Trivia Questions, given in Churchill MCR, FreeBSD benefit, Nov 12 2009.

by Joseph Bonneau

ROUND 1: Which came first?

1) By 40 years, which was invented first: paper clips, the ring binder/hole punch, rubber bands, or thumbtacks?

2) By 25 years, which country achieved independence first: Belgium, Haiti, Liberia, or the Philippines? 

3) By almost 100 years, who was born first: Geoffrey Chaucer, Genghis Khan, Marco Polo, or William Wallace?

4) By 30 years, which company was founded first: Bayer, Coca-Cola, IBM, or Toyota?

5) By 10 years, which book was published first? Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Communist Manifesto, Les Miserables, On the Origin of the Species

6) By 6 years, which sporting event was held first: FIFA World Cup, Masters Golf Tournament, NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Winter Olympics?

ROUND 2: Resources

1) Which African country produces 60% of the world's vanilla? Dependence on vanilla exports is so high that a change to Coca-Cola's formula in the 1980's caused the country's economy to crash. The country is also famous for its wildlife and was home to the largest birds ever to live until they were extincted in the 16th century.

2) Which country contains the greatest lithium reserves in the world, estimated at 5.5 million tons, 50-70% of the world total? Contained in the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, these lithium reserves are not yet commercially exploited, but are expected to aid Latin America's poorest country as the global demand for lithium batteries grows. The country's socialist president, Evo Morales, has banned foreign investment after the world's largest silver mine, contained in the same country, was depleted by foreign companies.

3) Nauru is a tiny Pacific island nation of 21 km^2 and 10,000 inhabitants. However, in the 1980's it achieved western-level per-capita income despite 90% unemployment from the sales of which mineral, which had built up on the island from thousands of years of bird guano?

4) Uranium ore is advantageous over oil in that it is primarily concentrated in democratic countries. Which peaceful commonwealth country, which also has the world's largest per-capita rates of immigration and acceptance of refugees, leads the world in uranium production?

5) Fresh water is expected to be one of the most important and heavily disputed resources in the 21st century. Which tropical country, which is also the longest country in the world measured from north to south and whose motto is "order and progress," contains 14% of the world's renewable fresh-water reserves, more than twice as much as any other country?

6) Population resources are the proportion of a population which is able to contribute to the economy by working. Many developed countries are now losing population as birth rates fall. Which region of the world is de-populating the fastest: China/Japan/Korea, the EU, the former Soviet Union, or the USA and Canada?

ROUND 3: Dictionaries

1) There are 4 common english words which end in -dous. Name 3 of them. 

2) In the rhyming dictionary there are several common English one-syllable words with no rhyme. Name two common units of measure which have no rhyme.

3) Portmanteaus are a common type of new words formed by blending previous words. Which word, added to the OED in 2008 as a portmanteau of two common adjectives, can either be an adjective meaning extremely energized or excited, or a style of hip-hop or rap music originating in the American South?

4) In computer security, a "dictionary" attack involves guessing likely passwords to break into an account. After variations of "123456" and "password" this 6-letter word, which was added to the OED in 1929, is usually the next most common password. This word has extremely unusual etymology in that it is not derived from any previous word in any language and is not an acronym or onomonatepeia.

5) In most English dictionaries, including the OED, which three-letter word has the largest number of definitions with 464, including the seemingly inconsistent definitions "to descend," "to restore to health," and "to encourage an animal to attack." 

6) The Urban Dictionary has over 4 million definitions, including a slang meaning for every piece on a standard chess board. Only one chess piece is not also defined on the urban dictionary as a sexual slang. Name it. (of pawn, bishop, knight, rook, queen, king).

ROUND 4: Mascots

1) The 2010 World Cup in South Africa's mascot is Zakumi. Zakumi is mostly green and gold, representing South Africa's sports team colors. What type of animal is Zakumi? The species is notoriously difficult to see in the wild, but South African game reserves are considered the best place in the world to spot it.

2) Eddie, also known as Edward the Head and Edward the Great, often depicted as a zombie-like creature screaming and stripped of its skin, is the mascot of which British heavy metal band, appearing on all 14 of their studio albums and almost always appearing behind them when they perform on stage? 

3) Speedee, introduced in 1948 and replaced in 1963, was the original mascot for which now-famous international corporation? 

4) One animal is arguably the most popular mascot in the world. It represents more American high schools than any other mascot, appears on more national flags than any other animal, and is the national animal of more countries than any other? 

5) One of the world's oldest trademarks was introduced in Lyons, France in 1894. Originally known as Bibendum, what is the common name of this famous mascot which now represents one of France's 40 largest companies and is among the most recognized mascots in the world?

6) The FreeBSD project uses 'Beastie', a pronunciation of 'BSD,' as its mascot. Beastie is said to be what type of supernatural being between a mortals and a god in Greek mythology? The term is also applied to the many background processes running in an operating system to perform routine tasks, similar to the use of the beings in Greek mythology to perform tasks on earth too lowly for full deities. 

Round 5: Countries that kick ass in sports

1) Which country is considered the most dominant in water polo, having won more than twice as many medals at the Summer Olympics as any other, including 9 gold medals? 

2) Beach football is a variant of association football played on sand with 5 players at a time. The FIFA Beach Football world championships have been held annually since 1995. Which country has completely dominated, winning 12 of 14 tournaments? 

3) The Nordic Combined is a winter Olympics event combining ski jumping and cross country skiing. Which nation, which also has a narrow edge in medals in the ski jumping and cross country skiing events, has dominated the Nordic combined, winning nearly twice as many medals as any other? 

4) The world baseball classic, featuring the best professional players representing their countries, has only been contested twice, in 2006 and 2009. Which country has won both tournaments? 

5) Which country has been the most dominant in archery in the "modern era" since 1972 when modern bows were introduced, having won almost three times more medals in Archery at the Summer Olympics than any other country in that span?

6) The World Lacrosse Championship has been contested every four years since 1967. Which country has won 8 of the 10 championships so far?

ROUND 6: Families

1) At the start of World War I, the titular heads of state of which three warring countries were all related as third-cousins or closer thanks to interbreeding amongst 19th century European royalty?

2) In Chemistry, the Beryllium family, also known as the alkaline earth metals, includes beryllium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium, and which extremely radioactive element with atomic number 88? 

3) Which Swiss family produced multiple influential scientists and mathematicians in the 17th and 18th century, and has named for it a fundamental principle in fluid dynamics, an important distribution in probability theory, and a class of ordinary differential equation? 

4) In Zoology, the Mustelid family includes otters, weasels, badgers, mink, ferrets, polecats, sable, martens, and fishers. But the largest Mustelid is this species, contained in its own genus, known in Russian and Finnish folklore for its prodigious appetite. Name this animal.

5) Polygamy is the controversial practice of men taking more than one wife. While less common, the opposite practice of women taking more than one husband is known to occur in many Himalayan cultures as well as several in African and Polynesia. What is the term for this practice? 

6) In Literature, which 19th century family of three novelist sisters published their work under the psuedonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton, each changing their name to a male one beginning with the same letter as their true name?

Round 7: Place Name Origins

1) Which country in the Americas was named after a city in Europe when the expedition of Alonso de Ojeda saw the native palafitos, or houses built over water on stilts? 

2) Which African city's name translates into English as "three cities", due to it's setting on the site of three different historical cities? 

3) Which country's name is thought to comes from an ancient Sanskrit phrase for "Many Islands"? 

4) What is the English name of the city known as "Jiu Jin Shan" or "Old Gold Mountain" in Chinese since at least the 1850's, due to the large number of Chinese immigrants who arrived there seeking gold?

5) Which country's name literally means "to the south" in Arabic? 

6) Which English city was originally named Grontabricc in Anglo-Saxon before its named evolved into the present-day English form?

ROUND 8: Miscellaneous crap that didn't fit in anywhere. Need a better round theme.

1) In mechanics, an object can float in a quantity of water smaller in volume than the object itself, so long as the object is less dense than the water. Famously, a battleship can float in a few gallons of water if arranged perfectly. Which mathematician, who first formulated the equations of buoyancy, is this paradox named for? 

2) Who said in 1959: "It seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing ... a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies..."

3) Beginning in Zurich in the 1910's, which art movement created pieces intentionally devoid of meaning as a protest against World War I?

4) In biology, the blood of molluscs, such as octopuses, squid, snails, and slugs, appears what color when exposed to air, due to the large concentration of the protein hemocyanin?

5) In physics, due to special relativity, the passage of time is relative to the speed of the observer. This effect was explained first by Albert Einstein, but later by Paul Langevin in 1911 in a famous thought experiment describing a person traveling in a rocket-ship and returning home to find which relative of theirs had remained on earth and aged much more quickly? 

6) In paleontology, which desert is considered the best region in the world for finding well-preserved fossils, and is the only place where intact dinosaur eggs have been found?

TIEBREAKER:

Beginning in 1731, the British navy issued a daily ration of rum to all sailors. On what date was this practice abolished?