Bricker Challenge 2005 Edition # The Second ½

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Following, please find the questions for the Bricker Challenge 2005, Edition # The Second ½

This edition has the second 25 questions.

The rules, as always, are simple: I have posted a list of … stuff. You, the contest participant, must identify each item and/or answer each question. For example, if one item were: “Is the quality of mercy strained?” you might answer, “No. It falleth as gentle rains from the heavens,” which would show you recognize the classic speech from Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

“What is NaCl?” Your answer might be, “The chemical symbols for sodium chloride, common table salt.”

An answer that shows you get the reference is fine, as long as it explains every element in the question. If it’s a joke, explain the joke. Leave no stone unturned. Be the party know-it-all that explains why the malaprop is funny, and what the speaker MEANT to say. Some questions may contain deliberate errors of spelling, or of meaning. Correct the misapprehension or the mistake. “What’s that movie where Shelley Duvall says ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning?’” needs to be answered with “Apocalypse Now” but ALSO a note that the actor was Robert Duvall, not Shelley Duvall.

I’m phrasing questions ambiguously in an effort to cut down on the help that search engines can provide, although there’s no getting around it … many will be answerable by search engine anyway. There is no rule against using search engines (or any other reference) although I would appreciate if, just for curiosity’s sake, you note that you got the answer by search engine as opposed to simply knowing it.

I am awarding a $15 ($12.50 seemed silly, but this is an Edition ½, after all) gift certificate from Amazon.com as the prize to the winner. Alternatively, if the winner is not a subscribed member and wishes to become so, I am awarding a one-year paid subscription to the SDMB. A winner who is already subscribed may donate his subscription to another person of his choosing, but must identify the recipient within a reasonable period of time.

The winner is the person that answers the most questions correctly by post here dated on or before Thursday, February 3rd, at 11:00 PM EST, or the first person to answer all questions correctly before that time. I reserve the right to substitute another prize of comparable value for any reason. My decisions are final as to the accuracy of all answers. I may, or may not, provide intermediate feedback as to the number of correct answers each entrant has, but if I make any errors in doing so, it’s your tough luck. I won’t score posts with less than five correct answers. Only the single post with the most correct answers by the deadline qualifies you as a winner. In the unlikely event of a tie, which would occur if two or more posts have the same date/time stamp and both have the highest number of correct answers, the prize will be split amongst each tied contestant.

The next post has the questions. Good luck!

  • Rick
2
  1. How many addressable hosts are there on a network that uses a subnet mask of 255.255.255.224?
  2. It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes.
  3. So, wait – did they ever tell the poor tinker he wasn’t really a lord? And did he ever get the disguised pageboy into bed?
  4. How did Captain John Carter get to Barsoom, originally?
  5. What are the dangers involved in living in a house built by Quintin Teal?
  6. Describe the revenge of Susie Underpants.
  7. Consider the area bounded by y=x^2 – 1, y=2, y=0, and x=2. Rotate that area around the y axis and find the volume of the resulting solid.
  8. Don’t make your Elasian girlfriend cry.
  9. Are flotsam and jetsam the same thing?
  10. Depending on the choices we make on the initial screen, we may compete in a physical/naked challenge or a machine-assisted mental challenge, among others.
  11. In 1946, it turned out that he wasn’t really of divine Shinto origins.
  12. The condemned spy escapes thanks to a flimsy rope, and makes it all the way back to the arms of his loving wife before discovering the cruel truth that none of it actually happened.
  13. “Dr. Obispo tries to keep wealthy Stoyte alive” – and this book’s title came from what literary work?
  14. Yes, that’s what I’m toying with - a monosyllabic speech sound where the tongue starts at articulatory position for one vowel and moves to the position of another.
  15. If J. Edward Day had been murdered in 1962, who might have been the chief suspect?
  16. The Freeman family was decidedly unhappy on the morning of September 19th, 1777.
  17. Powdered color is mixed with egg white and yolk, then thinned with water and applied to gesso to make a delicious Japanese fried food.
  18. In the critically acclaimed 2003 movie “What A Girl Wants,” what performer played the character responsible for splitting Henry and Libby up?
  19. Let’s see… the father, the mother, the step-daughter, the son, the young boy, and the child are all looking for some sort of writer.
  20. His expert-marksman sister shot and killed his cheating wife, as well as the wife’s adulterous partner, and he ends up going to jail. Only in the South, right?
  21. General Bragg beat him at Chickamauga, but at least he didn’t lose Chattanooga – and where the hell was Guildenstern?
  22. What’s so “rare” about the lanthanoids, anyway?
  23. So if I hang out in Africa and live happily by eating lotus plants, will I get into a poem, too?
  24. My theory is that the basic building blocks of the universe are one-dimensional objects about 10^(-35) meters long, and there are none attached to this proposal.
  25. More sensibly than Byran, I supported the cheap coinage of silver.
3
  1. Emperor Hirohito
  2. Amanda Bynes (my kids love her)
  3. Grover Cleveland?
4

Sigh. I only have a few just off the top of my head.

No. Flotsam floats; jetsam sinks. Also, flotsam usually refers to parts of the boat while jetsam refers to lost cargo.

Bierce was a bastard, yes, with “An Occurence at Owl Creek”

No, no, no- General William Starke Rosecrans was the head of the Union Army of the Cumberland, and defeated General Bragg at the battle of Murfreesboro, only to be defeated in turn at the battle of Chickamauga. You’re thinking of Rosencrantz, who along with Guildenstern was sent by the King to arrange Hamlet’s assassination in England but ended up getting killed themselves. That was in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and possibly they would be intensely obscure characters if an existentialist play about them hadn’t been written.

That would be the “Superstring Theory”, which states that quarks are merely the points of intersection these strings make with our own three dimensions.

Well, anyone would be more sensible than William Jennings Bryan, who won the Democratic nomination for President in 1896 after making the famous “Cross of Gold” speech which decried the current use of the gold standard in favor of cheap silver coinage. And if someone can actually explain the differences in opinion on whether silver or gold should have been used for coinage, they’re a better man than I.

5

I’ve got no chance of winning, but at least i can take a stab at it:

  1. 256, I believe, unless I’m getting host and client mixed up, which is quite possible.
  2. A little bit of online cheating suggests astral projection, or else an NDE.
  3. Whereas 14 is a diphthong, this is a dip in a thong. (Bing being the dip, thanks to Google)
  4. No. I think it has to do with what’s washed up on a beach, but let’s see what the dictionary says…okay. Flotsam is the floating debris of a wrecked ship, whereas jetsam is the stuff you eject over the side to lighten the load.
  5. Just don’t choose wrong, unless you want to end up in the Blue Desmesne. (and I didn’t have to look it up, either!)
  6. Bye bye Hirohito!
  7. Yet another memorable Owl Creek Bridge incident.
  8. That’d be a diphthong, right?
  9. Tempera paint would taste nasty on tempura.
  10. The Rosencrantz part was easy, but I had to Google to get William Rosecrans’s name.
  11. That’d be the earth in which they’re found. (more google)
  12. Careful, lest Tennyson eat one and forget about you, too. Might be worth taking an odyssey out to N Africa anyway.
  13. Maybe no strings attached–but what about superstrings?
  14. Williams Jenning Bryan actually did support the silver standard, unlike his opponent, Cleveland. (Googled for the forgotten specifics)

Daniel

6

John Corrado = 5
Left hand of Dorkness = 12

7

We’re allowed to compile previous poster’s answer, yes? I don’t remember.

If my network classes are still accurate in my memory, 30.

References the predicament of one Christopher Sly in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

He retreated into a cave to escape from attacking Indians, and passed through a portal.

References the abdication of Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The lanthanoids are the among the elements commonly called ‘rare earth’ metals.

The Lotus-Eaters of Africa were encountered by Odysseus during his travels subsequent to the Trojan War; Tennyson wrote of them.

8

CandidGamera = 6

9

Nope - twas Jonathan Pryce.

10

Assuming Compiling of answers is okay :

If my network classes are still accurate in my memory, 30.

References the predicament of one Christopher Sly in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

He retreated into a cave to escape from attacking Indians, and passed through a portal.

Dying to know where that’s from, myself.

References the abdication of Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The lanthanoids are the among the elements commonly called ‘rare earth’ metals.

The Lotus-Eaters of Africa were encountered by Odysseus during his travels subsequent to the Trojan War; Tennyson wrote of them.

11

Bryan wanted silver coined at at least a 16 to 1 ratio, floating to reflect changes in spot prices. He also wanted silver coins to contain an amount of silver valued at or very near to the face value of the coin. In 1896, a silver dollar contained only about 47 cents’ worth of silver. (Note: Bryan’s supporters distributed large silver pieces as advertising tokens with slogans like “In God We Trust For The Other 53 Cents.” Those tokens are worth a bundle these days.)

Bryan’s view was that increased coining of silver would help to open up the Western economy. In reality, it would have been crazy to mint silver coins with a bullion value at or near their face value. Any increase in silver prices would have assured that the coins would have been quickly withdrawn from circulation by speculators–the same situation, in fact, that occurred in the Mint’s early years, when its silver dollars and smaller silver coins were exported to Europe and profitably melted down.

Of course, as for Bryan being sensible: He was, after all, the losing attorney in the Snopes monkey trial…

12

Doobie doobie doo…

17. Powdered color is mixed with egg white and yolk, then thinned with water and applied to gesso to make a delicious Japanese fried food.
Tempera paint isn’t a good addition to tempura food.

18. In the critically acclaimed 2003 movie “What A Girl Wants,” what performer played the character responsible for splitting Henry and Libby up?
Jonathan Pryce.

19. Let’s see- the father, the mother, the step-daughter, the son, the young boy, and the child are all looking for some sort of writer.
Those are six characters in search of an author. Maybe they should start with Luigi Pirandello.

22. What’s so “rare” about the lanthanoids, anyway?
The lanthanoids are the among the elements commonly called ‘rare earth’ metals.

23. So if I hang out in Africa and live happily by eating lotus plants, will I get into a poem, too?
The Lotus-Eaters of Africa were encountered by Odysseus during his travels subsequent to the Trojan War; Tennyson wrote of them.

13

Bricker,

While it’s been a lot of years since I have done integral calculus, I would humbly suggest that you revisit #7. Try drawing the bounded area and I think you will see what I mean.

Unless I am getting whooshed in a major way…

14
  1. First Vicki Lawrence then Kristy McCall who turned out the lights that night in Georgia.
15

I don’t see a problem with it. What am I missing?

16

What you are clearly missing is that I cannot draw to save my life.

Carry on.

17

Is it required that we show our work on #7? That’s the only one I actually know how to answer, but since you won’t count fewer than five answers I doesn’t seem worth it.

18

#10) We are playing the game grid on planet Proton from Piers Anthony’s “Adept” series.

19

Yikes. My last post was in a horrible format.

Here we go again, with things a bit better.

  1. If my network classes are still accurate in my memory, 30.

  2. (thanks to Google, IMDB) Quote from 1984’s Repo Man, by Agent Rogersz.

  3. References the predicament of one Christopher Sly in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

  4. He retreated into a cave to escape from attacking Indians, and passed through a portal.

  1. (with Google) Should’ve remembered this, at least partly. References the Star Trek episode Elaan of Troyius, an Iliad-alike adventure wherein Captain Kirk’s decision-making abilities are compromised by a woman, as usual, butin this case, specifically by the chemical aphrodesiac in her tears.

Dying to know where that’s from, myself.

  1. References the abdication of Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

  1. (with thanks to Google and Amazon) - After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, by Aldous Huxley, named for a line in Tennyson’s Tithonus.

  1. (With thanks to Google) You’d be unhappy too if the British were fighting the colonists on your front lawn!

  1. The lanthanoids are the among the elements commonly called ‘rare earth’ metals.

  2. The Lotus-Eaters of Africa were encountered by Odysseus during his travels subsequent to the Trojan War; Tennyson wrote of them.

20

C’mon, someone answer #5 so I can steal it and paste in the other 24!