The Trivia Thread

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115
Any subject you choose.

1st question.....

What is the 7% Solution?
#off topic forum
  • The perfect ABV for a beer?
    • [1] reply
    • Nope.

      Should give a hint? :p
  • Isn't that perfect PH balance?

    Cocaine.

    Trying to think of next question. Ah --

    What is the number 50,000 relative to in Mandarin?
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    • According to Google it's either:

      A) The going salary for a Mandarin translator;
      B) The number of New Zealanders Prime Minister John Key hopes will learn to speak Mandarin;
      C) The number of characters there are in the Mandarin language.

      I'm going for option C.

      My question now.

      In movie history there have only been two actors to receive a Best Actor Oscar posthumously.

      What have they both got in common (besides being dead of course )?
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  • I know a movie with that title - is that what you're referring to?
  • [DELETED]
  • Oops, I've just checked and one of them was for Best Supporting actor. Nevertheless, they are still the only two posthumous Oscars for acting.


    (Perhaps I should have Riffle on my team after all )
  • <sigh>. Yes, they were both men as the term ACTOR denotes.

    Let's start again shall we. The question is:

    What did the only two men in history to have received posthumous Oscars for acting have in common?
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    • They were both actors?

      (Just messing with you, What. I know one, but I'd have to look up the other.)
    • Neither of them collected their award personally?

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    • Believe it or not, feminism has gotten SO bad that women will call themselves ACTORS! Hck, even SIR and DUDE today are "fair game"!

      Steve
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  • They both won Oscars posthumously
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  • Banned
    They were both Australian - Peter Finch and Heath Ledger
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    • Thank the gods Suzanne showed up. I was just going to look for some rope and a sturdy tree branch before the rest of the "comedians" had a go.
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  • Banned
    Okey dokey.

    What highly popular toy was banned by a government agency and why? (Not banned from sale, but just banned from the government agency... like in, no politicians, staff, etc. were allowed to bring them in to play with them lol)
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    • My step daughter was a Furby fanatic and I seem to recall that it was banned from intelligence agencies because they could record/repeat information. And you know those intelligence types...
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  • The 7% solution....

    Hey Sal was mostly right.
    It is the solution Sherlock Holmes uses when shooting Coke.
    And, it was a bokk and a movie.
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  • So um - anyone that can answer my question?
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    • Sorry, my Mandarin's a little rusty. :rolleyes:
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    • Does that mean Whateverpedia was wrong?
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  • They don't really have an alphabet. Each character expresses a full idea, unlike our letters do, and each little add on character on a base character changes the basic meaning just a bit, much like our adding an "s" to make a word plural. Sure would be easier for their population if they changed over to an alphabet, but it would change the ideology that their language expresses to do so.

    I'm not sure exactly how stringing these characters together as we string our letters together works to make words because I'm not oriented to their written language and can't remember that much about it from my morphology classes. Their language is tonal, though, which means that words change meaning when people change their tone of voice to say them (an equivalent we are familiar with would be sarcasm). So part of what they have to include in their writing is the change in word meaning per tone - that could get pretty hectic all on its own, if not impossible via alphabet.
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  • Sounds even more complicated than I had imagined. I was wondering if each character represented a word. Not quite, it sounds like.
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    • It is complicated - that's why there's so few people who actually write the language. Just learning the basics to be able to function in the society would take some learning - written language isn't instinctual.

      When people say English is the hardest language to learn, I'm assuming they've either got a Mandrin based language as their first language or they've never approached Mandarin. I can't "get" Mandarin because I am minus an eardrum and don't catch all tone shifts when someone talks. That would be crazy when trying to learn a tonal language.
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  • Name two legendary NY Times sports writers that got their start as sports writers for the Denver Post.

    Soapy Smith was an infamous Denver conman and sheriff. He also ran a poker room in Denver. Name two of his famous poker dealers. Hint: One of them is an answer for both questions.
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    • These are tough questions, but with being able to use Google, it's hard to come up with trivia questions that can't be easily researched. While these questions are tough, the answers are interesting.

      Damon Runyon and Bat Masterson both were sports writers in Denver before moving to New York. Runyon is considered by many to be the greatest sports writer of all time and Bat Masterson was one of the best-known sheriffs in the Wild West before a long career as a sports writer.

      Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp both were poker dealers that worked for Soapy Smith for a short time. Not sure I'd want to confront either of these guys about why there were two ace of spades dealt during a hand of poker .
  • You answered too quick, Kurt.
    I actually knew Bat Masterson was one.

    Given a little time I could have come up with the 2nd.

    I used to have the Time/Life set of books on The Old West.
    Very cool reading. Lost it in the divorce.
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    • Sorry about that, but I find it easier to answer my own trivia questions than those asked by others. What do I win?
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  • OK.....
    Everybody knows Robert E. Lee got his ass kicked at Gettysburg.

    Who was the commanding General of the Union forces?
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    • It wasn't Ulysses S. Grant. The commanding General of the Union forces at Gettysburg was General George Meade.

      I had to do a report on this in the 5th grade, lol.


      Terra
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  • Semi Thread Hijacking.
    Soapy Smith

    Alias Soapy Smith


    Soapy Smith was ,as pointed out, an infamous con man.
    There are at least 2 locations that have an annual Soapy Smith Day.
    One in Alaska where he was killed and the other at The Magic Castle in California.

    He and many of his known assoaciates had very colorful and interesting lives.
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    • Even Soapy's death is interesting. He cheated a guy while living in Alaska, and the guy confronted him. They both shot each other, and both men died in the gun fight. I beieve he last words were something like "Don't shoot!".

      He got the nickname "Soapy" because of a "game" he used to run where, for a dollar, you could pick a bar of soap from a basket and one of the bars of soap would have a $20(?) bill wrapped around it under the normal wrapping.

      Reports are no one ever won the prize.

      He's been a secondary character in some movies, but I still think someone should make a movie about his life. He's one of the great personalities of the Old West.
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    • Ok....
      Since you brought it up....

      Did John Wesley Hardin REALLY shoot a man just for snorin'?
      • [1] reply
  • What was the Oakland Raiders football team's first name?
  • Scratch that one ^^^^. Here's a better one.

    She was born the 20th of 22 children - prematurely, and weighing a scant 4.5lbs.

    When she was 4, she contracted infantile paralysis, caused by the polio virus. Though she recovered from the disease, until the age of 9, she had to wear a brace on her left foot, which was severely deformed from the disease. She had to wear a correctional shoe for two years after that.

    Before she was 12, she had to fight two of the worst diseases of her time - polio and scarlet fever.

    But she wanted to run. Before she was finished, she won several Olympic medals, was named in the top 50 of ESPN's greatest athletes of the 20th century, was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame, has a stretch of road named after her, and even had a postage stamp made for her.

    She was...?
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    • Easy one . . . Wilma Rudolph.

      Great story, and it reminds me of a similar story...

      This guy was born with two club feet that were so bad doctors had to break both his legs when he was a toddler for him to have a chance to walk. He was confined to a wheelchair, and then had to wear leg braces for a long time.

      He went on to play in the NFL and was a 5-time Pro-Bowl selection, along with being named to the All-Decade Team by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

      Who is this man?
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  • Which Medieval Queen dressed as an Amazon (and had her ladies dress the same) while she was on the Crusade with her husband?
  • What Wild West person did John Wayne say he emulated in every western he made?

    Here's a tough one...According to a rodeo/cowboy association (can't remember their name), who was the best horseback rider of any of the Hollywood actors? This would have been in the 1960s, so think about actors in westerns in that era and before.
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    • We still haven't answered barbling's question yet, to which the answer is Eleanor of Aquitaine.
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    • Now, onto your questions:

      Buffalo Bill.

      Gary Cooper?
      • [1] reply
    • 1. Rooster Cogburn

      2. well, obviously, Roy Rogers could ride.
      But, I'm thinking, maybe Randolf Scott.
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  • I'm not sure there was only one, I doubt there were too many, but there's one I know of...Can you name an NFL player that had a PHD while he was still playing in the NFL?
    • [1] reply
    • Pat McInally?
      Bengals punter, graduated from Harvard and created the "Starting Line up" sports figures co.
      • [1] reply
  • What Major League pitcher threw a 10 inning no-hitter but lost the game?
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    • Why does Yogi Bear wear a collar?

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    • Before I give the answer, I thought I'd give y'all one more chance.
    • Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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