• Erland's occasional quiz

    From Erland Sommarskog@esquel@sommarskog.se to rec.games.trivia on Sun Aug 17 23:28:36 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    I have again assembled 12 assorted questions - and this time without
    any connection to South Korea and Japan!

    As always, post your answer to the newsgroup and only use your own
    knowledge, do not ask the cat, the wife or chat GPT. And have fun!

    I plan to score this quiz om Friday 22nd.

    1. ESPN recently ranked a number of sports in degree of difficulty.
    Name either the sport that was ranked as the most difficult, or
    the sport that was ranked as the least difficult.

    2. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Alaska the other
    day. On arrival he wore a T-shirt of which the print aroused some
    attention. What did the print say?

    3. In which century did Beijing first became the capital of China?

    4. Amis, Paiwan and Atayal are the three most numerous indigenous peoples
    of which high-tech island?

    5. What circumstance unites the two music groups Nirvana and Joy Division?

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    7. Ivan Mazepa was an independence fighter who is associated with which
    modern country?

    8. What is noticeable about the number 1729?

    9. The Wedding Banquet is an early film from which renowned director
    whose later works include both dragons and cowboys?

    10. For what reason might you feel an urge to inject Semaglutide?

    11. The famous Wimbledon Championships in tennis is organised by All England
    Lawn Tennis and ??? Club. What word does the question mark represent?

    12. Refer to https://www.sommarskog.se/temp/IMG_3984.jpg. The statue
    illustrates an event that takes place at the yearly San Fermin
    festival in which city?

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  • From tool@tool@panix.com (Dan Blum) to rec.games.trivia on Mon Aug 18 02:02:31 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    Erland Sommarskog <esquel@sommarskog.se> wrote:

    3. In which century did Beijing first became the capital of China?

    13th (although it wasn't called that then)

    4. Amis, Paiwan and Atayal are the three most numerous indigenous peoples
    of which high-tech island?

    Taiwan

    5. What circumstance unites the two music groups Nirvana and Joy Division?

    the lead singer committed suicide

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    the daughters

    7. Ivan Mazepa was an independence fighter who is associated with which
    modern country?

    Hungary

    8. What is noticeable about the number 1729?

    it can be written as the sum of two cubes in two different ways

    9. The Wedding Banquet is an early film from which renowned director
    whose later works include both dragons and cowboys?

    Ang Lee

    11. The famous Wimbledon Championships in tennis is organised by All England
    Lawn Tennis and ??? Club. What word does the question mark represent?

    Badminton

    12. Refer to https://www.sommarskog.se/temp/IMG_3984.jpg. The statue
    illustrates an event that takes place at the yearly San Fermin
    festival in which city?

    Pamplona
    --
    _______________________________________________________________________
    Dan Blum tool@panix.com
    "I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't just made it up."
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  • From msb@msb@vex.net (Mark Brader) to rec.games.trivia on Tue Aug 19 23:05:02 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    Erland Sommarskog:
    1. ESPN recently ranked a number of sports in degree of difficulty.
    Name either the sport that was ranked as the most difficult, or
    the sport that was ranked as the least difficult.

    Swimming?

    3. In which century did Beijing first became the capital of China?

    20th?

    4. Amis, Paiwan and Atayal are the three most numerous indigenous peoples
    of which high-tech island?

    Taiwan?

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    His second wife?

    8. What is noticeable about the number 1729?

    It was the number of the taxicab that George Hardy took to Putney to visit Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was ill. Ramanujan noted that it was the sum of
    two cubes in two different ways, and he could not think of another such.

    9. The Wedding Banquet is an early film from which renowned director
    whose later works include both dragons and cowboys?

    Peter Jackson?

    10. For what reason might you feel an urge to inject Semaglutide?

    In hope of weight loss.

    11. The famous Wimbledon Championships in tennis is organised by All England
    Lawn Tennis and ??? Club. What word does the question mark represent?

    The first one is Cr, the second is oq, and the third one is uet. :-)

    12. Refer to https://www.sommarskog.se/temp/IMG_3984.jpg. The statue
    illustrates an event that takes place at the yearly San Fermin
    festival in which city?

    Pamplona. And I didn't need to look at the image.
    --
    Mark Brader, Toronto | "Every new technology carries with it an opportunity msb@vex.net | to invent a new crime" -- Laurence A. Urgenson

    My text in this article is in the public domain.
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  • From Dan Tilque@dtilque@frontier.com to rec.games.trivia on Wed Aug 20 07:02:50 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    On 8/17/25 14:28, Erland Sommarskog wrote:

    1. ESPN recently ranked a number of sports in degree of difficulty.
    Name either the sport that was ranked as the most difficult, or
    the sport that was ranked as the least difficult.

    2. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Alaska the other
    day. On arrival he wore a T-shirt of which the print aroused some
    attention. What did the print say?

    3. In which century did Beijing first became the capital of China?

    1700s


    4. Amis, Paiwan and Atayal are the three most numerous indigenous peoples
    of which high-tech island?

    Java


    5. What circumstance unites the two music groups Nirvana and Joy Division?

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    his daughters


    7. Ivan Mazepa was an independence fighter who is associated with which
    modern country?

    8. What is noticeable about the number 1729?

    9. The Wedding Banquet is an early film from which renowned director
    whose later works include both dragons and cowboys?

    Van Sant ?


    10. For what reason might you feel an urge to inject Semaglutide?

    lose weight

    (There seems to be lots of good things semaglutide does for the body and
    they seem to discover more all the time. For example, originally it was
    a diabetes drug. So there's lots of answers for this question.)


    11. The famous Wimbledon Championships in tennis is organised by All England
    Lawn Tennis and ??? Club. What word does the question mark represent?

    croquet


    12. Refer to https://www.sommarskog.se/temp/IMG_3984.jpg. The statue
    illustrates an event that takes place at the yearly San Fermin
    festival in which city?


    Pamplona
    --
    Dan Tilque
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Erland Sommarskog@esquel@sommarskog.se to rec.games.trivia on Fri Aug 22 19:48:02 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    This is quiz is over. Sadly, there were only three entries, but of
    those Dan Blum is the winner, congratulations!

    Here is the scoreboard:

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total
    ---------------------------------------------
    Dan B 1 - - 1 1 1 - - 1 - - 1 6
    Mark B - - - 1 - - - 1 - 1 1 1 5
    Dan T - - - - - 1 - - - 1 1 1 4


    1. ESPN recently ranked a number of sports in degree of difficulty.
    Name either the sport that was ranked as the most difficult, or
    the sport that was ranked as the least difficult.

    Boxing (most difficult) and fishing (least difficult)

    Full list on https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/sportSkills.

    2. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Alaska the other
    day. On arrival he wore a T-shirt of which the print aroused some
    attention. What did the print say?

    CCCP

    3. In which century did Beijing first became the capital of China?

    13th. As Dan Blum points out the name was different. I think Beijing
    (= "north capital") came in use in the beginning of the 15th when the
    Ming dynasty moved back some of the capital functions from Nanjing
    (= "south capital"), which Ming made their capital when they ousted
    Yuan, the Mongol dynasty.

    4. Amis, Paiwan and Atayal are the three most numerous indigenous peoples
    of which high-tech island?

    Taiwan.

    The Chinese are of course a lot more numerous, but the Chinese colonisation
    of Taiwan did not take off until the 17th century.

    5. What circumstance unites the two music groups Nirvana and Joy Division?

    Their lead singers (Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis respectively) committed
    suicide.

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    The daughters.

    To be fair with the old man, he was not a peddo or anything. The story was that after the flight from Sodom, the daughters could not see any other possibility to become mothers. So they gave him wine to drink for two nights and on the first night the oldest daughter laid beside him and on the second night the youngest did. A truly weird story from the Bible.

    7. Ivan Mazepa was an independence fighter who is associated with which
    modern country?

    Ukraine.

    His forces fought together with the Swedish forces lead(*) by Charles XII
    at the battle of Poltava in 1709 against Russia and Peter the Great, but
    sadly Russia won the battle.

    (*) Actualy, he had an ailment and did not actually lead the forces
    at the battle himself.

    8. What is noticeable about the number 1729?

    The smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in
    two different ways.

    9. The Wedding Banquet is an early film from which renowned director
    whose later works include both dragons and cowboys?

    Ang Lee.

    The other films I alluded to are "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain".

    10. For what reason might you feel an urge to inject Semaglutide?

    You are a diabetic, or you want to lose weight. The substance was
    originally developed as an anti-diabetic medication, but proved to
    be good to hold down your appetite as well

    11. The famous Wimbledon Championships in tennis is organised by All
    England Lawn Tennis and ??? Club. What word does the question mark represent?

    Croquet

    12. Refer to https://www.sommarskog.se/temp/IMG_3984.jpg. The statue
    illustrates an event that takes place at the yearly San Fermin
    festival in which city?

    Iru+a or Pamplona, as the city is known in Spanish and internationally.

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  • From Dan Tilque@dtilque@frontier.com to rec.games.trivia on Fri Aug 22 13:22:59 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    On 8/22/25 10:48, Erland Sommarskog wrote:

    6. Lot was the nephew of Abraham. He had two daughters and two sons. The
    mother of the daughters was his wife, but who gave birth to his sons?

    The daughters.

    To be fair with the old man, he was not a peddo or anything. The story was that after the flight from Sodom, the daughters could not see any other possibility to become mothers. So they gave him wine to drink for two nights and on the first night the oldest daughter laid beside him and on the second night the youngest did. A truly weird story from the Bible.


    The two sons were Ammon and Moab, the supposed progenitors of the
    Ammonites and Moabites, two peoples the Hebrews were often at odds with.
    Their lands were to the east of the Jordan and Dead Sea. Claiming those
    people were the offspring of incestuous matings is Biblical trash
    talking at its best.
    --
    Dan Tilque
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  • From Erland Sommarskog@esquel@sommarskog.se to rec.games.trivia on Sat Aug 23 10:23:27 2025
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.trivia

    Dan Tilque (dtilque@frontier.com) writes:
    The two sons were Ammon and Moab, the supposed progenitors of the
    Ammonites and Moabites, two peoples the Hebrews were often at odds with. Their lands were to the east of the Jordan and Dead Sea. Claiming those people were the offspring of incestuous matings is Biblical trash
    talking at its best.

    Ah, that's something I was not aware of.

    I always thought that since Lot was one of the good guys, and the Bible
    is supposed to be the Law, this must mean that according to the Bible,
    incest is OK. (Although, I have also been thinking that there maybe
    something in the later books of Moses where the law spells out that
    it is wrong after all. I have never cared to wade through all that
    text to find out.)

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