorporated in the VA (Vietnamese Army not vetarans administration) the next day.

I propos VCh day for Christmas, VCa for cancer and VCr for crime. I am quite sure that victory against cancer has been declared (prematurely sad to say).

I will try to google the false VCr day time stamp now 2:32 Rome time.

OK it's 2:34 and I see my recollection was incorrect. The declaration was VCrM2 day (Victory against cancer in two years) "Their findings received little attention until 1998, when a New York Times reporter, recounting a dinner-table conversation by Nobel laureate James D. Watson, quoted him as saying that “Judah Folkman is going to cure cancer in two years.”"

http://tinyurl.com/96gz8n

Dr Watsons over-optimism was elementary but he still has a Nobel prize and we don't.