Report on the quiz on 14th October

QM: Rohit Chopra

Format: Infinite bounce with AV rounds in between.

QM Caveat: Pop culture quiz and pop culture quiz it was...

Thumbs Up:

• A question on Danny Trejo - Holy Cow - Cracked by urs truly :)
• Good crackable questions
• Ent, ent and ent :)
• Kiddo was all at sea

Thumbs down:

• Ent, ent and ent :(
• A round on Album covers
• A round on cover songs
• Kiddo was all at sea but still managed to win


Memorable moments/questions: Borat, Breath Analyser, Handcuffs, Danny Trejo(;), Bunker 13 – The bad sex award, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Some Frank Zappa Album cover - and yes Raghu cracked it.

Standings:

1st: Sudhir and Kiddo
2nd: Priyambad,JK and Neerad
3rd: Raghu,Diwakar and Rahul


Sudhir and Kiddo comfortably defeated the team comprising Priyambad,JK and Neerad.The team of Raghu,Diwakar and Rahul finished third with some good answers as well. Despite being an out and out entertainment quiz, it had some nice general questions as well. Hope the future quizzes are more balanced.

Questions from the quiz on 14th October

Here are some of the questions from the quiz on the 14th of October done by Rohit.

1. On September 27, 2007 there was a four-page advertisement in The New York Times. The advertisement primarily spoke about this country’s many natural resources and its general growth in glowing terms. This advertisement preceded the official visit of the President and his diplomatic entourage and was part of a greater PR campaign including the release of a book “________ Nuclear Disarmament: A Global Model for a Safer World.” This was seen as a reaction of what the country’s politicians believe was a propaganda war against them. What was the reason?



Ans : They were largely reacting to the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”

2. This started with an innocuous upload of a simple 1 minute 8 second video by one of the supporters of Barack Obama on to youtube using a unique way of showing Hillary Clinton as an authoritarian and a “Big Brother figure” who wanted to use acts such as “Gun control” etc to control America and the world. As is the case in the online world, a quick parody to this parody was uploaded by Hillary supporters on to youtube in a matter of days. This got into a rather interesting mud-slinging match between both candidates supporters. What was being used to create the parody in the first place?


Ans : The TV commercial – Apple 1984

3.The symbol is remarkably simple; silver lettering on a circular black band that encases four segments. The image has its origins in World War I, when the certain Luftwaffe planes were painted in two distinctive colours, affording the pilot a view through his propellor of blue and white segments. This inspired the stylized design we now recognize. Which logo ?


Ans BMW logo

4. These earlier versions caused discomfort for people with slightly larger frames. That changed in 1862, when W. V. Adams revolutionized the device with the invention of adjustable ratchets. An Adams ____ consisted of a square bow with notches on the outside that engaged with a lock mechanism shaped like a teardrop. Several years later, Orson C. Phelps patented a version of the _________that placed the ratchet notches on the inside of the square bow. What am I talking about?


Ans : Handcuffs

5. First used and developed in the 1930s for "The Thief of Baghdad," The credit for development of this is given to Larry Butler - nominated for five academy awards, winner of two. The technique has had a slight shift in name due to the higher luminance value of ______. What technique heavily used in recent films am I referring to?


Ans : The Blue screen now which is now replaced by the green screen

6. The ancient Greeks recorded the use of the willow bark as a fever fighter. The leaves and bark of the willow tree contain a substance called salicin, a naturally occurring compound similar to acetylsalicylic acid. What did this eventually evolve into?


Ans : Asprin

7. Since the discovery of the bones in Indonesia in 2003, researchers have wrangled over whether the find was an ancient human ancestor or simply a modern human suffering from a genetic disorder. The wrist bones of the 3-foot-tall creature, technically known as Homo floresiensis, are basically indistinguishable from an African ape or early hominin-like wrist and nothing at all like that seen in modern humans and Neanderthals, according to the research team led by Matthew W. Tocheri of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.Why was there so much interest in this creature?


Ans : The creature resembled the hobbit

8. Numbers, pattern, trick, technical, full body, bounce, football are all types of what ?


Ans : Types of ball juggling

9. He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head ___________, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly - Who on whom?


Ans : Captain Hastings on Hercule Poirot

10. Aniruddha Bahal is the founder and editor-in-chief of Cobrapost.com. He has worked for India Today and Outlook and is also the co-founder and former CEO of Tehelka.com, the news website. While at Tehelka, he exposed match-fixing in international cricket, titled "Fallen Heroes". He also exposed the corruption in Indian defense procurement, more popularly known as “Operation Westend.” He even wrote a book which was an espionage thriller which got some attention in international press. In 2003 for this outstanding contribution to literature he was conferred a rare literary award for an Indian. What is the name of the book and which award?


Ans : Bunker 13 – The bad sex award

Questions from the quiz on 16th September

Here are some of the questions from the quiz on the 16th of September done by Sudhir and Lathish.

1. X was an ancient Greek poet in the second half of the 1st century BCE. He was the author of short elegiacs, some of which are preserved in the Greek Anthology, e.g., "Crown of Meleager". He also composed an epitaph for Sappho in which he stated that she died of natural causes and was buried in her homeland. Cicero (Oratore, III, 50 and de Fato, 2) described him as a brilliant epigrammist but sometimes too fond of imitation.He, along with Philo , Strabo, Herodotus, and Diodoros collaborated on Y. Over the centuries, Y has been subjected to a lot of criticism from historians all over the world on account of the bias of the authors. Identify X and Y.

Answer: X =Antipater, Y = Seven Wonders of the World

2. X put down his Speed Graphic camera onthe ground, so that he could pile rocks to stand onfor a better vantage point. He nearly missed the shotin doing so. Realizing it, he quickly swung uphis camera, and snapped the photograph without usinghis view finder. Ten years after this, he wrote "Iswung my camera and shot the scene. That is how thepicture was taken, and when you take a picture likethat, you don't come away saying a great shot". Whatwas being captured on camera here?

Answer: Joe Rosenthal describing the photo of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima

3. Actinomycetes are a type of filamentous bacteria found in soil which thrive when conditions are damp and warm. However when dry conditions prevail, these form spores/cysts. Upon contact with moisture (which acts like an aerosol) these spores burst open resulting in what?This phenomenon is named after the fluid that is supposed to be flowing in the veins of Greek Gods.


Answer: Smell of wet earth after the rains

4. Origin of this phrase is from a puppet show character of the 17th century based on his Italian counterpart, Polichinello. Though it was a popular show upto the 19th and early 20th centuries, its popularity declined due to factors including political incorrectness; for instance the protagonist who was a baby murdering wife beater was depicted as self-satisfied and pleased with his evil deeds. He is considered synonymous with pleasure or pride due to the show's storyline which has him calling out "that's the way to do it" in a gleeful voice each time he murders another victim.

Answer: Pleased as punch

5.It was expression used by highway men or robbers in England in the 17th century. When these robbers held up stage coaches, they would shout _______ & _________. By X they meant that they wanted the coach not to move and by Y they meant, the passengers should hand over all their valuables to them.

Answer: Stand and Deliver

6. "Buzzing Hornets", "Bitten Heroes", "Bitten and Hisses", "Be On Edge“. Simply Connect!!!

Answer: Names used by Benson and Hedges on their F1 Cars in countries where tobacco advertising is banned.

7. According to the Middle English dictionary entry for noumpere, the predecessor of X, which came from the Old French nonper (from non, "not" + per, "equal") meaning "one who is requested to act as arbiter of a dispute between two people"--meaning that the arbiter is not paired with anyone in the dispute.

Answer: Umpire

8. Where is this pic from?



Answer: The original oceans 11


9. What did this pic inspire?




Answer: The US Democratic Party's election symbol


10. Connect






Answer: The first is a move in basketball called "Alley Oop" which derives its name from a cartoon strip that is featured in the second visual.

Questions from the Aug 19th Quiz

1. Fill in the blank:

Ashwatthama Balir Vyasa

Hanumaancha Vibheeshana

Kripa Parasuraamascha

Saptaike _______________

A: These are the 7 CHIRANJEEVIs

2. In 1711, when St. Paul's Cathedral in London had been completed and was shown to King George I, the king told Christopher Wren, the architect, that the cathedral was awful and artificial. Why

A. In eighteenth century England, "awful" and "artificial" were compliments, because "awful" (also spelled "aweful") meant "filling with awe," and "artificial" meant "full of art."

3. The last remaining supply of its raw material is a bronze cascabel tended by 15 Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps at Donnington. 1356 have been given to 1353 people (3 people had 2) between 1854 and 2006, 24 were given for a single day on 16 November 1857. What?

A. The VICTORIA CROSS

4. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the growing sea port of Liverpool became fabulously wealthy and most of that wealth was earned by city businessmen and sea captains who took cheap trade goods to the west coast of Africa and exchanged them for men, women and children whom they then shipped off as slaves to the West Indies. Several streets were named after these merchants. In 2006, a proposal was put up to rename these streets and dissociate them from the ignoble slave trade. Only one was considered for exemption. Which one?

A. PENNY LANE

5. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the radio astronomer who first discovered the pulsar in 1967, was moved by the precision of its 1.33-second periodicity to name it, tongue in cheek, the LGM signal. Expand LGM.

A. LITTLE GREEN MEN. Initially, it seemed astounding that any signal not created by a sentient life form could be so accurately periodic.

6. Fiction: What, very specifically, connects

A 'joyless economist' in San Francisco

A shop that sells sweetmeats in Brahmpur

A solicitor in London

A. All from VIKRAM SETH's works and are ANAGRAMS of his name:

KIM TARVESH

SHIV MARKET

KEITH VARMS

7. The director and cinematographer were in conversation on the set, when they happened to see a beam of light reflected from a light boy's mirror. The effect of the beam indoors made the cinematographer wonder how nice it would be if it were possible to capture it on screen. The director immediately urged him to find a way of putting the beam in the scene. The problem of getting a beam of sunlight indoors was solved by reflecting sunlight from one lighting mirror on the roof onto a second mirror which could be adjusted to cast the beam in the desired direction. To make the beam more visible, sambrani smoke was used. What resulted?

A. The WAQT NE KIYA KYA HASEEN SITAM song from Kaagaz Ke Phool

8. The plaintiff has filed suit in the US District Court in New York alleging that the defendant is entitled to use this trademark only in connection with nonprofit relief services. The suit contends that the plaintiff has exclusive rights to use the trademark on commercial products and has been doing so since 1887. The defendant claims that profits from many of the products it sells go to boost nonprofit activities.What is this trademark that has recently been in the news?

A: The RED CROSS. The plaintiff is Johnson & Johnson and the defendant is the American Red Cross.

9. Identify the person caricatured here.

A: LUTYENS, the architect of New Delhi. Check out his hat, it is the familiar dome of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

10. What is this series of numbers called? Ta(2) is the most famous one and has been blanked out.

A.TAXI/TAXICAB numbers, from the incident where Ramanujan tells Hardy that Hardy's taxi number 1729 (Ta(2)) is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes.

Report on the quiz on 19th August

Posting on behalf of Priyambad

QM: Ravi Mundoli

Format: Infinite bounce with written themes in between.

Thumbs Up:
• Absolute Cracker of a Quiz
• No LVCs
• References to Pop culture icon Megatron :)
• Good crackable questions covering a lot of varied topics

Thumbs down:
• Nothing other than the fact that it beat the living daylights of many a quizzers in Hyderabad.

Memorable questions: Jonny socko and the giant robot,Taxi cab numbers,Biafra, Coat Of Arms Of George Martin, Mousetrap

Standings:

1st: JK,Latheesh and Srini
2nd: Bhargava, Arvind and Raghu
3rd: Anil, Balaji and Rahul Girish Kumar


In a very close contest JK, Lateesh and Srini defeated Bhargava,Arvind and Raghu. A great performance by JK who came out with some amazing cracks followed by Bhargava in terms of inspired cracks. Anil and Team finished third with some very deep answers as well. Despite being a quiz on the tougher side majority of questions were cracked and credit goes to the quizmaster for the same. All in all Mahaquizzer stuff!

The next quiz has been scheduled for the 16th of September and will be done by Lateesh and Sudheer.

Questions from the July Quiz

Questions from Anil's quiz

Q.Guru Nanak ran a shop in his native Talwandi. He used to visit a nearby town called Chuhar Kana to make purchases for his shop. On the way to the town, there was a resting place where holy people who were passing through the city could stay. Guru Nanak would have regular discussions with those people and often shared his earnings with them. His father Kalyan Chand was not too supportive of this fact but Guru Nanak continued to share money with the needy people. A Gurudwara stands at that resting place commemorating this. Name the place.
A. Sacha Sauda, named after the fact that Guru Nanak told his father that he was doing a 'Sacha Sauda' - True Business /Bargain

Q.'The Sound Sweep' is a story by J G Ballard set in a futuristic world where waste noise is 'collected' and disposed by the use of a 'sonovac'. Mangon, who is the title character, finds former opera singer Madame Giaconda hiding in an abandoned radio station. She wishes to sing again, but there are no takers for her music. All music are being composed & stored in ultrasonic media and there's no demand for audible music. This story inspired Trevor Horn to do what?
A. The story was the inspiration for the song he wrote - ‘Video killed the Radio Star’

Q.Much of the British East India Company's navigational information in the 18th century comes from two pioneers Capt John Ritchie and X. X was known for his survey of Diego Garcia and surrounding waters in the late 1780s and his work enabled the British to put up a temporary settlement on the island. During this trip, X also did a check on the ocean currents surrounding the Maldives. Later, the Governor of Bombay, Rawson Hart Boddam initiated another survey enlisting officers from the Bombay marines (under the leadership of X) to figure out the geographies of a particular place. X was quite successful in this attempt and managed to produce an accurate map of the place. Identify.
A. Lieutenant Archibald Blair, who surveyed and produced the first map of the Andamans – Port Blair is named after him

Q.This word, in a particular context, was used to refer to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbours join together in a single activity usually to help one person or family. The earliest known usage was when families would come together for a sewing session. According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, the usage might have originated from an old English word which meant "voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task". This word is now associated with a few events held annually. Which word?
A. Bee, as in the Spelling Bee, Geography Bee etc

Q.He’s reported to have been the first bishop of Pavia in the 1st century. Much of his legend is known today because of a 14th century text ‘De Laudibus Papiæ’ (meaning ‘In praise of Pavia’) – he’s said to have been a follower of Saint Peter and travelled all over Italy to preach and convert. He’s now the patron saint of Pavia and his relics are housed in the city’s cathedral. Among the things named after him are a district in an Italian city and a municipality off Lake Como. Who?
A. Saint Syrus, known in Italian as San Siro – the district in Milan (& hence the stadium area) are named after him

Q.There was a ruler named Neroon who ruled over a city ‘Neroon Kot’ meaning the ‘place of Neroon’. This was a historic place dating back to the 3rd and 4th centuries. Many years later in 1768, Ghulam Shah Kalhora founded this city at the site of Neroon Kot. One of the features of the city was a massive fort that was built by Ghulam Shah to shelter as well as defend the people. He named the place after Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, who incidentally was given a nickname by his mother for the resemblance of his hair to that of a lion’s mane. Which city?
A. Hyderabad, Pakistan – named after Ali Ibn Abu Talib (named ‘Haider’)

Q.This is the name given to an internet worm which can affect all vulnerable machines in less than fifteen minutes. The SQL slammer worm was the first example of this category - it used a random number generator to determine which IP to attack next and studies by Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) showed that this method was found to be very effective when it comes to quick propagation. The same name was also applied by John Cullen Murphy Jr, who was the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, in 1997 for a unit of 'celebrityness' or hype. What?
A. Warhol, from Andy Warhol's "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes"; One Warhol would be equivalent to 15 minutes of fame

Q. In 16th century England, whenever someone from an aristocratic family would go on a deer-hunting expedition, the hunters would eat the deer meat (venison) after the hunt. The inferior parts (kidneys, intestines etc) were given over to the servants & the helpers on the hunting mission. The name for the inferior set comes from the French 'lumbulus' meaning a 'little loin' and has given rise to an English phrase. Which phrase?
A. ‘Humble Pie’, comes from (N)umble derived from Lumbulus; the lower classes were associated with eating the humble pie, later moved to become a generic expression

Q. Born in 1201, this French theologian entered the Church at a young age. After completing his education in Paris, he lived under the patronage of Comte d'Artois and Louis IX. Later he became the canon of Cambrai before becoming the canon of Paris. During that period, he began teaching and established a college in Paris to teach theology to poor students. The programme was sponsored by King Louis IX and the Pope too gave a commendation. He taught and preached there from 1258 until his death in 1274. Who?
A. Robert de Sorbon, who founded the College de Sorbonne as a part of the University of Paris. The term Sorbonne is now used for the University itself.

Q. In the Mel Brooks' film 'The Producers', two Broadway directors create a musical 'Springtime for Hitler' which is intended to flop so as to effect a tax dodge. In the film, a mock character of Hitler utters a phrase. This phrase appealed to Joe O'Herlihy, a soundman, who would often utter it while he was working on a particular album in Berlin. The band, with whom he was working, liked the phrase and used it to name their album. Which album?
A. Achtung Baby by U2

Report on the quiz on 22nd July

QM : Anil

A brilliant quiz with questions covering a whole wide range of topics.

Thumbs Up:

1. An incredible long visual connect on Hyderabadi restaurants
2. Some really well researched questions

Thumbs Down:

1. No Audio or Video questions.

The standings for the quiz were:

1. Ravi Mundoli,Subbareddy and Rishabh
2. JK, Sudhir and Debjit
3. Rahul Paul, Vivek and Devdas

The Mahaquizzer Ravi was in scintillating form and cracked questions left right and center. His team was in lead right from the word go and left the other teams fighting for the remaining 2 podium positions. Eventually JK and Rahul's team came from behind to upstage Nitish and Priyambad who were 2nd for quite a bit of the quiz, to take the 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

The next quiz is scheduled for the 19th of August at the same venue and will be done by Ravi Mundoli so for a change the top spot will also be open to all the teams.