Monday Trivia, No. 145 [Mark Thompson wins!]
The objective list, from least to most, is: Hawaii; Rhode Island; Delaware; Vermont; Alaska; New Hampshire; Connecticut; Maine; Wyoming; Maryland; Nevada; Massachusetts; West Virginia; New Jersey; Utah; Idaho; Oregon; Louisiana; Arizona; South Carolina; New Mexico; Montana; Mississippi; Virginia; Kentucky; South Dakota; Washington; North Dakota; Colorado; Nebraska; Tennessee; Indiana; Alabama; Arkansas; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Iowa; Wisconsin; New York; Pennsylvania; Michigan; Georgia; Ohio; Florida; Missouri; Minnesota; Kansas; Illinois; California; Texas.
The per-capita list, from least to most, is: Hawaii; New Jersey; California; Massachusetts; Maryland; New York; Connecticut; Rhode Island; Florida; Delaware; Virginia; Pennsylvania; Arizona; Ohio; North Carolina; Illinois; New Hampshire; Texas; Washington; Nevada; Michigan; Georgia; Louisiana; South Carolina; Tennessee; Indiana; Oregon; Utah; Maine; Colorado; Kentucky; Wisconsin; Alabama; Alaska; West Virginia; Missouri; Vermont; Mississippi; Minnesota; Idaho; Oklahoma; New Mexico; Arkansas; Iowa; Kansas; Wyoming; Nebraska; Montana; South Dakota; North Dakota.
D.C. and other territories are excepted. Which is to say, I didn’t include them in my calculations, for purely arbitrary reasons, into which no clue should be inferred.
I think it has to be something agricultural. Dairy cows?Report
CA would be much higher on the second listReport
Number of cars?Report
Miles of Interstate highway?
Yes, Hawaii has some interstate highway.
Report
Nope, Kansas is woefully undersupplied with Interstate miles. Hmm, What’s the Matter with Kansas?Report
Tuesday hint: @scott-the-mediocre is on to something.Report
Just highway mileage per state?Report
If “highway” is defined as it is in the California Vehicle Code (basically, anything that we would call a “road” in the vernacular) this is the correct answer. Specifically, it’s the number of tax-supported or tax-subsidized lane-miles in the entire state.
An interesting exercise is reducing the lane-miles to lane-feet, and dividing that by the number of people who live in the state, so that you wind up with a length of road that each person in the state theoretically pays for. That shift to a per-capita enumeration is how you wind up with the large but sparsely populated central-western states like the Dakotas on the high end of the list — North Dakota’s per-capita roadways are ten times the amount of Texas, despite the fact that Texas has more roads than anyone else.
Definitely an assist to @scott-the-mediocre here for the Interstate Highway pointer.Report
The lanes are more narrow in California.
A number of people from out-of-state have some difficulty staying in those narrow lanes.
But when square footage of roads & highways is considered, the list may well look markedly different.
A point to consider.Report
Number of women with the title ‘Miss Corn Festival’ each yearReport
The All-Time Monday Trivia Winners Leaderboard ® now reads as follows:
Randy Harris: 23½
Mark Thompson: 20⅓
Mike Schilling: 15½
Johanna: 10
Mo: 6½
It looks like @mark-thompson is slowly gaining on the master.Report