[PRL] Something to try at the next POPL?

[Shriram Krishnamurthi]

Back in high school, I frittered away far too much of my time on (but
made a bit of money from) something called Jest-a-Minute (JAM).

Six contestants sit in a semi-circle, and each is equipped w/ a buzzer
(or its low-tech equivalent, a steel chair, that the participant can
thump with vigor to dramatic effect).  The contestants take turns.
The judge reads aloud a title, usually something a little ridiculous
(eg, "Bread, Butter, and Traffic Jam").  The contestant whose turn it
is has to begin speaking on the topic within one second.

While the contestant speaks, the others can object.  Contestants
object by buzzing (or thumping); the judge decides which contestant
objected first, and asks for the objection; if the objection is
sustained the objector begins speaking, else the previous speaker
resumes.

Scoring: every second you speak scores you 1 point.  Every sustained
objection gets you 5-10 points (and control of the mic).  Every
overruled objection loses you 5-10 points.  Whoever is speaking when
the buzzer goes off at second 60 gets a bonus of 10-15 points no
matter how long they have spoken, except...if you manage to speak a
whole minute without any objections sustained, you get a whomping
bonus (100-500 points).

The unwritten rule is that the speaker has to strive to be funny.
Judges and audiences are sympathetic to speakers who kept it lively.
On the other hand, judges are smart-alecks who don't too much
appreciate being out-smart-alecked by participants.

Categories of objections (all subject to the judge's opinion):

- pause
- stutter or stammer
- repetition (words, phrases, concepts)
- ungrammatical speech
- irrelevant speech (no connection with the given title)
- and the catch-all, "TWT" (time-wasting tactics)

Speakers can try to defend themselves.  For instance, if they appear
to pause for longer than the normal time between words and someone
objects, they can respond, "I was at a comma" or "I was at a period".
They would then be obliged to resume accordingly.  Well, they aren't
*required* to, but if they don't, someone could object that they were
ungrammatical and that objection would be sustained.

A good contestant stretches the limit.  If, for instance, I had said
"The world is--" and was interrupted, but the objection was overruled,
I could resume with "The world is".  If someone then objected to a
repeition or TWT, the judge would find that unfair and overrule that
objection too.  But if I *again* began with "The world is" and someone
again objected to a repetition or TWT, the objection would be
sustained (usually with a sarcastic remark by the judge).

For advanced rounds, judges sometimes throw in twists: eg, no sentence
can be logically tied to its predecessor, or no-one may use words that
begin with a particular letter.  Needless to say, these result in
general mayhem: like the closing minutes of a football game, it can
take 10-15 minutes to get through a "minute".

So, I think I could pwn this contest.  Except I wouldn't want to go up
against Olin Shivers.

Shriram