The
cache is not at the posted coordinates
About This Series
This Calgary Puzzle Solving 101 Series (CPS101) is based on the
original Puzzle Solving 101 Series by ePeterso2.
The first 12 caches in this series help you build your
puzzle-solving skills. Each contains a lesson focusing on a
specific skill, examples of how to use that skill, an actual puzzle
to test that skill, and a cache to find as a reward. Study the
lesson, solve the puzzle, and you'll have the location of a
cache.
When you enter correct coordinates into the geochecker, a piece
of information will be revealed that is required for the final exam
(the 13th cache in the series).
Lesson 07: Trivia
Introduction
This lesson deals with solving a type of cache called a
“trivia challenge”. A trivia challenge is a cache whose
solution depends upon being able to correctly answer a number of
trivia questions about a particular subject.
You can tune up your trivia skills by using trivia sites such
as...
Trivia Playing
Fun Trivia
Trivia Challenges
Trivia challenges used to be difficult. Unless you were a
subject matter expert on the topic at hand, you used to have to get
up out of your chair, hop on the bus, head to your local library,
and hunt through encyclopedias and magazines and newspapers and
microfiche slides and vinyl records and videotapes and audio
cassettes and arcane dusty tomes you found in the card catalog.
(Remember when the card catalog was made up of actual physical
cards?)
Today, due to the wide availability of high-speed internet
connections, fast search engines, and massive free online
repositories of all world knowledge, you can launch an effective
attack on a trivia challenge without leaving the comfort of your
own home computer. To solve a trivia challenge, you need to know
ways in which information is organized and presented on the
internet.
Search Engines
If you’re reading this online, then you probably already
know what a search engine is. Search engines are probably the
single most useful tool in existence for tracking down trivia.
A search engine is a tool that allows you to look for key words
or phrases in a database of web pages. There is no particular
ordering to any of the web pages in the database – the search
engine treats them as though they were one giant mass of
information.
Every search engine has its own copy of the data on the internet
and its own method of determining what pages match your query.
Sometimes Google alone
isn’t enough – you may need to use Yahoo, Bing, or Ask.com to find what you’re
after.
Just knowing the URL of a search engine or portal isn’t
always enough – you have to know how to use that tool to
effectively find what you’re after. You can’t just
enter every word; you have to enter the right combination of
words.
For instance, suppose your trivia challenge topic is the band
Pink Floyd and the question relates to the song
“Breathe”. If you enter “breathe” into
Google, the first page of responses won’t have any links that
relate to Pink Floyd. But “breathe pink floyd” returns
only relevant matches.
One of the most powerful features of a search engine is the
ability to search for things other than just keywords. Google can
search for images, videos, news articles … even sets of
data.
Specialized Databases
There are a great many specialized databases out there that
contain all sorts of excellent fodder for trivia challenges. Most
of the time, entering the name of your topic (such as
“curling” or “calculus” or “ice
cream”) plus the word “trivia” into a search
engine will give you an excellent list of starting points for
finding your answers. Here are a few other databases that often
come in handy.
Internet Movie
Database
Has every fact about every movie, television show, and video
game
NHL, CFL, NBA,
NASSCAR
Find sports trivia in a number of sports specific databases
CIA
World Fact Book
Geographic, political, and economic information about countries
around the world
Image searching
Searching for images can be quite frustrating. You can try to
enter the right keywords in the search engine and only look at
image results. This will usually give you a lot of images that
might not have any relationship to the image you are looking for. A
great resource for image search is TinEye. This search engine allows you to upload
an image or to specify a link to an image. With this it tries to
find the image on various websites. The pages on which the image
appears will probably give you useful information on the image.
Wikis
A wiki is a collaborative informative web site that anyone with
access can update. Content in a wiki is organized into pages with
links to other topics in the wiki. These links allow you to find a
topic, then find related topics, then find topics related to those
topics, etc.
The best-known wiki is Wikipedia, which acts as a very large
general purpose encyclopedia of human knowledge. Many other wikis
exist that are tailored to specific areas of interest.
A wiki's greatest strength is also its biggest weakness - the
accuracy of a wiki's contents is only as good as its contributors.
It is very easy to find wrong, outdated, or incomplete information
on a wiki, so use them with caution.
Forums
A forum is an online bulletin board system (remember the days of
pulse-dialing into a BBS at 300 bps on your C-64 or Apple Lisa?). A
bulletin board system allows its users to post messages and carry
on conversations on a variety of topics. Forums typically support a
community of individuals unified by some common interest (such as
geocaching or puzzles).
The beauty of a forum is that it is not only specific to a topic
and searchable for content, but that it is also interactive. Forums
are great places to ask for help if you’re stuck on a puzzle
or missing a critical piece of information. If you can't find an
appropriate forum that's specific to the topic, check with the
Groundspeak
Forums.
One note about forum etiquette: while
it is okay to ask for help in solving a puzzle, it is generally
frowned upon to discuss the solution to a puzzle in public. It's
usually best to ask the cache owner for a hint or a pointer in the
right direction before posting a public request for help.
Cranking Up the Difficulty
Puzzle writers know about all of these information sources and
how easy it is for solvers to access them. Here are some ways that
puzzle writers make the trivia challenge more difficult in this day
of fast and easy information access.
Make it hard to find the answer. A question may reference a bit
of information that exists only one web site. Or for which there
are multiple conflicting source. Or doesn’t exist online at
all. Or requires you to find a picture, sound file or movie clip
– something that can’t be Googled.
For example, what’s the answer to this question: In
Yorkshire, England, the record was set for longest distance flown
by a paper airplane in what category?
Make it complicated to answer the question. This is easiest to
achieve in a true/false statement with multiple components. In
order for the statement to be true, every single component of the
statement must be true; otherwise, the statement is false.
For example: True or false? The Barefoot Mailman’s
six-day 136-mile round trip route between Palm Beach and Miami
during the period of 1885 to 1892 included overnight stops in the
Orange Grove House of Refuge in Delray Beach and the Fort
Lauderdale House of Refuge, both of which were operated by the U.
S. Coast Guard.
Practice puzzles
If you really paid attention to the content of this lesson, you
should be ready to try these Calgary trivia challenges.
Exercise 3: Local Trivia
A. Calgary is famous for originating which drink?
(1) Caesar
(0) Bloody Mary
(2) Shirley Temple
(3) Cowboy’s Revenge
B. Which animal is not on the Calgary Coat of Arms?
(9) Hog
(6) Steer
(8) Bull buffalo
(0) Horse
C. Which street is also known by Calgarians as the "Red
Mile"?
(8) 16th Avenue N.W.
(4) 16th Street N.E.
(3) 17th Street S.E.
(2) 17th Avenue S.W.
D. What is the airport code for Calgary International
Airport
(3) CAL
(1) YYC
(0) CGY
(2) YYZ
E. In October 2006, what was the tallest building in
Calgary?
(3) Telus Tower
(1) Calgary Tower
(0) Petro Canada Tower
(2) Bankers Hall
F. What is a nickname that Calgary is commonly known
by?
(2) Hogtown
(4) Cowtown
(5) Chickentown
(3) Horsetown
G. Which town is home to the oldest Latter Day Saints temple
built outside of the United States?
(6) Cardston
(8) Stirling
(2) Raymond
(5) Fort Macleod
H. Which one of these nicknames has never been applied to
Calgary
(4) Stampede City
(5) Smiling City
(0) Sandstone City
(6) Sunshine City
I. In September 2006 what was the name of the busiest
north-south road in Calgary?
(3) Deerfoot Trail
(1) Barlow Trail
(5) Blackfoot Trail
(2) Centre Street
J. Which Calgary hospital opened in September 2006?
(1) Alberta Children's Hospital
(0) Foothills Hospital
(2) South Calgary Hospital
(3) Peter Lougheed Hospital
K. Which park is home to the famed Prince of Wales
Hotel?
(5) Lake Louise Park
(3) Kananaskis Park
(2) Waterton Lakes Park
(1) Banff National Park
L. This small town is home to the ranch of country music singer
Ian Tyson and is located along Highway 22.
(8) Waterton
(7) Millarville
(5) Longview
(6) Lumbreck
M. Which two rivers flow through Calgary?
(3) Bow and Oldman
(9) Bow and South Saskatchewan
(6) Bow and Elbow
(8) Bow and
N. In which year did Calgary host the Winter Olympics?
(6) 1992
(2) 1988
(4) 1984
(3) 1980
O. This town less than 30 minutes south of Calgary got its name
from the Blackfoot word that describes the glacial erratic just
outside of town.
(0) Okotoks
(6) Champion
(1) Coaldale
(2) Turner Valley
Final Coordinates are at: North HA EM.INC West DJF
OG.LKB