I'm bored. Quiz me and I'll try to answer without Googling...

[Locut0s]

Last edited Sun Sep 1, 2013, 12:23 AM - Edit history (2)

I like to think I have a fairly broad range of knowledge in this noggin, at least for someone 31. Ask me questions about whatever and I'll try to answer without googling. Because of the age disparity between myself and the average DUer here I have a feeling I'm going to do terribly at this but let's see. My strong suits are science and technology if you wish to ask something I'm more likely to get.

Let's see me get embarrassed.

EDIT: Come on guys ask some science questions, I'm dying here

[krispos42]

1. What is the average wing speed of an unladen swallow? n/t

[Locut0s]

2. European or African? nt.

[krispos42]

5. Uh, I don't know that...

...AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

[NYC_SKP]

3. Within .001, what value is the value of x for this equation:

1 + x = 1/x

[krispos42]

13. I brute-forced it

But I can't solve it mathmatically.

[Locut0s]

18. I don't think it has a rational # answer...

You can use newtons method, among others, to get a very accurate approximation quickly though.

[krispos42]

20. Sounds like something I learned in calculus...

...some 18 years ago and have completely forgotten.

[Locut0s]

14. 0.618 according to newtons method if I'm right...

At least within 0.001. I don't believe it has rational number answer.

[NYC_SKP]

19. Correct, though I wouldn't have known how to apply Newton's method to find it.

Years ago I uses a very basic calculator to derive an answer. Junior high school in the late sixties.

Turns out to be the value of phi.

Golden mean, golden section.

[Locut0s]

27. Cool didn't know it was the golden ratio...

Math is indeed fun

[NYC_SKP]

44. Cool is right, and we didn't have the internet back in the day.

I just knew of the principal geometrically and knew there had to be a constant value for the ratio.
And I had a four function calculator.
Trial and error until I reached the end of the place values in the display: 0.6180339


if

[pinboy3niner]

4. Broad range of knowledge? Hmmm...

You might apply yourself to the Lounge Friday-Saturday Art Challenge. Even if you are not well-versed in art (hell, I posted it and I'm not well-versed in art!), you can apply your skills to researching to track down the works...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018468877

[Locut0s]

16. I'll give it a try in a bit thanks :P nt.

[Graybeard]

6. What astronomer discovered that the universe is expanding?

His observations of the so called 'red-shift' in 1929.

[NYC_SKP]

9. I know that one.

It was on the Christian Science Monitor quiz posted earlier this week.

[Graybeard]

10. I saw it tonight on the Science Channel.

Wonders of the Universe with Brian Cox.

Great series btw. Most of it over my head but
fascinating.

[Locut0s]

11. Hubble. nt.

[Graybeard]

17. You are good LocutOs.

.
And with that I shall retire to Bedlam.
.
.on edit: It occurred to me that you should be able to tell us
what character in literature said that?

[Locut0s]

28. Lol, you have me with that one...

I feel I should know as well.

[redwitch]

67. I know, I know!

Ebaneezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol".

[Graybeard]

70. Yaaay. You're right!

I didn't give the answer because I knew you were out there.

Nice going.

[PoliticAverse]

7. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

[Locut0s]

12. A wood chuck would chuck as much wood as a wood chuck would chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

[rrneck]

8. An old chestnut...

An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like to this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."

[Locut0s]

15. Yes I've heard this one before.. hmm...

I can't remember the answer though. Something like the sun in the sky or something?

[rrneck]

45. That's it. The sun.

Now it's off with us to the Green Dragon for a pint and a smoke.

[marzipanni]

21. What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino? n/t

[Locut0s]

24. Hot dog material :P nt.

[marzipanni]

48. Elephino.

[olddots]

22. what was the Smithline Audio 2x4

?????????

Who invented the 3 beam video projector ??


answers on page 568

[Locut0s]

25. These are before my time :D...

Smithline Audio? an 8 track player?

I know of those 3 beam projectors, they were really expensive back in the day of high quality analogue equipment and among the best projectors you could get if I remember. They used a different beam / lamp for each colour red green blue. Don't know who invented it. I know that some of the big names in that business are German companies so I'll give it a stab and say it was someone German?

[fizzgig]

23. on what town was main street usa modeled?

we're talking disneyland and not disneyworld.

[Locut0s]

26. Never been to either one sadly...

And my knowledge of US geography is more than a bit fuzzy, although there was a time when I had all 50 states and their capitals memorized. I'll have to give it a wild guess. St. Louis?

[fizzgig]

85. the downtown area of my city in colorado

or so the legend goes. i've never been there, but i don't see much of it in the photos. my husband went there when he was a kid and it creeped him out, so he hates going down there. i avoid it because of the college kids, it's where all the bars are.

[JimDandy]

107. Would that be Boulder, CO? n/t

[fizzgig]

108. close

fort collins

[JimDandy]

112. That was my second guess! This was a fun little thread

the OP thought up.

Eta I almost never come to the lounge, but I'll be looking in more frequently now.

[DiverDave]

29. At what depth (+/- in feet) of saltwater

would you be under 2 atmospheres?
I sorta remember,It's been awhile

[Locut0s]

30. I really want to take up diving...

I don't know this one. Water is very heavy though so I suspect that it's not very deep at all. Sea level pressure is 15 pounds per square foot if I remember correctly. I'll give it a stab and say 15 feet?

[DiverDave]

105. Sorry it took so long, 33 feet, but salt and fresh weigh

differently dissolved salts and minerals make you more buoyant in the ocean.
So to acheve neutral bouancy in fresh water you would need less weight then in the ocean.

The Dead sea and the Salton sea you would need A LOT of extra weight.

[B Calm]

31. How do you get rid of pond scum without using harmful chemicals?

[Locut0s]

34. I'm not doing well lol...

I don't know how?

[B Calm]

35. LOL. . A bale of barley straw will get rid of pond scum algae.

The only trouble is, where in hell can a person find a bale of Barley Straw? I been everywhere looking!

[Locut0s]

36. Steal it from a farmer's field :P...

Why am I taking a bale of your hay? Oh.. Um... I have pond scum. lol

[ZombieHorde]

32. What is the name of the philosophical position that states

that composite objects do not exist?

There are at least two names for this position, or whatever, and I'll take either one.

[Locut0s]

33. Philosophy isn't my thing but...

Atomists?

[ZombieHorde]

41. That is very close.

Some Buddhists adhere to a position called atomism that similar.

It is called mereological nihilism or compositional nihilism.

[pinboy3niner]

37. Well, you aced the art challenge even without posting the answers

Can you leap over tall buildings with a single bound?

[Locut0s]

38. Yes...

Since there's no technical minimum height for the definition of a building and I want to say that I can. Yes I can. 2 foot tall buildings, but yes none the less I can

[pinboy3niner]

39. Woo-hoo...let's hear it for shrinkage!

[Callmecrazy]

40. Here's one...

It takes a man 4 hours to paint a house. It takes a second man 6 hours to paint the same house. How long would it take for both men to paint the house together?

BTW the color is light blue with white trim and they're painting both the inside and out.

[alphafemale]

47. $795 with their paint and supplies.

A whole house painted in less than half a day? Shoot you could charge admission for that.

[Locut0s]

57. If I'm right it should take them 2.4 hours...

In one hour the first guy paints 1/4 of the house while the other guy paints 1/6. AT this pace they are painting 5/12 of the house per hour. Which means they will paint the house 12/5 hours, or 2.4 hours. I could be wrong.

[Callmecrazy]

63. 2.4 hours is correct...

You use the product over sum method. (6x4)/(6+4) = 2.4 hours

[NV Whino]

66. Can I hire that painter?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

93. He charges $1200 an hour

[NV Whino]

96. Oh damn.

[taterguy]

42. How much wood would a woodchuck?

If a woodchuck could chuck wood?

[Locut0s]

52. Over 9000! nt.

[Paulie]

43. How many hosts can you have on a /30 IP network vs a /31?

[Locut0s]

51. Well I'm actually not familiar with that terminology but...

But in IPv4 you are working with a 32 bit number usually broken down into 4 groups. So that gives 4294967296 unique addresses not counting reserved ones. If I remember you have Level A,B,C and D address 256*256*256*256 at each increasing level. Companies usually lease an IP range and are allowed to dole out all the IPs bellow that themselves.

[steve2470]

46. The Governor General of Canada's name ? nt

[Locut0s]

53. LOL you have me there...

the previous Governer General was an African American woman known for her Journalism but for the life of me I can't remember her name.

[laundry_queen]

109. That was Michaele Jean (spelling may be off)

she was of Haitian decent. I can't remember the new guy. Boring name, that's all I remember, LOL. Bob or Dave or something.

[6000eliot]

49. What was the name of William Wordsworth's horse?

A question I was actually asked in my oral Ph.D exams.

[Locut0s]

54. He had a horse?...

lol What was your Ph.D in?

[6000eliot]

59. English

Funny thing is, I do not remember the answer to my own question!

[LWolf]

50. How can I permanently

get rid of invasive perrenial pepper weed which propagates with seed and runners, no poison in my soil allowed?

[Locut0s]

55. My guess would be by introducing a competing plant species.

nt.

[LWolf]

64. I'm afraid to.

If I water another plant species, the pepperweed will take off, spreading underground everywhere there is water.

What competes with that?

[llmart]

65. My question to you......

How do you spell the word that describes a plant that comes back year after year?

[LWolf]

76. perennial

Pepperweed propagates by seed and runners. What is above ground dies off when it freezes, or when it doesn't get watered. New sprouts appear in spring, and so do new shoots off of every piece of root already there.

[llmart]

98. Correct!

Not only am I a spelling nazi but I am an Advanced Master Gardener in the Midwest.

There are lots of perennial plants that spread through underground runners. Just about everything that spreads that way is what I would call invasive. I just moved into a place where the neighbor behind me had Bishop's weed and I've been pulling it for two seasons now and most of it is gone. Sometimes that's the only way to get rid of something invasive. I once lived in a house that had about an eighth of an acre of wild violets and little by little I pulled them out. Took me several years.

Think of it as exercise

[LWolf]

99. When I lived in So Cal

My "lawn" was bermuda grass. It was so invasive I took extreme measures to try to keep it out of the garden.

When trying to clear it from a flower bed that ran along the front of the house, we found it embedded in the foundation of the house itself.

I was relieved to move to a place with no bermuda, lol.

[Incitatus]

56. Where did my name come from?

[Locut0s]

58. I don't know...

Sounds roman or greek.

[Incitatus]

60. It was the horse of Roman Emperor Caligula that he appointed a senator to ridicule the Senate. nt

[Quixote1818]

61. What is the coriolis effect? nt

[Locut0s]

62. It's the effect caused by a planet's rotation that causes...

It's the effect caused by a planet's rotation that causes cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies / motion to form in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

[grantcart]

68. Who was the main source for Sir I. Newton's use of the scientific method?

[Locut0s]

72. Francis Bacon? nt.

[grantcart]

74. Very good. Now for the hard part. Bacon got it from Robert Grosseteste

Who was the greatest post Aristotle thinker to have influenced Grosseteste?

He could be called the father of the Scientific Method and is credited for adding induction and positivism to its general use?

[Locut0s]

77. Hmm you have me there...

I really should read up on the history of science as it's a fascinating topic. I'll take a wild stab and say Galileo.

[grantcart]

79. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)

More background here:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/122469

[Locut0s]

84. Ahh yes the great Islamic scientists, thanks to them...

Much of science and what we know from the Roman period was preserved and added to through the dark ages. Thanks.

[Incitatus]

69. Which animal had been recorded to have the longest known life. nt

[Locut0s]

71. There is a jelly fish which is thought by some to be semi immortal...

As far as we can tell its cells have no limit on the number of times it can divide and the amount it can regenerate so some specimens could be many many hundreds of years old. However I think you may be referring to a Galapagos island tortoise, old George?, that died some time back, the last of it's kind. I think it was about 150 years old.

[Incitatus]

73. Actually, I was thinking of the quahog, but I didn't know about the jellyfish. nt

[Graybeard]

75. Why do diamonds "sparkle"? nt

[Locut0s]

78. Internal reflection and refraction of lighting off the inner facets of the diamond. nt.

[Graybeard]

80. But that happens in all gems.

Refraction is of course part of it but why are diamonds
so much more brilliant?

[Locut0s]

81. I'd guess that would have to do with the geometry of the crystal lattice...

And the quantum mechanical properties of light propagating through diamond. But I don't know exactly. There's also the specific cut that jewellers give to diamonds, the geometry of the diamond shape, which would magnify such effects.

[Graybeard]

86. Diamonds slow the speed of light.

Diamond is so hard and dense that it actually slows the light passing through it. (Cuts the speed of light in half.) All of that light in the diamond, (so much of it and for so long) results in the brilliance diamonds are known for.

[Smarmie Doofus]

82. Step outside your comfort zone: who was Goldwater's veep pick in 1964?

[Locut0s]

83. Lol, I barely know Goldwater himself...

At 31 as a Canadian you are lucky I even know who Goldwater is. His veep pick in 64? Umm... who?

[Smarmie Doofus]

88. William E Miller.... US Rep from your neighbor across the Falls, Buffalo, NY.

Also... weirdly.... the father of a small child who would grow up to be Stephanie Miller... widely known liberal/left radio talk show host.

(Don't feel bad. Not many people even knew who he was during the 64 campaign.)

Back to the test-tubes for you.

[Graybeard]

89. I know, I know.

Because I'm an old coot who,actually voted in that election.

It's Stephanie Miller's father, William O. Miller (R -NY)

[Smarmie Doofus]

90. Jesus. You must be even older than I.

But my beard's white; not gray. ( So I'm close to clean shaven most of the time.)

You are correct. Miller is the answer.

I take it you went all the way with LBJ?

[Graybeard]

91. Couldn't vote for JFK in '60.

The voting age back then was 21. So although my first vote was for LBJ in '64 I told myself I was really voting for Kennedy.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

87. What is the capital of Tannu Tuva?

[Locut0s]

92. Would you believe me if I told you I used to have 95% of the world memorized?...

I was bored and gave it to myself as a challenge to see what I could do. Got to the point where I could name 95-98% of all the countries on every continent and tell you each and every capital.

BTW this is the long way of telling you I don't know hah lol. I forgot most of the knowledge some years back.

[Nevernose]

95. Well, I would believe you

I had this course in high school called "Geopolitical Economics" with one of the best teachers ever.

In addition to a daily class argument over current events, we had were given a blank world map and had to memorize the capitol city, major languages, major religions, currency, political system, major exports and imports, and significant foreign relationships/international difficulties. I've forgotten some of it, but it has come in so handy so many times over the years that I live in eternal gratitude to that teacher.

Recently my wife told me that her father had been transferred to a mining operation in Central Asia.

I said, "Oh, he's probably in Kyrgyzstan. Their major export is gold and he's a gold miner. Plus he recently converted to Islam and they're a Muslim nation. He might have some difficulty with the language, though, because although the country is in Asia, they mostly speak a Turkik language, although their are plenty of Chechen refugees and cross-Chinese-border residents."

Did I come across as some kind of geographical Rain Man? Probably. Do I think that's a bad thing? Not n the least.

I also have this weird thing I do where I memorize maps, often for places I've never been to. I figure it's the next best thing to traveling.

[Locut0s]

101. Cool. Feels kind of nice knowing all that geography doesn't it?...

It's great fun to learn too. I remember having a great time learning it and feeling kind of proud that I knew all of that. I should get back to it and memorize it permanently this time.

[grantcart]

94. None. Trick question

Tannu Tuva ceased to exist with the demise of the Soviet Union and became the Republic of Tuva


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva

[steve2470]

97. Why is Vancouver usually warmer in the winter than Kelowna ? nt

[Locut0s]

100. The moderating effect of the ocean plus...

Pacific ocean currents bring particularly warm water up this way.

[steve2470]

102. are you sure about the currents ? I thought a cold current came south from Alaska ? nt

[Locut0s]

103. No the current's run up to Alasks here...

http://www.crd.bc.ca/watersheds/protection/geology-processes/globaloceancurrents.htm

"
The North Pacific surface current flows with prevailing westerly winds and encounters North America near southern British Columbia. The land mass causes the current to split into the Alaska current, which flows northward along the BC coast, and the California current, which travels south. The North Pacific current is relatively warm, and brings mild, moist weather to the coast of BC.
"

[steve2470]

104. ah thank you, had no idea, kind sir nt

[Throd]

106. What year was the debut of canned beer?

[Locut0s]

110. Interesting one...

I know that tin cans first started being used for food some time around the early 1900s 1905 or something like that. They were used in one of the early doomed polar expeditions and it's thought that the lead solder that they were sealed with poisoned the crew to some extent. But as for being used for beer I'm not sure, I would guess but I think I'd probably be way off. What year was it?

[Throd]

111. 1934 Kreuger's Cream Ale