Re: How observant are you?
Arright, ya got me goin' now - here's some nit-pickin'-in-more-detail (see my earlier rant
HERE), this time with an assortment of relevant links.
jjfields wrote:
7. How many matches are in a standard pack? 24
See Atlas Match,
Book Matches, Diamond Match Company,
Book Matches, and Maryland Match Company:
Book Matches to find that "24" not only is not a standard count for book matches, it is an unrepresented configuration.
Quote:9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial? 83.5
More detail than anyone needs re question #9 - Statutorily, the Standard FM Broadcast Band extends from 88.0 MHz to 108.0 MHz. During the Cold War era, Eastern European countries, the Former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact states, used 66.0 MHZ to 74 MHz, the "OIRT" band, now largely abandoned in favor of the Standard FM Broadcast Band, though the band still is in limited use in rural Russia. The frequency allocation was chosen to inhibit behind-the-Iron-Curtain reception of Western broadcasting. The Japanese FM Broadcast Band is 76 MHz to 92 MHz, unique in the world. In North America and most of the rest of the world, FM broadcast stations are regulated to lay between 87.9 MHz and 107.9 MHz, immediately above which will be found frequencies allocated worldwide to aircraft communication and navigation (most, though not all, of which are conducted in the AM format - its a matter of transmission range; due to the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum and the manner in which radio waves interact with planetary electromagnetic fields, and atmospheric effects, AM signals will be functionally coherent and intelligible over greater distances than will FM signals). Typically, higher-end home FM tuners will show - and tune to - a lowest number of 87.5, while portable and automobile receivers will usually have a lowest number of 87.7. The frequency 83.5 MHz falls within the portion of spectrum allocated to Television Channel 6 which carries the video signal, which, as with all TV video, is broadcast in AM Suppressed Lower Sideband mode. At the upper end of Channel 6's bandwidth is the 87.75 MHz center frequency of Channel 6 audio, which is broadcast in FM wideband mode, and can be received by many consumer FM tuners. Prior to WWII, the North American FM Radio Broadcast band centered on 45 MHZ, extending from 42 MHz to 49 MHZ, a portion of the frequency spectrum scheduled in 1937 to have contained the proposed-but-never-used TV channel 1, a bandwidth portion now allocated to land-mobile Public Service/Public Safety communications. A great resource for broadcast history is Barry Mishkind's
Broadcast Archive, another is Jeff Miller's
History of American Broadcasting.
Quote:10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or clockwise? ( In North America) counter
The purported "Right Answer" for question #10 is blown outta the water by actual science - see
Bad Coriolis (mentioned by another poster earlier on this thread), Snopes.Com:
Flush Bosh , and Ohio State University Department of Physics:
Getting Around The Coriolis Effect, among numberless other factual debunkings of the long-popular myth.
Quote:12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial? 112
There are 12 channels on the VHF TV dial; 2 through 13. As referenced earlier, there originally had been provision for a Channel 1, but that portion of the spectrum, originally the North American FM Broadcast Band, was allocated to other service in the 1940s, and never was used for commercial TV broadcasting.
Quote:18. How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel? 5
As close to a right wrong answer as I suppose you can get. Typically, 14" and 15" passenger car wheels will have 5 lugs, though configurations of 4 and 6 are commonly available. 16" and larger automobile wheels, increasingly common on upper-end luxury and/or performance cars, typically will have 6 to 8 lugs, while wheels of 14" and smaller often will have 4, or even as few as 3 lugs. Pickup and larger trucks using wheels with diameters of 16" and larger will have anywhere from 8 to 24 lugs (very-heavy-duty off-road trucks). See Summit Racing:
Cragar Wheels for many, many examples of the various common lug configurations from just a single manufacturer. The websites of the various automobile manufacturors and aftermarket equipment vendors will provide even more examples. But, in fairness, for 14" and 15" passenger car wheels, "5"
USED TO BE the right answer
