Question - 45

Connect the visuals.

Update: I will be on the road for a couple of days. New posts in this time will depend on enthu level and availability of high speed internet. Guaranteed updates shall resume on Monday September 1st.

Answer: The flying Dutchman. The painting is that of the ghost ship, the baseball card is that of Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh pirates whose nickname it was (incidentally, the card shown is among the rarest of baseball cards and extant copies are easily worth millions of dollars), the sketch is that of a roller coaster of the same name and finally Dennis Bergkamp is called the non-flying Dutchman due to his fear of flying. Arvind, Mihir+Shashank, Divya, Hirak, Raghu and an anon got it. Well done. Starting tonight, there will be updates as usual every night.

Question - 44

Connect the three women (order of the visuals goes from the viewer's left to right and the connect goes in the same direction).

Answer: The women are Anna Wintour, Meryl Streep playing Miranda Priestly in the Devil wears Prada and Megan Ward playing Kate Howard in General hospital. The character Kate Howard is inspired by Meryl Streep's character in the movie which in turn is inspired by Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. Hirak and Vateez got it. Well done.

Question - 43

Who is being caricatured and what event is being depicted?

Answer: Cecil Rhodes (of Rhodes scholarship fame) and his plan to lay telegraph lines across Africa. Manix, Ashwin and Divya got both parts right while Arvind, Iam, Rajesh and an anon got the person right. Well done.

Question - 42

Little known cover of which famous book?

Answer: What can the answer to the 42nd question be but Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. Helpfully, the cover has 42 globes based on a puzzle invented by Douglas Adams. Cracked by Vateez, Arvind, Iam, Trevor, Rajesh, Manix and Raghu. Well done.

Question - 41

Identify the artist.

Answer: Bill Waterson. The guy with the bagpipers is a spitting image of Calvin's dad who in turn is modeled on Waterson himself. Iam and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 40

Identify the person who made these sketches.

Answer: Vladimir Nabakov. He taught in Cornell, Ithaca and was a great lepidopterist in addition to being a great writer. Mihir, Ramji, Iam (in the style of Clare Quilty), Divya, Hirak, Sankalp, Ashwin and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 39

Today's question is courtesy Iam. Identify A & B (they share a common theme). Image A is a bit cropped to remove the legend in the map. The disappearance of Antarctica and New Zealand are not important.

Answer: Visual A shows the spread of Avian influenza across the world with the red dots showing countries where the flu spread to humans. The second visual is cheekily termed B and shows the spread of killer bees across United states. Swapnaa got the first one but could not crack the second visual.

Question - 38

Today's question is courtesy Manix. Connect the movies. Be advised that it is a non-movie connect. Update: The pairing of the visuals isn't important. One needs to connect all 6 visuals.

Answer: Songs by Dire Straits. The movies and the associated songs are Blade (six blade knife), The Kingdom (kingdom come), Once upon a time in the west (once upon a time in the west), Romeo and Juliet (romeo and juliet), Far and away (so far away) and four brothers (brothers in arms). Divya and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 37

Seal of which movement?

Answer: The Spanish inquisition. Iam, Divya, Ashwin and Rajesh got it right. Well done. I was a bit under the weather yesterday and didn't get around to posting the question. Regular updates will resume tonight.

Question - 36

A feminist take on which famous painting?

Clarification: Not a super famous painting per se but definitely a favorite subject with many many painters.

Answer: "Judgement of Paris" - a story in Greek mythology that was a favorite of many painters. This particular one is by Mary Ellen Croteau. Cracked by Raghu and Divya+Iam+Vatheez. Well done.

Question - 35

What is the gloved hand pointing to?

Answer: The K-T boundary (Cretaceous-Tertiary period) associated with a major mass extinction. This layer has higher than normal iridium concentration which suggests a meteor impact which is widely believed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Hirak, Divya, Ashwin and a very inventive Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 34

Connect the visuals. It is not an exhaustive list. In the B&W pic, only one person is relevant.

Answer: The people are Goliath, Hannibal Lecter, Anne Boleyn, Count Rugen (from the movie "The princess bride"), Little Tich and Gary Sobers. They are all polydactyl - they have more than 5 fingers/toes. Vatheez, Sankalp, QoD, Divya, Rajesh and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 33

They belonged to an exclusive club a while back. Not anymore. Identify them.

Answer: Paavo Nurmi, Larissa Latynina, Carl Lewis and Mark Lewis. These guys led the Olympic gold medals tally at 9 till Phelps broke the record. Imitator, Divya, Raghu, Iam, Ashwin, QoD, Swapnaa, Rajesh, Samrat, Hirak, Arvind and Sumedha got it. Well done.

Question - 32

Advertisement for what?

Answer: The Pony Express - a transcontinental postal system between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. Cracked by Mekhala, Divya, QoD, Hirak, Ashwin, Rajesh, Iam and Suchi. Well done.

Question - 31

Identify and connect.

Answer: These are all brand names that feature frequently in Quentin Tarantino's movies. They are in order the Fruit Brute cereal (this one is not fictional but is no longer in production), G.O. Juice, Big Kahuna burger (perhaps the most famous of the five featuring prominently in a pivotal scene in pulp fiction), Red Apple cigarettes and Teriyaki donuts. Samrat, Ramji, Divya and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 30

Connect the visuals.

Answer: The connect is "Heart of darkness" by Joseph Conrad. The first visual is the Roi des Belges, the raft in which Conrad went up the Congo river. The second is the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe who wrote a wonderfully thoughtful piece on the racist views expressed in the novel. The third is T.S.Eliot whose "Hollow Men" ends with a reference to the novel. The fourth is the poster of "Apocalypse now", a movie based on the novel. In fact, Marlon Brando quotes from "Hollow Men" in the movie. Mekhala and Rajesh cracked it as did the team Iam, imitator and manix. Well done.

Question - 29

Publicity poster for what event?

Answer: The famous "Battle of the sexes" between Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King that contributed a lot to the popularity of Tennis in America. Anand, Arvind, Ramji, Raghu and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 28

Identify both visuals and connect.

Answer: Antikythera mechanism - supposedly the world's oldest analog computer at over 2200 years old. There is no consensus as to its purpose but was probably used to predict eclipses and such. The right visual is the British science historian Derek J. de Solla Price who built and studied a model based on the Antikythera mechanism. Mekhala was the only one to get this. Well done.

Question - 27

Today's question is courtesy Hirak.

MC, an artist made this for her graduation project. However, she kept the location a secret. This was for two reasons:
a) It's the way the game is played.
b) A particular process that is key to this project of MC is dependent on a secret schedule maintained by 'X'.

What is X and what exactly did MC do? (MC is the initials of the artist).

Answer: Melanie Coles painted a giant image of Waldo the clown from "Where is Waldo" series of children's books on a rooftop in Vancouver and invited people to find him using Google Earth. This would also give an idea of the schedule employed by Google for taking the satellite pictures. Cracked by Divya, Iam, QoD and Rajesh. Well done.

Question - 26

Identify the kid and as many of the gentlemen as you can.

Answer: The kid is a very young Tiger Woods appearing in the Mike Douglas show. The other two gentlemen are Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart. There is a youtube video of his appearance here. QoD, Raghu, Samrat and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 25

Blogger isn't letting me upload any images. So, today's question is dry. I have obfuscated it as much as I could to make it not too easy. If blogger lets me upload the visual, I will put a new question.

Question: In a 2002 poll, 61% believed the answer is no, 9% believed the answer is yes, 22% were undecided and 8% that it is undecidable. Some think analyzing minesweeper would give some insight into the question. What am I talking about?

Answer: The P vs. NP problem. The minesweeper connection is here. Divya and Raghu got it right. Well done.

Question - 24

This car and countless others like this have been scouring the streets of the US, France and Italy since May 2007. Identify their purpose.

Answer: The vehicles are Google-operated for taking pictures for Google streetview. Pablo, QoD, Hirak, Mekhala, Raghu, Iam, Trevor Burnham, Divya, Mihir, Rajeev and an anon got it. Well done. Good to see some veteran members of Quizclub who have graduated making an appearance here.

Question - 23

What is this? Question courtesy of Iam.

Answer: Ekranoplan, a Russian GEV (ground effect vehicle). Indiandreamer is the only one to get this. Well done.

Question - 22

Before today's question, I apologize for the delay in posting. I had to move out of my apartment and was up all night shifting. Also, I will be traveling over the weekend. To make amends, I am posting three questions now the answers to which shall be posted Sunday night. Regular updates will start on Monday. Onto the questions...


3-D depiction of what? Question courtesy of QoD.

Answer: Rembrandt's Night watch. Hirak, Anand, Raghu, Mekhala, Iam and an anon got it. Well done.