mighty fine trivia by James Callan

Tag: roger ebert

Quiz: I Am the Law!

A quiz about eponymous laws — those that are named after someone.

  1. Mike Godwin observed in 1990 that as a Usenet discussion grows longer, someone will eventually make an analogy that invokes one of two proper nouns. Name those words for a half point each.
  2. What critic gave his name to this law: a work “is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.”
  3. What two variables have an inversely proportional relationship when you’re describing a fixed quantity of an ideal gas at a constant temperature, according to Boyle’s Law? Half point each.
  4. Hanlon’s Razor cautions that you should never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by what?
  5. According to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with what word?
  6. Clarke’s Third Law and Niven’s Law are complementary observations that what two phenomena are indistinguishable from each other?
  7. If you apply Dolbear’s law, you can figure out how warm it is by using the behavior of what insect?
  8. What American journalist, known as the Sage of Baltimore, is sometimes credited with the law “Those who can, do. Those who can’t do, teach”?
  9. Brooks’ Law observes that adding additional people to work on a late software project only makes it later. In an often quoted analogy, Brooks noted that nine women cannot do what specific project?
  10. According to Hofstadter’s Law, coined in the book Gödel Escher Bach, “it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account” what?

ANSWERS

Continue reading

Quiz: Movies

1) Buffy’s little sister doesn’t want to go to Harvard — she wants to skate! At least, she does in what 2005 family film?
2) Britney Spears doesn’t sell her soul to the devil for talent. Obviously. But what pre-K-Fed film shares its title with a Ralph Macchio film that’s chock full o’ Satan?
3) “You can have fun with a baby as a movie character. Look Who’s Talking was an entertaining movie in which we heard what the baby was thinking. Baby’s Day Out, with its fearless baby setting Joe Mantegna’s pants on fire, had its defenders. But those at least were allegedly real babies. [This film] is about toddlers who speak, plot, scheme, disco dance and beat up adults with karate kicks. This is not right.” Roger Ebert wrote this in his one-and-a-half-star review of what 1999 film?
4) What 1996 thriller shares its title with the father/daughter duet that won the 1992 Grammy for Song of the Year?
5) What 1990 satire, one of the most famous flops in Hollywood history, features Morgan Freeman as a judge who’s Jewish in the novel it was based on?
6) What 1986 action film, directed by John Carpenter, inspired the TV show MythBusters to investigate whether or not you can really shoot locks off of doors?
7) What 1991 science fiction sequel popularized the modern proverb “Only Nixon can go to China”?
8) What 1984 comedy inspired 6 sequels, including City Under Siege and Mission to Moscow, as well as an animated TV series?
9) What 1982 high-school comedy was the highest-grossing Canadian film until 2006, and is possibly going to be remade by Howard Stern?
10) Who appeared in all nine of these movies?

Continue reading

© 2023 Quiz Quiz Bang Bang

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑