VETO 2008, FARSIDE team tossups
link to bonuses
Secret note to the reader:
If you need to replace a tossup, make the following replacements:
- use tossup 22 if you need to replace tossup 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, or 19;
- use tossup 23 if you need to replace tossup 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, or 20;
- use tossup 21 or 24 if you need to replace tossup 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18.
TOSSUP 1
He became king at about age 10, after his teenaged half-brother
became known as Edward the Martyr.
As a result of defeat at the Battle of Maldon, he
paid Olaf Tryggvason three tonnes of silver, then five more tonnes
three years later, then eight more tonnes before he got fed up and
ordered the murder of all Danes in England, including the sister of
Sweyn Forkbeard, who then invaded and forced this king to flee
to Normandy in 1013.
For 10 points, name the father of Edmund Ironside and Edward the Confessor
whose name means "noble advice" but whose epithet means "poorly advised".
Answer: King AETHELRED the UNREADY
(or King AETHELRED the SECOND) of England
TOSSUP 2
Mathematically, it refers to a continuous-time random process with mean
function of zero for all time and the Dirac delta function as its
autocorrelation function.
It's characterized by a spectral density that's flat, meaning that
all frequencies have equal intensity.
You can produce it on your computer by sending the output of a uniform
pseudorandom number generator to the digital signal processor.
For 10 points, name this type of signal that sounds like radio or TV static.
Answer: WHITE NOISE
TOSSUP 3
The one in Tokyo, known as Tozai-sen, is the busiest route on
the Tokyo Metro, and the only one connecting directly
with all the others in the system.
The one in Los Angeles was the first in the light rail system, and
goes from downtown L.A. south to Long Beach.
From downtown Boston, on the MBTA, it will take you to Logan airport, and from
Chicago's Loop, on the El, it'll take you to O'Hare airport.
In Montreal, it's the only one that bypasses Berri-UQAM, going from
Snowdon to Saint-Michel.
For 10 points, what is this designation that, in
hockey, separates the end zones from centre ice?
Answer: BLUE LINE
TOSSUP 4
Transition to this stage begins when
helium in the core starts fusing into carbon.
The core shrinks under gravity,
compressing the outer layers and giving off heat.
An outer shell layer of hydrogen then becomes hot and dense enough for fusion,
which occurs very fast, resulting in increased luminosity,
and lower surface temperature due to outward pressure causing
sudden expansion of surface area.
Examples in the night sky
include Arcturus and Aldebaran.
For 10 points, name this type of star that, in about 5 billion years,
our Sun will become as it engulfs Mercury and Venus.
Answer: RED GIANT
TOSSUP 5
Within a month of its initial publication in New York,
Henry Labouch�re published a parody of it in London,
inserting "'Tis useless to be mild" to rhyme with
the original line "Half devil and half child".
It first appeared in McClure's Magazine in February, 1899, the same month
that the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris with Spain.
Subtitled "The United States and The Philippine Islands", it speaks of
"The savage wars of peace" and exhorts readers to
"Fill full the mouth of Famine / And bid the sickness cease."
For 10 points, name this poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Answer: The WHITE MAN'S BURDEN
TOSSUP 6
They published an almanac including the stage production The Yellow
Sound, the essay "On the Question of Form", and songs by Anton
Webern, Alban Berg, and Arnold Schoenberg, who
also contributed two self-portraits among the almanac's one hundred
and forty reproductions of visual art. Schoenberg's paintings were
among those in this group's exhibition that toured Europe and also
included works by Henri Rousseau and Albert Bloch. Lasting only from
1911 to 1914, for 10 points, what was this Munich-based group of
artists led by Franz Marc and Vassily Kandinsky?
Answer: The BLUE RIDER (or Der BLAUE REITER)
TOSSUP 7
A bronze statue of Francis the Pig sits on Gaetz Avenue in this
city, in honour of an animal that
escaped from the local Fletcher's slaughterhouse in
1990 and eluded capture for five months.
Architecturally, the city is noted for Douglas Cardinal's
St. Mary's Church, but the Donut Mill is seen by more visitors passing through
on Highway 2.
Although its WHL team, the Rebels, may not be as illustrious as the
Oilers or
the Flames, the city hosts the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.
For 10 points, name Alberta's third largest city,
halfway between Calgary and Edmonton.
Answer: RED DEER, Alberta
TOSSUP 8
It departed from orthodoxy by
instituting married clergy and strict vegetarianism
in the 12th century under its founder, Mao Ziyuan ["dzuh-yu-en"].
Originating out of Pure Land Buddhist lay associations, by the late 13th
century it had adopted elements of Taoist practices and the prophecy
of the rebirth of Maitreya. Banned by the Yuan dynasty, it became a
secret society, and in the 1350s some of its followers
joined with Manichaeans to form the Red Turban Army that rebelled
against the Mongols.
For 10 points, name this sect that also gave rise
in 1796 to a rebellion against the Manchus.
Answer: WHITE LOTUS sect or society
(or BAI LIAN jiao or BAI LIAN hui)
TOSSUP 9
Its narrator remembers
mathematicians and carpenters' wives, but doesn't know what they're
doing with their lives.
Always on the road,
from the East Coast, to the great north woods, to a fishin'
boat right outside of Delacroix, Louisiana, the narrator
meets his love interest again in a topless place,
where she bent down to tie the laces of his shoe.
Concluding that they "always did feel the same"
but "just saw it from a different point of view",
this first song on the 1975 album Blood on the Tracks,
is, for 10 points, what work by Bob Dylan?
Answer: TANGLED UP IN BLUE
TOSSUP 10
Larvae of the Rosner's Hairstreak butterfly live exclusively off this
plant, which also has the highest concentration of plicatic acid,
which can induce asthma in humans.
It has a narrow crown with
drooping branches shaped like the letter J.
Its bark, removed in long strips, was used by first nations for clothing, its
roots for coiled baskets, and its soft wood carved to make canoes and
most totem poles.
For 10 points name this provincial tree of British Columbia.
Answer: WESTERN RED CEDAR (or THUJA PLICATA)
(prompt on partial answer)
TOSSUP 11
A lodger took his landlady and her granddaughter to see the opera
The Barber of Seville, after the lodger had introduced the
granddaughter to Walter Scott's novels, which relieved the tedium of
staying at home pinned to her grandmother. Then the lodger moved out, exactly
a year ago, with a promise to marry the granddaughter should he return.
The narrator learns all this in
four long conversations with Nastenka on the
embankment in St. Petersburg under starry bright skies in May.
For 10 points, name this story by Dostoyevsky.
Answer: WHITE NIGHTS (or BELYE NOCHI)
TOSSUP 12
Together with Arnold Schwarzenegger,
he appeared on the cover of TIME magazine
on June 25, 2007, just after he told a California audience that
after six years he was
leaving the Republican Party.
A month later he said it was "just an accident" that his speeches take him
to "big states ... where you're more likely to have things to do" -- not
mentioning their electoral votes. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
suggested sharing a ticket with him, but he has always denied seeking the
presidency. For 10 points name this billionaire mayor of New York.
Answer: Michael BLOOMBERG
TOSSUP 13
Gregory Carlson's classification divides them into three types:
stage-level, which are transient;
individual-level, which are more or less permanent;
and kind-level, which logically cannot have individual objects as
their arguments.
Any instance that's a proper name must be individual-level.
More generally,
any instance that's a noun phrase is either individual-level
or kind-level.
Stage-level ones are realized as adjectival or verb phrases.
For 10 points, name
the part of a sentence or clause that expresses what is said of the subject.
Answer: PREDICATEs
TOSSUP 14
It begins with coffee, and explains that FAIR TRADE coffee earns
"extra points", "because paying the extra $2 means they are making a
difference." What generated the most responses was number 11, which notes
the intentional "blue" and "yellow" colours of UBC and UCLA, on the
subject of "Asian Girls".
Other items
listed by ex-Torontonian and McGill graduate Christian Lander
include film festivals, yoga, gifted children, recycling,
and "being an expert on YOUR culture". Started in
January 2008, for 10 points, what is this WordPress blog?
Answer: STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE
(prompt on "White People")
TOSSUP 15
It was built in response to the shocking defeat of Delawana by
Esperanto in 1920.
Designed by William Rou� ["roo-EH"],
with funds raised by Senator William Dennis,
it beat the Elsie in 1921 and the Henry Ford the next year,
and was still undefeated in 1938 after its final race against the
Gertrude L. Thebaud for the last International
Fishermen's Trophy. Captained by Angus Walters and based in Lunenburg,
Nova Scotia, for 10 points, what was this schooner that earned a picture
on the dime?
Answer: BLUENOSE
TOSSUP 16
It's the classic example
of a khok, a mitzvah that seems to defy reason.
The subject of the Torah reading on the Shabbat after Purim, the paradox is
that it's a ritual of purification that
makes impure the priest who performs this sacrifice.
There hasn't been one in Israel for two thousand years; the one
identified in 2002 was disqualified when it was found to have more than two
black hairs.
For 10 points, what are Jewish Temple restorationists now trying to make
with help from Texan Christian dispensationalist cattle breeders?
Answer: RED HEIFER or RED COW
(or PARAH ADUMAH)
TOSSUP 17
Extending from Kingsdown to Capel-le-Ferne,
they are composed mainly of coccoliths.
Because of a reference in King Lear,
the highest one is named for
William Shakespeare; but
the first written record of them is in the Commentaries of
Julius Caesar, who wisely judged this location "unsuitable for landing".
Erosion of
five to ten centimetres a year prevents vegetation from growing on them,
thus maintaining their appearance.
Visible from Cap Gris Nez in France, for 10 points what are these
imposing Channel-side heights of southeast England?
Answer: the WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER
(prompt on partial answer)
TOSSUP 18
It originated in 1566 under Philip the Second,
bearing the Crusader cross and the Habsburg shield.
In 1787 in New York state, a version with an eagle and a rising sun
was made by Ephraim Brasher, who had first copied the
Lima style from the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Since the 1960s, Mardi Gras carnival krewes in New Orleans have been
throwing out aluminum ones.
Forty years ago this week, White Spot restaurants started putting chocolate
versions in their new Pirate Paks.
Worth sixteen pieces of eight,
for 10 points, name this Spanish gold coin.
Answer: DOUBLOON
TOSSUP 19
He says "we did not do the things we wanted to do;
we never did such things," explaining why he had gone on
"beautiful adventures" in the fleshpots of the cities rather than visit the
priest's family in the Abruzzi.
Although he says he has no religion, for good luck
he accepts a Saint Anthony medal, which he loses, and he reflects that
"It is in defeat we become Christian" before
the Italians retreat from Caporetto.
For 10 points name this American
protagonist of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
Answer: Lieutenant FREDERIC HENRY
TOSSUP 20
In Canada,
this term has been applied since 1939 to an appendix to the federal budget,
but the first separate one, by C.D. Howe in 1945,
outlined Keynesian policies for the new peacetime economy.
The next one, in 1964, was tabled by Lucien Cardin and Paul Hellyer, and
proposed the unification of Canada's armed forces.
As distinct from the report of a royal commission or task force,
for 10 points,
what is this kind of document that outlines government policy but
also refers to what this packet is printed on?
Answer: WHITE PAPER
TOSSUP 21
It contains pits of minimum length one hundred and fifty nanometres
on a one-point-one-millimeter-thick polycarbonate layer,
in depressions spaced three hundred and twenty nanometres apart.
With a spot size of five hundred and eighty nanometres, a laser shines
light with wavelength four hundred and five nanometres to read
data at thirty-six megabits per second. Able to store
twenty-five gigabytes on a single layer or
fifty gigabytes with double layer, for 10 points, what is this medium
pioneered by Sony that has defeated its rival Toshiba's HD-DVD?
Answer: BLU-RAY Disc
TOSSUP 22
Its distinguishing feature is its form of
5-enol-pyruvyl-shikimate 3-phosphate synthase, which is the same
as that in Agrobacterium sp. strain CP4,
making it insensitive to glyphosate.
In 2007, Judge Charles Breyer ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture
to conduct an environmental impact study on this variant of
alfalfa. In 1997, Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser found this
variant of canola on his fields, and got sued by Monsanto.
For 10 points, give the brand name of these herbicide-resistant
genetically modified crops.
Answer: ROUNDUP READY� crops or plants
TOSSUP 23
After Jefferson's original Rotunda at the University of Virginia
burned down in 1895, this man designed its replacement.
His other commissions include Tesla's Wardenclyffe lab on
Long Island, the Italianate
New York Herald building, Washington Square Arch
and the second Madison Square Garden,
all built while he was a partner in the firm he founded with
William Mead and Charles McKim.
For 10 points, name this Gilded Age architect who was attending a musical
revue at Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906, when a jealous Harry
Thaw murdered him.
Answer: STANFORD WHITE (prompt on partial name)
TOSSUP 24
"Sister Anne, sister Anne, do you see anyone coming yet?"
Fatima shouts up the stairs, during a reprieve of fifteen minutes.
At the last moment, two brothers, a dragoon and a musketeer,
appear and attack this villain who was about to make
his seventh wife suffer the same fate of his ex-wives,
for having opened the forbidden closet
containing their corpses.
The subject of operas by Dukas, Offenbach, and Bartok, for 10 points, name this
fairy-tale character with distinctively coloured facial hair.
Answer: BLUEBEARD
Vancouver Estival Trivia Open, 2008, FARSIDE team