takneek sci-tech quiz 2016
TRANSCRIPT
Takneek Sci-Tech QuizScience Coffee House feat. Quiz Club
Quizmaster: Anshul Roy
The Prelims
Rules of the game• There are a total of 20 questions in the prelims. No negative marks.
• Top 5 teams will qualify for the finals.
• 5 questions are star-marked and would be used to resolve tie-breakers. Please mark these questions on your answer sheets.
• The answer to none of the questions in this quiz is 42. Answering 42 to any question would result in immediate disqualifications.
• The more you stare at the question, the more the answer stares back at you.
• Kindly refrain from cybernetic investigations.
• The team sitting besides you has written the wrong answer. So don’t copy.
• Hints on special request (valid only if the QM is in a good mood).
• While preparing the quiz, Wikipedia has been assumed to be factually correct.
• QM is Ozymandias, the King of Kings. His decisions are final and binding.
Q - 1What is the significance of this forum post?
Q - 2On X’s 72nd birthday, a UPI photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade X to smile for the camera, but having smiled for photographers many times that day, X did something different. This photograph became one of the most popular photographs of X, often used in merchandise depicting him in a lighthearted sense. X liked this photo and requested UPI to give him nine copies for personal use, one of which he signed for a reporter. On June 19, 2009, the original signed photograph was sold at an auction for $74,324.
Which famous photograph am I talking about?
Q - 3This is the promotional poster of a reality TV show called “Planet of the apps” which was announced in March 2016 by X. This reality series is being produced by X with help from Ben Silverman and “MasterChef Junior’s” creator Howard Owens. In this TV show, contestants would be competing for mentorship, VC funding, and free marketing. This show will feature Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.am and Jessica Alba as the mentors.
Id X.
Q - 4The device shown in this picture was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth in the year 1851. Nowadays, this device is a popular display in science museums and universities all over the world.
Identify this scientific device.
Q - 5In the year 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) had purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale.
In an attempt to solve this, a graphic designer named Harvey Ross Ball was employed as a freelance artist by the company, to come up with an image to increase the employee morale. In less than ten minutes, Harvey Ross Ball came up with a simple yet world-changing image. He was paid $45 for his iconic creation by the executives of The State Mutual Life Assurance Company.
The use of this image became part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out hundreds of buttons with this image printed upon to it’s employees.
What famous image did Harvey Ross Ball create?
Q - 6This amusing poster (next slide) was spotted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the year 2012 and uses the highly recognizable style of IKEA instruction manuals to illustrate just how “easy” it is to build something.
What particular thing is this poster referring to?
*Q - 7*This is a 3rd party predictive keyboard app called X launched by Y in April 2016.
The app supports some standard 3rd party keyboard features, like the ability to text via swipe, or tapping on suggested words to speed up typing, for example. The app also includes support for Z, GIF and emoji search. But, what makes X unique, however, is the one-handed typing mode which displays a wheel-like interface that pops off the side of the screen, allowing users to reach all the letters with just a thumb.
Id X and Y.
Q - 8Recently, on 24th August 2016, X launched a new Netflix-style on-demand streaming service called “Manbang”. In the local language, the word “manbang” means “everything”.
The service is being provided by KCTV (X’s TV service). Users will hook up a set-top box to access X controlled intranet through IPTV protocol, with limited viewing options. Most content will centre around X’s history and leadership.
Funnily enough, after the launch of this service, Netflix changed it’s Twitter bio to “Manbang knockoff”. (Images on the next slide)
Id X.
Q - 9"A Sound Of Thunder" is a short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier's magazine in the June 28, 1952 issue and and in the book The Golden Apples of the Sun in 1953.
The plot of the story is set In the year 2055, when time travel has become a practical reality. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back to the late Jurassic Era, on a guided safari to kill a T-rex. As the party waits to depart, they discuss the recent presidential elections in which a fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of the public. When the party arrives in the past, the hunting guide warns Eckels about the necessity of minimizing the events he changes before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history.
Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes - English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed ___________, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned.
This short story is often mis-credited as the origin of the term X.
Id X.
Q - 10Phil Zimmermann created the first version of X encryption in the year 1991. The name, X was inspired by the name of a grocery store, "Ralph's ______ ____ Grocery", which featured in radio host Garrison Keillor's fictional town, Lake Wobegon.
Phil Zimmermann had been a long-time anti-nuclear activist, and created the X encryption so that similarly inclined people might securely use BBSs and securely store messages and files.
Id X.
Q - 11Id the blacked out part. (Image on the next slide)
*Q - 12*In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure. The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of liquid water to Earth's biosphere, the nature of the CHZ and the objects within is thought to be instrumental in determining the scope and distribution of Earth-like extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
This habitable zone is also called the X zone. The term “X Zone” had been first coined on ABC radio, as a metaphor, by Dr Charley Lineweaver and Stuart Gary to describe the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is “just right” - not “too hot” and not “too cold” - for liquid water to exist on an planet.
The location of a X Zone around another star depends on the type of star. Bigger hotter stars have their X Zones further out, while smaller cooler stars such as red dwarf stars have X Zones much closer in. Looking for planets in the X Zone is a way that allows scientists to hone in their search for Earth-like planets that could contain life.
Id X.
Q - 13Erythema ab igne also known as the “toasted skin syndrome” is a skin condition caused by long-term exposure to heat. Patients complain of mild itchiness and a burning sensation, but often, unless a change in pigmentation is seen, it can go unnoticed.
What has been reported as one of the top causes for the same, a consequence of our tech saviness?
*Q - 14*Id this “unique” food item.
*Q - 15*The X is a unit of measurement of the number of Twitter followers a person has, relative to the celebrity Y. The measurement was standardised when Y achieved half a million Twitter followers. But, as many Twitter users have fewer than one million followers, the milli-X (500 followers) is more commonly used.
Y himself has around 6 Xs followers now, as of August 2016.
Id X.
Q - 16This is a theorem from the book “Principia Mathematicia" written by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In this book, the authors tried to derive all mathematical truths from a well defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic.
This theorem is the proof of which mathematical truth?
Q - 17In August 2016, X’s CEO Y introduced an entirely new product in front of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. This product was an all-in-one Zika detecting tabletop miniLab (Image on the next slide).
According to Y, the miniLab can run a number of automated tests using blood and urine samples, including one which Y claimed was a first-of-its-kind for detecting the Zika virus. Those tests are then uploaded through a centralized system that can collect samples, process the data and dispense results.
To test it’s miniLab, X collected finger-stick samples from subjects, including in the Dominican Republic, and shipped those to Palo Alto to run on the miniLab.
Y told audience members that the plan was to fast-track the device through FDA approval under the newly issued emergency use authorization for Zika detectors.
Id X and Y.
*Q - 18*The person in this picture (next slide) is Marc Lore. He is the co-founder and CEO of X, an e-commerce startup launched in 2014.
Prior to the founding of X, Marc Lore had co-founded Diapers.com with his childhood friend Vinit Bharara. His vision for Diapers.com was inspired by his own family's experience with the difficulty of keeping necessary baby-care goods in stock. From 2005 to 2012 the company launched a portfolio of websites catering to families, including Soap.com and Wag.com. In 2011, the company was sold to Amazon for $545 million and Marc Lore then worked for Amazon for over two years.
X was publicly launched on July 21, 2015. A prominent feature of the site is it’s pricing scheme. Pricing adjustments are offered to encourage users to buy more items at once and to purchase items that are located in the same distribution center, thus making the purchases less expensive for the company to collect and ship.
On August 8, 2016, Y announced that it will acquire X for $3.3 billion in order to boost it’s presence in the e-commerce sector and to compete directly with Amazon.
Id X and Y.
Q - 19From 1992 to 1994, AT&T had run an ad campaign which focused on futuristic technological wonders.
For example - TV ads showed a woman at a video phone talking to her infant on the screen, and asked: "Have you ever tucked your baby in? From a phone booth?" All ads ended with the same promise - "You will”.
This particular ad appeared on 27th October, 1994. This ad was created by a person named Joe McCambley, who worked for the ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer.
What is the significance of this particular ad?
Q - 20It has been widely speculated that X discovered Y while he was tripping on LSD, a psychedelic drug.
X was a devotee of the novelist Aldous Huxley, whose accounts of his experiments with the hallucinogen, mescaline, in the short stories “The Doors Of Perception and Heaven And Hell” became cult texts for the hippies of the Sixties. In the late Sixties, X was a founding member of Soma, a legalise-cannabis group named after the drug in Aldous Huxley's novel “Brave New World”. X even wrote a famous letter to The Times in 1967 calling for a reform in the drugs laws.
X was close friends with a brilliant young biochemist named Richard Kemp, who devised the world's first foolproof method of producing cheap, pure LSD. However, Richard Kemp was arrested in 1977, when police stormed his laboratory and seized enough pure LSD and it’s constituent chemicals to make two million LSD tabs.
In an interview with a newspaper reporter, Richard Kemp stated that he had met X at Cambridge. X had told him that some Cambridge academics used LSD in tiny amounts as a thinking tool, to liberate them from preconceptions and let their genius wander freely to new ideas. He claimed that X told him he had perceived the Y while on LSD.
Id X and Y.
Recap
Q - 1What is the significance of this forum post?
Q - 2On X’s 72nd birthday, a UPI photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade X to smile for the camera, but having smiled for photographers many times that day, X did something different. This photograph became one of the most popular photographs of X, often used in merchandise depicting him in a lighthearted sense. X liked this photo and requested UPI to give him nine copies for personal use, one of which he signed for a reporter. On June 19, 2009, the original signed photograph was sold at an auction for $74,324.
Which famous photograph am I talking about?
Q - 3This is the promotional poster of a reality TV show called “Planet of the apps” which was announced in March 2016 by X. This reality series is being produced by X with help from Ben Silverman and “MasterChef Junior’s” creator Howard Owens. In this TV show, contestants would be competing for mentorship, VC funding, and free marketing. This show will feature Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.am and Jessica Alba as the mentors.
Id X.
Q - 4The device shown in this picture was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth in the year 1851. Nowadays, this device is a popular display in science museums and universities all over the world.
Identify this scientific device.
Q - 5In the year 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) had purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale.
In an attempt to solve this, a graphic designer named Harvey Ross Ball was employed as a freelance artist by the company, to come up with an image to increase the employee morale. In less than ten minutes, Harvey Ross Ball came up with a simple yet world-changing image. He was paid $45 for his iconic creation by the executives of The State Mutual Life Assurance Company.
The use of this image became part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out hundreds of buttons with this image printed upon to it’s employees.
What famous image did Harvey Ross Ball create?
Q - 6This amusing poster (next slide) was spotted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the year 2012 and uses the highly recognizable style of IKEA instruction manuals to illustrate just how “easy” it is to build something.
What particular thing is this poster referring to?
*Q - 7*This is a 3rd party predictive keyboard app called X launched by Y in April 2016.
The app supports some standard 3rd party keyboard features, like the ability to text via swipe, or tapping on suggested words to speed up typing, for example. The app also includes support for Z, GIF and emoji search. But, what makes X unique, however, is the one-handed typing mode which displays a wheel-like interface that pops off the side of the screen, allowing users to reach all the letters with just a thumb.
Id X and Y.
Q - 8Recently, on 24th August 2016, X launched a new Netflix-style on-demand streaming service called “Manbang”. In the local language, the word “manbang” means “everything”.
The service is being provided by KCTV (X’s TV service). Users will hook up a set-top box to access X controlled intranet through IPTV protocol, with limited viewing options. Most content will centre around X’s history and leadership.
Funnily enough, after the launch of this service, Netflix changed it’s Twitter bio to “Manbang knockoff”. (Images on the next slide)
Id X.
Q - 9"A Sound Of Thunder" is a short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier's magazine in the June 28, 1952 issue and and in the book The Golden Apples of the Sun in 1953.
The plot of the story is set In the year 2055, when time travel has become a practical reality. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back to the late Jurassic Era, on a guided safari to kill a T-rex. As the party waits to depart, they discuss the recent presidential elections in which a fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of the public. When the party arrives in the past, the hunting guide warns Eckels about the necessity of minimizing the events he changes before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history.
Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes - English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed ___________, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned.
This short story is often mis-credited as the origin of the term X.
Id X.
Q - 10Phil Zimmermann created the first version of X encryption in the year 1991. The name, X was inspired by the name of a grocery store, "Ralph's ______ ____ Grocery", which featured in radio host Garrison Keillor's fictional town, Lake Wobegon.
Phil Zimmermann had been a long-time anti-nuclear activist, and created the X encryption so that similarly inclined people might securely use BBSs and securely store messages and files.
Id X.
Q - 11Id the blacked out part. (Image on the next slide)
*Q - 12*In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure. The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of liquid water to Earth's biosphere, the nature of the CHZ and the objects within is thought to be instrumental in determining the scope and distribution of Earth-like extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
This habitable zone is also called the X zone. The term “X Zone” had been first coined on ABC radio, as a metaphor, by Dr Charley Lineweaver and Stuart Gary to describe the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is “just right” - not “too hot” and not “too cold” - for liquid water to exist on an planet.
The location of a X Zone around another star depends on the type of star. Bigger hotter stars have their X Zones further out, while smaller cooler stars such as red dwarf stars have X Zones much closer in. Looking for planets in the X Zone is a way that allows scientists to hone in their search for Earth-like planets that could contain life.
Id X.
Q - 13Erythema ab igne also known as the “toasted skin syndrome” is a skin condition caused by long-term exposure to heat. Patients complain of mild itchiness and a burning sensation, but often, unless a change in pigmentation is seen, it can go unnoticed.
What has been reported as one of the top causes for the same, a consequence of our tech saviness?
*Q - 14*Id this “unique” food item.
*Q - 15*The X is a unit of measurement of the number of Twitter followers a person has, relative to the celebrity Y. The measurement was standardised when Y achieved half a million Twitter followers. But, as many Twitter users have fewer than one million followers, the milli-X (500 followers) is more commonly used.
Y himself has around 6 Xs followers now, as of August 2016.
Id X.
Q - 16This is a theorem from the book “Principia Mathematicia" written by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In this book, the authors tried to derive all mathematical truths from a well defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic.
This theorem is the proof of which mathematical truth?
Q - 17In August 2016, X’s CEO Y introduced an entirely new product in front of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. This product was an all-in-one Zika detecting tabletop miniLab (Image on the next slide).
According to Y, the miniLab can run a number of automated tests using blood and urine samples, including one which Y claimed was a first-of-its-kind for detecting the Zika virus. Those tests are then uploaded through a centralized system that can collect samples, process the data and dispense results.
To test it’s miniLab, X collected finger-stick samples from subjects, including in the Dominican Republic, and shipped those to Palo Alto to run on the miniLab.
Y told audience members that the plan was to fast-track the device through FDA approval under the newly issued emergency use authorization for Zika detectors.
Id X and Y.
*Q - 18*The person in this picture (next slide) is Marc Lore. He is the co-founder and CEO of X, an e-commerce startup launched in 2014.
Prior to the founding of X, Marc Lore had co-founded Diapers.com with his childhood friend Vinit Bharara. His vision for Diapers.com was inspired by his own family's experience with the difficulty of keeping necessary baby-care goods in stock. From 2005 to 2012 the company launched a portfolio of websites catering to families, including Soap.com and Wag.com. In 2011, the company was sold to Amazon for $545 million and Marc Lore then worked for Amazon for over two years.
X was publicly launched on July 21, 2015. A prominent feature of the site is it’s pricing scheme. Pricing adjustments are offered to encourage users to buy more items at once and to purchase items that are located in the same distribution center, thus making the purchases less expensive for the company to collect and ship.
On August 8, 2016, Y announced that it will acquire X for $3.3 billion in order to boost it’s presence in the e-commerce sector and to compete directly with Amazon.
Id X and Y.
Q - 19From 1992 to 1994, AT&T had run an ad campaign which focused on futuristic technological wonders.
For example - TV ads showed a woman at a video phone talking to her infant on the screen, and asked: "Have you ever tucked your baby in? From a phone booth?" All ads ended with the same promise - "You will”.
This particular ad appeared on 27th October, 1994. This ad was created by a person named Joe McCambley, who worked for the ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer.
What is the significance of this particular ad?
Q - 20It has been widely speculated that X discovered Y while he was tripping on LSD, a psychedelic drug.
X was a devotee of the novelist Aldous Huxley, whose accounts of his experiments with the hallucinogen, mescaline, in the short stories “The Doors Of Perception and Heaven And Hell” became cult texts for the hippies of the Sixties. In the late Sixties, X was a founding member of Soma, a legalise-cannabis group named after the drug in Aldous Huxley's novel “Brave New World”. X even wrote a famous letter to The Times in 1967 calling for a reform in the drugs laws.
X was close friends with a brilliant young biochemist named Richard Kemp, who devised the world's first foolproof method of producing cheap, pure LSD. However, Richard Kemp was arrested in 1977, when police stormed his laboratory and seized enough pure LSD and it’s constituent chemicals to make two million LSD tabs.
In an interview with a newspaper reporter, Richard Kemp stated that he had met X at Cambridge. X had told him that some Cambridge academics used LSD in tiny amounts as a thinking tool, to liberate them from preconceptions and let their genius wander freely to new ideas. He claimed that X told him he had perceived the Y while on LSD.
Id X and Y.
Hand over your answer sheets
Answers
Q - 1What is the significance of this forum post?
AnswerThe first real-world Bitcoin transaction
Q - 2On X’s 72nd birthday, a UPI photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to persuade X to smile for the camera, but having smiled for photographers many times that day, X did something different. This photograph became one of the most popular photographs of X, often used in merchandise depicting him in a lighthearted sense. X liked this photo and requested UPI to give him nine copies for personal use, one of which he signed for a reporter. On June 19, 2009, the original signed photograph was sold at an auction for $74,324.
Which famous photograph am I talking about?
AnswerAlbert Einstein sticking his tongue out
Q - 3This is the promotional poster of a reality TV show called “Planet of the apps” which was announced in March 2016 by X. This reality series is being produced by X with help from Ben Silverman and “MasterChef Junior’s” creator Howard Owens. In this TV show, contestants would be competing for mentorship, VC funding, and free marketing. This show will feature Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.am and Jessica Alba as the mentors.
Id X.
AnswerX = Apple
Q - 4The device shown in this picture was conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth in the year 1851. Nowadays, this device is a popular display in science museums and universities all over the world.
Identify this scientific device.
AnswerFocault Pendulum
Q - 5In the year 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) had purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale.
In an attempt to solve this, a graphic designer named Harvey Ross Ball was employed as a freelance artist by the company, to come up with an image to increase the employee morale. In less than ten minutes, Harvey Ross Ball came up with a simple yet world-changing image. He was paid $45 for his iconic creation by the executives of The State Mutual Life Assurance Company.
The use of this image became part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out hundreds of buttons with this image printed upon to it’s employees.
What famous image did Harvey Ross Ball create?
AnswerSmiley Face :)
Q - 6This amusing poster (next slide) was spotted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the year 2012 and uses the highly recognizable style of IKEA instruction manuals to illustrate just how “easy” it is to build something.
What particular thing is this poster referring to?
AnswerLarge Hadron Collider
*Q - 7*This is a 3rd party predictive keyboard app called X launched by Y in April 2016.
The app supports some standard 3rd party keyboard features, like the ability to text via swipe, or tapping on suggested words to speed up typing, for example. The app also includes support for Z, GIF and emoji search. But, what makes X unique, however, is the one-handed typing mode which displays a wheel-like interface that pops off the side of the screen, allowing users to reach all the letters with just a thumb.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Word Flow, Y = Microsoft
Q - 8Recently, on 24th August 2016, X launched a new Netflix-style on-demand streaming service called “Manbang”. In the local language, the word “manbang” means “everything”.
The service is being provided by KCTV (X’s TV service). Users will hook up a set-top box to access X controlled intranet through IPTV protocol, with limited viewing options. Most content will centre around X’s history and leadership.
Funnily enough, after the launch of this service, Netflix changed it’s Twitter bio to “Manbang knockoff”. (Images on the next slide)
Id X.
AnswerNorth Korean Government
Q - 9"A Sound Of Thunder" is a short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier's magazine in the June 28, 1952 issue and and in the book The Golden Apples of the Sun in 1953.
The plot of the story is set In the year 2055, when time travel has become a practical reality. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back to the late Jurassic Era, on a guided safari to kill a T-rex. As the party waits to depart, they discuss the recent presidential elections in which a fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of the public. When the party arrives in the past, the hunting guide warns Eckels about the necessity of minimizing the events he changes before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history.
Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes - English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed ___________, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned.
This short story is often mis-credited as the origin of the term X.
Id X.
AnswerThe Butterfly Effect
Q - 10Phil Zimmermann created the first version of X encryption in the year 1991. The name, X was inspired by the name of a grocery store, "Ralph's ______ ____ Grocery", which featured in radio host Garrison Keillor's fictional town, Lake Wobegon.
Phil Zimmermann had been a long-time anti-nuclear activist, and created the X encryption so that similarly inclined people might securely use BBSs and securely store messages and files.
Id X.
AnswerX = Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
Q - 11Id the blacked out part. (Image on the next slide)
AnswerPrisoner’s Dilemma
*Q - 12*In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure. The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of liquid water to Earth's biosphere, the nature of the CHZ and the objects within is thought to be instrumental in determining the scope and distribution of Earth-like extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
This habitable zone is also called the X zone. The term “X Zone” had been first coined on ABC radio, as a metaphor, by Dr Charley Lineweaver and Stuart Gary to describe the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is “just right” - not “too hot” and not “too cold” - for liquid water to exist on an planet.
The location of a X Zone around another star depends on the type of star. Bigger hotter stars have their X Zones further out, while smaller cooler stars such as red dwarf stars have X Zones much closer in. Looking for planets in the X Zone is a way that allows scientists to hone in their search for Earth-like planets that could contain life.
Id X.
AnswerX = Goldilocks
Q - 13Erythema ab igne also known as the “toasted skin syndrome” is a skin condition caused by long-term exposure to heat. Patients complain of mild itchiness and a burning sensation, but often, unless a change in pigmentation is seen, it can go unnoticed.
What has been reported as one of the top causes for the same, a consequence of our tech saviness?
AnswerResting laptops on thighs
*Q - 14*Id this “unique” food item.
AnswerSoylent
*Q - 15*The X is a unit of measurement of the number of Twitter followers a person has, relative to the celebrity Y. The measurement was standardised when Y achieved half a million Twitter followers. But, as many Twitter users have fewer than one million followers, the milli-X (500 followers) is more commonly used.
Y himself has around 6 Xs followers now, as of August 2016.
Id X.
AnswerX = Wheaton
Q - 16This is a theorem from the book “Principia Mathematicia" written by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In this book, the authors tried to derive all mathematical truths from a well defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic.
This theorem is the proof of which mathematical truth?
Answer1 + 1 = 2
Q - 17In August 2016, X’s CEO Y introduced an entirely new product in front of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. This product was an all-in-one Zika detecting tabletop miniLab (Image on the next slide).
According to Y, the miniLab can run a number of automated tests using blood and urine samples, including one which Y claimed was a first-of-its-kind for detecting the Zika virus. Those tests are then uploaded through a centralized system that can collect samples, process the data and dispense results.
To test it’s miniLab, X collected finger-stick samples from subjects, including in the Dominican Republic, and shipped those to Palo Alto to run on the miniLab.
Y told audience members that the plan was to fast-track the device through FDA approval under the newly issued emergency use authorization for Zika detectors.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Theranos, Y = Elizabeth Holmes
*Q - 18*The person in this picture (next slide) is Marc Lore. He is the co-founder and CEO of X, an e-commerce startup launched in 2014.
Prior to the founding of X, Marc Lore had co-founded Diapers.com with his childhood friend Vinit Bharara. His vision for Diapers.com was inspired by his own family's experience with the difficulty of keeping necessary baby-care goods in stock. From 2005 to 2012 the company launched a portfolio of websites catering to families, including Soap.com and Wag.com. In 2011, the company was sold to Amazon for $545 million and Marc Lore then worked for Amazon for over two years.
X was publicly launched on July 21, 2015. A prominent feature of the site is it’s pricing scheme. Pricing adjustments are offered to encourage users to buy more items at once and to purchase items that are located in the same distribution center, thus making the purchases less expensive for the company to collect and ship.
On August 8, 2016, Y announced that it will acquire X for $3.3 billion in order to boost it’s presence in the e-commerce sector and to compete directly with Amazon.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Jet.com, Y = Walmart
Q - 19From 1992 to 1994, AT&T had run an ad campaign which focused on futuristic technological wonders.
For example - TV ads showed a woman at a video phone talking to her infant on the screen, and asked: "Have you ever tucked your baby in? From a phone booth?" All ads ended with the same promise - "You will”.
This particular ad appeared on 27th October, 1994. This ad was created by a person named Joe McCambley, who worked for the ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer.
What is the significance of this particular ad?
AnswerFirst web banner ad
Q - 20It has been widely speculated that X discovered Y while he was tripping on LSD, a psychedelic drug.
X was a devotee of the novelist Aldous Huxley, whose accounts of his experiments with the hallucinogen, mescaline, in the short stories “The Doors Of Perception and Heaven And Hell” became cult texts for the hippies of the Sixties. In the late Sixties, X was a founding member of Soma, a legalise-cannabis group named after the drug in Aldous Huxley's novel “Brave New World”. X even wrote a famous letter to The Times in 1967 calling for a reform in the drugs laws.
X was close friends with a brilliant young biochemist named Richard Kemp, who devised the world's first foolproof method of producing cheap, pure LSD. However, Richard Kemp was arrested in 1977, when police stormed his laboratory and seized enough pure LSD and it’s constituent chemicals to make two million LSD tabs.
In an interview with a newspaper reporter, Richard Kemp stated that he had met X at Cambridge. X had told him that some Cambridge academics used LSD in tiny amounts as a thinking tool, to liberate them from preconceptions and let their genius wander freely to new ideas. He claimed that X told him he had perceived the Y while on LSD.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Francis Crick, Y = DNA Double-Helix structure
The Finals
Rules of the game• 3 rounds of Infinite Pounce. 2 Written Rounds.
• The answer to none of the questions in this quiz is 42. Answering 42 to any question would result in immediate disqualifications.
• Hints on special request (valid only if the QM is in a good mood).
• The more you stare at the question, the more the answer stares back at you.
• Kindly refrain from cybernetic investigations.
• In case of a tie, weapons of choice shall be provided.
• While preparing the quiz, Wikipedia has been assumed to be factually correct.
• QM is Ozymandias, the King of Kings. His decisions are final and binding.
Bad Luck Brian memes serve as safety slides in this quiz, keep an eye out for some easy chuckles.
Infinite Pounce 1
Rules of the round• There are 5 questions in this round. One direct for each team.
• Questions are passable. No negatives on a pass.
• +20/-10 on a pounce.
• +10/-0 on a direct question.
Q - 1The device in the image (next slide) was called X. It is widely considered to be the first virtual reality head-mounted display system. It was created in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland (who later won the Turing Award for Sketchpad) with the help of his student Bob Sproull.
The device was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wireframe rooms. X displayed output from a computer program in the stereoscopic display. The heavy weight of X, and the need to track the head movements necessitated the HMD to be attached to a mechanical arm suspended from the ceiling of the lab. The formidable appearance of this mechanism inspired it’s name.
The name X is derived from a story in the Greek mythology. According to this story, a person named Y once told Dionysius, the king, that he was truly fortunate to be a man of power and authority, surrounded by magnificence. Dionysius then offered to switch places with Y so that he could also experience it. Y eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Y sat down in the king's throne surrounded by every luxury, but Dionysius arranged that a huge _____ should hang above the throne, held only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Y finally begged the king to be allowed to depart because he was always tensed due to the _____, realising that with great fortune and power also comes great danger.
Id X.
AnswerX = Sword Of Damocles
Q - 2X is a company founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings. Early investments were $2 million from the CIA’s venture arm In-Q-Tel, and $30 million from Peter Thiel and his firm, Founders Fund.
The company name X comes from a fictional magical artefact mentioned in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books. A X (sometimes translated as "Seeing Stone" but literally meaning "Farsighted" or "One that Sees from Afar") is a crystal ball, used for both communication and as a means of seeing events in other parts of the world.
The names of X’s offices are - the Shire, Grey Havens, Rivendell and Gondor, all derived from J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books. Also, the name of X’s annual company gathering is HobbitCon.
Id X.
AnswerX = Palantir
Q - 3This is a modern day replica of the head of a ventriloquist dummy called “Stooky Bill” which was used by someone to demonstrate an everyday technology for the first time.
What everyday technology? Also give me the funda.
AnswerJohn Logie Baird used this dummy in the 1924 experiment to transmit a televised image between the rooms in his laboratory.
Due to the low sensitivity of the photoelectric cells, Baird's TV was not able to televise human faces, because they had inadequate contrast. So he used a ventriloquist's dummy, whose brightly painted face had greater contrast, and made it move and talk before the scanner. Stooky Bill has been jokingly called "the first television actor".
Q - 4FoldIt was developed as an experimental research project by the University of Washington in collaboration with the Department of Biochemistry. The objective of FoldIt is to fold structures of selected proteins as well as possible using tools provided in-game. Scientists would then use these solutions to identify a native structural configuration, helping in eradicating diseases. Nearly 57,000 players provided useful results, outperforming algorithmically computed solutions.
FoldIt is an example of application of game-design elements and game principles in typically non-game contexts.
What is this concept called?
AnswerGamification
Q - 5This law has often been illustrated using the example of fax machines as follow -
“A single fax machine is useless, but the value of every fax machine increases with the total number of fax machines in the network, because the total number of people with whom each user may send and receive documents increases.”
What law is being talked about?
AnswerMetcalfe’s Law
(the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system)
Written Round 1
Rules of the round• There are 10 separate image slides in this round.
• All images are of mascots of various tech companies, operating systems, softwares etc.
• Write down the name of the tech company, operating system, software etc. whose mascot is shown.
• +10 for each correct answer. No negative marks.
• Bonus +20 marks if you get all the 10 answers correct.
• Only your team is writing the answers, everyone else is drawing dirty pictures. So don’t copy.
Q - 1
Q - 2
Q - 3
Q - 4
Q - 5
Q - 6
Q - 7
Q - 8
Q - 9
Q - 10
Exchange Sheets
Answers1. GIMP
2. Duracell
3. GNU
4. Free BSD
5. Open BSD
6. Facebook
7. Darwin OS
8. Yahoo! Mail
9. Nullsoft or WinAMP
10. NTT Docomo
Infinite Pounce 2
Rules of the round• There are 5 questions in this round. One direct for each team.
• Questions are passable. No negatives on a pass.
• +20/-10 on a pounce.
• +10/-0 on a direct question.
Q - 1X was a bioengineering company founded by John ________ in the year 1983 with the support of the ________ Foundation, the Law Offices of Cowan, Swain and Ross, and several Japanese investment firms. X’s slogan was - "We Make Your Future”.
X’s management was headquartered at Farallon Road, Palo Alto, California. When the company was being formed, the scientist Norman Atherton was it’s chief geneticist. X originally handled normal genetics and biological tampering, such as making a miniature elephant that helped Donald Gennaro raise money to fund the corporation from consortia.
However, X's true intentions were something much grander. When Norman Atherton died, his student, Henry Wu, was made the new chief geneticist. Henry Wu designed a very unique scientific procedure for which X became world famous for.
However, interference from one of X's rivals, BioSyn, resulted in a debacle and caused the company to go bankrupt. X filed for Chapter 11 protection in United States Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco on October 5, 1989. Biosyn tried to buy X in it's bankruptcy, but the Japanese investors wouldn't sell it. The company was last heard of when it's corporate headquarters and laboratory were being sold off, and it's creditors taking their loses.
Id X and the unique scientific procedure for which X became world famous for?
AnswerX = InGen Technologies
They developed the scientific procedure for cloning Dinosaurs
Q - 225924 X is an asteroid from the asteroid belt. It was discovered by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) on February 19, 2001.
It was named after the humorist, guitarist and environmentalist X, because it’s provisional designation was “2001 DA42” which happened to contain the year of X’s death, his initials, and Y.
Id X.
AnswerX = Douglas Adams
Q - 3X was a famous mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, astronomy, matrix theory, and optics.
He has been referred to as “greatest mathematician since antiquity”.
X was a child prodigy. When X was 8 years old, his class teacher was frustrated with the students. So, in an attempt to punish them, she demanded that they add up all of the numbers from 1 to 100. This is a daunting task for the average person. She expected to have the students start working on the problem, so she could leave and take a break. As she was about to walk out the door, X raised his hand and declared that the answer was 5050. The teacher was stunned. After checking his work, they found that 5050 was the correct answer.
Id X.
AnswerX = Carl Friedrich Gauss
Q - 4The person in this picture (next slide) was a famous American portrait painter in the 1800s. He made a few historic portrait paintings of some American politicians and Presidents - like John Adams, James Monroe etc. X sought to capture the essence of America's culture and life by his paintings. His most famous painting was titled “Dying Hercules”, which seemed to represent a political statement against the British and also the American Federalists.
In 1825, New York City had commissioned X to paint a portrait of Lafayette in Washington DC. While X was painting, a horse messenger delivered a letter from his father that read - "Your dear wife is convalescent". The next day he received a letter from his father detailing his wife's sudden death. X immediately left Washington for his home at New Haven, leaving the portrait of Lafayette unfinished. By the time he arrived, his wife had already been buried. Heartbroken that for days he was unaware of his wife's failing health and her death, he decided to explore a means of rapid long distance communication.
Id X and what did he invent?
AnswerX = Samuel Morse
He invented the telegraph and developed the Morse Code
Q - 5In USA, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), is an amendment made in 1986 to the Counterfeit Access Device and Abuse Act that was passed in 1984 and essentially states that, whoever intentionally accesses a computer without authorization, and thereby obtains information from any protected computer, shall be punished under the Act. While the CFAA is primarily a criminal law intended to reduce the instances of malicious interferences with computer systems and to address federal computer offences, an amendment in 1994 allows civil actions to brought under this law as well.
In June 2013, Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Ron Wyden introduced X’s Law in the US Congress. The proposed bill updated the CFAA to keep small violators from being charged under federal law. X’s law amended the CFAA to narrow the scope of the CFAA so that basic offences like violations of a website's or software's terms-of-services agreement could not lead to federal charges. It also limits the ability of prosecutors to bring federal charges on top of state charges.
X’s law is named after a famous personality. Id this personality.
AnswerAaron Swartz
Written Round 2
Rules of the round• There are 10 separate image slides in this round.
• All images are of Google Doodles honouring various scientists, inventors or mathematicians.
• Write down the name of the scientist, inventor or mathematician.
• +10 for each correct answer. No negative marks.
• Bonus +20 marks if you get all the 10 answers correct.
• Only your team is writing the answers, everyone else is drawing dirty pictures. So don’t copy.
Q - 1
Q - 2
Q - 3
Q - 4
Q - 5
Q - 6
Q - 7
Q - 8
Q - 9
Q - 10
Exchange Sheets
Answers1. Erwin Schrödinger
2. Heinrich Hertz
3. Niels Bohr
4. Thomas Alva Edison
5. Alessandro Volta
6. George Boole
7. Robert Noyce
8. Gregor Mendel
9. Pierre de Fermat
10. William Roentgen
Infinite Pounce 3
Rules of the round• There are 5 questions in this round. One direct for each team.
• Questions are passable. No negatives on a pass.
• +20/-10 on a pounce.
• +10/-0 on a direct question.
Q - 1The development of the X came about as part of a collaboration between Y and the seasoned film title designer Dan Perri. In 1976, Y invited Perri to Z, W's post-production operation at Van Nuys, California.
They took inspiration from the 1939 Cecil DeMille film, “Union Pacific”. Perri developed sketches and prototype mechanical artwork. He also designed a logotype, consisting of block-capital letters.
The X in the films were accomplished by filming physical models laid out on the floor. The models were approximately 60 cm wide and 1.80 m long. The X was accomplished by the camera moving longitudinally along the model. It was difficult and time-consuming to achieve a smooth _________ effect. Nevertheless, for an analog technique, the results were spectacular.
Id X.
AnswerX = Star Wars opening crawl
Q - 2X and Santiago Ramon Cajal were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in the year 1906 “in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system''.
While working in a psychiatric hospital, X discovered a method of staining individual neurons, which allowed him to see complex outlines of the shapes and was later used to visualise, for the first time, the branched connections between nerve cells.
X's most famous (and eponymous) discovery, however, was greatly doubted in his lifetime, with many people arguing that it was merely an illusion created by the microscopy technique he was using. It was confirmed only with better microscopes in the 20th century.
Id X and what did he discover?
AnswerX = Camillo Golgi
He discovered the Golgi apparatus in a cell
Q - 3Guglielmo Marconi won the Nobel Prize for Physics in the year 1909 for inventing the radio.
But, Marconi’s invention was based on the work previously done by X.
After Marconi became world famous for sending the first transatlantic message, X said the following - “Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.”
Id X.
AnswerX = Nikola Tesla
Q - 4The original inspiration for X occurred to Y in the year 2008 when Jim McKelvey, an old friend of Y, was unable to complete a $2,000 sale of his glass faucets and fittings because he could not accept credit cards.
The name X refers to the idiomatic term for settling debts - “________ up” and also to the _____ of the company’s hardware products.
Several other names for the company were considered, including “squirrel”, “stash”, and “wallet”. The name Squirrel was used during a meeting the company had with Apple's Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software, at that time, wherein Y saw that the Apple cafe's point-of-sale system was provided by a company called "Squirrel Systems”, and decided to change the name.
Id X and Y.
AnswerX = Square Inc., Y = Jack Dorsey
Q - 5Id the blacked out part. (Image on the next slide)
AnswerDeep Dream
One more thing…
Bonus RoundSounds like fun, right?
Rules of the round• There are 8 questions in this round. No direct questions.
• Questions are only open for pounces.
• +20/-10 on a pounce.
Q - 1Id the blanked out part in these images.
AnswerRule 34
Q - 2The following images are of two legendary Japanese Sumo wrestlers, Akebono and Konishiki. In 1992, two Stanford University students got addicted to watching Sumo wrestling. Hence, they named their workstations after these two Sumo wrestlers. In 1994, they both started X and used their workstations as the first servers of X. Also, the URL of X initially was www.akebono.stanford.edu/X
Id X.
AnswerX = Yahoo!
Q - 3Id the blanked out part in this image.
AnswerHeisenberg
Q - 4The person in this picture is Soleio Cuervo (next slide). He studied music composition at Duke University and learned to program websites by creating one for his music band. After graduating in 2003, he set up his own Web development firm. In 2005, he joined X as a web designer.
At X, Soleio Cuervo spearheaded an effort to unify the ways in which people left comments on the website. As part of the overhaul, he wanted to introduce an idea that had been cooked up at one of X's "hackathon" coding sessions (all-night events where employees gathered to work on projects that they haven't had the time to do on their regular jobs).
What did he create?
AnswerLike Button
Q - 5In the field of Chemistry, the discovery of X was a very important milestone and it’s 25th anniversary was celebrated in great style in 1890 by the German Chemical Society.
At the 25th anniversary of the discovery of X, Friedrich August _______, the German chemist who discovered X, reminisced about his major accomplishment and told about two dreams that he had at key moments of his work. In his first dream, in 1865, he saw atoms dance around and link to one another. He awakened and immediately began to sketch what he saw in his dream.
Later, Friedrich August _______ had another dream, in which he saw atoms dance around, then form themselves into strings, moving about in a snake-like fashion. This vision continued until the snake of atoms formed itself into an image of a snake eating its own tail. This dream gave him the idea of X.
Id X.
AnswerX = Chemical structure of Benzene
Q - 6The people in this image (next slide) are wearing “cleanroom suits”. A cleanroom suit is an overall garment worn in a cleanroom, an environment with a controlled level of contamination. One common type is an all-in-one coverall worn by semiconductor and nanotechnology line production workers.
The suit covers the wearer to prevent skin and hair being shed into a cleanroom environment. The suit may be in one piece or consist of several separate garments worn tightly together. It must also incorporate a properly fitted bouffant cap or mob cap.
More advanced designs with face covers were introduced in the 1990s by Intel and featured prominently in the Intel Pentium product advertisements.
How do we popularly know a cleanroom suit as?
AnswerBunny Suit
Q - 7This is the trailer of sci-fi thriller movie called “Morgan”. This movie was released on 2nd September 2016 and it tells the story of a humanoid robot with advanced AI that essentially rebels against it’s creators.
What is so special about this trailer?
AnswerThis trailer was created by IBM Watson
(It analysed the trailers of 100 existing horror movies, and analysed scenes both in terms of visuals and audio to come up with this resulting teaser.)
Q - 8In the year 2009, X decided to implement a “low-carbon approach” in it’s HQ. They rented a company called “California Y” to bring in about 200 _____s which then spend about one week at X’s HQ, doing their work.
Amy Cook, an Assistant Manager of Marketing for PETA said this about the approach - “PETA has no problem with letting _____s do what _____s want to do, but we do have concerns about how the _____s may be transported, whether they are provided with access to shelter during storms and shade as well as water during hot weather, where they are housed when they aren’t “working,” what kind of veterinary care they receive, and what becomes of old and/or excess _____s. PETA has found over and over that whenever animals are used by a business to make money, corners are cut and animals often suffer as a result. And that really gets our _____, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Niki Fenwick, a X representative replied back - “X takes the wellness of our employees very seriously and we pride ourselves on having a responsive and adaptable culture. The _____s are not, of course, full-time X employees, but we would certainly respond directly to any concerns about their treatment. I can confirm that during their time in our HQ, like other X employees, each _____ is entitled to a free organic lunch.”
Id X and what “low-carbon approach” is being talked about?
AnswerX = Google
They stopped using lawn-movers to mow their HQ lawns and instead decided to used goats to mow and fertilize the lawns at the same time.
So long, and thanks for all the quiz.
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