Highlander #20: Buried Treasure - RESULTS ADDED!!!

[AlexB]

As a non maths guy who won the previous Highlander with a random guess - this is really simple!

Using a random number generator I will generate two columns of numbers, ranging from -89999999 to 89999999. These numbers will be converted to decimal GPS coordinates. All co-ordinates will have 6 decimal places.

The first pair of co-ordinates that are on land will be the location of the buried treasure.

Your task is to PM me with a location, written as a town and the country in which it is located, not GPS co-ordinates.

The winner will be decided as follows:

If some entries guess the correct country, all others will be disregarded
If nobody guesses the correct country, but some guess the correct continent, all others will be disregarded
If nobody guesses the correct country or continent, or to seprarate ties in the above elimination processes, then the winner will be the nearest as measured by the 'line' measuring tool on Google Earth.
If you are reading this thread, why not send off a pm...? Our participation sometimes has been low, and I hope that's been because of the math involved, not because you guys don't like little games like this.


Take this advice: after a few beers I sent a PM with a three letter word, and I got to host a game! All you have to do is send me a PM with a placename and the country it is in.

Entries to me by 10.30pm BST Tuesday 20th June - that's 24 hours from this post!

Highlander Hall of Fame

Anxiety #18
BrianD #12, #14
Chas in Cinti #4
digamma #9
Jari Rantanen's Shorts #19
Mustang #8, #15
Panerd #17
Passacaglia #11
Pumpy Tudors #2, #6, #13
Raiders Army #10
st.cronin #16
Toddzilla #5
wbatl #1
Wolfpack #3, #7

[Abe Sargent]

Great idea!

[BrianD]

I'm in....and bumping.

[AlexB]

Bumped to catch your early morning

[AlexB]

Bumped again for the western crowd or the late risers :)

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by Anxiety
If you are reading this thread, why not send off a pm...? Our participation sometimes has been low, and I hope that's been because of the math involved, not because you guys don't like little games like this.

I've read many of these, just never went to read #1 to figure out the rules. I don't get what the hell I'm looking at or trying to do. Make it more like IWS and give us a quick rundow of the rules might get more PM guesses from us lazy folk who don't want to search for highlander #1, or I guess you could keep excluding us too since we're too lazy to do a quick search :)

[Pumpy Tudors]

I've read many of these, just never went to read #1 to figure out the rules. I don't get what the hell I'm looking at or trying to do. Make it more like IWS and give us a quick rundow of the rules might get more PM guesses from us lazy folk who don't want to search for highlander #1, or I guess you could keep excluding us too since we're too lazy to do a quick search :)
Basically, you just read the story and send off a PM with your guess to the question. Closest guess wins. :)

[Toddzilla]

I'll make the same suggestion as I have in 5/7 of these Highlanders. PLEASE follow the format of the first 4-5 Highlanders and include a quick rundown of the concept and rules.

Summon: Quiksand.

[QuikSand]

?

[AlexB]

Highlander #19 was the first I'd entered, and tbh I didn't have a clue what the concept was: just saw send a three letter word, the closest match to a randomly generated word wins.

So the equivalent instruction here is PM me a location (in the next 20 minutes) and the closest to my randomly generated location wins.

[AlexB]

Dola,

I also saw that while a random guess had a chance of winning, there could also be some logic/maths/thought that might help the chances, but (and this is where my game might let the side down as my advanced maths isn't very good) probably won't. I've got a feeling my game was a bit too structured (although some didn't notice ;) Some definitely did though.)

Anyway, we're to the time limit, so no more entries, and it's time to run my numbers :) I'll get back to you with the results

[AlexB]

Just a quick description of the (albeit slight :D) element of thought that went into the game – by selecting the range I had every latitude, so the treasure could be anywhere north or south of the equator.

However, having the same range for longitude meant that the treasure could only be in half of the world: admittedly most of this is the Pacific, and land is sparse, but it could not have been most of Mexico, anywhere in the States west of Tennessee, as these have longitudes -90 to -180. Similarly anywhere east of Mongolia/Myanmar was out.

Having to hit land, the biggest land mass in the region is Africa, and then Europe and Asia, and this was partially reflected in the guesses, although one or two went for South America, China, or the US, maybe on the basis that if the treasure caught the extremities of the available range, they had a higher chance of winning.

[AlexB]

Anyway, this is how it worked out.

I generated twenty random numbers in two columns…

-33285300 25088590
4668287 -74760949
62104965 30426266
-88634947 -49388358
-67399962 3888802
-24940734 -53917644
-17112618 -71817089
-40148272 57232583
41635229 -28644332
60487649 32632780

which become grid co-ordinates

-33.285300, 25.088590
4.668287, -74.760949
62.104965, 30.426266
-88.634947, -49.388358
-67.399962, 3.888802
-24.940734, -53.917644
-17.112618, -71.817089
-40.148272, 57.232583
41.635229, -28.644332
60.487649, 32.632780

[AlexB]

And the first pair of co-ordinates hits land!

The treasure is buried about 52 miles away from Port Elizabeth on the south coast of South Africa.

Nobody guessed South Africa, but so to the other African guesses... Of which there was surprisingly only one.

So the winner is Anxiety, with his guess of N'djamena, Chad, a mere 3,817 miles away :). Congrats Anxiety - second win in a row I think.

Thanks all for playing - apologies to the Highlander regulars if I didn't quite get the concept right.

[Passacaglia]

Cool game -- I never got a chance to check it out.

Can we get a rundown of the guesses?

[QuikSand]

Drat, I must have missed the phrase "that are on land."

[AlexB]

Other guesses.

Wolfpack - Novosibirsk, Russia
St Cronin - Santa Fe, NM
Maple Leafs - Toronto, Canada
albionmoonlight - Brasilia, Brazil
Pumpy Tudors - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Vince - San Jose, CA, USA
TredWel - Urumqi, China
BrianD - Lucerne, Switzerland
QuikSand - Colombo, Sri Lanka
Barkeep49 - St Petersberg, Russia
kingfc22 - China
wbatl1 - Moscow, Russia
Eaglesfan27 - London, England
Toddzilla - Rio de Janerio, Brazil
digamma - Moscow, Russia
panerd - Rio de Janerio, Brazil
SirFozzie - London, England

FWIW I would have likely chosen something in North East Africa, to try and catch the Africa/Asia border in case nobody chose an Asian country. And would have still lost to Anxiety's choice :)

[Barkeep49]

I see several people joined in choosing Russia because of the advantage given to picking the right country.

[AlexB]

Drat, I must have missed the phrase "that are on land."

I promise the edit of the first post was only to add 'RESULTS ADDED!!!' to the title :). I wanted the 'on land' bit in there to try and target the guesses - if you did miss this it would have made a huge difference.

[AlexB]

I see several people joined in choosing Russia because of the advantage given to picking the right country.

Tbh I didn't realise exactly how much of Russia was in the possible range until right now! Still surprised there weren't more African guesses though.

[Passacaglia]

Other guesses.

Wolfpack - Novosibirsk, Russia
St Cronin - Santa Fe, NM
Maple Leafs - Toronto, Canada
albionmoonlight - Brasilia, Brazil
Pumpy Tudors - New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Vince - San Jose, CA, USA
TredWel - Urumqi, China
BrianD - Lucerne, Switzerland
QuikSand - Colombo, Sri Lanka
Barkeep49 - St Petersberg, Russia
kingfc22 - China
wbatl1 - Moscow, Russia
Eaglesfan27 - London, England
Toddzilla - Rio de Janerio, Brazil
digamma - Moscow, Russia
panerd - Rio de Janerio, Brazil
SirFozzie - London, England

FWIW I would have likely chosen something in North East Africa, to try and catch the Africa/Asia border in case nobody chose an Asian country. And would have still lost to Anxiety's choice :)

Why would you think no one would choose an Asian country? :p

FWIW, I would have guessed Moscow, too.

[albionmoonlight]

I just assumed that anywhere on the world had an equal chance. Then I picked a small continent on the hopes that I'd be the only one.

[Abe Sargent]

I'm surprised that I was the only African Guess. I went with central North Africa in west Chad. Let me come up with something new and easay for tomorrow!


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

By the way, 18 players and an amazingly elegant idea - good job!


-Anxiety

[panerd]

I thought the ranges listed would cover any spot on the globe, that was my first mistake. Then I figured (somewhat correctly) that everyone would probably pick Asia and Russia for the biggest landmass. So I decided to either go with Africa or South America. I can't believe that with 20 people, not only did somebody pick South America and Brazil, but the same city! It isn't exactly the smallest city, but still that's pretty freaky.

[panerd]

Dola: I don't understand people not getting the rules. Almost every contest has been laid out perfectly. How could the first post be explained any better?

[RPI-Fan]

You know you deal with coordinates in your work too much when the first questoin in reading this thread is "What coordinate system is he using?"