The Brentwood Gazette’s Weekly Teaser — 8-4-2015: Language is a Virus

You know, SOMETHING’S up … 

I’ve written — before now — that I’ve had a 

 problem with my gas meter.

I … and at least three neighbours.

Basically, out meters are in next doors car-park, and inaccessible: unless we climb out of a window.

And as you’re possibly ALSO aware … ?

I’ve taken the story to the Brentwood Gazette.

As you can possibly see from the picture.

I’ve ALSO just spoken to the relevant bloke at Crest Nicholson.

Who tells me work is due to start on a doorway in the communal hallway, so I and our fellow tenants can actually GET to the blessed things: without climbing out of a window, or walking around the houses.

I’m told the workmen were down, today, review things.

Hopefully?

They’ll start on that, soon.

I’ll just let you know, shall I … ?

~≈Ê≈~

But, at ANY rate … ?

At any rate, that’s NOT why your here, is it … ?

No.

No, you’re here because you’d like to read the Brentwood Gazette’s Weekly Teaser.

Here’s this week’s COBOL themed set: covered by the usual Creative Commons License* …

Q1) 8th April saw a team lead — in part — by Grace Hopper, start deveoping the computer language called COBOL.   COBOL is short for Common Business Oriented … what?

Q2) Development started in which year: 1958, 1959 or 1960?

Q3) Grace, herself was a computer scientist, who held which military rank: Air Chief Commodore, Rear Admiral or Brigadier General?

Q4) Grace earned a nickname based on the title of a well known hymn: what WAS her nickname?

Q5) Like other computer languages, COBOL is/was supposed be used on many different computers.   In other words, it’s supposed to be what: portable, fixed or editable?

Q6) Like other such computer languages, COBOL is ‘high-level’: and needs to be translated for the computer to use.   This is called what: assembling, compiling or collating?

Q7) Grace provided us with the term ‘debugging’: the term describing the removal of glitches from a computer program.   She coined the term, after researchers found a what, fried onto a valve: a moth, an ant or a spider?

Q8) Languages like COBOL can be used to write computer programs.   Such programs are also called what: software, hardware or firmware?

Q9) Those of us who grew up in the 1980s computer boom will be familiar with a computer language called BASIC.   What did the B stand for, in BASIC?

Q10) Finally … which modern day computer language was named after a type of coffee?

Here’s last week’s questions and answers …

Questions.

Q1) 2009 saw the Swiss Tourist Board announce they’d be needing volunteers cleaners for what … ?

Q2) 1st April, 1957, saw which BBC show claim the Swiss Spaghetti Harvesters were bringing in a bumper crop … ? 

Q3) 1st April, 1972, saw the British magazine, ‘The Veterinary Record’, issue it’s definitive study of the diseases of the ‘Brunus edwardii’: how is the ‘Brunus edwardii’ better known?

Q4) 31st March, 1998, saw Guinness issue an April Fools Day prank, claiming that Greenwich Mean Time was to be renamed Guinness Mean Time.   Which newspaper did this release famously fool?

Q5) 1st April, 1998, saw the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announce that it had been sold to whom?

Q6) In 2007, sculptor and illusion designer, Dan Baines, came up with a fake, dead what, for April Fools Day?

Q7) 2005 saw Google announce a fake drink, as an April Fool’s day joke: called Google what?

Q8) 31st March, 1989, saw an apparent UFO land in a field in Surrey.   It was, in fact, a balloon built by which British millionaire?

Q9) 1st April, 1972, saw claims the dead body of what, had been found: Elvis, an alien or Nessie?

Q10) April 1st, 2008, saw the definitive BBC report … on flying what: penguins, emus or saucers?

Answers.

A1) Swiss mountains.

A2) Panorama.

A3) The Teddy Bear.

A4) The Financial Times.

A5) The Walt Disney Co.

A6) Dead fairy.

A7) Google Gulp.

A8) Sir Richard Branson.

A9) Nessie: The Loch Ness Monster, in other words.

A10) Penguins.

Enjoy those: have a good week.

*        All that means is that you’re free to copy, use, alter and build on each of my quizzes: including the Teasers, Gazette Teasers and the Friday Question Sets.   All I ask in return is that you give me an original authors credit on your event’s flyers or posters, or on the night: and, if you republish them, give me an original authors credit AND republish under the same license.   A link back to the site — and to the Gazette’s, if that’s where you’ve found these — would be appreciated: as would pressing my donate button, here.