The Quizzes March On!

March 2, 2015March 1, 2015 fasab Questions, Tests 3 4 5 triangle, 746 watts, baked earth, Big D, bonus points, Buy the World a Coke, Captain Nemo’s submarine, cities, City of Brotherly Love, color, communicate, country, creature, dancing, drink it, economic, education, Emerald City, English politician, Entertainment, financial, fiscal policies, formulating, general knowledge, Geography, government, government department, Hilltop television commercial for Coca-Cola, history, husband, insects, Italian, jade, jingle, Lady Nancy Astor, lawn bowls, letter L, major city, March’s quizzes, math, mathematics, maths, metal, Mikhail Gorbachev, mulberry leaves, nature, new policy of openness, ophidiophobe, Persian, piece of rock, Piraeus, place of, poison in his coffee, politics, popular song, port, pottery, power, questions, quiz, quizzes, recommending, Rip Van Winkle, science, sleep, Solidarity, Soviet Union, space, sport, stan, Steel City, suffix, surface of the Earth, target ball, tax, test, tests, theorem, Trade Union, UK, US, USA, wife, Zodiac

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

The quizzes do March on and we are starting this month with a good mix of questions. Some you should get without too much difficulty and some you will have to think about for a while.

Oh yes, and one that I will be surprised if anyone gets the bonus points for. You’ll know it when you see it.

As usual if you do get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating.

Enjoy and good luck.

Q. 1: ‘Solidarity’ was an important Trade Union in which country in the 1980s?

Q. 2: In lawn bowls (and its indoor version), what is the target ball called?

Q. 3: Which creature lives on mulberry leaves?

Q. 4: In the USA what cities are known as the

a) Big D? b) Steel City? c) City of Brotherly Love? d) Emerald City?

(A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if get all four correct.)

Q. 5: In relation to power what is the equivalent of 746 watts?

Q. 6: What word denoted the new policy of openness adopted by Mikhail Gorbachev’s government in the Soviet Union?

Q. 7: What well known pottery form takes its name from the Italian for “baked earth”?

Q. 8: How long did Rip Van Winkle sleep for?

Q. 9: What term is given to a piece of rock or metal from space that reaches the surface of the Earth?

Q. 10: The suffix ‘stan’ is Persian for ‘place of’ or ‘country’. The names of seven countries end in ‘stan’, what are they? (You get a point for each one you can name correctly and five (yes, 5) bonus points if get them all correct.)

a) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

b) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

c) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

d) _ _ _ _ stan

e) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

f) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

g) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

Q. 11: What color is the most-prized variety of jade?

Q. 12: Whose theorem uses a 3, 4, 5 triangle?

Q. 13: Piraeus serves as the port for which major city?

Q. 14: Which insects communicate with one another by dancing?

Q. 15: What was the name of Captain Nemo’s submarine?

Q. 16: What creature is an ophidiophobe afraid of?

Q. 17: In the US and the UK what is the name given to the government department responsible for formulating and recommending economic, financial, tax, and fiscal policies?

Q. 18: Which of the 12 Zodiac signs start with the letter ‘L’ ?

Q. 19: Which English politician, when told by Lady Nancy Astor that if he were her husband she’d put poison in his coffee, replied that if she were his wife he’d drink it?

Q. 20: What popular song originated as the jingle “Buy the World a Coke” in the groundbreaking 1971 “Hilltop” television commercial for Coca-Cola? (A bonus point is available if you can also correctly name the group.)

ANSWERS

Q. 1: ‘Solidarity’ was an important Trade Union in which country in the 1980s?

A. 1: Poland.

Q. 2: In lawn bowls (and its indoor version), what is the target ball called?

A. 2: Jack.

Q. 3: Which creature lives on mulberry leaves?

A. 3: The Silk worm.

Q. 4: In the USA what cities are known as the

a) Big D? b) Steel City? c) City of Brotherly Love? d) Emerald City?

(A point for each correct answer and a bonus point if get all four correct.)

A. 4: The correct answers are

a) The Big D = Dallas

b) The Steel City = Pittsburgh

c) The City of Brotherly Love = Philadelphia

d) The Emerald City = Seattle

Q. 5: In relation to power what is the equivalent of 746 watts?

A. 5: 746 watts is the equivalent of 1 horse power.

Q. 6: What word denoted the new policy of openness adopted by Mikhail Gorbachev’s government in the Soviet Union?

A. 6: Glasnost.

Q. 7: What well known pottery form takes its name from the Italian for “baked earth”?

A. 7: Terracotta.

Q. 8: How long did Rip Van Winkle sleep for?

A. 8: Twenty years.

Q. 9: What term is given to a piece of rock or metal from space that reaches the surface of the Earth?

A. 9: It is known as a ‘Meteorite’.

Q. 10: The suffix ‘stan’ is Persian for ‘place of’ or ‘country’. The names of seven countries end in ‘stan’, what are they? (You get a point for each one you can name correctly and seven (yes, 7) bonus points if get them all correct.)

a) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

b) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

c) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

d) _ _ _ _ stan

e) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

f) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

g) _ _ _ _ _ _ stan

A. 10: They are in alphabetical order,

a) Afghanistan

b) Kazakhstan

c) Kyrgyzstan

d) Pakistan

e) Tajikistan

f) Turkmenistan

g) Uzbekistan

Q. 11: What color is the most-prized variety of jade?

A. 11: Green.

Q. 12: Whose theorem uses a 3, 4, 5 triangle?

A. 12: Pythagoras.

Q. 13: Piraeus serves as the port for which major city?

A. 13: Athens.

Q. 14: Which insects communicate with one another by dancing?

A. 14: Bees.

Q. 15: What was the name of Captain Nemo’s submarine?

A. 15: It was called the ‘Nautilus’.

Q. 16: What creature is an ophidiophobe afraid of?

A. 16: Snakes.

Q. 17: In the US and the UK what is the name given to the government department responsible for formulating and recommending economic, financial, tax, and fiscal policies?

A. 17: Treasury.

Q. 18: Which of the 12 Zodiac signs start with the letter ‘L’ ?

A. 18: They are Leo and Libra.

Q. 19: Which English politician, when told by Lady Nancy Astor that if he were her husband she’d put poison in his coffee, replied that if she were his wife he’d drink it?

A. 19: Winston Churchill.

A. 20: “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony) by The New Seekers.

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I Spy With Your Little ‘i’ – A Free And Open Internet?

January 28, 2015January 6, 2015 fasab Business, Computers, Current Events, Factoids, Legal, Politics, Rants a free and open Internet, advertisers, Allies, Angela Merkel, apple, arrogance, Blogs, break neck speed, capture information, China, citizens of America, classified documents, Clinton administration, cloud computing services, commercial surveillance, commercial surveillance of users, common sense, communicate, communication, computer consultant, congress, contacts, corporate advertisers, culprit, Current Events, data protection, decent, Deutsche Telekom, Dilma Rousseff, Edward Snowden, emails, escaped, ethics, EU, European citizens, European institutions, facebook, facts, financial crisis, find information, foreign countries, Free And Open Internet, freedom of expression, Friendly nations, general public, German Chancellor, German government, giant corporations, Google, greed, groups with similar interests, hard working, hate and detest freedom, head of US intelligence in Germany, heads of state, honest, human right, Humor, IBM, immoral, innocent, International Atomic Energy Agency, internet, Internet companies, internet searches, intrusive, iran, Ireland, irresponsibility, journalists, lobbied, microsoft, military establishment, minimize privacy restrictions, moral authority, necessary evil, north korea, NSA, Opinion, politics, popularity was assured, President of Brazil, Prism program, private lives, profit strategies, public interest groups, Rants, re-engineer the Web, remove child pornography, Russia, search engines, search for friends, service providers, snooper's gaze, snoopers, Snowden, social and cultural life, social networks, spy, stranglehold, surveillance programs, surveillance society, telecommunications service contract, telephone conversations, terminated, the UN headquarters, UN General Assembly, unfriendly nations, United States government, unnecessary, unproductive, US, US Army, US digital companies, US Justice Department, US National Security Agency, Verizon, videos, war on terror, websites, world wide web, wrongdoing, XKeyscore program, Yahoo

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

When the internet was born it was a tool of the military establishment.

Then it broke out of that stranglehold and escaped into a world of freedom of expression and communication for everyone.

Never before had a system like this been available to the general public. Never before had it been so easy to find information, search for friends, communicate with groups with similar interests, etc. Its popularity was assured.

The world wide web developed at break neck speed, much too quick for the people who hate and detest freedom. They were confounded.

It was a free and open internet.

So how could it ever go wrong?

Well, as with the financial crisis, when you dig down a bit you find the Clinton administration again as the culprit.

During the 1990s, when the World Wide Web was first being woven into social and cultural life, internet companies and corporate advertisers lobbied the Clinton administration to minimize privacy restrictions, so that they could re-engineer the Web to enable commercial surveillance of internet users.

The warnings of public interest groups were ignored as social networks, search engines, service providers and advertisers lobbied hard against even the smallest of efforts at data protection. Motivated by greed, they ensured that commercial surveillance would be pervasively integrated online. They are still at it today, that’s really what cloud computing services are all about.

A few thousand giant corporations, like Google, have become able to capture information every minute, of every hour, of every day, from everyone who uses the internet. And they can’t stop because their profit strategies totally rely on accumulating user data.

Thus began the surveillance society. The government saw how easy this could now be done and began to catch up fast. If there was snooping to be done, they were not to be left out in the cold.

Until Edward Snowden, who had been a computer consultant working for a subcontractor to the US National Security Agency (NSA), copied several hundred thousand classified documents relating to surveillance programs being conducted by the US and its allies in the name of the war on terror, and sent them to journalists, nobody really understood the level of snooping that was going on.

Most of it was unnecessary, intrusive, unproductive and immoral, and after Snowden’s revelations nobody believed the United States government was totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

Further revelations published since have helped to reveal a surveillance system that intrudes into almost every facet of our private lives. Privacy in fact is a thing of the past, unless you have the time, resources and knowledge to try to circumvent it.

If the government was only spying on the communications of foreign countries such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, and if it was confined to what could be termed ‘unfriendly’ nations and their agents throughout the world, then I don’t think anyone would mind so much. It’s a necessary evil in today’s world.

But unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Friendly nations and heads of state, European institutions, the UN headquarters, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to name but a few, have all also come under the snooper’s gaze.

This has not only shown up the irresponsibility and arrogance of those in charge of the snoopers, and their lack of common sense and ethics, but it has also created even more ill will against the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an ally of the United States, was a victim of the snoopers. As a result of that revelation, the German government protested publicly its outrage. It also terminated its longstanding telecommunications service contract with Verizon, directing its business to Deutsche Telekom instead. Two weeks after that it expelled the head of US intelligence in Germany.

The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, also took public stands against US privacy invasions. He, like Merkel, had also personally been a victim of the US snoopers.

Then the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to affirm online privacy as a human right, and in June 2014, responding to the EU, the US Justice Department had to promise to send legislation to Congress that would grant European citizens many of the (inadequate) privacy protections accorded to US citizens.

Bad enough not trusting your supposed ‘allies’, but US intelligence agencies have gone even further. Now they don’t even trust the decent, honest, hard-working citizens of America who have never broken any laws, nor have any intention of doing so.

The Prism program, for example, allows the NSA to collect data from your emails, telephone conversations, contacts, videos, etc., from major US digital companies including Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

The XKeyscore program uses several hundred servers distributed across the world to store information on the activities of every Internet user, including your emails, internet searches, the websites you visit, what you post on social networks, and blogs like this. (Whoops!)

The list goes on and on.

After Snowden’s revelations, commercial firms like Google, Facebook and others scrambled to distance themselves by professing outrage. Their protestations had little to do with political principle but a lot to do with ensuring they continued to make fortunes by collecting data on us.

The US Internet companies went on a public relations offensive, and also raced to reorganize their overseas operations, to reassure worried foreign customers that they were complying with local data protection measures.

IBM, for example, committed over a billion dollars to building additional data centers overseas, hoping to ease customer fears that their data was not safe from the US government’s surveillance. But then the US authorities demanded that Microsoft, which deploys more than a million computers in over 40 countries, hand over emails stored on its servers in Ireland. Data is not safe and private anywhere it seems.

Last week I wrote a post about the Facebook/US Army experiment in trying (successfully) influence how people thought. (Click here if you want to read it.)

And so it continues.

Personally I think it is a pity that the powers that be are able to devote time, energy and money against people who have done nothing wrong, yet seem unwilling to remove child pornography and other evils from the world wide web. But the latter would require a decree of decency and morals that is sadly lacking in those who direct such matters for the government.

The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open Internet, because that free and open internet has already been destroyed.

No doubt there is worse to come.

==============================

Did You Know? It’s The Fasab Fact Show!

November 12, 2013 fasab Factoids, Unusual acronym, advertising revenue, Allies, alphabet, America's first Air Force, America’s war effort, American tradition, Amiens, army, atomic symbol for any element, bad eyesight, banned, Barcolo Manufacturing Company, bark continuously, Basketball, bikini wax, boost morale, buffalo, California, canine vocal cords, chain's founder, civil war, communicate, Confederate States of America, David Filo, dogs, education, educational, employees, Enterprise, Entertainment, eye chart, fact, facts, farting, fifty servicemen, France, free coffee, Fruit Smack, Greenland, Harry Truman, herring, hobby, hot-air balloons, humans, information, informative, Interesting Facts, invented, irritated, J, Jefferson Finis Davis, Jerry Yang, Kmart, Kool-Aid, Kresge, largest national park in the world, laryngitis, lead, letter, logo, Massachusetts, memorized, mercury, middle-east, Misc, Miscellaneous, most successful fighter, Muslim brides-to-be, Name, new york, North Africa, North-East Greenland Park, office coffee break, Palo Alto, Pepsi, President, red white and blue, René Fonck, Rittmeister von Richthofen, Sebastian S Kresge, soldier, Sri Lanka, Star of India, star sapphire, star trek, starship, statesman, television, tobacco ads, trailer, trivia, tungsten, Uganda, United States, volleyball, WWI, WWI pilot, Yahoo, Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, YMCA, Yorktown, youth capital of the world

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Yes folks, the fasab fact show is on the road again.

Another chance to load your brain up with obscure but hopefully interesting facts.

Enjoy.

In the 1940s,

Pepsi adopted a red, white, and blue logo

to support America’s war effort.

The American tradition of the office “coffee break” started in 1902

when the Barcolo Manufacturing Company of Buffalo, New York

offered free coffee to their employees in order to boost morale.

The largest national park in the world

is the North-East Greenland Park in Greenland,

covering more than 375,000 square miles.

Yahoo! is an acronym for

“Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

David Filo and Jerry Yang were in a trailer in Palo Alto, Calif.,

thinking of a name for their hobby!

(Bet you always wondered about that.)

Television lost about 20 percent of its advertising revenue

immediately after tobacco ads were banned in 1971.

Because he had bad eyesight,

Harry Truman memorized the letters on the eye chart

to get into the Army.

“J” is the only letter of the alphabet not used

as the atomic symbol for any element.

Dogs that bark continuously can get laryngitis, just like humans,

but not as quickly because canine vocal cords are thicker

and take longer to get irritated.

(Unlike the people who have to listen to them barking!)

Uganda is the youth capital of the world.

More than half the people living there

are under 15 years of age.

America’s first “Air Force” was equipped with

five hot-air balloons and fifty servicemen.

As of 2012, the service operates

5,484 aircraft, 450 ICBMs and 63 satellites.

It has a $140 billion budget with 332,854 active personnel,

185,522 civilian personnel, 71,400 reserve personnel,

and 106,700 air guard personnel.

The most successful fighter of WWI was

Rittmeister von Richthofen

who shot down 80 planes, more than any other WWI pilot.

He died after being shot down near Amiens.

France’s René Fonck

was the Allies’ most successful fighter pilot,

shooting down 75 enemy planes.

Kool-Aid

was originally marketed as

Fruit Smack.

Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889)

was a United States soldier and statesman, and

President of the Confederate States of America

during the entire Civil War which was fought from 1861 to 1865.

The original name for the starship in Star Trek

was “Yorktown,” not “Enterprise”.

The Star of India, the largest

star sapphire in the world (at 563.35 carats),

is actually from Sri Lanka.

The bikini wax has been around for hundreds of years.

Muslim brides-to-be in the Middle East and North Africa

remove all their body hair before the wedding night.

(Ouch!)

Basketball and volleyball were invented

in neighboring Massachusetts YMCAs,

the former in 1891 the latter four years later.

Lead will float in mercury,

but a lump of tungsten

will sink right to the bottom.

Researchers believe that herring communicate

with one another by farting.

(Maybe the message is in the bubbles?)

The “K” in Kmart stands for Kresge,

the chain’s founder is Sebastian S. Kresge.

==================================