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New Super Challenge Discussion thread2014

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Lorren
Senior Member
United States
brookelorren.com/blo
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286 posts - 324 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 65 of 766
06 May 2014 at 8:38am | IP Logged 
My take on things is that we are doing the challenge for ourselves, not to impress anyone else. We also know what our levels are, what we are capable of, etc. We are the ones that benefit from the challenge, not anybody else.

Nobody´s going to come to our house and say "The Cat in the Hat doesn't have enough words per page to count for this challenge." Obviously, each page from Cat in the Hat shouldn't count as one page in this challenge because of its simplicity. If someone did count it as a full page, the only person that they're really cheating is themselves.

Same with Podcasts/audio dramas. I've seen YouTube videos where it was basically audio set with pictures in the background. Is that a movie? Technically... it would be, but it's not much different than a podcast without pictures in the background. Do I want to count it if I'm only half paying attention? Probably not. Then again, nobody is standing over your shoulder making sure that you actually did what you said you did anyway. If I am half paying attention to a podcast and count it as fully paying attention, then again, I'm only cheating myself.

Obviously, it's not my challenge or my rules, but Solfid Cristin isn't going to come to your house and shame you for listening intently to a podcast and counting it as a film. It's good to have standards so we know basically what our expectations are, but we're all at different levels, and we all know whether or not we are getting something out of our efforts. Is there really a reason to make it complicated? We're challenging ourselves to read and watch films, not other people.
6 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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 Message 66 of 766
06 May 2014 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
I agree otherwise, but simplicity/easiness per se is not a bad thing. At some point I suggested ranking what we read as easy/medium/hard (at the time of reading, no attempts to be objective), but this wasn't supported because it's immensely useful for learners to read tons of easy stuff.
So children's books count less only due to the large font/pictures/stuff like that. Not because the text is simple.

Edited by Serpent on 06 May 2014 at 12:28pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Luso
Hexaglot
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Portugal
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 Message 67 of 766
06 May 2014 at 4:21pm | IP Logged 
Lorren wrote:
My take on things is that we are doing the challenge for ourselves, not to impress anyone else. We also know what our levels are, what we are capable of, etc. We are the ones that benefit from the challenge, not anybody else.

I agree wholeheartedly. Most of us must be doing this for happiness reasons (or self-esteem, or whatever fancy name people want to call it). On the other hand, you know there's a lot of very lonely people with lots of "friends" they want to impress, but that's another subject.

Solfrid Cristin wrote:
The " oh my" was the sound of my shattered illusions about a simple little idea of 100 films and a 100 books.

It seems to me you're doing a good job. If you'd said "no ebooks, no audiobooks" I would not have participated, that's all. If your common sense says "podcasts yes, regular radio no", we should go along with it (by the way, I'm using neither one nor the other at this point).

If someone joined the SC thinking about showing off, they're crazy. It's not been a week and there's a bunch of people having watched 10+ films, having read 500+ pages, etc. Maybe one or two are cheating (maybe not even that), but certainly not all.

I choose to feel happy for them, and say "well done".
1 person has voted this message useful



Emme
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Italy
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 Message 68 of 766
06 May 2014 at 10:44pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
[...]
@Emme: You just keep using podcasts. I know you will listen attentively and get a lot out of it. It was never considered cheating

Not in favor of the radio, though.


Thanks for the clarification.
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
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 Message 69 of 766
07 May 2014 at 4:38am | IP Logged 
I came up with my own general guidelines during the first Super Challenge, just to help
me be consistent with my own count.

- I logged often on twitter. This gave me a cleaner line on the twitter bot graph. It
was cool to see how the slope changed over time. There were a few times where I didn't
twitter for a few weeks and then did it all at once; I didn't like the jagged line that
it gave the pretty graph.

- There were a lot of movies that I started and couldn't finish. I set my personal
threshold at 20 minutes. If I watched less I didn't log anything ... and there were
plenty that I quit after five minutes!

- I liked the idea of sticking with actual movies and tv shows, so didn't log podcasts,
the news, or random youtube videos. However, I'm not sure if I'll be able to find 100
Italian movies for SC-II, so I might have to get creative (and pay attention to the
discussion here on podcasts).

- I counted FSI for a page if it was an actual dialogue or reading section, and Assimil
at one page per chapter. In the end I didn't need these to make my goal. I might do the
same for Italian, just so I can get a few pages on the bot in the beginning.

- I used Amazon or Goodreads for page counts. Sometimes there was a lot of variety, +/-
100 pages even, so I'd make a judgement call - for hard books I'd use the higher count,
and for easier books the lower count.
5 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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 Message 70 of 766
07 May 2014 at 2:25pm | IP Logged 
I like your approach, Kanewai, and I did some similar things. However, I do have a high
tolerance for crap, so I don't think I quit any films. Two were memorably dreadful:
-Humains (about neanderthals still existing in the Alps)
-Le Mepris (one reviewer said the director "tries the patience of the viewer". And how!)


Like you, last time I didn't count any audio. I wanted to watch as many French films and
TV shows as I could. This time I am counting audiobooks, but I am labelling them as
such, and I still hope to complete the full challenge with films/TV. With the audio, I
just may get a double challenge in French films.
1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
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Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
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Norway
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 Message 71 of 766
07 May 2014 at 2:38pm | IP Logged 
I got a flash back into my youth, when I saw the worst film in the recorded history of mankind. Most people
would have been put off by the fact that the film critic had said: "Even with all the cinemas we have in Oslo,
there should not be a place for something as truly awful as this film.The only reason why I give a 1(out of 5) is
because I do not have the option of giving it a 0"

Since I was a huge Jodie Foster fan, I decided to ignore it, and brought my cousin and three of his police
academy friends, and two of my friends from college, and saw "Five corners". It was beyond belief horrible.
My cousin never forgave me, and noen of them ever trusted me to pick a movie ever again.

I can not link to it from this machine, but this is it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Corners_(film)

Worth seeing just to believe that anything can really be that bad.

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 08 May 2014 at 6:17am

1 person has voted this message useful



patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
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1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 72 of 766
07 May 2014 at 5:04pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
I got a flash back into my youth, when I saw the worst film in the recorded history of mankind.


Worst is a strong judgment. I doubt you would call this 87 (!) hour film better:

The Cure For Insomnia (1987)

This film is basically an experiment designed to reprogram biological clocks for insomniacs so they can sleep again. L.D. Groban reads his own poem during the span of about four days, which is interspliced with stock footage of heavy-metal videos and x-rated footage.


I would also add that Kevin Costner has had a talent for boring us silly - I am looking at you Mr Postman!

Edited by patrickwilken on 07 May 2014 at 5:06pm



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