Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 February 20

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February 20

Toughest TV quiz in the world

What is the most difficult TV quiz in the world, that requires detailed factual knowledge rather than pop trivia? Contenders could be University Challenge or Mastermind (TV series). Thanks 92.29.117.124 (talk) 00:45, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

How are you measuring "difficulty"? Some people find Only Connect impossible, but only because they don't have a logical bent. If the questions in any show were too difficult to answer, it wouldn't be entertaining. Mastermind is difficult but only because the contestants have to answer questions on a specialist subject, however the general knowledge round is very easy compared to, say, University Challenge.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I've already said: "requires detailed factual knowledge rather than pop trivia". 92.15.31.249 (talk) 12:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You're not going to get an answer to this question as even with factual questions an objective measure for the "difficulty" of the questions, let alone the quiz as a whole, does not exist. Sorry. Britmax (talk) 12:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I think what you meant was "You're not going to get an answer to this question. Even with factual questions, an objective measure for the "difficulty" of the questions (let alone the quiz as a whole) does not exist. Sorry." 92.28.245.90 (talk) 17:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I had to read that a few times. The objective measure of difficulty could be how many years or education or time spent studying the topic do you need to know the answers. Another objective measure could be the percent of people in a random sample (including fraction of percent) who know the answer. So there's two. 92.28.245.90 (talk) 17:28, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, your measurements are vague. Some people learn a topic very quickly. Some people learn answers quickly, but do not understand the topic. Some people require a lifetime to understand simple concepts. So, "time spent" is a vague metric. Then, you discuss a random sample - but what is random? If I grab 100 random people in a large city and 100 random people in a remote mining village, I will get very different percentages of people who know the answer to specific questions. This is the entire point of quiz-based game shows. They try to have a wide variety of topics so the viewers will eventually see a show in which they know most of the answers on a topic and then continue to watch the show day after day hoping for another day in which they feel smart. -- kainaw™ 22:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

You simply need to define the population from which the random sample is drawn. The population could be the audience for example, or a whole country. Statisticians hav e been doing that kind of thing for many decades. 92.15.2.17 (talk) 11:51, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

One factor to consider is that many game shows have a variation in the difficulty and value of their questions. Jeopardy! has a relatively low variation, while Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has a huge variation. The result is that, while most Q's on Millionaire are easier, the million dollar Q may be harder. StuRat (talk) 05:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Or the other way around - I found myself being able to answer some of the high ranking Millionaire questions relatively easily, while some of the low ranking ones that were about sports were completely out of my reach, even if those were supposed to be the "easy ones". TomorrowTime (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Watching University Challenge last night, they had many really tough questions that even graduates or post-graduates in those fields would find difficult to answer from memory. So I'm going to put forward University Challenge as the toughest TV quiz in the world, unless anyone can show othwerwise. Unfortunatelty the questions were too long, too complicated, and too technical for me to be able to remember them and quote any examples; although I remember something about which other Solar planet is nearest in density to the planet Mercury. 92.15.8.100 (talk) 12:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

QI is notoriously difficult, very few answers have been given over seven or more seasons because they play on common misconceptions and unusual facts that few people would know of. 134.126.191.109 (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I watched QI recently, and I thought it was too easy. I could come up with the answer right away, and I suspect that the players are often just pretending they don't know the answer to spin things out and allow more chat. 92.15.2.21 (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

QI isn't really a game show. There is no defined point structure, the players aren't playing for anything and no one cares if they are right or wrong. I'm not really sure what you are trying to prove here though. Difficulty is subjective and you are narrowly focusing the subject matter. I would say the most difficult game show is Quiz $ Millionaire because I don't understand Japanese. Livewireo (talk) 06:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

It's an example of the comedy-quiz genre, of which there are several on (British) tv. The only one I like is Have I Got News For You since it has less of the forced jollity by mockneys and a little sarcastic bite sometimes. 92.29.115.56 (talk) 10:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

International University Challenge would be interesting to watch - who would win? 92.29.115.56 (talk) 11:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

There used to be an ESPN game show called Stump the Schwab that featured ridiculously hard sports questions. For example, they would name all the players on 1987 Golden State Warriors and ask where each guy went to college. Then there's Truth or Consequences, originally a radio program and later moved to TV and hosted by Bob Barker. The idea was if you answered a question incorrectly, you had to do a humiliating stunt. The whole point of the show was the stunts, so the questions were so hard that no one could answer them. Eventually, the "questions" literally became jokes. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Album cover photograph for Rocky Mountain High

Resolved

 – –Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to find out where the album cover for Rocky Mountain High (album) was photographed? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 03:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Apparently it was taken at Slaughterhouse Falls in Aspen, Colorado.[1][2] Melburnian (talk) 00:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly it, thank you so much. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

motion picture identification

hello. i'm trying to track down a movie i saw when i was very young (3 yrs old, that would be 1981-1982). all i remember is that it was american, the setting was new york (or other skyscraper city) and the hero had an old taxicab (model T?) which he modified with a mechanical hand under the hood that would come out and grab policemen by the nose when they stopped besides the car to write him a parking ticket. if this rings anyone's bell, let me know, thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.96.82.95 (talk) 13:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Sleeping spider mines in SC

Why vultures' spider mines don't work here against opponent's forces? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.76.224.253 (talk) 14:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

It would be very helpful if you gave a time mark rather than just a link to a 21-minute video (for instance, "at 5:05" or wherever is appropriate). At a guess, though, the enemy units in question don't walk on the ground. Spider mines in the original StarCraft ignored hovering ground units like SCVs. — Lomn 23:35, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

At 08:40 in particular. I also noticed the same thing regarding zerg lurkers. Don't they attack automatically? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.76.224.253 (talk) 09:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Spider mines are not set off by hover units. (Vultures are hover units.) APL (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)