Quiz week 27

Themed week. LVCish. Not an Olympics one.

1) The PGM 17 Thor was the first operational ballistic missile of the U.S. Air Force (USAF).  Subsequent satellite and space probe flights soon followed, using a Thor first stage with several different upper stages with each getting a greek letter as a name.
What was the name given to the fourth stage of the Thor? (Let the name be X)
Eventually the entire Thor-X launch vehicle came to be called simply X. NASA intended X as "an interim general purpose vehicle" to be "used for communication, meteorological, and scientific satellites and lunar probes during '60 and '61". Now there have been more than 300 Xs launched, with a 95 percent success rate.

This is the Thor
#No reason why this pic should be here

2) This fellow was was an Egyptian polymath. Don't believe the polymath part? Well, he was

Chancellor of the King of Egypt, Doctor, First in line after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary nobleman, High Priest of Heliopolis, Builder, Chief Carpenter, Chief Sculptor, and Maker of Vases in Chief.

Anyway he was the architect who developed the first pyramids in ancient Egypt, His ability was such that he was later said to have descended from the gods. Several scholars regard him to be the real father of medicine.
His name means "one who comes in peace" (I'm not sure people now would think of him when someone says "peace").
What is it?

Another fellow has a name that is an anagram of Death By Ra, is the name of a fictional sworn protector of mankind from the guy above.


Identify both these people.

the polymath dude

3) This is a nickname that has been given to several women. Some of them are

• Indira Gandhi
• Margaret Thatcher
• Benazir Bhutto
• Angela Merkel
• Golda Meir ( Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974 ) 

There is also a movie about one of the above with the same name. What is that nickname?

And which man-made structure is also called the La dame de fer which is French for the above nickname?


4) Starting in the late 1860's, two of America's most prominent paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, had a falling out. Personal attacks between the men, thinly veiled as "scientific criticism," followed in articles that they wrote for publication. Later, each would send teams into the fossil fields of the West where they would fight over digging rights amid claims that the other side had destroyed or damaged fossils in order to block their rivals from getting a hold of them.
In their rush to beat each other to the next find, the scientists often based their claims on incomplete or inaccurate data.

In 1877 Marsh wrote a short two-paragraph article for the American Journal of Science that included only a description of the animal's vertebral column, but he named the creature anyway. Marsh estimated that the X, meaning "deceptive lizard", was fifty feet in length.
In that same year, in another short article in American Journal of Science, Marsh claimed finding another dinosaur based on a description of the pelvis and vertebrae. He named this one Y meaning "thunder lizard" and estimated it to be seventy to eighty feet in length. Y is in the logo of a petroleum company.
Y please and if possible, X.


5) From the logo, identify this organization that is often referred to as "GAP".

6) He is a sea giant, god of the ocean, king of the sea creatures and a party freak in Norse mythology. A phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave of water that travels up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay's current is named after the god who used to go all crazy like this.
Identify the god or the popular word for this phenomenon.

7)  Gray goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario known as ecophagy ("eating the environment"). They were originally described by mathematician John von Neumann, and are sometimes referred to as von Neumann machines. The term grey goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.
What things would be responsible for the grey goo?




8) This is a term that Isaac Asimov coined for the fear of mechanical men. It  is not a fear of roboticists, scientists, or even mad scientists, but rather, a fear of artificial human beings. This fear gets its name from a character in M W Shelly's The Modern Prometheus. What is this fear called?


9) This is the Nicobar Pigeon, the only living member of the genus Caloenas.  Based on several tests, it is sensible to believe that the Nicobar Pigeon is  the closest living relative of the extinct didines (Raphinae) family. The Rodrigues Solitaire is one of the two birds in that family. Which was the other?

10) Carl Diem, president of the Organizing Committee of the 1936 Summer Olympics, wanted to hold a torchbearers' ceremony in the stadium at Delphi, site of the famous oracle, where the Pythian Games were also held. For this reason he ordered construction of a milestone with the _______ carved in the sides, and that a torchbearer should carry the flame along with an escort of three others from there to Berlin. The ceremony was celebrated but the stone was never removed. Later, two British authors Lynn and Gray Poole when visiting Delphi in the late 1950s saw the stone and incorrectly reported in their "History of the Ancient Games" that the ________ design came from ancient Greece.

The thing in question was probably inspired by an ad for Dunlop tyres. What are we talking about? And what are the things in it supposed to represent?

The overall theme?

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Quiz week 25 (London 2012 countdown)

Answers Will Be Given Next Week... Meanwhile Drop Down Your Answers... PS: DON'T POST YOUR ANSWERS AS ANON

this week: 12 Questions about London  #london2012countdown



1) XY is sometimes mistaken for ZY, the next Y upstream. A popular urban legend is that in 1968, Robert McCulloch, the purchaser of the old ZY that was later shipped to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, believed that he was in fact buying XY. This was denied by McCulloch himself and has been debunked by Ivan Luckin, the vendor of the Y.
X,Y,Z please.

2) What could have got its present name from the Sanskrit word for darkness/ignorance/indifference or the fact that it was the meeting point of 2 rivers, one of them river Isis ?

3)  Which nickname came about due to the cylindrical shape of these tunnels?

4) What is this monument was erected in memory of?

5)  In questioning, Sarjeant said he had been inspired by the assassination of John Lennon in December 1980, and the attempts on the life of President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. In particular he noted the ease with which Mark David Chapman had become famous after killing John Lennon. A friend said that at the time of John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt on the life of President Reagan, Sarjeant had said "I would like to be the first one to take a pot shot at _________". The police found that Sarjeant had written "I am going to stun and mystify the world. I will become the most famous teenager in the world."
At whom did Marcus Simon Sarjeant fire six blank shots as the person  rode down The Mall to the Trooping the Colour ceremony in 198 ?




6) Queens consort, the wives of Kings, traditionally wore the Crown of Mary of Modena, Queen of King James II. By the beginning of the 20th century, that small crown was in a decrepit state. A new European-style crown, flatter and with more arches than was traditional in British crowns, was manufactured for Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII. A new crown, more akin to traditional British crowns, was manufactured for Queen Mary, consort of King George V, who was crowned in 1911. The final new consort's crown in the 20th century was manufactured for Queen Elizabeth, consort of King George VI, who along with her husband was crowned in 1937. All three consorts' crowns in turn included the _______. The crown is now on display along with the other British Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.
FITB.



7) How is 30 St Mary Axe (formerly the Swiss Re Building) informally referred to?  With 41 floors, the tower is 180 metres (591 ft) tall, and stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange building, which was severely damaged on 10 April 1992 by the explosion of a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA.



8) What does this (heavily edited) plaque in London Zoo commemorate?

9) The logo of what changed from the one on the left to the one on the right in 2003?

10) Which famous character is missing from this list:  Gregory House, Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Sherlock Hound, Danger Mouse, Sexton Blake, Carland Cross and James Black (Case Closed) ?



11) At a young age, this guy worked as a miller in Clacton but in 1834 he moved to London where he began selling groceries in Stepney. He set up something that is now all over London. His establishment has a dress code policy and has turned away several people who it believes are not dressed appropriately. These include a soldier in uniform, a scout troop, a woman with a mohican hair cut, a 15 stone (95 kg) woman and FC Shakhtar Donetsk's first team for wearing tracksuits.
 

12) _______  was originally three houses: a mansion overlooking St. James's Park (called "the House at the Back"), a townhouse behind it located at _____ and a cottage next to _____. The townhouse, from which the modern building gets its name, was one of several built by the person below between 1682 and 1684. Identify.

This painting now hangs in _________ inside the front door.

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Quiz week 23 (themed week 3)

Quiz Week 23

Please do leave your answers as comments.
This is a themed week with all the answers vaguely leading to a theme. Get the theme to get a special mention when we give the answers.
There was a request to make it very simple. Here is an attempt at that.  I have also tried to make the questions short.


1) This two word term originated in racing; as an entity that was not known to gamblers and thus was difficult to place betting odds on. What?



2) This is one of the most iconic sculptures in Hampi - the statue of Ugra Narasimha. But the statue itself was not meant to be an angry Narasimha. The Narasimha became ugra(angry) when a part of the original statue fell down. What fell down?
If it helps, whatever fell down is now in a nearby museum. 


3) They were invented in 1704 for use in watches by Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, Peter Debaufre, and Jacob Debaufre, who received an English patent for the idea. Originally natural ____ were used, such as diamond, sapphire, ruby, and garnet. In 1902, a process to make synthetic sapphire and ruby was invented by making ______ much cheaper.
_____ are advantageous due to their high accuracy, very small size and weight, low and predictable friction, including good temperature stability, and the ability to operate without lubrication and in corrosive environments.
What?


4) What are these?


5) Here's this week's hard question:



Mr.____ was conceived by Dr. Richard Moriarty of Pittsburgh to help children learn to avoid ingesting poisons.

Why did Dr. Dr. Richard Moriarty want to choose an alternative to the original label for poison?



6) The original name of this Disney Princess is Badroulbadour (Arabic بدر البدور, badru l-budūr, "full moon of full moons") in the One Thousand and One Night's 'tale of the enchanted lamp'. But the guys at Disney gave her a different name.

What name?


7) Connect Gujarat, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Lakshadweep (exhaustive).



8) The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered to be without use or value.
Ironically, some of Thailand's highest civilian awards are also named with the same phrase.
Identify the phrase.


9) slightly used but still...
X is the first nuclear reactor in all of Asia. The characteristic “blue glow” of nuclear reactors is due to Čerenkov radiation. Nehru was highly impressed with its beauty and he decided to name the reactor as X, after mythical damsels. Identify.

 10)  In 1833, the company's father, founded an import business to sell seashells to London collectors. When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea area in 1892, the founders realised there was potential in exporting lamp oil from the region and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker, the Murex (Latin for a type of snail), to enter this market; by 1907 the company had a fleet. 
X's logo is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world.
The company's official name is Koninklijke Nederlandsche ______ Maatschappi.
i) Which company are we talking about?
ii) Based on what creature is their logo designed?
iii) What were the colours of the logo meant to relate to?




11) Connect

 

12) The work was initially done by  the person shown below which gave the structure its popular name.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh

This person rebuilt and decorated the interiors of the structure.

Jassa Singh Ahluwalia

  

What?



Right. I guess that would do. Now connect.

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Quiz Week 20

Answers May Be Given A Few Days From Now... Meanwhile Drop Down Your Answers...
PS: DON'T POST YOUR ANSWERS AS ANON


1) It first had three of em pointing northwards like in the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich till the early 1920s. After 1922, there was only one and it pointed towards West. Since 2002, it is pointing Eastwards.  What is this about?

Answer: The Arsenal FC logo


2)  In 1841, C. J. Fritzsche showed that, by treating indigo with caustic potash, it yielded an oil, which he named ______ from the name of one of the indigo-yielding plants, which was named ultimately from the Sanskrit word for dark-blue. Identify the chemical.

Answer: Aniline (from Nilam, Anila)


3) Identify what's drawn. Who's artwork?

Answer: The Statue of Liberty by Gustav Eiffel




4) The guy in image 1 was the first to move towards East while the other guy fell down. Explain.

That one was pretty tough. You must probably ask your guardian for help.

Answer: Very hard one. These people were one across and one down in the first newspaper crossword of United Kingdom. In the first Manchester Guardian puzzle, one across, "One of our Elder Statesmen", was BALFOUR and one down, "The head of the Government", was BALDWIN.

5) This one's about a certain group that left me wonderstruck when I was young. I will tell you more about this when I give the answer a few days from now.
Connect LVC like (non exhaustive)

Answer: These are plays by The Temple of Fine Arts, Malaysia ...they aren't performing all that frequently now. Each of their plays is a masterpiece...really superb stuff. If I have to write about their perfectness, I'd have to be writing for days. Here is their website : http://tfa.org.my/bday/


6) Identify whats in the box.

 

Answer: Keiko the orca that portrayed Free Willy

7) This question is contributed by K K Shashank.
X was a cousin of Adam Smith , the renowned philosopher and economist. He is said to have won a number of contracts to supply food and whiskey to the the Royal Navy. Hence the term meal man on his grave stone. X has been made really famous for a completely different reasons, in the world of literature. Id X and the character that was based on him.
This was written on X's grave stone. 

Answer: Ebenzer Lennox Scrooge. Dickens read 'meal man' as the 'mean man'. Surprised that someone was remembered for their meanness, Dickens used this name for the character.
 

8) And an arbit connect to finish off an arbit week.

Answer: Crystal Palace. First pic: Dinosaurs in crystal palace, 2nd: the ruins of Crystal Palace, 3rd: Crystal Palace FC, 4th: Robert Baden-Powell first noticed the interest of girls in Scouting while attending a Boy Scout meeting at Crystal Palace in 1909. This observation would later lead to the formation of Girl Guides, then Girl Scouts 5th: Infomart a building in Dallas, Texas modelled after the Crystal Palace.

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Quiz Week 18

We're turning 18!

This is the simplest set so far.

ANSWERS AT THE END OF THE POST

1) There is this Finnish epic called Kalevala (pretty small compared to Ramayana and about the same size as the Odyssey). These were sung and each line had a specific tune and were in a local Finnish dialect. They were passed down from generation to generation but the lineage of the original story tellers came to a halt. But due to the efforts of few other Finnish experts many parts of the original still remain. Among the few people fascinated by these stories was X.
X was also fascinated by 13^th century Norse legend called Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks. In these stories, Odin (Thor's dad) disguises himself as Gestumblindi, a powerful man who had angered King Heidrek by refusing to pay him tribute.
Upon meeting the king, he challenges him to a battle of wits in the form of riddles. Heidrek eventually figures out it's Odin posing the question and moves to attack him. Odin quickly turns into a hawk and flies away, but not before Heidrek's sword cuts off a piece of the bird's tail. And that, according to Norse legend, is why the hawk has a stubby tail today.

Both these had a pronounced effect on X's works. X please. 



2) What was the main reason for her being awarded the Nobel prize?

3)The English alphabet once consisted of 27 alphabets : a,b,...,y,z and __________ . The symbol for this letter came from a certain roman-latin cursive style writing of the letters e and t. When school children recited the alphabet, they would add a phrase along with the last word to avoid confusion. So , what was that letter and how was it recited in schools?

4) Charles Wreford-Brown was one of Association football’s early heroes. Brown was fond of a slang fad called an Oxford-er (like a vintage version of today’s “izzle” craze.) It works like this: you shorten a word and add “-er” on the end. Breakfast becomes “brekker.” Rugby is “rugger.” So football must have been called 'footer' (and it is called so, but that is very uncommon). But he didn't, he called it something else...what? and why?


5) What comes in place of the blank?

New Zealand:

• Christian: 58.9%
• No religion: 29.6%
• Object to answering: 6.9%
• _____: 1.5%
• Hindu: 1.2%
• Buddhism: 1.2%

The UK

• Christian: 70.0%
• No religion: 14.7%
• Chose not to respond: 7.8%
• Muslim: 3.1%
• Hindu: 2.1%
• _____: 0.7%

Australia: about 70,000 (0.37%)
Scotland: about 14,000 people (0.277 %)
Canada: about 21,000 people

and btw if you think that 70,000 people is a huge number, let me tell you that the population of TNagar alone is above 100000  :P


6) "cooperation" ...there . Now what would have happened if I had typed this word and used spell check in some old Word processer?
A few other words / phrases faced a similar consequences...what happened to these 2?
Voldemort
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (a Pakisthani political party)  


7) Jacques "Jakie" Fehr was a tiny (4'8") irascible Swiss-born shopkeeper in the village of Occidental, California. One summer day in 1908, Fisher, a member of San Francisco's Bohemian Club, was riding the North Pacific Coast narrow-gauge railway passenger train northbound to the Bohemian Grove, the club's summer campsite. During a stop in Occidental, Bud Fisher got off the train to stretch his legs and observed the diminutive walrus-moustached Fehr in heated altercation with the tall and lanky "candy butcher," who sold refreshments on the train and also distributed newspapers to shops in towns along the train route.
So what was this an inspiration for?


8) Apasmara is a disorder described in the ayurveda and is a very close equivalent of epilepsy.
Apasmara also known as Muyalaka was also a demon who represented ignorance. I'm pretty sure you must have seen Apasmara. Where ?

And with this I take a break for a few weeks.

Answers:

1) JRR Tolkien, inspiration for LOTR

2) Nobel peace prize for helping set up the Nobel peace prize

3) & . Students read it as and per se and which became ampersand.

4) Association - remove A and tion, and add the er to get soccer.

5) Jedi

6) Cupertino effect , voldemort became voltmeter etc

7) Mutt and Jeff comic strip

8) The demon-dwarf on whom Nataraja dances.

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Quiz Week 17

Answers Will Be Given Next Week... Meanwhile Drop Down Your Answers... PS: DON'T POST YOUR ANSWERS AS ANON


ANSWERS POSTED AT THE END OF THE POST

Hey all....
I am back
1) lets us get started with a sitter
Connect

2)“Geckos inspire wall-climbing robot made by. researchers.”

It is a tank-like robot that can scale vertical walls and crawl over ledges without using suction cups, glue or other liquid bonds to adhere to the surface.

This was In the news a few days  months ago.

There are pictures in the next slide.

Tell me how they work??

3) What weapon was given its unusual name by the Finns when(following their refusal to surrender some strategic ports) their country was invaded by the Soviets in November 1939 in what came to be known as the Winter War during World War II?

4) A simple one again

—Which philosopher spoke of marriage thus: "by all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll become happy, if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.”

— The name of his wife by the way became epitomous for a constantly nagging wife.

—Whose the philosopher? 

5) all right,ID

6)

Connect,

also tell when,why,where etc:-

7)

This word derived from Sanskrit for, a small dot or a drop, is “sported” by worn mainly in Southern Asia.

It is supposed to be worn in the place where the 6th chakra point, Is located…

It is often used purely as a decorative purpose too many a times and was in fact very popular with teenage women in the early 90’s and was popularized in the west by Gwen Stefani & Madonna.

Simple ,What is the word??

8)

Claim to flame of this HOTEL ??

9) okay ,my last question here connects back to the firs question of this post(That by itself should serve a clue)

ID the person depicted here

For older questions,  CLICK HERE


ANSWERS

       1) Troll\Meme characters
2)The gecko feets work on the principle of van der wall's forces
          ,the hair on the feet of the gecko is so thin that the molecules of this are attracted to the molecules of the wall
3)Molotov Cocktails
4)Socrates
5) Neem Karoli Baba
6)That's david shepard and the whenever 111(a Nelson ) comes or a multiple of it comes  he lifts his leg thanks to his belief,and the second is picture of king  Nelson
7)Bindi
8)Hotel California Album Art
9)Leonidas (From the movie meet the spartans,"This is Sparta...",and hence connects back to the first question)

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