IGNORANCE IS NOT SO BLISS.....

General Quiz-6

2008-07-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Mail the answers to batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in. Answers will be put up in a week

1. United States Patent 6152797. In the ‘Object and advantages section’ of the patent:

It is an object of the present invention to provide tetrahedral or octahedral modules that snap together at adjoining faces so that the octahedral or tetrahedral modules won't slide relative to each other.

It is a still further object of the present invention to provide tetrahedral or octahedral modules would be durable and reusable.

It is still yet a further object of the present invention to provide tetrahedral and octahedral modules that come in contact with each other over a maximal amount of surface area, thus distributing stress more evenly and resulting in a stronger structure.

It is still yet another object of the present invention to provide modules not based on the 90° angles of most modules. In the modules of the present invention can be found these angles: 600°, 120°, arc cosine(1/3)--approximately 70.5°, and arc cosine(-1/3)--approximately 109.5°.

What am I talking about?

2. A study was conducted by the Pontificate Centre for Culture in 1992. After the study published its results, the then Pope John Paul II expressed regret at how things had been till that date and carried out a major decision. What was the study about and what did the Pope do?

3. Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a major force in the abstract expressionist movement. Jackson Pollock has commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for.”

This is the reason for a practice that Pollock follows. What?

4. The Conquered Lorikeet is a species of parrot that became extinct 700-1300 years ago. It was named by David Steadman, as a wordplay on ___________. Its range was from the Cook Islands to the Society and Marquesas Islands.

What was its scientific name?

5. The word X (as used in Y) a language puzzle that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. A fairly old and widely-used word, it refers to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbors join together in a single activity. Those who used the word, including most early students of language, assumed that it was the same word as referred to the insect. They thought that this particular meaning had probably been inspired by the obvious similarity between these human gatherings and the X’s social nature.

One possibility is that it comes from the Middle English word _____, which means "a prayer" or "a favor“ . In England, a dialectal form of this word, referred to "voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task .

6. X was the first service uniform registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The tight costume forced Y to bend at the knees, not the waist, when serving drinks in a manoeuvre known as Z. There was usually a seamstress for each Club to maintain the fit. To avoid rumors, the Club Manager had only two responsibilities for the Y, floor service and weigh in. Before every shift the Manager would weigh in each Y as they could not gain or lose more than one pound.

Genuine X in good condition have sold for over $10,000. The only two on public display are in the collections of The Smithsonian and the Chicago History Museum.

7. X, Chief __________to the Cabinet Office (c. 1988 – March 2006) served under the premierships of Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair, but retired a few months after the Blairs moved in to Downing Street.

At a cost of about £100 a, X was said to be of considerably great value. In June 1995, X went missing. On 25 September 1995, the Prime Minister's press office announced his apparent death. Upon his return, X issued a statement through the civil service stating, "I have had a wonderful holiday at the Royal Army Medical College, but it is nice to be back and I am looking forward to the new parliamentary session.”

8. The origin of the band name was described by Brian Downey in an interview in the 2007 DVD Live and Dangerous: The band's lead guitarist Eric Bell, who was a fan of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, bought a copy of The Dandy comic after seeing Eric Clapton depicted reading a copy of its sister publication The Beano. Bell suggested ________, the name of a robot character from the comic which was in turn named after the nick for _________. Lynott liked the idea, but while arranging a gig at a Dublin venue over the telephone, the venue owner assumed that '_____' was actually '______' due to Phil's strong Dublin accent. The band turned up to find themselves advertised outside the club as '_______' and the name stuck.Identify the band.

9. X went on to solve the Sphinx's riddle: "What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?" To this X answered "Man." Distraught that her riddle had been answered correctly, the Sphinx threw herself off the side of the wall. His reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from the Sphinx's curse was kingship and the hand of the queen, Jocasta.

10. It weighs an estimated 23 tons, has a waistline of 33 feet, and is about 800-1000 years old. In February 1998, a local company took cuttings from the Major Oak and began cultivating clones of the tree with the intention of sending saplings to be planted in major cities around the world. The purpose was to provide a focal point for an Internet-based study of the Major Oak, its history.

What is it famous for?

Ciao......

ANSWERS GENERAL QUIZ-5

2008-07-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

1 .During the 2004 U.S presidential elections there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws especially in Florida. Diebold, the company manufacturing the voting machines tightened its security after it was revealed that a simple virus can hack its electronic voting machines. But however months later a hacker broke their lock. How did he do it?

The advertisement contained the image which was an exact replica of the key to the electronic voting machines.

2 . Helen Duncan (1897 – 1956) a scottish woman, during World War II. In Portsmouth, she indicated knowledge that a warship had been sunk. Because this fact had been kept from the public, the British Admiralty chose to attempt to discredit her. She was arrested and eventually charged at first __________, she was jailed for nine months. Winston Churchill was less than impressed with the whole thing and eventually repealed the___________Act in 1951.

WITCHCRAFT

3. X is a catchphrase and proverb used in discussing economic inequality. William Harrison said, in an October 1, 1840 speech, " I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making X.

In 1821, Percy Shelley argued that in his England, "the promoters of utility" had managed to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want. X; and the vessel of the State is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.
The phrase X was also very famously quoted in a movie. Give me the name of the movie and the phrase.

X- The rich richer and the poor poorer Movie is Rajnikanth's latest Sivaji

4.
Fill in the first blank

'Why does a chicken cross the street?

5. During Perestroika, they began to feature leaders of the Soviet Union. Easily Mikhail Gorbhachev was the largest, then Leonoid Brezhnev, Nikita Khruschev, Josef Stalin and the puniest Vladimir Lenin.

But in recent times the largest Gorbhachev has been replaced with Vladimir Putin, then comes Boris Yelstin, Mikhail Gorbhachev, Josef Stalin and then the Vladimir Lenin. Explain.

A matryoshka doll or a Russian nested doll

6 X are non-structural details that make up letters and symbols. The explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968 book The Origin of the X is now broadly accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first brushed onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating X.

In print, Y are more typically used for headlines than for body text. The conventional wisdom is that X help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. In typography, a Y is one that does not have the small features at stroke endings. Y have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online.

X- Serif Y-Sans-Serif

7 In "From the Ruins of the Reich", Douglas Botting claims the term originated among black GIs in occupied Germany when the occupying soldiers sometimes slept with German war widows; getting sex he didn't deserve so she could feed her children.Whats is the not so famous word but used ubiquitously?

This question is not meant to offend anyones sentiments.... just for the sake of quizzing.... Motherfucker

8 Moghal-e-Azam (1960)
Taj Mahal (2005)
Sohni Mahiwal (1984)

What connects these three films?

Indian films that were screened in Pakistan

9 The first person who claimed to be X was the Brazilian businessman José Roberto Penteado. When Penteado started to get media attention, including an offer to be in a Volkswagen commercial, a 25 year old Hungarian man named Péter Guzli came forward as the real X.
Guzli took the photo on November 28, 1997, and was also responsible for the initial edit. He edited the image for a few friends, not realizing it would spread so quickly. He first provided the original undoctored photo and several other photos from the same series as proof to a Hungarian newspaper. Later on, the show Wired News examined the evidence and confirmed that Guzli was the real X. What are we talking about?

The tourist guy, also known as the accidental tourist ,WTC Guy, or tourist of death, is an Internet phenomenon consisting of a photograph of a tourist that has appeared in many photoshopped pictures after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

10 What is the name of this rather commercial painting/cartoon?

"The last breakfast" ---the characters are the mascots of kellogs cereals.

Ciao
Bharath

General Quiz-5

2008-06-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

Here is the next edition as usual.. Mail the answers to batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in ... Please refrain from googling or wikiiing ... Answers will be put up in a week...

1 .During the 2004 U.S presidential elections there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws especially in Florida. Diebold, the company manufacturing the voting machines tightened its security after it was revealed that a simple virus can hack its electronic voting machines. But however months later a hacker broke their lock. How did he do it?

2 . Helen Duncan (1897 – 1956) a scottish woman, during World War II. In Portsmouth, she indicated knowledge that a warship had been sunk. Because this fact had been kept from the public, the British Admiralty chose to attempt to discredit her. She was arrested and eventually charged at first __________, she was jailed for nine months. Winston Churchill was less than impressed with the whole thing and eventually repealed the___________Act in 1951.

3. X is a catchphrase and proverb used in discussing economic inequality. William Harrison said, in an October 1, 1840 speech, " I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making X.

In 1821, Percy Shelley argued that in his England, "the promoters of utility" had managed to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want. X; and the vessel of the State is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.
The phrase X was also very famously quoted in a movie. Give me the name of the movie and the phrase.

4.
Fill in the first blank

5. During Perestroika, they began to feature leaders of the Soviet Union. Easily Mikhail Gorbhachev was the largest, then Leonoid Brezhnev, Nikita Khruschev, Josef Stalin and the puniest Vladimir Lenin.

But in recent times the largest Gorbhachev has been replaced with Vladimir Putin, then comes Boris Yelstin, Mikhail Gorbhachev, Josef Stalin and then the Vladimir Lenin. Explain.

6 X are non-structural details that make up letters and symbols. The explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968 book The Origin of the X is now broadly accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first brushed onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating X.

In print, Y are more typically used for headlines than for body text. The conventional wisdom is that X help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. In typography, a Y is one that does not have the small features at stroke endings. Y have become the de facto standard for body text on-screen, especially online.

7 In "From the Ruins of the Reich", Douglas Botting claims the term originated among black GIs in occupied Germany when the occupying soldiers sometimes slept with German war widows; getting sex he didn't deserve so she could feed her children.Whats is the not so famous word but used ubiquitously?

This question is not meant to offend anyones sentiments.... just for the sake of quizzing....

8 Moghal-e-Azam (1960)
Taj Mahal (2005)
Sohni Mahiwal (1984)

What connects these three films?

9 The first person who claimed to be X was the Brazilian businessman José Roberto Penteado. When Penteado started to get media attention, including an offer to be in a Volkswagen commercial, a 25 year old Hungarian man named Péter Guzli came forward as the real X.
Guzli took the photo on November 28, 1997, and was also responsible for the initial edit. He edited the image for a few friends, not realizing it would spread so quickly. He first provided the original undoctored photo and several other photos from the same series as proof to a Hungarian newspaper. Later on, the show Wired News examined the evidence and confirmed that Guzli was the real X. What are we talking about?

10 What is the name of this rather commercial painting/cartoon?

Ciao
Bharath

Answers General Quiz -4

2008-06-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

1. Connect the four pics with an apronym and explain.

BASE jumping

Building
Antenna
Span
Earth

2. A band-pass filter is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range and rejects (attenuates) frequencies outside that range. An example of an analogue electronic band-pass filter is an RLC circuit (a resistor-inductor-capacitor circuit).

How is this schematic band-pass filter that appears in a novel 'V' written by Thomas Pynchon a reference to pop culture?

Kilroy was here

3 Proponents state that the they are accurate 75% to 90%. A Canadian study for 13 cities in the past 30 to 40 years puts success rate level at 37%. Also, the National Climatic Data Center reportedly has stated that the overall accuracy rate is around 39%. Random chance at a correct guess would be about 33%.

* Wiarton Will in Wiarton, Ontario

* General Beauregard Lee, PhD in Atlanta, Georgia

* Brandon Bob of Brandon, Manitoba

* Sir Walter Wally of Raleigh, North Carolina

Put fundaes..

Groundhogs. In weather lore, if a groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, marmot, or ground squirrel, emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow, it will return into its burrow and winter will continue for 6 more weeks.

4 Recently the Oxford English Dictionary has seen a reduction of about 4000 words. Angus Stevenson, eliminated some 16,000 _____ from the sixth edition, published last month. “People are not confident about using them anymore,” he said. “They’re not really sure what they’re for.”

What did Oxford do?
Removed hyphens

5. X is a style of drawing that uses the stipple method to create an image. They are designed to emulate the look of woodcuts and engravings on certificates and currency. Y first began using X in 1979 by freelance artist Kevin Sprouls. Y felt that the drawings complemented their classical feeling and gave it a sense of stability.

Each X takes between three to five hours to produce. Women are often more difficult to depict than men, due to their more complicated haircuts. In 2002, the Smithsonian Institute acquired 66 original X drawings and have put them on permanent display in the National Portrait Gallery.
X-Hedcut Y-The Wall Street Journal

6. It is maximum 30 ft (9.1m) wide and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power, (distance versus the width of the iris) an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings some four thousand miles in diameter would be considered acceptable.

But it is of course not a disc but more like a thread, and a thread a foot (15 cm) long would not be visible from a hundred yards (90 m) away, even though a human head is.

Put fundaes..

Visiblity of the Great wall of China from the moon

7. What famous riff were the Italian football fans chanting after the Fifa 06 finals and why?? Italy’s RTWC:

Italy 2-0 Ghana

Italy 1-1 USA

Italy 2-0 Czech Republic

Italy 1-0 Australia

Italy 3-0 Ukraine

Italy 2-0 Germany

Italy 1-1 France Penalty 5-3

From the album Elephant by The White Stripes.. Seven Nation Army was sung as seven countries are to be defeated to win the world cup

8. The most famous review of X novel Y was written by the conservative author Whittaker Chambers. It was unrelentingly scathing. Chambers accused X of supporting the same godless system as the Soviets, claiming "From almost any page of Y, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To the gas chambers—go!'" Five decades later, The Intellectual Activist published a reply, arguing that Chambers had not actually read the book, as he misspelled the names of two major characters and used no quotations from the novel in his critique.

He called Y's characters flat and uninteresting, and the heroes implausibly wealthy, intelligent, physically attractive and free of doubt while arrayed against antagonists who are weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty, and lacking in imagination and talent
X- Ayn Rand Y- Atlas Shrugged

9. In the 1931 Rose Bowl game, "Five-Yard" Fogerty carried 25 times and gained exactly 5 yards on each carry. It was in that game that teammates celebrated the oddity of Fogerty's achievement. The results of that game were Alabama, 24, Washington State, 0. Fogerty played one year of professional football before breaking his leg in a skiing accident. Something really well known originated from this incident. What?
The usage of "High Fives"

10. The various ways in which this has been done:

Plain old jumping

Tunnels

Waiting for favorable winds

Hot air balloon

Sliding along aerial wires

Flying Ultra lights

Driving a sports car

methods used to cross the Berlin Wall

11. This is an infamous scene from the movie “It happened one night.” What specific disastrous economic effect did this particular scene have?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_CsWOx9QJs
The sale of undershirts dropped as Clark gable is found to be bare chested when he removes his shirt..

Ciao

Bharath

General Quiz-4

2008-06-18T23:52:00.001-07:00

Hi..
back again with the next quiz.. this time answers will be sent to only those who reply..
You can mail the answers at batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in. Answers in a week..

1. Connect the four pics with an apronym and explain.

How is this schematic band-pass filter that appears in a novel 'V' written by Thomas Pynchon a reference to pop culture?

3 Proponents state that the they are accurate 75% to 90%. A Canadian study for 13 cities in the past 30 to 40 years puts success rate level at 37%. Also, the National Climatic Data Center reportedly has stated that the overall accuracy rate is around 39%. Random chance at a correct guess would be about 33%.

* Wiarton Will in Wiarton, Ontario

* General Beauregard Lee, PhD in Atlanta, Georgia

* Brandon Bob of Brandon, Manitoba

* Sir Walter Wally of Raleigh, North Carolina

Put fundaes..

4 Recently the Oxford English Dictionary has seen a reduction of about 4000 words. Angus Stevenson, eliminated some 16,000 _____ from the sixth edition, published last month. “People are not confident about using them anymore,” he said. “They’re not really sure what they’re for.”

What did Oxford do?

5. X is a style of drawing that uses the stipple method to create an image. They are designed to emulate the look of woodcuts and engravings on certificates and currency. Y first began using X in 1979 by freelance artist Kevin Sprouls. Y felt that the drawings complemented their classical feeling and gave it a sense of stability.

Each X takes between three to five hours to produce. Women are often more difficult to depict than men, due to their more complicated haircuts. In 2002, the Smithsonian Institute acquired 66 original X drawings and have put them on permanent display in the National Portrait Gallery.

6. It is maximum 30 ft (9.1m) wide and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power, (distance versus the width of the iris) an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings some four thousand miles in diameter would be considered acceptable.

But it is of course not a disc but more like a thread, and a thread a foot (15 cm) long would not be visible from a hundred yards (90 m) away, even though a human head is.

Put fundaes..

7. What famous riff were the Italian football fans chanting after the Fifa 06 finals and why?? Italy’s RTWC:

Italy 2-0 Ghana

Italy 1-1 USA

Italy 2-0 Czech Republic

Italy 1-0 Australia

Italy 3-0 Ukraine

Italy 2-0 Germany

Italy 1-1 France Penalty 5-3

8. The most famous review of X novel Y was written by the conservative author Whittaker Chambers. It was unrelentingly scathing. Chambers accused X of supporting the same godless system as the Soviets, claiming "From almost any page of Y, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To the gas chambers—go!'" Five decades later, The Intellectual Activist published a reply, arguing that Chambers had not actually read the book, as he misspelled the names of two major characters and used no quotations from the novel in his critique.

He called Y's characters flat and uninteresting, and the heroes implausibly wealthy, intelligent, physically attractive and free of doubt while arrayed against antagonists who are weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty, and lacking in imagination and talent

9. In the 1931 Rose Bowl game, "Five-Yard" Fogerty carried 25 times and gained exactly 5 yards on each carry. It was in that game that teammates celebrated the oddity of Fogerty's achievement. The results of that game were Alabama, 24, Washington State, 0. Fogerty played one year of professional football before breaking his leg in a skiing accident. Something really well known originated from this incident. What?

10. The various ways in which this has been done:

Plain old jumping

Tunnels

Waiting for favorable winds

Hot air balloon

Sliding along aerial wires

Flying Ultra lights

Driving a sports car

11. This is an infamous scene from the movie “It happened one night.” What specific disastrous economic effect did this particular scene have?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_CsWOx9QJs

Ciao

Bharath

Answers General Quiz-3

2008-06-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

Here are the answers

1.Charley Douglass was a sound engineer who is known for creating the X. The X stood a little over two feet tall and could be played like an organ to replicate different kinds of ________.

The operator could also select particular genders and ages. Some say Douglass recorded audiences from I Love Lucy, The Red Skelton Show, or Marcel Marceau's mime act to use in his X.

Canned Laughter or The Laugh Box

What two word term is used in reference with the above picture?

No one answered this.. the pic was a bit vague though... The term is IRON CURTAIN

3. X is a silent, black and white film made in 1964 by Andy Warhol. It consists of eight hours and five minutes of continuous real time footage of X. Abridged showings of the film were never allowed; supposedly the very unwatchability of the film was important. It was filmed on the night of July 25-26 from 8:06 p.m. to 2:42 a.m. from the 41st floor of the Time-Life Building, from the offices of the Rockefeller Foundation. It was shot at 24 frames per second but is projected at 16.

In 2004, "X" was added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in recognition of the cultural, historical and aesthetic significance of the movie. Name the movie.

Empire- contains eight hours of real time footage of the Empire State Building

4 Identify this place in England

Many people came close... But the answer is HIGHBURY - Arsenal's former home ground

5. This is the “Horn and Hoof flag”.Where will you find this flag?

In the book Animal Farm by George Orwell

6. Name the book and the author.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barrack Obama

7. Persons who work in the army are not exposed to much dirt from their surroundings and also do not handle dirty or muddy objects. Hence their palms are clean.

Persons who work in the navy and on the decks of ships are exposed to much dirt from their surroundings and also handle dirty or muddy objects. Hence their palms are relatively dirty.

This is the reason for a prime difference between a particular practice of the army and the navy. What practice?

The difference is their way of salutation-- army with their palm outwards and in the navy with their palms concealed

8. The first X was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III of Russia as a surprise for his wife Maria Fyodorovna. Empress Maria was so delighted by this gift that Alexander appointed Y a "Court Supplier" and commissioned a gift each year thereafter, stipulating only that it be unique and contain a surprise. His son, Nicholas II of Russia continued the tradition, annually presenting a X each spring to his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna as well as his then-widowed mother.

Of the 69 known X, only 61 have survived to the present day. The vast majority of them are stored in public museums, with the greatest number, 30, in Russia. In November 2007, a X, named by Christie's auction house as the 'Rothschild X' sold at auction for £8.9 million.

Faberge Eggs

9.
Australia - Mike Ward

Austria - Hans Meier

Bolivia - Juan Perez

France - Monsieur Durand

India - Ashok Kumar

Japan - Yamado Taro

United States - ?

Fill in the blank and explain.

they are all placeholder names for a male party in a legal action or legal discussion whose true identity is unknown.

10 . On February 14, 2007, X displayed a chocolate-dipped strawberry that combined its characters into a green stem, giving the appearance something was missing: thereby displaying a wrong version. In response to several speculations the officials responded: "When you look at X, you may worry that we forgot ourselves overnight, skipped a letter, or have decided this new version has a better ring to it. None of the above. I just know that those with true romance and poetry in their soul will see the subtlety immediately. And if you're feeling grouchy today, may I suggest eating a strawberry."

Google's Valentine Day Doodle

General Quiz-3

2008-06-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here goes the next edition ..

Mail the answers to batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in . Answers will be put up in a week.As usual Please refrain from googling or wikiing...

1.Charley Douglass was a sound engineer who is known for creating the X. The X stood a little over two feet tall and could be played like an organ to replicate different kinds of ________.

The operator could also select particular genders and ages. Some say Douglass recorded audiences from I Love Lucy, The Red Skelton Show, or Marcel Marceau's mime act to use in his X.

What two word term is used in reference with the above picture?

In 2004, "X" was added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in recognition of the cultural, historical and aesthetic significance of the movie. Name the movie.

4 Identify this place in England

5. This is the “Horn and Hoof flag”.Where will you find this flag?

6. Name the book and the author.

7. Persons who work in the army are not exposed to much dirt from their surroundings and also do not handle dirty or muddy objects. Hence their palms are clean.

Persons who work in the navy and on the decks of ships are exposed to much dirt from their surroundings and also handle dirty or muddy objects. Hence their palms are relatively dirty.

This is the reason for a prime difference between a particular practice of the army and the navy. What practice?

9.
Australia - Mike Ward

Austria - Hans Meier

Bolivia - Juan Perez

France - Monsieur Durand

India - Ashok Kumar

Japan - Yamado Taro

United States - ?

Fill in the blank and explain.

Answers General quiz-2

2008-06-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

1. 1) In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.

This is second stanza of a poem. What is the first line?

Twinke twinkle little star

2. 2) It originated with the arcade game Hustle. An early home microcomputer version of X was programmed in 1979 by F. Seger and was followed shortly afterwards by a version for the Commodore VIC-20 called "Worms". Other variants include "Meerca Chase" and "Nibbles" included with MS-DOS... id X -- Snake

3) Excerpt from a speech. Name the speech and the speaker.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this...“

Gettysburg Speech by Abraham Lincoln

4) In the Hindi translated edition of which book would you find the terms ‘adhrishya choga’ and ‘paras pattar’ ?
Harry potter and the Philosophers Stone

5) A distinctive feature of X vehicles is their bodies, constructed of a lightweight rustproof proprietary alloy of aluminium and magnesium called Birmabright. This metal's resistance to corrosion gave it a reputation for longevity in the tough conditions.

It is reckoned that 75% of all X ever built since 1955 are still in use today. In fact, owners sometimes refer to other makes as "disposables". The early choice of colour was dictated by military surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint, so early versions only came in various shades of light green.

What is X ?

Landrover

6) The military governor of France, General Dietrich von Choltitz, had been ordered to destroy the whole city rather than let it fall undamaged into the hands of the Allies, but General von Choltitz explicitly disobeyed that order. When Hitler came to know of this, what did he ask his chief of staff Alfred Jodl on the eve of the liberation of France?

Is Paris burning?

7) What does this map represent?

Countries that do not follow the metric system- Myanmar, Liberia and USA

8) what does this map represent?

Route of the Olympic torch Beijing 2008

9) Fill the blanks

Johannes Kepler and his laws of Planetary motion

10) X is derived from a Spanish word which can be translated as "conference" or "board". It refers to the kind of typical military dictatorship in Latin America or a committee composed of several top military officers. In either case, the chairman of the X or the single top commander may often personally assume office as head of state. What is X?

Junta

General Quiz-2

2008-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the next edition ..

Mail the answers to batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in . Answers will be put up in aweek.Please refrain from googling or wikiing...

1. 1) In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.

This is second stanza of a poem. What is the first line?

3) Excerpt from a speech. Name the speech and the speaker.

4) In the Hindi translated edition of which book would you find the terms ‘adhrishya choga’ and ‘paras pattar’ ?

What is X ?

7) What does this map represent?

8) what does this map represent?

9) Fill the blanks

Answers General Quiz -1

2008-05-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

1.
1. Latin for “course of life”.
2.French for “summary”.

Both terms used interchangeably in India. Give both.
CV, Resume

2.X attempted to write a six-word story as part of a Wired Magazine article but wrote ten words instead. His article was "God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist."

The person refused to lower the word count. Who is this person?
Arthur C Clarke

3. Kasparov vs. X was a game of chess played in 1999. The host and promoter of the match was the MSN Gaming Zone. After 62 moves played over four months Kasparov won the game. In his words:
"It is the greatest game in the history of chess. The sheer number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess make it the most important game ever played."
The moves were slowed down to a pace of one move per day. Also, MSN provided a bulletin board for the discussion of X's moves. It was hoped that these advantages would collectively allow for true consultation, and raise the level of play.

Opponent?
Rest of the world

4.The name of the place is said to come from a Tuareg woman who dug a well in the area where the city stands today. The main language of the place is Koyra Chiini.
The image of the city as mysterious or mythical has survived to the present day in other countries: a poll among young Britons in 2006 found 34% did not believe the town existed, while the other 66% considered it "a mythical place".
Timbuktu

5.What consisted of:
4th and 13th Light Dragoons
17th Lancers
and the 8th and 11th Hussars

Under the command of Major General the Earl of Cardigan.
Charge of the Light Brigade

6.According to the Principles of Jurisprudence, what must meet the following conditions in order to be valid:
1. It is in line with relevant legal proofs and in line with hadiths
2. It is issued by a person (or a board) having due knowledge and sincerity of heart;
3. It is free from individual opportunism, and not depending on political servitude;
4. It is adequate with the needs of the contemporary world.
Fatwa

7.“It’s lasted so long because it's very simple, very catchy....basically incorporating four notes. It’s got tons of personality!”

What famous piece is being described here?
Smoke on the water by Deep Purple

8.People who lean toward math and engineering are certain that X was chosen because it is the sine of the angle of wing sweep. It's not, since the wing sweep is 35 degrees and not 45. However, more people lean toward superstition and feel that the positive connotation of the number was the reason it was selected.

Was ist das? (Ja, ich kenne deutsch.)
Boeing 707

9. During the Diwali celebrations at the British House of Commons, the Asian community anointed the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown by giving him an Indianized version of his first name, which is one of the many names of Krishna.

What was the Indianized name?
Govardhan

10 In 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale. In an attempt to solve this, Harvey Ball was employed to create something specific, which he created in less than ten minutes. What did he create ?
Smiley

11 The site was founded in 2002 by Canadian star Shawn Rees who was working for another company when he got the idea for X, and he created the brand to capitalize on the term. Shawn Rees' image is instantly recognizable among many viewers an achievement that is not often obtained by male actors.
The majority of the movies are filmed in Miami, Florida. The movies contain live narration from either the cameraman or X himself, and some viewers find their comedic style to be irritating or distracting. However many fans stayed loyal as the "buddy" nature of the comedy-- and the seeming friendship between the cameraman and X added to the "realism" of the series. Name the series/site.

Milfhunter.com

General Quiz -1

2008-05-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

These q's are taken from the NITTFEST Lonewolf quiz conducted in April 08 courtesy Thamizh, Barghav and TSV.. Please refrain from googling or wikiing since there are lots of clues in the q's ..Send in your answers to batty_bharath@yahoo.co.in or post them as comments .. Answers will be put up in a week

1.
1. Latin for “course of life”.
2.French for “summary”.

Both terms used interchangeably in India. Give both.

2.X attempted to write a six-word story as part of a Wired Magazine article but wrote ten words instead. His article was "God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist."

The person refused to lower the word count. Who is this person?

3. Kasparov vs. X was a game of chess played in 1999. The host and promoter of the match was the MSN Gaming Zone. After 62 moves played over four months Kasparov won the game. In his words:
"It is the greatest game in the history of chess. The sheer number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has made to chess make it the most important game ever played."
The moves were slowed down to a pace of one move per day. Also, MSN provided a bulletin board for the discussion of X's moves. It was hoped that these advantages would collectively allow for true consultation, and raise the level of play.

Opponent?

4.The name of the place is said to come from a Tuareg woman who dug a well in the area where the city stands today. The main language of the place is Koyra Chiini.
The image of the city as mysterious or mythical has survived to the present day in other countries: a poll among young Britons in 2006 found 34% did not believe the town existed, while the other 66% considered it "a mythical place".

5.What consisted of:
4th and 13th Light Dragoons
17th Lancers
and the 8th and 11th Hussars

Under the command of Major General the Earl of Cardigan.

6.According to the Principles of Jurisprudence, what must meet the following conditions in order to be valid:
1. It is in line with relevant legal proofs and in line with hadiths
2. It is issued by a person (or a board) having due knowledge and sincerity of heart;
3. It is free from individual opportunism, and not depending on political servitude;
4. It is adequate with the needs of the contemporary world.

7.“It’s lasted so long because it's very simple, very catchy....basically incorporating four notes. It’s got tons of personality!”

What famous piece is being described here?

8.People who lean toward math and engineering are certain that X was chosen because it is the sine of the angle of wing sweep. It's not, since the wing sweep is 35 degrees and not 45. However, more people lean toward superstition and feel that the positive connotation of the number was the reason it was selected.

Was ist das? (Ja, ich kenne deutsch.)

9. During the Diwali celebrations at the British House of Commons, the Asian community anointed the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown by giving him an Indianized version of his first name, which is one of the many names of Krishna.

What was the Indianized name?

10 In 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale. In an attempt to solve this, Harvey Ball was employed to create something specific, which he created in less than ten minutes. What did he create ?

11 The site was founded in 2002 by Canadian star Shawn Rees who was working for another company when he got the idea for X, and he created the brand to capitalize on the term. Shawn Rees' image is instantly recognizable among many viewers an achievement that is not often obtained by male actors.
The majority of the movies are filmed in Miami, Florida. The movies contain live narration from either the cameraman or X himself, and some viewers find their comedic style to be irritating or distracting. However many fans stayed loyal as the "buddy" nature of the comedy-- and the seeming friendship between the cameraman and X added to the "realism" of the series. Name the series/site.

Ciao

Bharath

INNOVATIONS

2008-05-18T02:02:00.000-07:00

Before i start posting some trivia I came across an interesting article on th web...
Here's the " 9 rules of innovation from Google"..

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, is a tall, blond 32-year-old with two Stanford degrees in computer science. She's also Google's high priestess of simplicity.Here she shares the rules that give the search giant its innovative edge.

1. Innovation, not instant perfection"There are two different types of programmers. Some like to code for months or even years, and hope they will have built the perfect product. That's castle building. Companies work this way, too. Apple is great at it. If you get it right and you've built just the perfect thing, you get this worldwide 'Wow!' The problem is, if you get it wrong, you get a thud, a thud in which you've spent, like, five years and 100 people on something the market doesn't want.""Others prefer to have something working at the end of the day, something to refine and improve the next day. That's what we do: our 'launch early and often' strategy. The hardest part about indoctrinating people into our culture is when engineers show me a prototype and I'm like, 'Great, let's go!' They'll say, 'Oh, no, it's not ready.It's not up to Google standards. This doesn't look like a Google product yet.' They want to castle-build and do all these other features and make it all perfect.""I tell them, 'The Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs and then iterate, learning what the market wants--and making it great.' The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back."
2. Ideas come from everywhere
"We have this great internal list where people post new ideas and everyone can go on and see them. It's like a voting pool where you can say how good or bad you think an idea is. Those comments lead to new ideas."
3. A license to pursue your dreams
"Since around 2000, we let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things. After September 11, one of our researchers, Krishna Bharat, would go to 10 or 15 news sites each day looking for information about the case. And he thought, Why don't I write a program to do this? So Krishna, who's an expert in artificial intelligence, used a Web crawler to cluster articles.""He later emailed it around the company. My office mate and I got it, and we were like, 'This isn't just a cool little tool for Krishna. We could add more sources and build this into a great product.' That's how Google News came about.Krishna did not intend to build a product, but he accidentally gave us the idea for one.""We let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things."
4. Morph projects don't kill them
"Eric [Schmidt, CEO] made this observation to me once, which I think is accurate: Any project that is good enough to make it to Labs probably has a kernel of something interesting in there somewhere, even if the market doesn't respond to it. It's our job to take the product and morph it into something that the market needs."
5. Share as much information as you can
"People are blown away by the information you can get on MOMA, our intranet. Because there is so much information shared across the company, employees have insight into what's happening with the business and what's important.""We also have people do things like Snippets. Every Monday, all the employees write an email that has five to seven bullet points on what you did the previous week. Being a search company, we take all the emails and make a giant Web page and index them.""If you're wondering, 'Who's working on maps?' you can find out. It allows us to share what we know across the whole company, and it reduces duplication."6. Users, users, users"I used to call this 'Users, Not Money.' We believe that if we focus on the users, the money will come. In a truly virtual business, if you're successful, you'll be working at something that's so necessary people will pay for it in subscription form. Or you'll have so many users that advertisers will pay to sponsor the site."
7. Data is apolitical
"When I meet people who run design at other organizations, they're always like, 'Design is one of the most political areas of the company. This designer likes green and that one likes purple, and whose design gets picked? The one who buddies up to the boss.'Some companies think of design as an art. We think of design as a science. It doesn't matter who is the favorite or how much you like this aesthetic versus that aesthetic. It all comes down to data. Run a 1% test [on 1% of the audience] and whichever design does best against the user-happiness metrics over a two-week period is the one we launch. We have a very academic environment where we're looking at data all the time.We probably have somewhere between 50 and 100 experiments running on live traffic, everything from the default number of results to underlined links to how big an arrow should be. We're trying all those different things."
8. Creativity loves constraints
"This is one of my favorites. People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their way out of that little box: 'We know you said it was impossible, but we're going to do this, this, and that to get us there.'"
9. You're brilliant? We're hiring
"When I was a grad student at Stanford, I saw that phrase on a flyer for another company in the basement of the computer-science building. It made me stop dead in my tracks and laugh out loud.""A couple of months later, I'm working at Google, and the engineers were asked to write job ads for engineers. We had a contest. I put, 'You're brilliant? We're hiring. Come work at Google,' and got eight times the click rate that anyone else got."Google now has a thousand times as many people as when I started, which is just staggering to me. What's remarkable, though, is what hasn't changed--the types of people who work here and the types of things that they like to work on. It's almost identical to the first 20 or so of us at Google.""There is this amazing element to the culture of wanting to work on big problems that matter, wanting to do great things for the world, believing that we can build a successful business without compromising our standards and values.""If I'm an entrepreneur and I want to start a Web site, I need a billing system. Oh, there's Google Checkout. I need a mapping function. Oh, there's Google Maps. Okay, I need to monetize. There's Google AdSense, right? I need a user name and password-authentication system. There's Google Accounts.""This is just way easier than going out and trying to create all of that from scratch. That's how we're going to stay innovative. We're going to continue to attract entrepreneurs who say, 'I found an idea, and I can go to Google and have a demo in a month and be launched in six.'"

ciao..

MY FIRST POST

2008-05-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

HELLO WORLD..
Thats more like customary... My first attempt at blogging after wanting it to do for so many years.. Its not a personal blog as such.. A quizlog to be more specific.. Ill be posting my questions along with those of my friends from now on.. What more to say... cant think of anything else.. so lets cut the crap n start quizzing..