gen quiz finals - nsit quiz fest 2010

Bas Yun Hi

Dhruv SethiSharat Nambissan

CLOCKWISE

1

• Well known people having it include Vladimir Nabokov, Eddie Van Halen, Richard Feynman, Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder,(and also possibly Frankenstein's monster) .

• In its most common form, people see things such as musical notes, or numbers or words in specific colours.

• It is believed to improve their reaction times in cognition of these things. Also the focus of the 2009 book - Wednesday is Indigo-blue by Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman.

Answer

Synaesthesia

2• X was the star of a one minute television advertisement for Tooheys Draught Beer during the

mid 1980s. In this advertisement, a fictional touring match between New South Wales and The West Indies comes down to the final ball. With three runs needed to win X, a tail ender, manages to hit a cover drive towards the boundary. As he comes back for the third run, the fielder, Viv Richards, throws the ball back to the bowler's stumps where it breaks the wicket. X, however, has just made it past the crease and the umpire says not out. New South Wales have won the match and the crowd cheers as X, makes his way back, holding and drinking a Toohey's.

• When X was selected to play for Australia again in a Test match in December 1987, the fictional advertisement almost became reality when X came out to bat against New Zealand on the final day of the match. With Australia requiring 20 runs to win and New Zealand needing 1 wicket to win the match and tie the series, X, along with fellow tailender Craig McDermott, managed to survive the final overs against Richard Hadlee and draw the match, thus winning the Test series for Australia.

• X is a part of the ICL commentary team and shares his name with a Washington based columnist and blogger.

Answer

Mike Whitney

3• A - Good Evening.

Tell me your problems. Please terminate input with a period or a question mark.

B - People get on my nerves sometimes.A - I am not sure I understand you fully.B - You should pay more attention.A - Suppose you should pay more attention.B - You're entitled to your own opinion.A - What makes you think I am entitled to my own opinion?B - It bothers me just to be around people in general.A – Please go on.

………..

What’s all this ?……….A - Who are you really talking about?B - The way you repeat yourself is getting ridiculous.A - Suppose you repeat myself is getting ridiculous.B - There are some tricky operators down there.A - Are there really some tricky operators down there?B - The guys involved in the horseracing racket.A - Please go on.B - You are a real nag.A - Does it please you to believe I am a real nag?B - I have had enough of this.A - What does that suggest to you?B - Goodbye.A - It's been my pleasure, that's $399.29 please.

Answer

LISA talking to PARRY

4

Answer

5 Connect

• And taught it thus anew to greet: 'I hate' she alter'd with an end, That follow'd it as gentle day Doth follow night, who like a fiend From heaven to hell is flown away; 'I hate' from hate away she threw, And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

Answer

Anne HathawayWilliam Shakespeare’s Sonnet referencing his wife Anne Hathaway

Cover of the Princess Diaries

6

• The X café is a concept that has had some measure of success in the land of its origin, Japan. X , in Japanese , means ‘to treat someone to’ and at X, true to its meaning, you get what the person in front of you ordered and what you order is delivered to the person behind you in line.

• X ?

Answer

Ogori Cafes

7• A famous yesteryear star reciting a close friend and co-star’s

favorite poem at the event of her death. The poem is by an Indian poet. Name me all 3. <video>

Answer

Gregory PeckAudrey Hepburn

Rabindranath Tagore

8

• In October last year, Bhanwad in Jamnagar, Gujarat to a very strange and rare weather phenomenon. Local reports say that similar incidents happened in Bantiya village in Junagadh district.

• However, this phenomenon has been happening in Honduras yearly for the past century and is known there by the name Lluvia de Peces.

• What are we talking of ?

Answer

Fish Rain

9

• X’s disease is named after X who first described the disease in his 1849 paper “On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules”. It occurs when the adrenal glands do not produce enough steroid hormones.

• John F. Kennedy is believed to be the most famous patient of X’s disease. There are claims that Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and even Osama bin Laden had/have the disease.

• X’s homophonic counterpart, who is much better known was born in 1847 and believed in the strong correlation between sweat and intelligence.[]

Answer

Addison’s Disease (Thomas Addison)

•

10• Billionaire, hotel operator and real estate investor, best known as the owner

of the Empire State Building.

• She was a flamboyant personality and had a reputation for tyrannical behavior that earned her the nickname "Queen of Mean".

• She has been heard saying : "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

• She was investigated and later convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989.

• Pop Culture Reference : On the television show 30 Rock, the CEO of GE played by Rip Torn told Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon that she has "got the charm and spark of a young X."

Answer

Leona Helmsley

Connect Round

C1

• John D Barrow , an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician introduced a memorable paradox countering Occam’s Razor , stating “A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it.“

• This was acknowledgedly inspired from the famous lines "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member“

• Who spoke these lines/ What are the above lines known as ?

Answer

The Groucho Marx Effect

C2

• Antarnaad is a 1991 movie by Shyam Benegal. It stars Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Girish Karnad and Om Puri.

• The movie is based on a self-knowledge movement that was started in Maharashtra in 1954 and spread to nearly 100,000 villages all over India.

• Which movement ?

Answer

Swadhyaya Movement

• Pandurang Shastri Athavale

C3

• In 1914, in a strange twist of fate, X met Y. Y was leaving for Cambridge for studies and had come to seek X's blessings because a goddess came in his dream and told him to do so before undertaking the trip.

• When some of X’s students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday. He replied,"Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if (date) is observed as Z"

Answer

X – Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanY – Srinivasa Ramanujam

Z – Teacher’s Day

C4

• This hospital in Tashkent, Uzbekistan inspired the 1970 Nobel Laureate to write one of his famous works. Who and What work ?

Answer

Aleksandr SolzhenitsynCancer Ward

C5

• Born on December 26, 1914 as the eldest son of a wealthy Brahmin landowner, he had an idyllic childhood. By the time he was fourteen, he owned his own gun and hunted boar and deer. He developed a special interest in cinema, wrote reviews for the film magazine The Picture Goer and even corresponded with Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. (Norma Shearer would become one of his first foreign donors later on) When he was old enough to drive, he was given a Singer sportscar with cushions covered with panther skin!

• He went on to do many things radically different from his childhood exploits.

• Who are we talking about ?

Answer

Baba Amte

C6

• In earlier times, the Vatican appointed a person as the Devil’s Advocate who would give testimony against a person being considered for sainthood.

• The post being abolished in modern times, for the process for Mother Teresa, the Vatican called one of her most vocal critics to give testimony against her work. Who ?

Answer

Christopher Hitchens

• Author of ‘The Missionary Position’

ANSWER

Templeton Prize Winners• John D Barrow• Pandurang Shastri Athavale• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan• Alexander Solzhenitsyn• Baba Amte• Mother Teresa

• The Templeton Prize is the single largest monetary prize awarded to an individual in the world. It is given for significant contributions to religious and social significance.

WRITTEN ROUND

Identify A B C D E X and Y

• X was a futurist and an advisor whose theories helped form America’s Nuclear Strategy.

• He, along with Edward Teller, Robert McNamara, and Wernher von Braun are believed to be the inspiration behind the character of A in the movie B by C.

• In the movie A refers to a report by the "BLAND Corporation“, a reference to Y, which was X’s organisation.

• X’s 1960 book ‘On Thermonuclear War’ also gives us the term D. E chose a deliberate misspelling of D to get their name.

Answer

• X – Herman Kahn (5 POINTS)• Y – RAND Corporation (5 POINTS)• A – Dr. Strangelove• B – Dr. Strangelove or How I learnt to Stop

Worrying and love the Atomic bomb• C – Stanley Kubrick

(5 POINTS for A, B and C)• D – Megadeath• E – Megadeth (5 POINTS for D and E)

Identify X Y Z and A

• X was an American Lawyer who was inspired to write a poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry“ on his way back from Baltimore. He intended to fit the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith's "To Anacreon in Heaven". The composition became Y.

• Z was a distant cousin of X and was named after him. Z is a member of “The Lost Generation”.

• Mary Surratt is a first removed cousin of Z who was hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate US President A.

ANSWERS

• X – Francis Scott Key• Y – The Star Spangled Banner• Z - F. Scott Fitzgerald• A – Abraham Lincoln

• 5 Points Each

ANTICLOCKWISE

11• In Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Doc Daneeka describes only one experience of

his practice at home: a young newlywed couple who are unable to procreate. Doc finds out the girl is still a virgin and is cheeky when he asks about the medal of X that lays between her bosom, and the terrible temptation that this must be for X. This is, of course a reference to the story of X.

• The story of X has been described in 'Life of X' by Athanasius of Alexandria and later recreated as a painting by Hieronymous Bosch, Max Ernst and famously by Salvador Dali.

• It is also a book by Gustav Flaubert, who considered it his masterpiece and rated it above the more famous Madame Bovary.

Hieronymous Bosch Painting

Salvador Dali Painting

Answer

The Temptation of Saint Anthony

12

• The title of this work is a reference to a quote from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.

• “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

• The quote has inspired many other things, an Ingmar Bergman film being among them.

Answer

A Scanner Darkly

13

• Shiitake mushrooms ( yeah, the ones that made life hell at Megawhats), apart from tasting well when taken from oak trees, have been used to model one of the most memorable villains In gaming history. Who ?

Answer

Super Mario’s Goombas

14

• X (born 1937) is a leading cricket writer, historian and founding editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly.

• X famously remarked before the 1983 Cricket World Cup Final that if India won, then he would eat his words.

• Who is X ? What happened afterwards ?

Answer

X -David Frith• He literally ate the paper he had written the

article on, with a glass of red wine .

15• A common myth is that it was named after a room at

CERN, where the original web servers were located. However, Tom S. tells us: "Having visited CERN myself, I can tell you that Room X is not on the fourth floor - the CERN office numbering system doesn't work like that - the first digit usually refers to the building number, and the second two to the office number. But, strangely, there is no room… don't ask me why. Sorry to disappoint you all, but there is no Room X in CERN - it simply doesn't exist, and certainly hasn't been preserved as "the place where the web began". In fact, there is a display about this, including a model of the first NeXT server, but the whole "Room X" thing is just a myth.“

• Whose apparent origin theory is being debunked here?

Answer

The Room 404 theory

16• It is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social

theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience.

• In Bentham’s words :

• "Morals reformed— health preserved — industry invigorated — instruction diffused — public burthens lightened — Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock — the Gordian knot of the poor-law not cut, but untied — all by a simple idea in Architecture!“

• What was this known as ?

Answer

Panopticon

17

• <Audio>

Answer

Ali G speaking to Noam Chomsky

18 Which event is being described ?

• <video>

Answer

Tunguska Explosion

19

• NASA awards pieces of moon-rock to people who they feel have made a considerable contribution to their Moon mission. All people who have been awarded the Moon-rock award are people who have worked with NASA, except for one person, who got the moon rock for his extensive coverage of the moon landings. Who ?

Answer

Walter Cronkite

Whose grave is this?

20

Answer

John Keats

Choose What Hurts You The Least

Specialty Round

16th Century EnglandSanskrit LiteratureWinter OlympicsMusic of the 70’s

Spaghetti WesternsMovies of Sooraj Barjatya

Winter Olympics - 1

• Shiva Kesavan, is the sole Indian representing the country in this sport since 1997 and one of the only 3 people representing India at the Winter Olympics. Which sport does he represent ?

Answer

Luge

Winter Olympics – 2

• On 22nd February, 2010 skaters Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the Olympic Silver in the Figure Skating Ice Dance category at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

• In the process, they repeated something that first gained popularity during the Beijing Olympics via a group of Israeli gymnasts.

• What ?

Answer

Use of Bollywood Music for Dance

• The duo used ‘Dola re Dola’ from Devdas.

• The Israelis used ‘Dhoom Taana’ from Om Shanti Om.

BACK

16th Century England – 1

• This playwright of the Elizabethan times is sometimes considered to be the “true” author behind Shakespeare’s works. These speculations are primarily based on his mysterious and possibly fraudulent death. Who ?

Answer

Christopher Marlowe

16th Century England – 2

• Mary, the Queen of Scots unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the British Monarch ( Elizabeth I) and bring back Catholicism to the land.

• Another attempt to restore the monarchy by would –be restorers of Catholicism was carried out in 1605. Though Robert Catesby was the mastermind behind this idea, another man took the primary blame.

• How do we know this event in history as ?

Answer

Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes

BACK

Sanskrit Literature 1

• The Uru-Bhanga or ‘Crushed Thighs’ is a play by a well known Indian playwright. It is one of the very few tragic plays of ancient India.

• The title refers to a famous Indian literary character and the play deals with what he goes through in his final moments.

• Which character, and who is the playwright ?

Answer

Duryodhana, Bhasa

Sanskrit Literature 2

• The Backus Naur form , developed by John Backus and Peter Naur , is a form of expression used in compilers theory . It is widely used for being context free in application.

• The Backus Naur Form has many similarities to the rules described in a famous ancient Sanskrit work. Give me the work and its author.

Answer

Panini, Ashtadhyaayi

BACK

Sooraj Barjatya - 1

• X from the Barjatya movie Y was directly taken from Swedish rock band Europe's 1986 single, The Final Countdown and theme from Love Story, Where Do I Begin.

• X and Y.

Answer

Mere Rang me rangne waaliMaine Pyar Kiya

Sooraj Barjatya - 2

• A 2003 Sooraj Barjatya is a remake of an earlier 1976 Rajshri Productions movie made by his grandfather Tarachand Barjatya and directed by Basu Chatterjee.

• While the 1976 movie was a box office hit, the 2003 one bombed badly.

• Name both.

Answer

• 1976 – ChitChor• 2003 – Main Prem ki Diwani Hoon

BACK

Spaghetti Westerns 1

What is unique about this clip?

Answer

Only instance when a character from Seven Samurai meets character from The Magnificent Seven

Spaghetti Westerns 2

• Inglourious Basterds, which draws inspiration from Spaghetti westerns starts off with a music piece called ‘La dopa Condona’ which mixes the works of 2 great artists across time.

• Which two ?

Answer

• Ludwig van Beethoven • Ennio Morricone

BACK

Music of the 70’s - 1• Excerpt from a book by Karl Dallas:• “In 1973 X began experimenting with an entirely "musique

concrete" album, which was abandoned after only three tracks were recorded. "We used rubber bands," recalled Y, "we actually built a long stretched rubber band thing, about two feet. There was a G clamp at one end fixing it to a table and another G clamp at the other end fixing it to a table. There was a cigarette lighter under one end for a bridge and there were a set of matchsticks taped down the other end. You stretch it and you can get a really good bass sound. "We used aerosol sprays and pulling rolls of Sellotape out to different lengths. The further away it gets the note changes." On abandoning the album, Z said: "It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn't really come together.”

Answer

X – Pink FloydThe project is Household Objects

Music of the 70’s - 2

• The boyhood friendship of X & Y was forged in 1951 as classmates in Wentworth Primary School in Dartford, Kent but got interrupted when both families moved in the mid-Fifties. While X was at London School of Economics and Y in Sidcup Art College, they happened to meet again in October 1960, when the two ran into each other at a train station.

• With mutual friend Dick Taylor, they formed the band Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. This band eventually was renamed to ____.

• Which Band?

Answer

• X – Mick JaggerY – Keith RichardsThe Rolling Stones

BACK

Written Round 2( Differential )

W1• “I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are

examples of what I would like to call ____ ______ science. In the South Seas there is a ____ _______ of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things ____ ______ science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.”

• Who is speaking and what are the blanks ?

W2

• X joined the MCC ground-staff at Lord's in 1934. By the late 1930s X was a leading England batsman and remained at the top of his profession for almost three decades. As an all-rounder X was a right hand bat and a slow left arm Chinaman bowler. X scored his first Test century as a precocious 19 year old in 1938 against Don Bradman's touring Australians. X also played football, beginning his career at non-league Nunhead F.C. during the 1934/35 season before joining Arsenal. A winger, X made his debut in 1936, and won the League in 1948 and the FA Cup in 1950.

• Who is X?

W3

• It was the Andre Courreges show in Paris in 1964 that started it. They debuted in UK in December 1965 when they were first spotted in King’s Road, Chelsea. They became an instant hit and soon became a phenomenon of ‘swinging’ London. They even created a tax problem in the UK and rules had to be drawn up in 1965 to sort it out. What revolutionary product am I talking about?

W4

• They first appeared in USA in 1919, made with muslin. The idea was introduced by Joseph Kreiger in San Francisco. They were initially intended for caterers, but later most were being brought for the home. They were introduced in Britain in 1952 & soon became an integral part of the British daily life. They have also been used as a variation of the moistening effect of placing cucumber slices over the eyes in attempts to stave off the inevitable effects of ageing. What?

W5

• “I knew a trade name must be short, vigorous incapable of being misspelled to extent that it will destroy its identity and in order to satisfy the trademark laws, it must mean nothing”. - X, on naming his company Y

• Hans and Alfred registered their trade-name Z in 1908, possibly inspired by X who in 1884 decided against naming his then flagship product after himself in favour of Y.

• Give me X,Y,Z.

W6

W7• The phrase has been used in many contexts. Some of them are:• An album by Confrontation Camp• Y (very similar to X), a song by Meat Loaf• A novel by Katherine Weber.• A Contemporary Ballet by David Fernandez• An essay by Elizabeth Perry• The title of a law review article by Aviam Soifer• In the 1993 film, Jurassic Park the words are clearly visible in a scene where one of

the dinosaurs appears to be right up next to the car. • The above example from Jurassic Park is itself parodied in the 1999 film Toy Story 2.• The game Halo 2 contained a cutscene titled “X" regarding the Covenant's attitude

toward the threat of the Flood.• More known in the context of the requirements of the US Federal Motor Carrier

Safety Administration, in the United States Department of Transportation, regulation 571.111.

• What’s X?

Answers

15 – X for each question

Richard FeynmanCargo Cult

Dennis Compton

Mini Skirts

Tea Bags

X – George EastmanY – Kodak

Z – Rolex. Hans Wilsdorf And Alfred Davis registered it in 1908.

The XKCD book is published by BreadPig, a company founded by Randall Munroe’s friend Alexis, and a portion of the profits will go

to build a school in Laos through the charity Room to Read.

X - Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear.

The End !