The Friday Quiz Will Return in 2008
It's another Lost Friday here at Trivia Central.
Next year will be different. I promise. And you know how much the promises of the Wombat are worth.
Be good to each other. See you in the Leap Year.
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It's another Lost Friday here at Trivia Central.
Next year will be different. I promise. And you know how much the promises of the Wombat are worth.
Be good to each other. See you in the Leap Year.
The Friday Quiz has been barely there, of late. Tardy in posting, short on clues or responses from the quizmaster. Or even just inexplicably absent, leaving the good citizens of Quizville to come up with their own questions in the fallow comment threads (Though the result was better than anything I've managed of late, I'm still ashamed it came to that.) We're aware that we've long ago run through whatever supply of patience you, dear reader, have. And that now we're largely an irritant, a constant disappointment. The untrainable, charmless mutt you wish you'd never brought home from the pound.
And yet here you are. I won't go so far to say that it means you stil love the Quiz. But maybe you still need the Quiz. And that's good enough for me.
The Quiz has had enough breaks lately, so barring accidents, we'll be here next week (even if you're sanely away from your computer), but to make up for all of the appalling neglect, what follows is a little holiday present, in the form of not one, not two, but three questions -- all about famous names.
But before we get there, a quick note: some of you may be wondering "Isn't there usually some big year-end Quiztacular or some other such foofaraw at this time of year?" You're not? Nobody? Well, screw you. Anyway, this year we'll delay, in our customary style, such festivities until they're TRULY needed -- the dim and dreary month of February. Prepare, then, for word of the Leap Year Qwinterfest, in which those 29 chilly days will be warmed by the blood that will be a-boiling in your brains from all that thinktation.
But now, our three questions for today.
1. At the opening of a famous trial, the defendant made this statement of challenge to the court, concerning it's jurisdiction.
"Now I would know by what authority, I mean lawful; there are many unlawful authorities in the world, theives and robbers by the highways; but I would know by what authority I was brought from thence, and carried from place to place, and I know not what: and when I know by what lawful authority, I shall answer..."
His defense was unsuccessful. Who was he?
2. This man, describing his own engineering innovation in the quotation below. The product thus created -- something of a modification of previously existing ones -- became completely identified with his name.
"I had a two inch pipe feeding a inch-and-a-half pipe, like rush out with twenty million cars trying to get through one tunnel. We re forcing that mass of water onto the backside of the venturi, this huge, beautiful elliptical orifice. And what is unique is we allow air to be pulled in not just from one side but two, top and bottom, and the vacuum pulls it through. If you see the water explode, the water is just incredible, gangbusters, spinning at an incredible rate."
What is his now-famous name?
3. In 1859, a European performer created what is generally credited to be the first modern trapeze act, in which he successfully leapt from one swinging trapeze to another. His name later became well-known due to a related, but separate innovation. What is his name?
Special real Xmas-season prize: First correct guess to each gets $5 donated by the Wombat to the charity of your choice, provided that (a) they accept donations online, (b) they accept penny-ante donations like I'm offering, and (c) they aren't going to use it to put guns in the hands of anti-abortion activists who are also Minutemen, OK? No Googling, unless you're Googling to find out if the Minutemen take online donations or something just to give the Wombat a hard time and why would you want to do that anyway? One guess to each per comment, but comment as often as you like and a happy Saturnalia to all.
OK, it's still technically Friday morning. A twofer:
1. An entire industry has spent years battling the smelly effects of the chemical that has been identified, at long last, as trichloroanisole or TCA. It contaminates the natural product of Quercus suber, and hence another substance. What is the ill effect of TCA?
2. An international conflict began when troops under the command of General Edmund Gaines burned the village of Fowltown near an international border. Several weeks later, those made homeless by that attack retaliated, killing soldiers (also under Gaines's command) in the same border territory, along with some dependent civilians. As a result, the general was given orders to proceed across the border and attack the population there. A future national leader later took command of Gaines's forces. The brief conflict which followed is known by two different names, one associated with a territory and one with an ethnic group. Name one, and for a bonus, name the commander who took over from Gaines. For a double bonus, name the two sovereign powers involved.
First correct answers posted to comments win a mp3 CD containing 50 minutes of my most entertaining coughing jags from the past four weeks. Of special note is the one where I was trying to keep reading Mr Brown Can Moo - Can You? throughout. No Googling or guzzling Robitussin in the hopes of getting a wicked Robo-high on and divining the answer in the pretty Christmas lights. One guess at each part, per comment, but comment as often as you like.