Category Archives: Uncategorized

Interesting Question of the Day – 30 July 2025

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Which of these countries with the word “democratic” in their name are actually democratic according to the Economist Democracy Index?

The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

The first new player to comment on the website with the correct answer wins a free drink at their next iQ Trivia quiz.

Team Name Bonus Point – Week of 27 July 2025

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This week we’re thinking about greeting cards.

But nothing so vague as Happy Birthday, or Get Well Soon, or Congratulations on Your New Job.

No, your team name should be an EXTREMELY specific greeting card.

Sorry to hear your wife lost a tooth after slipping on a wet floor in the supermarket

Happy 47th birthday to my second favourite oncologist

Congratulations from your great aunt on being accepted into a graduate program in accounting

Please allow me to punch the next person who says everything happens for a reason

Any ridiculously specific greeting cards will get a bonus point.

If you need ideas, try this sketch for inspiration.

Have an interesting week.

This Week in iQ Trivia – 26 July 2025

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Here’s what you may have missed this week at iQ Trivia.

WINNERS

JACKPOT

It’s rare that knowing characters from The Blacklist comes in handy. But once in a while in a jackpot it’s REALLY handy.

TEAM NAMES

You had a lot of complaints about things we can’t do in spite of the fact that we can land a man on the moon.

But we can’t land a woman on the moon

But we can’t leave Elon Musk there

But we can’t stop people eating Tide pods

But we can’t beat an army of emus

But we can’t find a way to let you commit adultery at a coldplay concert without the whole damn world finding out

But we can’t build Hobart Stadium

But we can’t fool people into believing we put a man on the moon

But we can’t teach Stuart to use Teams

But we can’t get him into therapy

But we can’t find the clit

But we can’t get the President off the Epstein list

But we can’t release the Epstein files

But we can’t order off the breakfast menu after 10am

But we can’t think of a clever team name

But we can’t win trivia

TriviArt

Giraffe Gun

Bittersweet Wombat

Pikachu Sandwich

Flirtatious Cherry

Banana Victuals

INTERESTING MOMENTS

Voting against their first instinct on the dilemma question backfired on a team when we wound up with a tie that was broken not in their favour.

When we asked about the distance from the easternmost to the westernmost point of Australia, one team guessed 41,000km, which is longer than the circumference of the whole earth.

When asked if one of our hosts owned a kilt, one team answered accurately that he didn’t but that “you totally have the ass for it”. Is it sexual harassment if you like it?

And there’s a gap of just four points at the top of the table in our quarterly tournament.

Team Wins Score Average
The Smith Family 3 221 73.67
Leader Housen 3 217 72.33
Wrote a Letter 2 161 80.50
That sounds like a you problem 2 160 80.00
Bagpuss 2 154 77.00
Professional Cuddlers 2 152 76.00
Richard Gere Appreciation Society 2 151 75.50
Hipster Dog 2 148 74.00
Tournament Name 2 147 73.50
Diversity Council 2 145 72.50
Comfortable Mediocre 2 142 71.00
Pang and Friends 2 141 70.50
Trough Lobster 2 139 69.50
Damp Squids 2 137 68.50
Happy Hour 2 127 63.50
Tullynessle 1 76 76.00
Fish and Friends 1 74 74.00
Hotel Rwanda 1 74 74.00
6 Go Crazy 1 73 73.00
Bandits 1 73 73.00
Foxolotl 1 73 73.00
Leon & Val 1 73 73.00
Whale Emoji 1 73 73.00
Julius Caesar 1 71 71.00
Cuck 1 70 70.00
Tight End Jesus 1 70 70.00
GNOM 1 69 69.00
There Won’t Be Blood 1 69 69.00
Toddler 1 69 69.00
Captain Kathie’s Mandarin 1 68 68.00
Al’s Team 1 66 66.00
Goose is on the Loose 1 66 66.00

See you next week.

AI and Trivia… or Don’t Trust A Chatbot on the Homework Question

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As anyone who has been to iQ Trivia would know, every quiz has a homework question. It’s something easy to find, unambiguous, but something you wouldn’t likely know unless you looked it up.

The idea, naturally, is that you are expected to look it up and given an advantage for being on our mailing list. And for the most part it works just fine.

Once in a while people acting in good faith wind up getting the homework question wrong, and if that happens at a significant scale we will generally change the homework question. Even if the question is right, we don’t want people to have to research it in great depth or fact check or be caught out by the first source that they find.

But now AI is emerging as a tool being used by more and more people, and some people are asking AI chatbots the homework question, and then complaining that they got the homework question wrong.

So now we’ve had to issue this advisory.

DO NOT USE AI ON THE HOMEWORK QUESTION.

Not because it’s cheating. It’s not. And you are supposed to look up the homework question.

But AI frequently gets things wrong.

As an example, last week we tested the homework question at one of our quizzes on an AI chatbot, asking it what four teams won the Stanley Cup in the 1980s. You can look that up yourself and you should find the answer quite easily on Wikipedia or on a number of other sources.

But the chatbot came back with an interesting answer.

And then followed up with a pretty firm statement that was demonstrably false.

(When asked a follow up question about the Calgary Flames who won in 1989 and which one of our hosts is old enough to distinctly remember, it went on to say that the Flames did not win in the 80s, and that their only win was in 1989.  But anyone who didn’t know that may have taken the initial statement at face value and lost out on a point.)

The homework question isn’t meant to be hard to research. If it is, we will generally change it.

Now we don’t know the ins and outs of how AI works or why it makes mistakes. We once tried using AI to write trivia questions and they were a combination of about 1/4th straight up factually inaccurate, and the remainder overwhelmingly questions that are technically correct, but extremely dull. That’s not what we aim to do, so we’re not going to use AI in putting together quizzes.

And you shouldn’t use AI in doing your homework.

Have an interesting week.

Team Name Bonus Point – Week of 20 July 2025

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As we post this, it is the anniversary of the moon landings.

It was a big moment for humanity, in as much as it gave cranky people everywhere an excuse to complain about things.

You probably heard someone say “we can land a man on the moon but we can’t…”

Well this week, your team names are going to finish that sentence.

Get a ziploc on potato chip bags

Make a drive thru speaker that is actually audible

Perform a prostate exam without… fingers

Build an anti-microwave that cools things in seconds

Print a black and white page when we’re low on magenta

Send a man to the moon again 56 years later

Tell us something you’re amazed we can’t do in light of the fact that we can land on the moon for a bonus point.

Have an interesting week.