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The Big Here Quiz

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Re: The Big Here Quiz

#11

Post by denton-scratch »

I passed on seven of the first 30, so 23. Some of them depend on assumptions that don't apply here, or are unreasonably difficult (the Thames watershed is huge; Britain has fractures everywhere, and microquakes daily; I don't live near the ocean).

My "tribe" is a mixture of anglo-saxons, normans and celts. The celts, in particular, have been here since before recorded history. Who knows who preceded them; some celtic legends would suggest they were preceded by giants and "little people". Giants are said to grind human bones to make bread.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#12

Post by casion »

It's interesting how many of these are geologically or geographically presumptive, or will be immediately obvious to people in certain areas.

I was able to answer all but ~5 questions because I'm a pretty simple area and I think most people would be able to answer most.

Does that mean I'm attune to nature or environmentally aware? Not at all. I would say much less so than the average person in the world since I almost never have to consider nature at all here.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#13

Post by bibinou »

denton-scratch wrote: post #11

I passed on seven of the first 30, so 23. Some of them depend on assumptions that don't apply here, or are unreasonably difficult (the Thames watershed is huge; Britain has fractures everywhere, and microquakes daily; I don't live near the ocean). My "tribe" is a mixture of anglo-saxons, normans and celts. The celts, in particular, have been here since before recorded history. Who knows who preceded them; some celtic…

The Thames watershed is pretty small, you've left it if you've ever gone north of Luton.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#17

Post by shlurpy »

This is fun, but I do get the sense this is another iteration of "Persom who is an expert in X thinks its important for everyone to know more about X", where X can be basically any field.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#18

Post by ryanklee »

shlurpy wrote: post #17

This is fun, but I do get the sense this is another iteration of "Persom who is an expert in X thinks its important for everyone to know more about X", where X can be basically any field.

It's not clear to me what the expertise is that you seem to see. These appear to be multi-disciplinary questions that converge on the notion of place.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#19

Post by denton-scratch »

bibinou wrote: post #13
denton-scratch wrote: post #11

I passed on seven of the first 30, so 23. Some of them depend on assumptions that don't apply here, or are unreasonably difficult (the Thames watershed is huge; Britain has fractures everywhere, and microquakes daily; I don't live near the ocean). My "tribe" is a mixture of anglo-saxons, normans and celts. The celts, in particular, have been here since before recorded history. Who knows who preceded them; some celtic…

The Thames watershed is pretty small, you've left it if you've ever gone north of Luton.

Well, it reaches from Kent and Essex in the east, to the borders of Wiltshire in the west, and as far as the South Downs. It includes the Chiltern and Cotswold hills. It's more than half the width of England, and I guess 100 miles north to south. I'm not sure that "pretty small" is fair.

I didn't know it stopped north of Luton, but I'm not surprised - I think three big rivers emerge at The Wash.

I think I guessed 30M for the population of the Thames watershed, based on 8M for London, maybe a dozen towns of more than 500,000 in the home counties, and loads of suburban sprawl and smaller towns. 30M is about 1/3 of the population of Britain, which seems about right. But even with a map of the watershed, it would be hard to estimate without a list of the populations of towns.

Perhaps I've overestimated the number of towns of over 500,000; I live in the largest conurbation in this county, and it's population is just 140,000.

Anyway, my point was that the watershed is big enough (and complex enough) that unless you happen to know the answer, estimating its population is pretty challenging.

Re: The Big Here Quiz

#20

Post by cafard »

"Watershed" is open to interpretation. Is it the Rock Creek, Potomac River, or Chesapeake Bay watershed I should answer for? (I think of Atlantic as a "drainage", for no good reason I can think of just now.)
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