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The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz


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Posted (edited)

John, Scott, Virgil, Gordon & Alan might ring a bell with some of you (of a certain age) but where did the names come from?

If I remember correctly they are the first names of astronauts from the Mercury missions.

 

I can give you their full names if you insist......yes, we are back on rockets again ;-)

Edited by talkytoaster
Posted

John, Scott, Virgil, Gordon & Alan might ring a bell with some of you (of a certain age) but where did the names come from?

If I remember correctly they are the first names of astronauts from the Mercury missions.

 

I can give you their full names if you insist......yes, we are back on rockets again ;-)

 

No that's good enough for me, the Thunderbirds characters were indeed named after the Mercury mission Astronauts.

 

DING

Posted (edited)

Here's a fairly easy one for you all, no rocket science this time ;-)

 

Cobalt Blue, Costa-Rican Zebra, Trinidad Chevron and Green Bottle Blue are the common names of different species of what?

Edited by talkytoaster
Posted

As an amateur entomologist or perhaps I should say arachnologist they are of course arachnids.

OK - spiders then!

Correct Chris, but can you be a little more specific as to the type or class of spider they all belong to?

Posted

The cobalt blue is the only one I'm familiar with and it'a big hairy one with 8 legs..... sorry....tarantula. It is a lovely coloured spider.

 

Chris (MrB)

I'll let you have that; yes they are all so-called Tarantulas, which are a group of hairy and often very large spiders belonging to the family Theraphosidae. Approximately 900 species have been so-far identified.

 

I keep several as pets at home along with other exotics.

 

DING

Posted

Nice and easy to keep this thread ticking along!

 

Maundy Thursday before Easter is when the Queen gives out maundy money to a group of pensioners.

How is it decided how many people will receive the maundy coin sets?

 

Chris (MrB)

Posted

The amount used to be based on the Queens age (or the kings age).

No idea how they work out how many get it though - - is it anything to do with MPs expense claims??

:laughing:B)

Posted (edited)

I'll give the ding to Keehotee, he's pretty much right (and gives me a laugh sometimes :laughing: )

It is based on the age of the monarch.

 

Ding!

 

Chris (MrB)

Edited by The Blorenges
Posted
woohoo :o

 

OK - racking my brain.... (shouldn't take long)

 

What is porphyrous?

 

Extremely painful and not the sort of thing one talks about in polite company :(

Posted

DING - That's close enough -porphyrous is "of, or pertaining to, purple."

 

And if you want to know why I picked that question, you'll have to wait until August

Posted

DING - That's close enough -porphyrous is "of, or pertaining to, purple."

 

And if you want to know why I picked that question, you'll have to wait until August

 

I googled the word porphyrous (because I am curious purple :P ) and discovered that the use of the word porphyrous is in serious decline. It's hardly ever used! :D I hope everyone will rally to the rescue of poor porphyrous: Try and slip it into at least one sentence every day! :rolleyes:

 

MrsB

Posted

Right. Well it won't surprise you to know that I'm a photographer by trade, so here's a photography quiz question for you:

 

What is the name of the principle that says that an image will be in focus if the subject plane, lens plane and film plane all intersect at the same point?

 

A bonus point for knowing who invented the principle and what he devised it for.

Posted

Hmm... in a normal camera the "film"(/CCD) plane is parallel to the lens plane and therefore never intercept.

 

The only counter-example I've heard of was some sort of tiltable lens used in pre-digital aerial (maybe satellite???) imaging.

Posted

Right. Well it won't surprise you to know that I'm a photographer by trade, so here's a photography quiz question for you:

 

What is the name of the principle that says that an image will be in focus if the subject plane, lens plane and film plane all intersect at the same point?

 

A bonus point for knowing who invented the principle and what he devised it for.

Not sure of the name of the principle but many medium format cameras still offer a lens tilt function to enable the ability to keep an adjustable Depth of Field by using the tilt feature. This is not the same as aperture settings which also effect DoF and plane of focus.

 

Seem to recall that this technique was used as a way to deal with perspective issues on ariel photos, out of the camera at first, as a specific tool used by the military (and later added to cameras). So, I suspect that a military person either developed it or re-discovered it. If it is the former, then it is probably named after him, otherwise it will almost certainly have the name of the original discoverer(s).

 

A lot of the early work on cameras and optics were carried out by both British scientists and also German, Austrian and French ones too.

 

Yes, I'm a keen photographer too ;-)

Posted

Right. Well it won't surprise you to know that I'm a photographer by trade, so here's a photography quiz question for you:

 

What is the name of the principle that says that an image will be in focus if the subject plane, lens plane and film plane all intersect at the same point?

 

A bonus point for knowing who invented the principle and what he devised it for.

Not sure of the name of the principle but many medium format cameras still offer a lens tilt function to enable the ability to keep an adjustable Depth of Field by using the tilt feature. This is not the same as aperture settings which also effect DoF and plane of focus.

 

Seem to recall that this technique was used as a way to deal with perspective issues on ariel photos, out of the camera at first, as a specific tool used by the military (and later added to cameras). So, I suspect that a military person either developed it or re-discovered it. If it is the former, then it is probably named after him, otherwise it will almost certainly have the name of the original discoverer(s).

 

A lot of the early work on cameras and optics were carried out by both British scientists and also German, Austrian and French ones too.

 

Yes, I'm a keen photographer too ;-)

 

Right, several things here - this principle doesn't apply for fixed bodied cameras unless a tiltable lens is used at which point it does.

 

A mini ding has to go to talkytoaster and rutson combined because it was used originally to work out perspective problems for aerial photographs used to calculate artillery trajectories.

 

Still waiting for the name of the principle though....

Posted

 

Still waiting for the name of the principle though....

You might have a long wait. In the past multi-part questions have slowed this thread down a lot.

 

Shufflebeurd, Schottenhiem, Schumaker?

It's some German bloke whose name begins with S.

Posted

Well it doesn't seem like anyone is as sad as me - I'll give the ding to Talkytoaster and offer up the principle name - Scheimpflug...

 

Oops, didn't see the ding, sorry......

 

OK, a real quick one off the top of my head:

 

Who wrote the book "Good Omens"?

Posted

Well it doesn't seem like anyone is as sad as me - I'll give the ding to Talkytoaster and offer up the principle name - Scheimpflug...

 

Oops, didn't see the ding, sorry......

 

OK, a real quick one off the top of my head:

 

Who wrote the book "Good Omens"?

 

oooh, i know this! Neil Gaiman (pardon the spelling!)

 

Dave

Posted

oooh, i know this! Neil Gaiman (pardon the spelling!)

Not quite right, I'll give you half a ding for that, it was a trick question as there was more than one author...

 

hmmm - i'm racking my brains now... Did the excellent Mr Pratchett contribute as well?

Posted

oooh, i know this! Neil Gaiman (pardon the spelling!)

Not quite right, I'll give you half a ding for that, it was a trick question as there was more than one author...

 

hmmm - i'm racking my brains now... Did the excellent Mr Pratchett contribute as well?

You are correct, both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are listed as the authors, Terry wrote about 65 percent of it the rest was down to Neil. It was originally published in 1990.

 

Unfortunately there will be no repeat of this partnership as Terry has made it clear that he won't do it again.

 

DING!

Posted (edited)

good job I've been thinking up a question!

 

OK, where was the UK's (in fact, i think the world's) first cash machine/ATM, and who was the first person to use it?

Hmmmmm I remember something about this.

 

The very first cash machine was installed in a London bank (Barclays springs to mind as I'm sure it was mentioned in one of their adverts at some point). As to who used it first, apart from the installer to test it ;-) Probably someone famous or a director of the bank itself?

Edited by talkytoaster
Posted

good job I've been thinking up a question!

 

OK, where was the UK's (in fact, i think the world's) first cash machine/ATM, and who was the first person to use it?

Hmmmmm I remember something about this.

 

The very first cash machine was installed in a London bank (Barclays springs to mind as I'm sure it was mentioned in one of their adverts at some point). As to who used it first, apart from the installer to test it ;-) Probably someone famous or a director of the bank itself?

 

on the right track - I know I didn't specify, but I'd like a little more detail rather than London... town is sufficient, not lat/long!

 

and yes, its someone famous, not the bank director, manager, or someone like that.

 

PS - yes, it was Barclays, but I decided not to ask that bit!

Posted

good job I've been thinking up a question!

 

OK, where was the UK's (in fact, i think the world's) first cash machine/ATM, and who was the first person to use it?

Hmmmmm I remember something about this.

 

The very first cash machine was installed in a London bank (Barclays springs to mind as I'm sure it was mentioned in one of their adverts at some point). As to who used it first, apart from the installer to test it ;-) Probably someone famous or a director of the bank itself?

 

on the right track - I know I didn't specify, but I'd like a little more detail rather than London... town is sufficient, not lat/long!

 

and yes, its someone famous, not the bank director, manager, or someone like that.

 

PS - yes, it was Barclays, but I decided not to ask that bit!

 

Reg Varney was the famous person, but i don't know where in london

Posted

As I was working at an engineering company in the area at the time I know it was Enfield.

 

well that gets the ding, as Enfield was the place I was looking for. however, Highly honorable mention to mcaughtr for getting Reg varney, which is the more interesting fact!

 

A short snippet from a website, if anyone is interested...

 

"The world's first cash machine was introduced in the UK and installed in Enfield, north London on 27 June, 1967 by Barclays Bank and opened by Reg Varney of 'On the Buses' fame. The early machines had limited functions, dispensing fixed amounts of cash in exchange for tokens. In the early 1970s, magnetic stripe technology enabled plastic cards to be used to withdraw cash."

 

Over to DD&V!

Posted (edited)

OK following on from Reg Varney's mention in the previous question,

Which actress played Reg Varney's character's Mum in the original series of On The Buses?

Edited by DrDick&Vick
Posted

OK following on from Reg Varney's mention in the previous question,

Which actress played Reg Varney's character's Mum in the original series of On The Buses?

 

Rather like Alan Davies on QI, I'll go for the obvious answer which is bound to be wrong and say...... Doris Hare

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