Types of Things #1

but its not a search engine

I second that!

It's frustrating, but not ridiculous.

It wouldn't be as frustrating if there were similarly obscure questions that required knowledge of other specific countries in the same quizzes. But none of the other questions on this quiz require such country-specific information, just the nickel one.

For example, pineapple, lobster and pink lady would all be examples of colloquial names for bank notes from Australia (based on their colour). Obscure, trivial and country-specific. And lots of users of this site would complain if that were a question here too.

Knowing information gives you an advantage. And there's no reason why it's impossible for you to know this information if you weren't born in the United States. You could be a numismatist, you could have read something at some point in your life, or you could have acquired the information somewhere else. In spite of this, you get people (mostly Brits, it seems, occasionally an Australian or some other European) constantly complaining about how it's *impossible* to know virtually anything that pertains to the United States. This is 1) wrong 2) obnoxious and 3) obviously the product of bias. I've seen many, many, many questions on this site that you would be more likely to know the answer to if you were British, or European, or Chinese, or Brazilian... never or very rarely seen anyone complain about those questions. So, no, he doesn't have a point. He's just whining, inaccurately, and getting backed up by Algernon who does the same thing on almost every quiz he ever takes.

I guarantee you if this was the case far fewer of those complaints would be made by Americans. I dunno. Maybe if this rule had gone on for 50 or 60 years and people around the world had had time to build up some irrational hatred toward all things German. Meet me back here in 2150 and we'll check to see who's complaining about questions on Chinese currency.

I understand where the sentiment comes from. People take little stuff pretty seriously if it has a social meaning, and that's the case with trivial knowledge. Large parts of the internet feel like an inside joke between Americans and as a foreigner that makes you a bit of a misfit. You have nowhere to go where you are in on the joke. Being an outsider is one of the worst feelings for humans. Here it mixes with already established anti-Americanism, which has less to do with trivia knowledge but also roots in a sense of inferiority. Hence the strong reactions. I doubt Americans will be much different when their time comes.

But most people call it a search engine so why the jargon?

A SEARCH engine does searching, a browser allows you to BROWSE the internet. The names are not backwards at all.

The "jargon" was simply part of the explanation. You say that "most people call it a search engine" I completely disagree with that, this comments section is the only place I have ever seen anyone make this mistake, and just because a lot of people are wrong doesn't make it correct. The difference between the two isn't even subtle, it's a fundamental difference. A search engine is a website you can visit that searches for other websites. a browser is a piece of software that displays websites.

(Earth)

I think this is interesting, but I don't know enough about it to have an opinion either way.

Clearly "star" is a correct answer, no trouble there, but "sun" as well? Referred to as "the Sun", it only refers to the star that we orbit, but in the plural can't it refer to any star with planets orbiting it - whether it be a yellow giant, red giant, or neutron? Like "the Moon" and "moons".

Maybe ClutchNferno was perhaps mixing up sun and star, since 'sun' is most commonly used to refer to our own star and therefore more "Earth-centered", but raises a valid point nonetheless.