Mark Brader:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 2014-02-24,
> and should be interpreted accordingly... For further information...
> see my 2022-09-09 companion posting on "Reposted Questions from the
> Canadian Inquisition (RQFTCI*)".

> * Game 6, Round 7 - History - American Vice-Presidents

> In all cases that ask for a name, if more than one person with
> the same surname was *either* president or vice-president (VP),
> then you must be sufficiently specific.

> 1. Who was the first US VP?

John Adams. "John" or "J." was required. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum,
Stephen, and Dan Tilque.

> 2. <answer 1> then became president, but when he ran for reelection,
> he was defeated by the man who had been *his* VP. Who was that?

Thomas Jefferson. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Dan Tilque,
and Erland.

> 3. Elbridge Gerry [with a hard G, not "Jerry"], VP under James
> Madison, pioneered the technique of contriving the boundaries
> of electoral districts so as to benefit one party. What is
> the name of his eponymous ploy?

Gerrymandering [now pronounced with a soft G]. 4 for everyone --
Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Dan Tilque, Erland, and Pete.

The term originates with this 1812 cartoon:

http://pic.caixin.com/blog/Mon_1211/m_1352260334_zCeArt.jpg

which shows the towns in one part of Massachusetts -- and all the
dark ones form a single district, being likened to a salamander of
the mythical kind. Sadly, the practice of gerrymandering still goes
on in many US states. Here is a 1992 example from North Carolina:

http://web.archive.org/web/20180104013915/https://www.senate.mn/departments/scr/graphics/NCCD12.GIF

> 4. What Texas city is allegedly named after the 11th VP?

Dallas. 4 for Joshua, Stephen, and Dan Tilque.

The city was founded in 1841 and George Dallas wasn't VP until
1845-49, under President Polk; but he was already well known, having
previously been a mayor and a senator. A number of his family
members and other people named Dallas have also been suggested as
the city's eponym.

> 5. Upon succeeding to the presidency following the assassination
> of William McKinley, which VP became the youngest president at
> the age of 42?

Theodore Roosevelt. "Theodore" or "Teddy" or "T." was required.
4 for everyone.

> 6. Herbert Hoover's VP, Charles Curtis, was the first person
> with significant non-white ancestry to rise to that office:
> which non-whites was he descended from?

Native Americans. As this was sufficient I accepted any reference to
a specific tribe also. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Dan Tilque,
and Erland.

His mother's ancestors included Kaw [aka Kansa], and apparently also
Osage and Potowatomi, although sources differ as to the details.
He spoke Kansa and French before he spoke English.

> 7. Taking office at the age of 40, who was the youngest VP of the
> """last 150 years"""?

Richard Nixon. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, and Stephen.

He was the second-youngest ever: John C. Breckenridge became James
Buchanan's VP in 1857 at age 36. The next-youngest was Dan Quayle,
VP to George H.W. Bush starting in 1989 at age 41. (All still true.
Kamala Harris, by the way, was 56 when she became VP.)

> 8. """Two""" VPs have resigned from office. Name *either one*.

John Calhoun (1832), Spiro Agnew (1973). (Still true.) 4 for
everyone.

In the original game, only Agnew was expected.

> 9. Which president did Nelson Rockefeller serve as VP?

Gerald Ford. 4 for everyone.

> 10. Who is the only person in the """last 150 years""" to be
> elected president while serving as VP?

George H.W. Bush, elected 1992. "Herbert" or "H." or "Sr." was
required. (Still true.) 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Dan Tilque,
and Erland.

Adams did it in 1796 and Jefferson, as noted above, in 1800; and so
far the only other one since then has been Martin Van Buren in 1836.

> * Game 6, Round 8 - Miscellaneous - When it's on the Internet,
> it's Everybody's Business!

> A round on Internet businesses.

This was the easiest round in the original game.

> 1. We start off with """last week's""" stunning announcement
> that Facebook was paying 1/10 of its entire value for smartphone
> instant-messaging service WhatsApp. In US dollars to the
> nearest whole billion, how much is Facebook paying for WhatsApp?

Accepting $16,000,000,000 or $19,000,000,000 (the payment included
$3,000,000,000 in restricted stock, which some news stories counted
and some didn't). 4 for Stephen.

In 2014 everybody guessed low, by margins varying from $1,000,000,000
to $15,999,999,996. Answers in 2023 included $123 and $2!

> 2. In 2008, CEO Jerry Yang of this Internet company turned down
> a $44,600,000,000 offer from Microsoft -- much to the chagrin
> of its shareholders, since the company """has never again"""
> been worth as much. What company?

Yahoo!. (I have not attempted to trace its stock price history
since 2014.) 4 for Joshua, Stephen, Erland, and Pete.

> 3. This much-hyped-at-the-time Internet startup is remembered as
> much for being the highest-profile bust of the 2000 dot-com
> bubble as it is for its sock-puppet advertising campaign mascot.
> Name it.

Pets.com. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, and Stephen.

> 4. In 1999, when Yahoo bought this geographically-based online
> community, organized around virtual versions of real
> neighborhoods and regions, it was the 3rd-most-popular site on
> the Web. It is """now""" defunct everywhere but in Japan.

Geocities. (Now defunct everywhere.) 4 for Joshua, Stephen,
and Pete.

> 5. In 2000, AOL merged with this this major old-school media company
> in what turned out be such a disastrous deal: it destroyed over
> $200,000,000,000 in shareholder value, before AOL was eventually
> spun off again in 2009. What company?

Time Warner. I did not accept "Times Warner" since Times is the
name of several other news media than Time. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum,
Stephen, Dan Tilque, and Pete.

> 6. In 1998, AOL paid $4,200,000,000 for *which* early fixture
> of the World Wide Web in a bid to free itself of the tyranny
> of Microsoft's Internet Explorer?

Netscape. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Erland, and Pete.

> 7. Google bought *which* once-leading mobile phone maker in
> 2011, only to sell it to Lenovo in January 2014 -- for about
> $10,000,000,000 less?

Motorola. 4 for Dan Blum, Stephen, Erland, and Pete.

> 8. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought this social-networking
> site in 2005 for $580,000,000, but due to bad corporate decisions
> regarding the site and competition from Facebook, sold it just
> 6 years later for a mere $35,000,000. What site?

Myspace. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Dan Tilque, and Erland.

> 9. It was reported """last November""" that the founders of
> this social-networking app, which features photo messages that
> disappear forever seconds after they are viewed by the recipient,
> had recently turned down a $3,000,000,000 offer from Facebook,
> and possibly a $4,000,000,000 offer from Google as well.
> What app?

Snapchat. 4 for Joshua, Dan Blum, Stephen, Erland, and Pete.

> 10. Google's purchase of this website for $1,650,000,000 in 2006
> left many scratching their heads, as the site in question had
> no business model (i.e. no plan for earning money), and risked
> opening up the deep-pocketed Google to copyright lawsuits from
> movie and music studio companies such as Viacom. """Today,
> though, the site earns billions for Google and is said to be
> the 3rd-most-visited site on the web""", after Facebook and
> Google itself. Name it.

YouTube (now 2nd-most-visited after Google). 4 for Dan Blum, Stephen,
Dan Tilque, Erland, and Pete.

Scores, if there are no errors:

GAME 6 ROUNDS-> 2 3 5 6 7 8 BEST
TOPICS-> Sci Ent Aud Can His Mis FOUR
Joshua Kreitzer 32 32 20 15 40 28 132
Dan Blum 36 28 16 7 36 28 128
Dan Tilque 36 8 4 20 36 12 104
Pete Gayde 14 12 36 3 16 28 94
Erland Sommarskog 24 4 16 7 28 24 92
Stephen Perry -- -- -- -- 40 40 80
John Gerson 24 0 -- -- -- -- 24

--
Mark Brader | "But... soon enough he'd be a master writer,
Toronto | licensed to... smoke cigarettes in public."
msb@vex.net | --Fritz Leiber, "The Silver Eggheads"

My text in this article is in the public domain.