Useless Trivia - 1st one to answer gets to ask

I was reading your questions, Daniel, if it's any consolation, but I had no idea how to answer them. Thanks for the education, at least.

 

Dave is close enough.

Regarding Lynn Hill, I did not want to give away her gender in the question. I figured her name, in the answer, would make that clear.

Charlemagne's problem with the deteriorating use of Latin was a bit weirder than just the fear of "moving away from god." Even though the OT was written in Hebrew, and the NT was written in Greek, Charlemagne, apparently failing to comprehend the official church doctrine of divine omnipotence, felt that God only understood Latin. He feared that prayers spoken in bad Latin might be unintelligible to god, and therefore ineffective. He wanted to bring back correct Latin so that god would understand prayers and rituals.

There was even a controversy at the time concerning one particular priest whose Latin was so bad that when he baptized people, what he actually said was "In the name of the fatherland and the daughter..." instead of the "father and the son..." There was serious debate as to whether or not such baptisms were valid, and fear that all the people thus baptized might go to hell for lack of "correct" language.

All of which boggles the mind, except that I had a friend who visited me when I was in Mexico. He was a Catholic and was very anxious to go to confession, as he had spent considerable time in a brothel since his last confession back home. I went to several churches asking if any of them had a priest who spoke English, and when I found one I dropped my friend off there and went home. When my friend showed up later that afternoon he seemed upset. I asked him about it. It turned out that although the priest spoke enough English to understand his confession and give him his penance, the priest, never having heard confession in English, used the "wrong" words to absolve my friend. Rather than the "official" words, he used his own informal translation of the Spanish words, and my friend was actually afraid that his absolution didn't "take" because the "correct" formula had not been spoken.

Christians seem to think that god is really dumb. Or else awfully picky, to damn people just because a priest uses the "wrong" words.

Okay, Dave: The next question is yours.

 

That's interesting stuff Daniel. I would amend that last statement though to say "Catholics" instead of "Christians." Having been a member of a non-Catholic Christian religion (which was certainly wacky in many of its own special ways) as a child, and having been in a Catholic cathedral choir for a couple years, my impression was that Catholics are really weird about their rites and rituals, while other Christian denominations favor other forms of "expression."

 

ok cool....ya did a history paper on him...about umm...ah never mind how long ago... ok question??...hmmm blew the Aral Sea option. will get back to you on a question

ok...everyone knows all the US gold is kept at Ft. Knox (for the most part)... so where is all the US silver kept?

 

West Point

What was it called before it became West Point?

 

West Point is correct

 

why was its name changed to West Point?

 

It used to be called East Point. But once they realized that the founder was reading his compass backwards, they had to change it.

 

Completely wrong. If no one gets it by tommorrow night, I will give the answer and a new trivia question.

 

wasnt it called the "Military Bearing and Etiquette School for Officers Training Center...." or then again... heck i do not know

 

The correct answer is Fort Benedict Arnold.
When he became the countries first traitor the name was changed!

Here's an easier one:
Who invented charcoal??

 

Filbert Quentin Mielmeister IV invented charcoal in 1734, but his invention was stolen by Quonset Allegheny Charcoal, who gave it his own name. Charcoal also stole the invention of the Quonset hut, and forged documents purporting to prove that he had discovered the Allegheny mountains, and gave his name to both of them. It's just as well, though: Can you imagine going to the hardware store and asking to buy a sack of mielmeister for your barbecue grill?

 

Do you mean "who invented charcoal briquettes?"

p.s. I'm just assuming that Daniel's answer was facetious.

 

two men are credited with finding the process of making charcoal and a third for patenting the making of briquettes.

Name any or all of them.:tsk:

 

Well I know from some History Channel documentary that Henry Ford invented Charcoal Briquettes and sold them under the "Kingsford" name (His brother in law's name).

I don't know about charcoal though, and I'd guess that the process was developed some time in ancient pre-history.

 

Henry Ford was correct along with T. Edison

 

ok... so its been a week... we done now?

 

Oh well, I hadn't been back in this thread, so I guess I dropped the ball. I'll go again:

A parsec is a unit of measure. Define what a parsec measures, and exactly what a parsec is.

Bonus points: A popular science fiction film featuring Harrison Ford abuses the term in a number of ways. What film, and in what ways is the term misused?

 

well im sure the movie was Star Wars and seems to me he used the term as a amount of time to travel somewhere or time....

but seems to me parsec is a distance like the diameter of a solar system maybe??

 

close. it's something like the parallell of one arcsecond... its roughly 3.3 lightyears.