The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz

[+naffita]

We had this one in our local a couple of weeks ago.

 

Why is a camel hair brush called 'a camel hair brush'

[+Handsyhands]

We had this one in our local a couple of weeks ago.

 

Why is a camel hair brush called 'a camel hair brush'

 

Because its used to brush camels hair ??

[+keehotee]

Because Mr Camel invented it?

[+naffita]

Because Mr Camel invented it?

 

Thats a DING

[+keehotee]

Because Mr Camel invented it?

 

Thats a DING

 

hahahaha - naaah - don't be silly.........

[+keehotee]

What was the second biggest city in England at the time of the American Revolution in 1776 ?

[+chizu]

I shall guess at Liverpool

[+The Forester]

Bristle?

[+kennamatic]

And I should reckon it's Bristol because of the slave trade.

 

Aaaargh, beaten with typing time by Forester!

Edited May 14, 2009 by kennamatic

[+MartyBartfast]

Going for a long shot:

 

London

[+keehotee]

I shall guess at Liverpool

 

Nope

 

Bristle?

 

Ding

 

And I should reckon it's Bristol because of the slave trade.

 

Aaaargh, beaten with typing time by Forester!

 

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

 

Going for a long shot:

 

London

 

Nope

 

Over to the Forester (again)

[+The Forester]

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

 

OK, they weren't slaves, they were "guest workers" who volunteered to go to the Caribbean to get a sun tan.

 

Now, most of us who read maps can read the contours as easily as reading a face. It's almost as if maps were always drawn that way. Actually, contours are a relatively modern way of depicting topography on maps.

 

Who was the first to join the dots of equal height and display those lines as contours?

[+keehotee]

Slave trade? What slave trade. No slaves were traded in or out of Bristol......

 

OK, they weren't slaves, they were "guest workers" who volunteered to go to the Caribbean to get a sun tan.

 

Now, most of us who read maps can read the contours as easily as reading a face. It's almost as if maps were always drawn that way. Actually, contours are a relatively modern way of depicting topography on maps.

 

Who was the first to join the dots of equal height and display those lines as contours?

 

According to Bill Bryson it was Charles Hutton.......

 

And Bristol wasn't a slave port.....it was one corner of a triangular route that took slaves from Africa to America....but they never came in or out of Bristol as a commodity.

[+The Forester]

Bristol's prosperity most certainly was mostly derived from the slave trade. This document shows that over 2,000 slave voyages sailed from/to Bristle between 1698 and 1807 and that by the time the trade was abolished and Bristle's decline began most of the city's prosperity was derived from the slave trade.

 

A ding for Hutton though. Actually I'd have preferred the more factually accurate answer of Maskelyne as it was he who instructed Hutton in the new form of graphical representation of hypsographic data, not the other way around, but we must accept that pop-culture has obscured historical reality, especially where Maskelyne is concerned. Dava Sobel's otherwise excellent little book, Longitude, practically turns him into a pantomime villain and almost exhorts the reader to boo and hiss every time his name is mentioned.

 

It's odd that pop-culture inverts villains into heroes and vice-versa. Gangstas and muggers like Robin Hood and Ronnie Biggs are treated like folk heroes while blatant swindlers occupy the front and back benches of the houses of parliament and truly brilliant scientists like Maskelyne are excoriated.

 

Neverthelees a fair dinkum ding to Don Keehotee for Hutton.

[+kennamatic]

Calling Keehotee.............Calling Keehotee..............

[+keehotee]

Whoops - OK, a real quicky...

 

According to the Guardian today - what's close to breakdown?

 

p.s. yes - nobody would deny that Bristol's prosperity came about as a result of the slave trade - but Bristol was not a slave port...... ships from Bristol carried goods to Africa, where they were traded for slaves for transportation to the Americas, before returning to Bristol with tobacco, coffee, coco, cotton, etc

Edited May 19, 2009 by keehotee

[+Guanajuato]

Is visiting the Grauniad website allowed? Or are you limiting it to people who buy that wooly rubbish?

 

I know the answer...

[+The Blorenges]

I know the answer too, because I stumbled across a topic about it on a nearby forum yesterday I'll let someone else find it, I haven't got a question to ask anyway...

 

MrsB

[+MartyBartfast]

Is it the US GPS satellite system, as reported in todays Metro (who probably read it in yesterdays Grauniad and just recycled it).

[+keehotee]

ding

[Chudley Cannons]

Is it the US GPS satellite system, as reported in todays Metro (who probably read it in yesterdays Grauniad and just recycled it).

Jeremy needs to get his hand in his pocket and buy some new satellites.

[+MartyBartfast]

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

[+talkytoaster]

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 May 20, 2009 by talkytoaster

[+MartyBartfast]

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

[+talkytoaster]

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 May 20, 2009 by talkytoaster

[+The Blorenges]

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

OK - spiders then!

 

Chris (MrB)

[+The Blorenges]

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

OK - spiders then!

 

Chris (MrB)

[+talkytoaster]

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?

[+The Blorenges]

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)

[+talkytoaster]

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

[+The Blorenges]

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)

[+The Forester]

Isn't it given to really needy people: such as those who need a new duckhouse for their duckisland; or for other needy people who need to clean out their moat?

[+keehotee]

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??

[+kennamatic]

Is it based on the number of years of the monarchs reign?

[+The Blorenges]

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

It is based on the age of the monarch.

 

Ding!

 

Chris (MrB)

Edited May 22, 2009 by The Blorenges

[+keehotee]

woohoo

 

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

 

What is porphyrous?

[+Pharisee]

woohoo

 

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

[+The Blorenges]

woohoo

 

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

 

What is porphyrous?

 

 

Relating to porpoises?

 

 

(I'm pretty sure it isn't, but nothing else springs to mind )

 

MrsB

[adrianjohn]

woohoo

 

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

 

What is porphyrous?

 

The Royal disease comes to mind, the madness of King George and purple pee!

[+keehotee]

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

[+The Blorenges]

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

 

MrsB

[adrianjohn]

By what name is the elder daughter of Ravi Shankar known?

[+ZoomLens]

By what name is the elder daughter of Ravi Shankar known?

 

Isn't it singer Norah Jones?

[adrianjohn]

By what name is the elder daughter of Ravi Shankar known?

 

Isn't it singer Norah Jones?

 

It is indeed the lovely Nora Jones Ding !

[+ZoomLens]

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.

[+rutson]

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.

[+talkytoaster]

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 ;-)

[+ZoomLens]

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....

[Chudley Cannons]

 

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.

[+ZoomLens]

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...