20 Questions: Game 229

[Hominidae]

Free guess: Elon Musk

Can't be him, subject wasn't born in Africa

Excellent point. Scratch that guess.

Scratched.

[Spartaculous]

Was he born in Canada, Guatemala, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, or Nicaragua?

[Hominidae]

Was he born in Canada, Guatemala, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, or Nicaragua?

No.

[Aristocrat]

Free guess: Emilio Palma

[Hominidae]

Free guess: Emilio Palma

Correct!

[Spartaculous]

Free guess: Emilio Palma

Correct!

Haha. Great choice! For humor, I will post what I had just typed up:

"No questions for the QM in this post.

At this point, we have ruled out him being born in Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America, leaving only North America and Australia/Oceania as possibilities for his birthplace. Australia and New Zealand are very unlikely, as his first language is not English, so, going in that direction, he would have to be born in one of the more random islands of Oceania. But, most of North America has been ruled out, either explicitly by my last few questions, or implicitly by the fact that he is not a US citizen. That seems to leave as the only possibilities:

- Non-English-speaking Oceania island
- Non-English-speaking Caribbean island
- QM sneakiness [not necessarily in the answering of the questions, but in the selection of the target]: someone born in the USA but not an American citizen (and without first language English), someone born, I don't know, Antarctica? I doubt anyone has been born there."

[Aristocrat]

Free guess: Emilio Palma

Correct!

Haha. Great choice! For humor, I will post what I had just typed up:

"No questions for the QM in this post.

At this point, we have ruled out him being born in Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America, leaving only North America and Australia/Oceania as possibilities for his birthplace. Australia and New Zealand are very unlikely, as his first language is not English, so, going in that direction, he would have to be born in one of the more random islands of Oceania. But, most of North America has been ruled out, either explicitly by my last few questions, or implicitly by the fact that he is not a US citizen. That seems to leave as the only possibilities:

- Non-English-speaking Oceania island
- Non-English-speaking Caribbean island
- QM sneakiness [not necessarily in the answering of the questions, but in the selection of the target]: someone born in the USA but not an American citizen (and without first language English), someone born, I don't know, Antarctica? I doubt anyone has been born there."

Antarctica didn’t even pop in my head till your last few questions; I thought it would be an Indigenous/Aboriginal person but don’t know enough about significant firsts in Australia or NZ so I typed “first person born in Antarctica” into google and guessed on a whim… good person, always fun to get folks who you don’t know about but aren’t so obscure as to be impossible. New game up soon.

[Hominidae]

Correct!

Haha. Great choice! For humor, I will post what I had just typed up:

"No questions for the QM in this post.

At this point, we have ruled out him being born in Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America, leaving only North America and Australia/Oceania as possibilities for his birthplace. Australia and New Zealand are very unlikely, as his first language is not English, so, going in that direction, he would have to be born in one of the more random islands of Oceania. But, most of North America has been ruled out, either explicitly by my last few questions, or implicitly by the fact that he is not a US citizen. That seems to leave as the only possibilities:

- Non-English-speaking Oceania island
- Non-English-speaking Caribbean island
- QM sneakiness [not necessarily in the answering of the questions, but in the selection of the target]: someone born in the USA but not an American citizen (and without first language English), someone born, I don't know, Antarctica? I doubt anyone has been born there."

Antarctica didn’t even pop in my head till your last few questions; I thought it would be an Indigenous/Aboriginal person but don’t know enough about significant firsts in Australia or NZ so I typed “first person born in Antarctica” into google and guessed on a whim… good person, always fun to get folks who you don’t know about but aren’t so obscure as to be impossible. New game up soon.

Yeah, I was a bit hesitant to pick him because he's relatively obscure, but he's definitely notable, and gettable using normal questioning as we just saw.

There were still some pretty populous places that hadn't been eliminated by the end, like the Dominican Republic, but the odds of me picking someone from a place that just happens to be one of the last places you eliminated via guessing are pretty slim, unless it's a really weird place.

[Hominidae]

Another thing: there have been games where I've said things like, "So this person must have been born in South America, Africa, or Oceania." Normally I would include Antarctica in there as joke, but I didn't want to draw people's attention to Palma's existence since I had him in my mind as a possibility for a future game.