Quizzes

I get a little frustrated from time to time with quizzes. I like to have my mind challenged, but sometimes the people that want to challenge my mind don't do a very good job of it.

Some time ago, I was visiting a web site that had quizzes on a number of different subjects, but most of the choices didn't really appeal to me. There was one on science fiction, so I clicked on that one. A ten question quiz, the first question was about Star Trek, and it was easy. The second question was about Star Wars, also easy. The rest of the questions dealt with Joss Wheedon stuff. Okay, Joss Wheedon has done some science fiction ("Alien: Resurrection", "Titan A. E.", "Firefly" and "Serenity"), but none of these questions dealt with any of that. The remaining eight questions all dealt with "Buffy" and "Angel"--not science fiction. I managed to guess right on four of those questions, giving me a 60%. Normally I would be disappointed in myself for scoring 60% on a science fiction quiz, but, considering that only 20% of the quiz dealt with science fiction, I felt pretty good about myself--just not very good towards whoever put the quiz together.

Another web site was trying to set itself up as a collection of expertise, and they were taking applications from people who felt that they were experts in a particular field. In order to qualify, though, you had to score well on a quiz prepared by one of their existing experts. No, science fiction was not an available category (not that I really think that I'm an expert in science fiction--I know more than a lot of people, but not nearly as much as some), but the Bible was. That's interesting; let's see if I can qualify as a Bible expert. I didn't. One question in particular that bothered me was, "How many loaves of bread and how many fishes did Jesus use to feed the multitude?" That's kind of a vague question, since Jesus fed the multitude more than once; but the first time it was five loaves and two fishes, the second time it was seven loaves and 'a few' fishes. Neither one of those were possible answers. The closest I could find was five loaves and three fishes, so I put that. WRONG! The 'correct' answer was five of each. I'd sure like to know which version of the Bible that came from...

There was also another one that was obviously put together by someone just trying to be contentious--they asked a lot of very strange questions (meaning that I didn't know how to begin to answer them) , but one in particular asked, "What is the seventh commandment?" Their answer: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." That's not even in the right chapter...

Anyway, one that I like much better is on the gotoquiz web site. To be honest, they call this "The Ultimate Bible Quiz," but most of the answers can be deduced even if you don't know (they have a bad tendency to ask 'who in the Bible' questions with two of the choices being people born in the twentieth century...). Maybe that's why I like it... Personally, though, I think the ultimate Bible quiz should have questions on it like, "Name both of Ruth's husbands." with choices like, "a. Mahlon and Chilion b. Mahlon and Boaz c. Chilion and Boaz d. Mahlon, Chilion, and Boaz," or, name all of the women mentioned in the lineage of Christ in Matthew. But, of course, I'm sure that such a quiz would have questions on it that I wouldn't be able to answer--but it would be fun to learn from it.

Misrepresentation

I have mentioned before that I am involved in electronics training. Recently, a young woman trainee was having a lot of trouble staying awake before the lunch break, but then came back from lunch wide-awake and jittery. She insisted that she had only had one soda during lunch. This puzzled me at first--particularly since she began making these claims before I said anything to her about the marked difference in her demeanor--but it finally dawned on me that she might not have been talking about a twelve-ounce Coca-Cola. Upon further questioning, she admitted that her 'one soda' was a twenty-ounce Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is considerably more potent than Coke, and the extra eight ounces resulted in much more caffeine than 'one soda.' She didn't lie--she probably didn't even intentionally misrepresent herself, but she definitely created a somewhat different impression than what was actually the truth.
When I was in the Navy, I was once on duty when someone's car was broken into on the base, and a stereo was taken. As it happened, base security quickly apprehended two suspects and brought them to my post. One insisted that he didn't break into anybody's car, and the other insisted that he hadn't stolen anything. That was a fairly obvious (and futile) attempt to mislead.
There are some times when misrepresentation would seem to be a good thing. In 'Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,' Spock, who never lies, tells a subordinate to transmit a message to Star Fleet Command, misrepresenting their situation. The subordinate asks, "A lie, Commander?" Spock responds, "An omission." Of course, it is in Star Fleet's best interest not to know what Spock is planning. In 'The Rainmaker,' Rudy Baylor, played by Matt Damon, discovers that his landlady inherited a considerable amount of money from her late husband, but estate taxes, legal fees, and bad financial planning have eaten up almost all of it. Not only that, but she wants him to rewrite his will disowning her son and giving all of the money to a televangelist. When the son finds out that she is rewriting her will, he shows up, and it quickly becomes evident why she doesn't want to leave him any money. Baylor has already expressed his opinion that the televangelist doesn't need the money, and he doesn't like family being cut out. What to do? He lets it slip to the son that she inherited a sizable sum, and suddenly Del starts acting much nicer towards his mother.
I was taught, as a child, that intentionally misleading someone was no different than lying. I have to admit, that there have been a few times (well, maybe more than just a few) in my life where omitting certain details was convenient, and I told myself that I wasn't lying. In retrospect, I wish I could say that I've never done it, but that would be just misleading, that would be lying. The fact that I admit having done it should not be taken as evidence that i approve of it. I don't, and neither should you.

1960's Science-Fiction

There is an interesting chain of events that led to science-fiction on television in the 1960's. The first is the christening of the USS Nautilus, the US Navy's first nuclear submarine, in 1954. The second would be the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957. In 1958, Explorer I detected the Van Allen Radiation Belts. Sputnik, of course, led to President John F. Kennedy's statement in 1962 "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade..." Irwin Allen co-wrote and produced a movie, 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' about a nuclear submarine and the Van Allen belts in 1961 (how does a submarine deal with the Van Allen belts? Watch the movie and find out--I'm not in the habit of publishing spoilers). Gene Roddenberry started shopping around a story for a TV series in the early 60's that was supposed to be a kind of a Horatio Hornblower in space. NBC paid for a pilot episode of Roddenberry's series in 1964. Also in 1964, either Irwin Allen talked ABC into, or ABC talked Irwin Allen into (I haven't been able to find out which, but I suspect ABC did the talking) doing a TV series based on his 1961 movie. NBC was not impressed with Roddenberry's pilot (it didn't help that it ran over budget--meanwhile, Irwin Allen had saved most of the props from the movie, {including the model of the submarine, and even some of the sets} making his TV series relatively inexpensive). CBS still commanded the bast ratings, overall, and was, therefore, the network to compete with. Roddenberry took his idea to both CBS and ABC as well, but they weren't any more impressed that NBC was. 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' became a very successful TV series, however. So, CBS started talking to both Irwin Allen and Gene Roddenberry about doing a science-fiction TV series. They eventually decided that they liked Irwin Allen's 'space family Robinson' idea better (possibly because Irwin Allen was better known and more successful). So, in 1965, 'Lost in Space' premiered. Now that CBS has a space-based science-fiction series, NBC wants one, too, so they commissioned a second 'Star Trek' pilot from Roddenberry. Most of the original cast was unavailable for the second pilot, but Roddenberry did some heavy rewrites and character changes, and his show deuted in 1966. Meanwhile, if CBS is going to have an Irwin Allen science fiction series, based on the success of ABC's Irwin Allen series, then ABC wants another Irwin Allen science-fiction series. So, 'The Time Tunnel' also premiered in 1966. ABC also rolled out 'Batman' and 'The Green Hornet' in 1966 (although Batman premiered in January, making it part of the 1965-1966 season), both of which at least share some elements of the science-fiction genre. ABC scheduled 'Batman' opposite 'Lost in Space,' which turned out to be a wise decision. CBS, not liking the fact that 'Batman' was getting better ratings than 'Lost in Space,' started leaning on Irwin Allen to make 'Lost in Space' more like 'Batman' (which, IMHO, was not a wise decision). The really interesting part about all of this was that Lee Merriwether, who was one of the regulars on 'The Time Tunnel,' also played Catwoman in the Batman movie, and went on to a recurring role in the series, not as Catwoman, but as one of King Tut's cronies. Grace Lee Whitney, who played the captain's personal yeoman, Janice Rand, on 'Star Trek' also played on of King Tut's cronies in the same episodes of 'Batman' (Ironically, Lee Meriwether later made a guest appearance on Star trek, but one that Grace Lee Whitney was not in). Personally, I find it interesting that two actresses from science-fiction series on two different networks appeared together on the TV show that was killing the other network's science-fiction TV series...