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 26 (London 2012 countdown)

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

Week 2 in the London 2012 countdown

This week: preparation and all the pre-olympic stuff : bid, venues, logos, campaign et al


1) On 6 July 2005, the final selection was announced at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore. Moscow was the first city to be eliminated, followed by New York and Madrid. The final two cities left in contention were London and ________. At the end of the fourth round of voting, London won the right to host the 2012 Games with 54 votes, defeating ______'s 50.
But the celebrations in London were shortlived.
Fill in the blank and why didn't London celebrate?



2) Connect: North Greenwich, St James and the City of Coventry.



3) This stadium got its name due to its resemblance to a metal and due to its shape. Identify the venue.

4) Why is there some redundancy with the naming of this Olympic venue?

 

RAS Syndrome?

5) Connect.

6) What connects these Olympic venues :

• Dorney Lake
• Hadleigh Farm
• Lee Valley White Water Centre
• Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy

7) The guy wearing #254 won four Olympic medals, including the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984. All right...but what's he doing in this set?

8) This is London's logo for the bidding process. What was the inspiration for the shape of the multi-colour widing through the text?

9) You must know who this is. Something on the head of this was inspired by a certain thing that is a very integral part of London. That thing got its name from a part of London, shown in the map. What?

10) This is from the 2012 new year celebrations in London. The first song to be played after the Big Ben's chimes (at around 58 seconds in this video) is from a certain award winning movie that is a recurring theme in this year's Olympics. The movie is based on a true story of the two athletes in the picture. Which movie?

11) Which company is missing in this list ? What is this list?
Coca-Cola, McDonalds, GE, Panasonic, Acer, Atos, Omega, Visa, P&G, Samsung, ______



12) This is British Airways Airbus A319 aircraft that carried the Olympic torch from Athens to London. It is named after a winged beetle known for its conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey. What is it called?

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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 24.

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

dont know how long this blog will survive.

1) Connect

2) Connect

3) What's special about this wedding between US president Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom

4) The first week of June in 1984 was a tragic period in our country's history. It is regarded as the greatest massacre since the brutal ways of  Ahmad Shah Durrani (in pic) in 1762 by the members of the affected religion. Which holocaust?

5) Olympic question: Put funda.

 6) This is a small gas flame, usually natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas, which is kept alight in order to serve as an ignition source for a more powerful gas burner. A term used in television gets its name from these because this serves as precursors to the start of larger activity. What term?

7) Identify this waterfalls, the location of a fictional fight, on the River Aar near Meiringen in the Canton of Bern in central Switzerland.

 8) #Ramayana

A monkey imitates what others do. X, a monkey in Sugriva's army, once resorted to penance, simply because it saw some sages doing so. When Lord Shiva appeared before the sages and asked them what boon they craved, the sages said they sought nothing, except the ability to worship the Lord always. Shiva granted them their wish.

Lord Shiva then asked the monkey what it wanted. X wanted to ask for something original. At this time, X saw something and wished that if he performed the same action, the result would be different.

Identify X and his wish.



This website would continue only if we get some hits and answers.

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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 22 #Conn set 2

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

As the post title suggests this is a connect week,BUT NOT all the answers lead to a common theme
Half the questions do,figure out which ones do and connect them all
(Its easier than it sounds,trust me)

Lets get going


1)


A particular town in canada is so proud of a certain fact that at its entrance there is a sign that reads "Home of _____" FITB



2)

what was the trending topic?

3)Today is called X Day because of the popularity of a common pun spoken on this day. Since the phrase "Y" is a famous quote often spoken in the X films, fans commonly say "Z"(a slight variation of Y) on this day. Current day X fans were not the first to introduce the line "Z". When M.Thatcher was elected Britain's first female Prime Minister, her party placed an advertisement that said 

"Z, Maggie. Congratulations."

4.What is the claim to fame of this Micro-organism? 

(Scientists recently arrived on a conclusion about its origins after decades of research)

5)

This is the logo of an Multinational Construction conglomerate owned by a certain family. It is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The name is normally abbreviated to SBG, and is considered the Largest construction firm of the Middle-East. They are in fact building the Kingdom Tower

at Jeddah.

Now, Who is the most famous person of this family, who is a civil engineer by profession? 

6)1. Open Notepad
2. Type : Q33N3. Now, go to Format menu
4. Choose Font.
5. Now, change the size to '72'
6. Now, change the font to 'Wingdings'
What would you see?

7)

which 2001 hit reggae single did this track inspire?

(originally the track was in some movie I think)

PS: the singer isn't Sean Paul

And finally..

8)

Once, a group of mexican soldiers killed the family and friends of a certain tribesman of America. 

He belonged to the Apache tribe. He was called Goyahkla. In revenge, he turned into a militant and 

killed almost every mexican guy who came across his way. However, towards the end, after a LOOOONGG pursuit, he surrendered to the US police.

It so happened that once, in a battle with few mexican soldiers, he stabbed an entire group of men to death. While he was doing so, the mexicans started praying(in spanish) to some

catholic saint St.Jerome. A few american soldiers nearby heard their shouts and thought it was the name of the guy stabbing them and thus his name 'X' remained. 

The name was  'immortalised' in History in a certain manner. However due to some controversies, it was given an official name Y.. 

Give X and Y.

Thats abt it half these answer lead to a common connect,
got it already?

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Quiz Week 21

Leave your answers as comments if you want us posting questions very frequently.

1) The seven Rishis (Sapta Rishis) became quite proud because they believed that they were extremely pious people and they were always detached because of their penance. Their wives had the idea that there were no women more virtuous than they, and there could be no wives so loyal as they were. Such pride would be inexcusable in anyone, and for sages and their wives to have such pride was unthinkable. So Shiva and Vishnu decided to teach them a lesson. Shiva took the form of a Bikshandar while Vishnu came as Mohini.
Now, the sages took a look at Mohini's beauty and forgot themselves, and about their penance.
As for their wives, the moment Siva as Bikshandar made His appearance before them, they too began to admire His good looks, forgetting that they had not so long ago claimed that they were among the most virtuous in the land!
But among the sages, X was not tempted by Mohini. And among the women, Y, the wife of X was not tempted by Bikshandar.
Due to this Y was given an exalted position, beside X.
 i Where?
This is the story behind a certain marriage ritual.
 ii Which?


2) The guy standing next to MJ is a mystic and psychic who claims that he is doing the stuff he does by using actual psychic powers. Now this guy tried to sue Nintendo over a certain pokemon.
He claimed that the pokemon was an unauthorised appropriation of his identity The katakana for the character's name, ユンゲラー, is visually similar to the transliteration of this psychic's own name into Japanese (ユリゲラー). He is quoted as saying: "Nintendo turned me into an evil, occult Pokémon character. Nintendo stole my identity by using my name and my signature image." The lawsuit was thrown out of court.
Identify the pokemon and this dude.

guy on left

3) Explain  (apologies to the non Madras fellows )
how this guy

this guy

became a barber  because of this (and local Tamils) :

barber maker

4) Sitter. What is this providing an explanation for?

funda

5) Born in Nagoya, Japan, the guy in the image began taking lessons in the electronic organ from the age of five. He improved his skills in the instrument in a cover band that played jazz and rock music. He was never classically-trained or particularly dedicated to music. However, he gained some experience in composing and arranging pieces, using both the piano and a computer to assist him.
He cites rock bands Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake & Palmer as major musical influences. He has also cited as influences the works of the Russian romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, particularly his four piano concertos.
Identify this legend or any of his major works.

identify his major work

 
6) On March 31st, 2012, computer programmer Will King took photographs of runners at the annual Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, South Carolina. King uploaded a set of almost 100 photos to Flickr and Facebook, where one of his friends dubbed a certain man as a “Ridiculously _____ Guy.” On April 3rd, 2012, King submitted the Flickr photo to the /r/pics subreddit in a post titled “My friend calls him ‘Mr Ridiculously ________ Guy’”, which received over 40,000 up votes.
According to an interview with King published by Charleston City Paper, King posted it to Flickr around lunchtime and within an hour, it had reached 300,000 views.
The day after the image was posted to Reddit, the man in the photo was identified as 25-year-old New York resident ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, by the Charleston City Paper. The article went on to claim that they were looking for ,,,,,,,,,,,, in order to conduct an interview about his newfound Internet fame. On April 5th, The Daily Mail reported that they spoke with ,,,,,,,,,,,,’s father, who revealed that his son was in a committed relationship of five years and was seeking a job in the public relations industry in New York.
Fill up the ______s and ,,,,,,,,,,,s .


7 a) A connect. Unsure if the list is exhaustive.

$1 million prize winner in Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

elegant universe

Jr. Sagan.
Though he looks like someone with Indian origins, is not.

 And a fourth scientist you'll have to get from question 7b.

7b) X and Y had a bet. If X won the bet, he would get four years of the magazine Private Eye. If X loses, Y will get one year of Penthouse. When X made the bet in 1975, we were 80% certain that Cygnus was a ____ _____.
X later said that "although the situation with Cygnus X-1 has not changed much since we made the bet in 1975, there is now so much other observational evidence in favour of ____ ____ that I have conceded the bet. I paid the specified penalty, which was a one year subscription to Penthouse, to the outrage of Y's liberated wife."
X is what I want. Fill up the blanks and give me Y if you want.

    

8) Its most striking feature is the ____ which is actually its intestines showing through its semi transparent skin. The _____ looks clearer after it eats, and the skin is very elastic so that it will not break the creature is bitten.
As the creature evolves, the direction of the _____ on its abdomen, created by its internal organs showing through the skin, reverses. The skin on most of its body is moist, due to an oily fluid; however, the skin on its belly spiral feels smooth.
The creature gets its name from a term for a certain creature in larval stage. 
The blank and the creature(s) being spoken about.

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