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QFTCI11 Game 7 Rounds 9-10 answers: weapons, challenge!

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Mark Brader

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Sep 22, 2011, 11:44:24 PM9/22/11
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Mark Brader:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 2011-03-07,
> and should be interpreted accordingly... For further information
> see my 2011-05-23 companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian
> Inquisition (QFTCI5GNM, QFTCI11, QFTCIMM)".

And Stephen Perry misses the last pair of rounds and still holds on
to win this game! Hearty congratulations!


> I wrote both of these rounds.


> * Game 7, Round 9 - Weapons in History

> 1. Daggers have existed since prehistoric times, but the sword,
> with its longer blade, is a later development. What specific
> technological change first made it practical for the blade
> of a sword to be as long as, say, 30 inches?

The answer I originally wrote was "The use of iron, instead of bronze
or other copper alloys. (Not steel -- that came later.)" However,
looking at it again now, I see that the forging techniques used with
early iron swords actually tended to impregnate the surface with
carbon (from the fuel being burned), thus accidentally producing
a strengthening layer of steel; and also, that iron without this
layer was not much better than bronze. So I'm accepting "steel", but
still not "tempered steel", which did come later. "Stronger metal"
was not specific enough.

So, 4 for Joshua, Joachim, Peter, and Dan Blum.

> 2. The bow and arrow is also a prehistoric weapon, whose
> development has continued into modern times. In 1415 the
> outcome of the battle of Agincourt was decided by a large
> force of archers armed with what type of bow?

Longbow. 4 for Joachim, Peter, Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, Rob,
and Calvin.

> 3. This small Japanese weapon in the form of a disk with sharp
> edges or spikes is sometimes called a "throwing star"
> in English, although not all of them were star-shaped.
> What is it called in Japanese?

Shuriken. 4 for Dan Tilque and Dan Blum.

> 4. The Katyusha ("kat-you-sha") was a Soviet weapon of
> World War II, perhaps better known by the nickname "Stalin's
> organ". Basically a modernized version of the 15th century
> Korean hwacha, what sort of weapon was "Stalin's organ"?

Multiple rocket launcher: an array of tubes each with its own
rocket projectile. Any reference to launching rockets from it was
sufficient, so I scored "Rocket" alone as almost correct. 4 for Marc,
Dan Blum, and Rob. 3 for Pete.

Hwacha replicas:

http://i323.photobucket.com/download-albums/nn473/gceutd/Miscellaneous/hwacha_firing_photo.jpg
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/img_dir/2009/10/19/2009101900622_0.jpg

Katyushas during WW2:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LoPTdkHrjjk/StCZZYXSxMI/AAAAAAAAFjI/Sg54X_y3dtk/s1600/battle-kursk-katyusha-rockets-second-world-war.jpg
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln2r15JrH41qz9tkeo1_500.jpg

> 5. Where was the first atomic bomb, as they called it in those
> days, exploded?

Trinity test site in the Jornada del Muerto basin (a name which,
fittingly, means something like "journey of death") in the White Sands
Proving Ground (now White Sands Missile Range), New Mexico, USA.
New Mexico was sufficient; or any of the foregoing place names was
acceptable, as well as the nearby towns of Alamogordo, Carrizozo,
and Socorro. However, Los Alamos was wrong -- that's where the bomb
was developed, but it's 150 miles away from the Trinity site.

So, 4 for Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, Erland, Pete, Rob, Jeff,
and Calvin.

> 6. Either name the first lethal poison gas to be used in World
> War I, or the battle site where it was first used.

Chlorine, Ypres (or Gravenstafel, the specific site at Ypres).
4 for Joachim, Dan Tilque, Dan Blum, and Rob. 2 for Pete.

Other noxious gases were used earlier in the war, but were not lethal.

Both here and in the original game, several players gave the answer
mustard gas. This may have been the most deadly gas of the war,
because it acted on the skin; but it came into use as a form of
escalation 2 years after chlorine, and the reason was precisely that
the troops were now able to deal with chlorine attacks adequately.

> 7. This is a simple defensive weapon consisting of a rigid
> framework of small spikes pointing in different directions;
> for example, four spikes whose points mark a regular
> tetrahedron. When a lot of these are strewn over a road
> surface, at least one spike of each one will be pointing
> upwards, so impeding the movement of enemy horses or vehicles.
> The name of this simple weapon is taken from a type of
> thistle; what is it called?

Caltrop. I scored the non-English answers a couple of entrants
gave as almost correct, on the grounds that they identify the thing
but don't have the indicated etymology. 4 for Peter, Dan Tilque,
Dan Blum, and Rob. 3 for Joachim and Erland.

> 8. In its modern form, this is one of the lightest artillery
> weapons. It can shoot its projectiles at a steep upward
> angle so as to hit targets beyond intervening obstacles.
> What's it called?

Mortar. I also accepted "haubits", which is apparently Swedish for
"howitzer", which is a similar type of weapon. But, folks, this
contest is conducted in English except when you are specifically
asked for another language.

4 for Dan Tilque, Dan Blum, Erland, Pete, Rob, and Jeff.

> 9. Names of weapons have a way of shifting from one to another
> weapon over time. In 1864, Admiral David Farragut said
> "Damn the torpedoes!" -- but what would we call those
> "torpedoes" today?

Mines. 4 for Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, and Rob.

> 10. This weapon invented in the 18th century was similar in
> size and function to a shotgun, but, like rifles of its era,
> it was loaded through the muzzle. Its distinctive feature
> was a barrel with a wide flared end, which made loading easy
> and also helped disperse the shot. Name it.

Blunderbuss. 4 for Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, Pete, Rob, Jeff,
and Calvin.


> * Game 7, Round 10 - Challenge Round

> This is the challenge round, and your categories are:
> Horton Hears a Who, Who Lives There, There is Not, Not so Tiny,
> Tiny Tim, and -- what else? -- Tim Horton.

This was the 2nd-easiest round in the original game, after current events.

> A. Horton Hears a Who (Literature)

> A1. This pair is about Dr. Seuss. What was his real name?

Theodore Geisel. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, Pete,
and Jeff.

> A2. Several Dr. Seuss books were designed to use an extremely
> limited vocabulary of only about 250 different words,
> or in some cases, even less. The first of them, from
> 1957, is well known and had multiple sequels. What is
> its title?

"The Cat in the Hat". 4 for Joshua, Peter, Dan Tilque, Marc,
Dan Blum, Pete, and Calvin. 3 for Rob.

> B. Who Lives There (Geography)

> B1. What is the term for a resident of Sydney, Australia?

Sydneysider. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque, Rob, and Calvin.

> B2. What is the term for a resident of Manchester, England?

Mancunian. 4 for Joshua, Peter, Dan Tilque, Marc, Dan Blum, Pete,
Rob, and Jeff.

> C. There is Not (Science)

> C1. There is not a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury,
> but for a time astronomers believed there might be one,
> and even had a name proposed for it -- a name now better
> known for a fictional planet outside of our solar system.
> What was this name?

Vulcan. 4 for Joshua, Joachim, Peter, Dan Tilque, Dan Blum, and Jeff.

> C2. Sound waves are fluctuations in the medium of air or
> other substances; at one time it was believed that
> electromagnetic waves, such as light and radio, were
> fluctuations in a medium that must pervade the universe.
> There is not really such a medium, scientists now believe;
> but when they did believe in it, what did they call it?

(Luminiferous) ether. 4 for Joshua, Joachim, Dan Tilque, Marc,
Dan Blum, Erland, Pete, Rob, and Jeff. 3 for Peter.

> D. Not so Tiny (Miscellaneous)

> D1. What is the heaviest model of passenger airliner now in
> regular commercial fleet service?

Airbus A380 ("Airbus 380" was acceptable). 4 for Joachim, Dan Tilque,
Rob, and Calvin.

> D2. What is the heaviest species among the big cats?

(Siberian) tiger. 4 for Joachim, Peter, Dan Tilque, and Jeff.
3 for Rob and Calvin.

It's disputed whether the Siberian tiger is a separate species or a
subspecies, so "tiger" alone was sufficient, but any other specific
sort of tiger was wrong.

> E. Tiny Tim (Entertainment)

> E1. Tiny Tim, who lived 1932-96, was best known (particularly
> to fans of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In") for singing
> a certain song in falsetto while accompanying himself
> on a stringed instrument. Name *either* the song or
> the instrument.

"Tiptoe Through the Tulips", ukulele. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque,
Marc, Dan Blum, Pete, Rob, Jeff, and Calvin.

> E2. Either give Tiny Tim's real name (first and last), *or*
> name his first wife (her nickname or original surname)

Herbert Khaury, Victoria "Miss Vicki" Budinger. 4 for Joshua, Marc,
Dan Blum, Pete, and Jeff.

> F. Tim Horton (Canadiana)

> F1. Tim Horton died in a traffic accident on the highway
> connecting two of the cities whose hockey teams he
> played for. What highway?

The QEW. (Toronto and Buffalo.)

> F2. When Horton played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, what
> number did he wear?

#7. A lot of defensemen wore single-digit numbers back then, but
all the guesses were 2-digit numbers.


Scores, if there are no errors:

ROUNDS-> 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 BEST
TOPICS-> Sci Ent Geo Can Mis Lit His Cha SIX
Stephen Perry 28 32 36 22 24 35 -- -- 177
Dan Tilque 40 8 16 14 28 16 32 36 168
Joshua Kreitzer 40 36 17 13 20 20 4 32 165
Dan Blum 40 16 10 3 23 12 40 28 159
Rob Parker 32 14 8 10 32 12 32 26 148
Peter Smyth 40 8 32 0 32 12 12 19 147
Marc Dashevsky 36 24 8 8 12 20 20 24 136
"Calvin" 24 15 26 5 24 9 12 19 120
Jeff Turner 40 0 -- -- -- -- 12 28 80
Pete Gayde -- -- 9 8 8 12 17 24 78
Erland Sommarskog 27 0 8 0 8 0 11 4 58
Joachim Parsch -- -- -- -- -- -- 15 16 31
Stan Brown -- -- -- -- 16 0 -- -- 16

--
Mark Brader "One doesn't have to be a grammarian
Toronto to know when someone's talking balls."
m...@vex.net --John Masters

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Erland Sommarskog

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Sep 23, 2011, 3:27:14 AM9/23/11
to
Mark Brader (m...@vex.net) writes:
> Mortar. I also accepted "haubits", which is apparently Swedish for
> "howitzer", which is a similar type of weapon. But, folks, this
> contest is conducted in English except when you are specifically
> asked for another language.

Yeah, but "haubits" has a clear non-Swedish look, so I figured that with
some luck it could be the same word in English. Had to try something. :-)

What I learnt when I was in the artillery is that with a cannon, you see
what you aim at, with a "haubits" you don't, because the target is too far
away.

--
Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, esq...@sommarskog.se

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