I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...face blindness tests

A tweet or two and the requisite post on BoingBoing about Oliver Sax and his prosopagnosia—or "face blindness" pointed me to the faceblind.org testing site to see if I was good at recognizing faces or not. I think I am pretty good at recognizing people, it is the names that I have a hard time with.

The test confirmed by suspicion. I am pretty good at recognizing faces. For the unfamiliar faces test the results are below:



With a 93% vs. an average of 80% or an even lower 65% which might indicate someone has some face blindness. The test faces were creepy and generic. I guess that is on purpose to remove other cues.

For the famous faces test, the results are below:

I got 97% correct, vs. an average of 85% or even 50% indicating some face recognition difficulties.

I don't know his name but his face sure rings a bell...

Ghostbusters Quiz

Mental Floss has a quiz on Ghostbusters, which has lately been on cable, so I felt really prepared. Some of the questions were not trivia from the film, they were trivia about the making of the film, which is unfair in a quiz purporting to see how much of the film you remember. I got a 90%.

Take it yourself here.

(via Mental Floss, via Neatorama)

US Religious Knowledge Survey and Quiz

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a new survey of religious knowledge on Tuesday. From the summary:

"Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education."

There is a quiz you can take to test your religious knowledge. I got 15 our of 15 even with the last question being a very difficult one that I didn't quite know the answer to, but I knew the subject matter so I was able to eliminate answers that couldn't have been correct. The average on the quiz is 50%, which I think is abysmal. Results of quizzes for 3412 nationally representative adults are below.

When I reviewed the number correct for different religious affiliations I realized that people were not even getting the 33% correct that would be expected from random guessing. This means people think their incorrect answers are the right answers for the questions. Are they being taught incorrectly? That needs to be fixed. It might be important to know that a country is predominantly Muslim or the religious holidays of a group that has a disproportionate affect on foreign policy.

Why doesn't Pew ever call me? After the poll they should tell the people the correct answers so they learn something.

Name the ten largest cities in Pennsylvania - quiz

Mental Floss has a quiz to name the ten largest cities in Pennsylvania in 5 minutes. No choices you just have to type them in. I only got 8, though the quiz declares that anything over 6 would be considered a win. The stats when I took it said that of 1542 people took it with an average score of 53%.

As a former Pennsylvanian who is from the Philadelphia area but went to Pittsburgh for college, I should have gotten all ten. I have been to the eastern one of the two I missed. The other was in the west. Good Luck.

Take the quiz here.

How well can you do?

20th Anniversary Caddyshack quiz from Mental Floss

Back in the early 90's, I once had the honor of playing golf at Rolling Hills Country Club and Golf Course in Ft. Lauderdale where Caddyshack was filmed. That experience didn't give me any extra information I might have used to do better on the Caddyshack 20th anniversary quiz from Mental Floss.

I got 67%, 6 out of 9, how well can you do?

The 30th Anniversary Caddyshack Quiz

Good Luck.

Geeky TV show quiz

Howard points to the difficult, unless you love sci-fi, geeky TV show quiz. I scored 100%.

Sadly, all I have now is the realization that I have to get out more. Some questions I didn't know the answer that was correct, but I had watched the other shows and knew they weren't the answer. How well can you do?

The Honest Hypcorite in equations

Neatormama points to the Inverse Graphing Calculator. It takes you words and turns them into an equation which would produce the shapes of the letters if it were graphed.



(make your own at Inverse Graphing Calculator)

How Millennial are you? A quiz.

Pew Research Center has put together a quiz with a few carefully selected questions based on their survey research that they feel will allow you to determine how similar to the millennial generation you are. I scored a 51 while a typical millennial would score a 73 and a typical GenXer, of which I am supposedly a part, would score 33. So I am slightly ahead of the curve of my generation.

I suppose that the score moving me further along than my age or generation would suggest is because I have taken active measures to keep up with the new stuff. This blog, my twitter and other similar accounts being one example, and the requirements of my profession being another. I still think that in many cases I am behind the curve in adoption of these new technologies, but then I often encounter others who have never even heard of the thing that I am adopting.

I have often thought of myself as old-fashioned about some things because I am a GenXer whose parents were in the Silent Generation, not baby-boomers, and who was also raised in part by my grandmother, who lived with us my whole life. Yet I know I have to keep up with the new.

My wife and I had a related discussion when she said that our parents hadn't continued to change their tastes in music as the music world had changed but that we were still doing our best to remain current. That is because I actively seek out new artists and songs in music and the latest thing in everything not just technology. I think my generation and succeeding generations need to learn to learn and adapt.

You can take the quiz yourself here.

Colors test reveals the deepest truths about your soul

A color test reported in USAToday purports to reveal the truth about your deepest soul. Actually, they take the fun out of it and turn it into a career recommendation test like we all took in high school. Just pick which colors you like the most and the least and it does the rest for you.

You can take the color test here.

I am a "CREATOR",
Keywords: Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

or second best I am a "PERSUADER"
Keywords: Witty, Competitive, Sociable, Talkative, Ambitious, Argumentative, and Aggressive

I notice that the keywords on these tests tend to be complimentary. Nobody wants to be told a test proved they were a jerk. The test is supposedly as accurate as a Myers-Briggs or other career profiler tests. I will let my readers judge the worth of that comparison.

These professions are slightly different than the engineer (or mail sorter) I was told I would be from my high school test.

What do your favorite colors say about you?

How well do you know our National Parks - quiz

Mental Floss has a National Park quiz. I was helped because I had been to some of the more obscure ones in the quiz.

I got an 80%, while the average is 67%. I am sure you can do better.

Take the Quiz: National Parks

What military aircraft are you? Quiz.

Have you always wanted to know which type of military aircraft best exemplifies you and your personality. This military aircraft personality quiz can provide you with that answer.



As a bonus the quiz comes with questions for which you will not like any answer. Those are the best type of these silly quizzes.

(via The Presurfer)

Cable Connector Quiz

Mental Floss has the Cable Connector Quiz, with cables both modern and ancient (in computer years). I scored an 80%, I am sure you can do much better.

The Cable Connector Quiz

(via Neatorama)

History and the Presidents quiz twofer

Mental Floss has a presidential lunchtime quiz today, "Who was president when? Part 2." So I went back and found quiz 1. These are hard since they give you the event and you need to guess who was president. I did alright on quiz one, but the questions grew more obscure on quiz two. I will probably tank quiz three when it comes out.

Part 1

My Results:

Part 2

My results:

Alright history buffs, tell me how you do.

Astronauts in the Movies quiz

AMC has an astronauts in the movies quiz written by a contributor to sfsignal. I think that if you like movies and science fiction you may find it easy. My score as 100%.



I am sure you will do as well.

Yet another politcal spectrum map

Howard reveals his political views with the Political Spectrum Quiz. I took it myself.

My Political Views
I am a centrist social libertarian
Left: 0.14, Libertarian: 4.64
















I have been moving over the years to a moderate position because I find I have less and less tolerance for black and white positions, though I suppose that in my moderation I should still tolerate people who have black and white positions. I do find that I like authority less and less, perhaps because I don't like what authority has been doing the past few years. At least they add an interventionist dimension and a cultural dimension.






I can't see how anyone could be interventionist (or neo-conservative as above) these days given our current obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan.








All of these quizzes fail to actually assess the complexities of defining a person's political tendencies. If one dimension, left to right, isn't enough to describe a person's political philosophy, why is two? Why is four, adding foreign policy interventions and "culture"?

We should ask thousands of questions to millions of people and then do conjoint analysis to find the dimensions of politics. It seems to me that politics is the subset of philosophy involved in how we deal with other people or set up governments to regulate our actions and we know how easy that is to categorize.

Add to this that the questions on the quiz are ambivalent and are reminiscent of traditional true/false questions, either answer seems to be right and wrong, depending on the wording and interpretation.

How well do you know Moe Szyslak?

A quiz from Mental Floss about everybody's favorite bartender from the Simpsons, Moe Szyslak.

I got ...

Moe Szyslak: The Quiz
Score: 83% (10 out of 12)

How about you?

Guess the backs of US bills - a quiz

Mental Floss has a quiz in which you must guess the denomination of the U.S. bill from the back without any additional information. I know most of us know the fronts, but how often do you examine the back of a bill, and then memorize it in case there is a quiz.

I got them all!

Bill Backs
Score: 100% (5 out of 5)

Go try the quiz and then come back here and I will tell you how I did it and why I think the quiz is easier than it appears at first glance.

I will put the spoilers below in a similar color to the background so as not to tempt you before you take the quiz, highlight to read.

You see, I tried to think of what would be an appropriate back to a bill, given the president on the front. The key is to remember who is on the bill, and recognize the building.

Easy to remember is Lincoln on the $5, Franklin on the $100 (it's all about the Benjamins, baby), and Hamilton on the $10 (You can call us Aaron Burr / From the way we're droppin' HAM-IL-TONS). Thus Lincoln and the $5 should have the Lincoln Memorial, Franklin and the $100 should have Philadelphia's Independence Hall, and Hamilton should have the Treasury building. Which one is that? It's the one you don't recognize. Then I guessed the other two. The White House should be for a president, but everyone left is a president. Lastly is the United States Capitol building. Thus the $20 and the $50 are the toughest to guess. Looks like I guess right.

It is like any other puzzle, if you don't remember it straight on, what are some other clues that you can use.

Hey Einstein? What do you know about Einstein?

Mental Floss has a quiz about Einstein. If you think you are so smart, see how well you can do.

I only got 70% for not knowing enough about his early life and believing urban legends. The average is 44% so I feel OK. One of my goals in school was to do just well enough to get an A, no better. I always did well on the tests where everybody had difficulty. The curve then put me in the A range.

Guess the voices - Simpsons Guest Star Quiz

Care to test your knowledge of voice guest stars on The Simpsons? Mental Floss has a quiz that does just that. In my opinion they picked some easy ones, but maybe I have watched too much of the Simpsons over the twenty years they have been on (half my life!). The average on the quiz is only 57%.

I got only got one wrong for a score of 93% (that's still an A right?). Howard will get them all correct.

(via Mental Floss, via Neatorama)

Name the Justice League

I started this quiz before I realized they were asking for the original Justice League from the comics in 1960. Thus my recollections of the Justice League from the Super Friends in the early 80's with the Wonder Twins was not helpful. A hint: Zan, Jayna & their monkey Gleek were NOT in the original Justice League from 1960. (Feel free to make that sound that Gleek made as you read this, my twin and I still do that.)

I got all seven in one minute and 39 seconds. I am sure there are some older comics buffs out there that could do better. How about you?