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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 18, 2024 18:22:12 GMT
Holidays and calendar discrepancies are still overthinking.
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kizolk
Indecisive 
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Jul 18, 2024 18:50:50 GMT
They're all Fridays in 2024. That can't be the answer you're looking for, but I can't imagine it's a total coincidence.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 18, 2024 20:28:48 GMT
Alas, it is. And they will fall on the same date in every year. Apart from the January one, because 2024 is a leap year.
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Jul 19, 2024 7:35:16 GMT
Apart from the January one, because 2024 is a leap year. Is that why you replaced it with March 29, or is that another coincidence? |
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 19, 2024 7:53:35 GMT
Replacing 5 January with 29 March increased the answer, so to speak, (nearly) fourfold. That was the hint. The original dates fall on the same weekday only in leap years. The revised ones will fall on the same weekday every year. Isn't that an amazingly dull piece of trivia? Still, it's not something that instantly succumbs to googling. I should admit to googling for inspiration in finding a question not susceptible to googling. I was aware of the paradox of this, but was looking for concepts, not specific questions. Some people proudly posted actual questions that would have defeated google, but of course by revealing them, they'd ruined them. Anyway, the date/day of the week thing was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Even so -- if you had looked at the Wiki pages in Pacifica's links, you will see a calendar on the right-hand side, under which is a box listing the days of the week any given date has fallen on recently. I don't know how other people read pages, but I'm guessing that I would barely have noticed it had I gone to Wiki to find out what occurred on a given date, because that wouldn't have been what I'd been looking for. It's not as though it's hard to work out what day a date in a preceding or following year would fall on, because it's only a difference of one day (apart from pesky leap years). But when I looked at the links after setting the question, curious to see what rabbit holes people would go down, it caught my eye immediately. That's what I meant by hiding in plain sight, and the Poe reference. |
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Jul 19, 2024 7:55:39 GMT
Ah!!
I was still looking for the answer... Way to miss the point.
It makes sense now.
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Jul 19, 2024 7:56:39 GMT
The "fourfold" thing was suitably confusing.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 7, 2024 8:16:51 GMT
What links the following UK locations: Bangor (the one in Wales, not in NI), Dundee, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, Portadown?
This may be quite hard, and the answer might be a bit dull by quiz standards (although slightly more interesting than the answer to the last question). But it can't be solved by simply putting the locations into Google, with or without AND, so that's something.
I will probably have to give hints at some point. The one to start off with is that the average person in the UK is no more likely to know the answer offhand than someone outside it, who may well not even have heard of all the places in question (the only thing I know about Portadown apart from the answer to the question is that it is in Northern Ireland).
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Sept 7, 2024 8:50:56 GMT
As a reader of Stephen King, I can't help but think of Bangor, Maine, USA. So my first try will be that all of those cities can be found in the state of Maine, even if it doesn't seem to fit your hints.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 7, 2024 9:53:29 GMT
No.
I have just realised that there was an embarrassing mistake in the question, and have edited it. I doubt that this will make any difference to anyone's chances of getting the answer at this stage.
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,711
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Post by kizolk on Sept 7, 2024 15:29:19 GMT
Bangor (the one in Wales, not in NI) That precision seems to preclude a few rather natural lines of reasoning, namely those revolving around phonology, and possibly around etymology as well. On the other hand, your hint about people outside of the UK seems to indicate it's not a general knowledge thing, since you'd think people in the UK would be more likely to know things about those places. So for now it's all rather confusing. |
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Post by terentiusfaber on Sept 7, 2024 19:09:00 GMT
They're all shiteholes.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 7, 2024 19:33:45 GMT
Oddly, that's the same answer I got when I asked the question elsewhere.
I haven't been to any of them apart from Glasgow, which I rather liked. In any case, it isn't the answer.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 16, 2024 8:19:29 GMT
OK, nobody has any ideas. So I asked ChatGPT.
The locations you've listed—Bangor (Wales), Dundee, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Portadown—are all cities in the UK that have been historically linked by the Christian evangelical movement known as the Brethren, particularly the Open Brethren or Plymouth Brethren.
These cities have strong connections to this religious group, and many have notable Brethren assemblies or churches. The Brethren movement, which emphasizes simplicity in worship and living, had a significant presence in these places, influencing local communities and religious life. The Brethren are known for their non-denominational approach to Christianity, focusing on Bible study and the breaking of bread (communion) rather than traditional church structures.
You said:
No, that isn't the answer I had in mind. Can you find any other link?
ChatGPT said:
Another link between these locations—Bangor, Dundee, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Portadown—is that they all host or have hosted campuses of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David or affiliated institutions that were part of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) network for higher education.
If this still doesn't match the link you're looking for, could you provide a hint or further context to refine the search?
You said:
They are all associated with a three-digit number.
ChatGPT said:
You said:
Did you receive the last message? I said they were all associated with a three-digit number.
ChatGPT said:
Yes, I received your message! The connection you're referring to is that these locations—Bangor, Dundee, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Portadown—are all associated with three-digit railway station codes used in the UK.
Each of these places has a unique three-letter station code (CRS code), used for identifying railway stations in official railway timetables and systems:
Bangor (Wales) – BNG
Dundee – DEE
Glasgow – GLC (for Glasgow Central) and GLQ (for Glasgow Queen Street)
Liverpool – LIV (for Liverpool Lime Street)
Nottingham – NOT
Portadown – PTD
These codes are used across the UK rail network to identify stations.
You said:
And because they are used across the UK network, there are hundreds of other stations with three-digit codes, so that's not the answer.
ChatGPT said:
Thank you for clarifying! The answer you're looking for is that all of these locations—Bangor, Dundee, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Portadown—are associated with bus routes numbered 300 or variants of that number in the UK. These locations either have or have had a prominent bus service with a 300-series route number connecting them or serving the local area.
I wonder if there's anything to the first two links it found, before it started getting desperate. But nothing it's said has any relationship to the actual answer. Maybe real people can do more with the three-digit number hint than it can.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sept 16, 2024 8:30:23 GMT
I continued my fruitless chat, with more hints, but it wandered even further off the path of plausibility. Then I hit some sort of limit for talking to it, and have to wait for a few hours until I can ask it any more questions.
The three-digit number hint should really give it away, because in theory it could find the answer by googling the places with every possible three-digit number quite easily. But as I understand it, it only uses what it's been trained on and doesn't google.
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