Who was he?

In Arthurian legend, who was Uther Pendragon?

A) The father of King Arthur
B) A giant slain by Sir Gawain
C) The guardian of the Holy Grail
D) The husband of Morgana le Fay

Click here to check your answer today on our site. A brief version of the answer (without explanatory comments) will be included in tomorrow’s DKQ posting. Mouse over this box to see the answer to DKQ #9.

March 17 is approaching, so we invite you to get in the mood with our all-new St. Patrick’s Day Quiz, celebrating that enterprising saint and his widely-observed feast day. If you’re pressed for time, turn instead to the quick version, with all the questions on one page (but less supplementary information). As a bit of a teaser, here’s the first question:

St. Patrick’s day off: St. Patrick’s Day is an official public holiday in just three places: Ireland, Northern Ireland and where else?

A) Australia
B) Canada
C) Malta
D) Montserrat

“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”
- Alice Kahn

It’s like something out of Poe, a dry clacking sound that freezes the blood, the very characteristic sound of a hard drive that has just up and died. Much follows: a computer that won’t restart until the deceased disc has been swapped out, a long menu of re-installations from the operating system on up, a web-site and blog that for a few days must go hang while we — skipping from Poe to Macbeth — must sleep no more.

And how was your week?

If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Daily Knowledge quiz questions for the past few days, or why there hasn’t been a new quiz this week, there’s the answer. But things are back pretty much to normal, life is once more on an even footing, and we’re considering yet again whether it might not be a good idea to have a fully synchronized back-up of our main working computer. Certainly the last few days would have been easier, but on the other hand there’s nothing like the celerity of a newly-installed system whose registry hasn’t been clogged up with years of unremitting use.

Monumental discoveries

The 19th-century French archeologist Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) is most famous for his discovery of:

A) The answer to the “riddle of the Sphinx”
B) How to decipher ancient Egyptian inscriptions
C) The techniques used to prepare mummies
D) The tomb of Tutankhamen

Click here to check your answer today on our site. A brief version of the answer (without explanatory comments) will be included in tomorrow’s DKQ posting. Mouse over this box to see yesterday’s answer.

The same old faces

A “regular convex polyhedron” is a solid shape in which all the faces are identical regular polygons such as a square or an equilateral triangle. The most familiar example is a cube, which has six identical square faces. The number of possible different shapes is limited; in fact, there are exactly:

A) 2
B) 5
C) 12
D) 360

Click here to check your answer today on our site. A brief version of the answer (without explanatory comments) will be included in tomorrow’s DKQ posting. Mouse over this box to see yesterday’s answer.

Ten new puzzles have been added to our Mini-Crypto-Hangman puzzle (see right-hand column), bringing the current total to 33.  Remember that the clues in this game are cryptic, not direct — they are more like riddles than synonyms.

Three characters in search of a novel

Which classic adventure book includes among its characters Ben Gunn, Israel Hands and Dr. Livesey?

A) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
B) Prester John by John Buchan
C) She by H. Rider Haggard
D) Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Click here to check your answer today on our site. A brief version of the answer (without explanatory comments) will be included in tomorrow’s DKQ posting. Mouse over this box to see yesterday’s answer.

Curious about Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was the author of masterpieces like Lord Jim, Nostromo and Heart of Darkness. Surprisingly, Conrad:

A) Could only write fluently while at sea
B) Dedicated all his works to his mother
C) Had 12 children, of whom 10 were successful writers
D) Knew no English before the age of 21

Click here to check your answer today on our site. A brief version of the answer (without explanatory comments) will be included in tomorrow’s DKQ posting. Mouse over this box to see yesterday’s answer.

“Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.”
- Donald Knuth (b. 1938), computer scientist