The Weekly Quiz

Q1 Winning what?

The Nobel Prize

Q2

This word if from graphic designer and filmmaker John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a blog project in which he names emotions that otherwise leave us speechless.

X

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your ownpopulated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited crazinessan epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that youll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Sonder

Some say this is a portmanteau of sublime and wonder

Q3. What are these called ?

The X was conceptualized by the European design duo kawamura-ganjavian, who wanted to find a creative way to provide people with the health and productivity benefits commonly associated with ________.

When in action, it looks similar to what a/an Y does during troubled times Hence the name X .

Ostrich Pillows

Q4. Welcome to Nollywood

Excerpts from a guardian article from 2006:
______ is home to one of the world's youngest film industries, but it's booming. In just 13 years it has gone from nothing to estimated earnings of US$200m (114m) a year - making it the world's third biggest film industry after that of America and India. The films are made on the cheap, but they are big box office.Except that there is no box-office. Movies are shot on video and copied straight on to tapes or DVDs and then sold on from thousands of street stalls and hole-in-the-wall shops, not just in X but across the continent.PS: This film industry still continues to be there amongst the top ones.

Nigeria

Q5

X is a series of public art installations started by Maya Barkai, a photographic collage of ______ icons assembled from around the world, presented in humane scale. The project was conceived as a collaborative effort of international photographers, each adding a piece to the collage. In January 2010, the project made its debut on 99 Church Street in Manhattan. The project explores various representations of the universally rendered man, and attempts to examine its inherent conundrum; why is it that while we all consider these icons to be typologically identical, they appear to add such a unique character to our urban identity. (pics on next slide)

Pedestrian Traffic Icons

Q6

The term occurred to me when we started out on a tour of Karnataka, from Mysore, through Hunsur and Hassan, and returning to Mysore nearly one week later, having continuously journeyed up and down the ghats, the Konkan coast and Coorg, and never seeing a dry patch anywhere. Green of several shades we saw, mountainsides lightly coated with verdure and fern, the dark foliage of trees rising hundreds of feet from the valley, light green, dark green, pale green, evergreen, and every kind of green shade, were offered for our delectation all through our circular tour of approximately a thousand kilometres.X is a travelogue by Y which was published by Indian Thought Publications in 1980. The book was commissioned by the Government of Karnataka, and the initial non-commercial version was published in 1977 as part of a government publication.

The Emerald Route

Q7

The earliest known appearance of the phrase is from The Michigan School Moderator, a journal that provided teachers with education-related news and suggestions for lessons.The first message sent on the MoscowWashington hotline was the test phrase "________ 1234567890". Later, during testing, the Russian translators sent a message asking their American counterparts "What does it mean when your people say '_________'?Due to the ubiquitous popularity of the phrase, numerous passing references to the phrase have occurred in movies, television, books, advertising, websites, and graphic arts.Microsoft Word has a command to auto-type the sentence, in versions up to Office 2003, using the command =rand(), and in Office 2007 and later using the command =rand.old().

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Q8

X is a philosophy and lifestyle inspired by the modern-day fictional character Jeffrey "The ____" Lebowski, as portrayed by Jeff Bridges in the film The Big Lebowski.Founded in 2005 by Oliver Benjamin, a journalist based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, X official organizational name is The Church of the Latter-Day _____. At least 160,000 "____ist Priests" have been ordained as of August 2012.X's stated primary objective is to promote a modern form of Chinese Taoism, , blended with concepts by the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus , and presented in a style as personified by the character of "The _____".(contd)

They list individuals such as Laozi, Epicurus, Heraclitus, Buddha, and the pre-ecclesiastical Jesus Christ as examples of ancient prophets of the religion. More recent antecedents include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman and humanists such as Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain.

Dudeism

Q9

The "scalloped" shape of the now-familiar ____ symbol, with a dent in its base, first arises in the early 14th century, at first only lightly dented, as in the miniatures in Francesco Barberino's Documenti d'amore. A slightly later example with a more pronounced dent is found in a manuscript from the Cistercian monastery in Brussels . The convention of showing a dent at the base of the _____ thus spread at about the same time as the convention of showing the _____ with its point downward.There are several mathematical descriptions that result in approximate _____ curves. The best-known of these is the X, which is an epicycloid with one cusp.Other curves, such as the implicit curve (x2+y21)3x2y3=0, may produce better approximations of the shape.

Heart

Q10

Toward the end of 'The Avengers', Iron Man asks Captain America, "Have you ever tried X? There's a X joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."The filmmakers also snuck in a little footage, following the credits, of the stars hanging out and digging into some X. This apparently led to a drastic increase (of about 80%) in the sales of X after the movie opened. This was also called as the Downey effect in some circles.

Shawarma

Q11

Homage to whom ?

Tony Greig

Q12 Rejects

The top green strip portrays in the background the _____ Mountains of the West and the L's of the East.The second strip of yellow gold depicts the growing grain for which X is famous.The third strip describes untold numbers of rivers and thousands of lakes...the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic....The coats of arms of the ten provinces which make up X are in the shape of an arc and depicts its beginning and origin. Even the shape of the arc has a meaning - freedom, better life and individualism for all those who want to make X their new country.

Canada

Q13

The U.S. dollar has grown into one of the world's most stable currencies, but such wasn't always the case. In fact, before it could grow in value, it had to rein in counterfeiting. When the colonies first started, it was pretty easy to print; there were a lot of printers, money wasn't very sophisticated and there just wasn't a lot of anti-counterfeiting. In order to create an artificial scarcity they printed the words __ ____________ __ _____. All 13 colonies printed this on all of their money, which was eventually replaced by In God We Trust.'
So basically before we had In God We Trust,' it was actually in the X we trust.

To Counterfeit is DEATH

Q14

Competitive ________ events include:

Big Day: teams have 24 hours to identify as many different types as possible.

Big Year: like a big day, but contestants are individuals, and need to be prepared to invest a great deal of time and money.

Big Sit or Big Stay: participants must see X from a circle of prescribed diameter (e.g.: 17-foot). Once X are spotted, they can leave the circle to confirm the identity, but new ones seen may not be counted.

Bird Watching / Birding

Q15

The first _______ Contest was held in 1960, and it's been played every year since. The contest is held on Wednesday, the day before the tournament, and is open to the field for that year's tournament, plus former champions in attendance and "Honorary Invitees."

Sam Snead won the first ever contest. The contest record is 20, held by Art Wall and Gay Brewer.

It is also interesting to note that no winner of this contest has gone on to win the main tournament.

Par 3 contest

Q16

On the left is the cover of The French Revolution by Matt Stewart published on Bastille Day ( July 14th) in 2009.

This is what he had to say about the book:Its tremendously rewarding to see that publishers are embracing a terrific storyand innovative ways to connect with readers

So what was so innovative about the book ?

First full-length novel to be published entirely on Twitter.

Q17 Patent time

Patent filed in 1993 which "allows a user to simulate a ______ in celebration of a positive event, thereby providing the user with a convenient outlet for the release of excitement.

What is this a patent for?

Hi-fi Machine

Q18

According to a press release by a mental health charity, the formula is:

where weather=W debt=d, time since Christmas=T, time since failing our new years resolutions=Q, low motivational levels=M and the feeling of a need to take action=Na. 'D' is not defined in the release, nor are units

The date was declared to be 24 January in 2005,

23 January in 2006,

22 January in 2007,

21 January in 2008,

19 January in 2009,

18 January in 2010.

In 2011 there was confusion about the correct date; some claimed it to be 17 January 2011/24 January 2011.

23 January in 2012.

January 21 in 2013.

Blue Monday

To calculate the most depressing day of the year.

Q19

During World War II, military scientists on both sides of the struggle were actively searching for ways to get the upper hand. One idea that came from the US was the _______, codenamed Project X-Ray.

Developed by Lytle S. Adams and actually approved for use by President Roosevelt, the _____ consisted of a large empty bombshell which was packed full of ________. At a certain altitude the bombshell would open and the ____, would jet out by the thousands.

Each ___ had a small charge with seventeen grams of napalm attached to it. When the ____ landed on the trees and houses of Japan, the tiny bombs would ignite and set everything on fire. The project was at one point one of Americas main strategies, and thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats were imported for the cause, but it was eventually shut down to invest more money in the atomic bomb.

Bat Bombs

Q20

Savoy Court Hotel (Eastbourne, UK)(pic in next slide) is a privately owned property. It is not a public thoroughfare as it leads only to the hotel itself. There is a very unique tradition that is followed here. Apparently this dates back to the old Hackney Cabs wherein by doing something, the driver was able to open the backdoor without leaving the cab, allowing the passengers to alight on the sidewalk.

What is so unique about it ?

Only street in Britain where you must drive on the right