siddharth's quiz, august '09
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TRANSCRIPT
Quiz
Siddhartha Gorantla
Question 1
Answer 1
Countries Contributing to the International Space Station (ISS). Notice that French Guyana is marked red.
Question 2
American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age drama that was nominated for an Academy Award for best motion picture. Made on a
meager budget of $1.27 million, the movie was a commercial and critical success. During the sound mixing, the director liked the way the
Sound Designer asked for the second dialogue from the second reel so much that he
incorporated it into another movie of his. What in which movie?
Answer 2
George Lucas was the director of American Graffiti. When the Sound Designer wanted Dialogue 2 from Reel 2, he asked for R2D2, which Lucas incorporated into the Star Wars series.
Question 3
XXXX was an early aviator and fighter aircraft pilot during World War 1. He was the first man to fly solo over the Mediterranean and is erroneously called the world’s first fighter ace.
In honour of his war contributions and such, the international airport at La Reunion is named after him. Peugeot Car Manufacturers named special editions of their 106, 205, 206, 207, 306 and 806 after him. He is, however, mostly remembered today for a place he attended frequently in the 1920s, a place that eventually took on his name. Who?
Answer 3
Roland Garros
Question 4
Eastern Conference
• Boston Lobsters• New York Buzz• New York Sportimes• Philadelphia Freedoms• ????
Western Conference• Kansas City Explorers• Newport Beach
Breakers• Sacramento Capitals• Springfield Lasers• St. Louis Acers
Answer 5
Washington Kastles. This is an exhaustive list of the teams in
World Team Tennis (WTT). Washington Kastles is the team for which Serena Williams and
now Leander Paes play.
Question 5Shamelessly lifted from Wiki, “Renowned for his
elegant batting style, he played in a manner similar to the great Australian batsmen Victor Trumper, and
Alan Kippax. His Test and first-class career coincided with the early playing years of Don Bradman, to whom he was often compared. Before the two
departed for England as part of the 1930 Australian team, some observers considered him the better
batsman, capable of opening the batting or coming in down the order. It is speculated that, had he lived, he may have rivalled Don Bradman as a batsman.” Who?
Answer 6
This is Archibald “Archie” Jackson, who died of Tuberculosis at the age of 23.
?
Answer 7
Alberto Contador. This is an exhaustive list of cyclists who have won all three Grand tours of cycling : Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana and Giro d’Italia. The ones in the pic are Felice Gimondi, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx (Clockwise from top left).
Question 7Wiki again, “X is a native of Seattle who exhibited an early
interest in theoretical physics, especially quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity. His childhood heroes
were Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman. After observing a series of teleportation
experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics in Innsbruck, Austria, the transmission of matter became X's obsession. X has no known dependents. He graduated from MIT with a Ph.D. degree in Theoretical
Physics. His doctoral thesis on the teleportation of matter through extremely dense elements was titled Observation of
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked
Source Array.” Who?
Answer 7
Gordon Freeman from the Half Life series of Video games.
Answer 8
I’m not there, a movie inspired by the events that took place in the life of Bob Dylan. Actors, in clockwise order starting top left, are Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger and Richard Gere.
Question 9On Free and Open Source “[..] cancer that attaches itself in an
intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”
On Google/Schmidt "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I
will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google.”
On his previous employer "I'm not going to need him for anything. That's the principle. Use him, yes, need him, no.“
Who?
Answer 9
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft.
Question 10
Very bad question, but I had to put it in. This a list of what:
Goodfellas 300 2.06Reservoir Dogs 269 2.71Pulp Fiction 265 1.72The Big Lebowski 260 2.22 The Departed 237 1.56American History X 214 1.79
Answer 10
This is a list of movies with the maximum usage of the word “fuck”
in them. There are, of course, a lot of movies that come in the middle and
above and below as well. BAD QUESTION.
Question 11
What are these laws called:
• Never throw shit at an armed man• Never stand next to somebody throwing shit at an armed man.• Never fire a laser at a mirror• Mother Nature doesn’t care if you’re having fun• Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naïve.• Psi and/or magical powers, if they exist, are useless.• It is easier to destroy than to create.• Any damn fool can predict the past.• History never repeats itself.• Ethics change with technology.
Answer 11
Nevin’s Laws, named after the Sci-fi author Larry Nevin.
Question 12 X is an Austrian village in the municipality of Tarsdorf, in the Innviertel region of
western Upper Austria. The village is located 33 kilometres (21 mi) north of Salzburg, four kilometres (2.5 mi) east of the German border.
The settlement of X has existed since at least 1070 and is named after a man from the 6th century called _____. “____” is an old Germanic suffix indicating the people of the root word to which it is attached; thus X means "(place of) X’s people." The village has a population of 107.
X's most famous feature is a traffic sign with its name on it, beside which tourists often stop to have their photograph taken. It is a commonly stolen street sign. Significant public funds have been spent on replacing the stolen signs.
In 2004, mainly due to the stolen signs, a vote was held on changing the village's name, but the residents voted against doing so.According to the town mayor, Siegfried Hauppl:
“ We had a vote last year on whether to rename the town, but decided to keep it as it is. After all, X has existed for 800 years, probably when a Mr ____ or the ____ family moved into the area. The ‘___' was added as a word for settlement. ” In August 2005, the road signs were replaced with theft-resistant signs welded to steel and secured in concrete to prevent further chances of the sign being stolen.
Few thefts have since occurred, but it remains a problem.
Answer 12
This is a curious little village in Austria called Fucking.
Question 13
Originally started by an English Teacher, A history teacher and a writer, it was named after one of the characters in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The largest company of its kind in the world, it has now expanded to other markets like books, music and film. Through the 1990s and well into the 2000s, the company has expanded at an astonishing rate setting up one new unit every working day. Like most companies its size, it has been a frequent target of protests on issues such as fair-trade policies, labour relations, environmental impact, perceived anti-competitive practices, and rumours of support for the Israeli military. Which company?
Answer 13
STARBUCKS
Question 14
RadioShack Corporation (formerly Tandy Corporation) is a chain of electronics retail stores in the United States, as well as parts of North America, Europe, Central America, South America and Africa. As of 2008, it had 4,653 company-owned stores, 688 kiosks, 8 service centres, and 1,408 dealer outlets and a reported net sales and operating revenues of $4.81 billion. Why was it in the news recently?
Answer 14
RadioShack Inc. will sponsor the new team being floated by Lance Armstrong and longtime coach Johan Bruyneel that will (hopefully) be taking part in the 2009 Tour de France.
Question 15The law, as set out by John Bangsund, states that: (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a
fault of some kind in what you have written;(b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;(c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault;(d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.
It goes on to say: X also dictates that, if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face,
everyone can see it but you. Your readers will always notice errors in a title, in headings, in the first paragraph of anything, and in the top lines of a new page. These are the very places where authors, editors and proofreaders are most likely to make mistakes.
What?
Answer 15
Muphry’s Law.
Question 16
Bad Question Again. Connect:University of California, BerkeleyPurdue UniversityUniversity of California, Los AngelesMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyHarvard UniversityColumbia UniversityCornell UniversityHint: Think Internet.
Answer 16
First Universities to put their Archives on the Internet. For further information on the subject, contact
SDM. He had research proposals rejected by all these Universities,
apparently.
Question 17
Her mother, Irene, was the eldest child of Max Born, the German physicist and Nobel Prize winner. Her father, Brinley was an MI5 officer and took Rudolph Hess into custody during World War II. She hit the limelight with the film adaptation of a Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey broadway musical about the way rock and roll changed American sexuality and culture.
Identify.
Answer 17
Olivia John Newton
Question 18• This term, developed in the 16th century, was used to describe rough,
noisy and boastful swordsmen. It is based on a fighting style using a side-sword in one and a _________ in the off-hand, which was filled with the production of a peculiar sound.
A classical X exhibits exceptional courage and swordfighting skill, a strong sense of honor and justice, a chivalric romantic sense, and the capacity for wit, style, and resourcefulness under pressure. Such characters include The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Robin Hood, Zorro.
Today the term has changed, and refers to both a type of fictitious character and to a fiction genre. It also refers to a brilliant performance by someone.
What term?
Answer 18
Swashbuckler
Question 19
• Connect
a. A 1928 recording by Louis Armstrong and his orchestra named after a slang term used in the Jazz world for marihuana
b. A term used by geocachers to refer to those not involved in or aware of the sport of Geocaching
c. A term inducted into the OED in 2003 standing for a person lacking a skill
Answer 19
Muggle
Question 20
• Felice ______ was an Italian pharmacist, a maker of liquor and freedom fighter under Garibaldi. Born in Gerolanuova near Brescia, he established a chemical laboratory in Milano, developing a successful amaro made as an alcohol infusion of cinchona bark, herbs, and iron salts. The laboratory made the "l'esanofele", a chemical based on quinine, iron and arsenic to combat malaria.
Why is this person very important in an Indian context?
Answer 20
His surname is Bisleri.