Question - 95

Identify and connect all visuals. If possible, identify the etymological significance of the connect. The etymology is in an Indian language and unless you know the language, it is probably hard to get that part of the connect.

Answer: The ship is the SMS Emden which bombed Madras during World War I. She had a much romanticized history of sinking or capturing nearly 30 allied warships before being run aground (the visual shows the grounded ship). The second visual shows some of the unexploded shells that are on display in the Madras museum. The third visual is Champakaram Pillai, the second in command on the German ship who sided with the Germans during WWI against the British Raj. His volunteer force was supposedly Subash Chandra Bose's inspiration for the INA. He was also the Prime Minister of the short lived Provincial Government of India which was based out of Afghanisthan. He was either poisoned or tortured to death by the Nazis in 1934. To this day, a sneaky street-smart person is referred to in Tamil and Malayalam(?) as an Emden. Manix and Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 94

Shown is a picture from a yearly event in a small town in New Hampshire. Every year these people gather and attempt to break their own world record (Recently, they lost the world record to a similar event in Boston). What is the event?

Answer: This is the Keene pumpkin festival that happens yearly in Keene, New Hampshire where they try to collect the maximum number of jack-o-lanterns in a single place. Keshav and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 93

The building in the first visual inspired a famous work. The building in the second visual was used in an adaptation of the work. Both buildings are now in the U.S National Historic Landmarks list. Identify both and the work in question.

Answer: The first visual is the Stanley hotel near the Rocky Mountains national park, Colorado. Stephen King was inspired to write "The Shining" after a stay here and based his Overlook hotel on this one. The second visual is the Timberline Lodge with Mt. Hood in the background in Oregon. Kubrick used this hotel in the movie adaptation. Raghu, Mekhala, Kr!sh, Rajesh and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 92

The guy in the first visual invented something. He either named it after a legend surrounding the second visual or he himself invented the legend as well. There is also a less famous name for his invention that is named after the third visual. Identify all three visuals.

Answer: The person is the French mathematician Edouard Lucas who invented the "Tower of Hanoi" puzzle. The second visual is the tower at Hanoi, Vietnam after which the puzzle is named. The puzzle is also called the "Tower of Brahma" sometimes. Legend has it that Buddhist/Hindu monks have been moving 64 golden disks as per the rules of the puzzle and when they are done, the world will come to an end. Divya, Iam, Mekhala, QoD and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 91

Today's question is courtesy Mekhala. Identify what the map is about.

Answer: The map shows the legality of relations between two people of the same sex across the globe ranging from allowing same sex marriages (dark green) to death penalty (dark red). Divya, Rahul Trivedi and QoD got it. Well done.

Question - 90

This is a paradoxical concept in economics an example of which is shown in the price-demand curve in the first visual. Historically, the most famous example of this phenomenon is shown in the second visual. However, recently this has been debunked and the third visual is suggested as an example of this phenomenon. Identify the phenomenon.

Answer: The phenomenon is that of the Giffen good. The classic example was thought to be potatoes during the Irish famine but this was recently debunked. Gasoline is thought to be a modern example. See Swapnaa's comments for more details. Swapnaa, Rahul Trivedi, Hirak, Trevor Burnham, Iam and Raghu got it. Well done.

Question - 89

Identify the visuals and connect.

Answer: This is the memristor which by some definitions would be the fourth fundamental passive two terminal circuit element along with the inductor, capacitor and resistor. It has only recently been synthesized at the HP labs. The first visual is a picture of the device, the visual below is the symbol and the other visuals are the electrical characteristics of the device. Rahul Trivedi and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 88

Today's question is courtesy Swapnaa. Connect the visuals.
Update: It has gone unanswered so far. Here is a hint: The connect is a certain act which is being performed in the second visual. The first visual shows the legal status of the act across the globe as of today. I will let the question run till tonight with the hint.

Answer: The connect is abortion. The first visual shows the legal status of abortion in different countries and the second shows a Bas-relief from Angkor Wat depicting a demon performing an abortion by pounding a mallet into a woman's belly. Went unanswered.

Question - 87

This phenomenon is named for the man shown in the top left visual. The other four visuals also show people who are supposedly victims of this phenomenon. What is the phenomenon and why has it been in the news recently?

Answer: The phenomenon is called the Bradley effect and it is the false high poll popularity enjoyed by a non-white candidate when running against a white candidate due to the tendency of many pollsters to name the non-white candidate as their choice while not actually voting for them. The people shown are (from top left clockwise) Tom Bradley, Douglas Wilder, Jesse Jackson, David Dinkins and Harold Washington - some supposed victims of the effect. It has been in the news because of Barack Obama but there is also a theory that Obama might enjoy a reverse Bradley effect. Swapnaa, Vikrant, Rajeev, Anand, Raghu, Rajesh, Manix, Hirak, Kr!sh, Ramji and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 86

Identify the two men in the first visual and connect them to the second visual. Think literature.

Update: The question might have been too hard as originally stated. I have added a hint and will let it stay for another day.

Answer: The first visual shows Herge, the creator of Tintin and Chang Chong Chen. Chen introduced Herge to various foreign cultures and made Tintin a more politically aware cartoon. The second visual shows the infamous Mukden incident which features in the Tintin comics "Blue lotus" a scene from which is shown in the third visual. Swapnaa's comment has more information. Iam, Swapnaa, Manix, Ramji, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 85

Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The dying lion statue in Lucerne commemorates the defense of the Tuilerias palace by the Swiss guards during the Paris commune. Adi, Divya, QoD, Hirak, Iam and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 84

The second visual gets its name from the first. Identify both.

Answer: The first visual shows the Iron curtain countries in red. The second visual shows the defensive line of the 1970s Pittsburgh steelers that was nicknamed the steel curtain and helped the steelers win 4 super bowls. Arvind, Adi, Iam + Ram, Manix, Raghu, RajeshK, QoD, Rajesh and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 83

Identify the visuals and their significance.

Answer: This is the Trojan room coffee pot at Cambridge. A bunch of computer scientists tired of walking to the coffee pot only to find it empty set up a camera that captured images of the pot every few seconds and made them available at the world wide web. Thus was born the world's first webcam. The second visual shows the final visual taken by the webcam before it was turned off in 2001. Hirak, Iam, QoD and an Anon got it. Well done.

Question - 82

Two pictures taken at two different times. Identify the place and its specialty.

Answer: This is the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tidal range in the world due to a tidal resonance phenomenon. Swapnaa and QoD were the only ones to get it. Well done.

Question - 81

What does the tattoo signify?

Answer: This is a configuration from Conway's "Game of Life" called the glider. This is the hacker emblem for the free software and open source community. Anirudh Patil and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 80

Identify the "doctor".

Answer: Radovan Karadzic - the Serbian leader charged with genocide in Bosnia was hiding under the alias Dr. Dragan Dabic. Keshav, Mekhala, Raghu, Adi, Swapnaa, Iam, Hirak, Suchi, Rajesh and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 79

Today's question is courtesy Shyaps. Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The connect is death by immolation. The pictures are Shiva with the corpse of Sati after the Daksha yagna, Joan of Arc and the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc who famously immolated himself protesting the Vietnam war. Iam, Vikrant, Rahul Trivedi and Keshav got it right. Well done.

Question - 78

Identify.

Answer: Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the notorious Exxon Valdez. The ship spilt nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The spill spread over 11,000 square miles of ocean. Iam, Adi, Rajesh, Raghu, Mekhala, Vikrant and QoD got it. Well done.

Question - 77

Whose statue is it? What is the significance of the location? The lake shown is just beyond the location shown in the first visual.

Answer: The statue is that of Henry David Thoreau in front of a replica of the log cabin in which he lived for two years. He wrote the famous transcendentalist book Walden while here. The lake is the Walden pond. Rahul Trivedi, Raghu, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 76

Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The people are Osamu Shimomura (top left), Martin Chalfie (bottom left) and Roger Tsien, the 2008 chemistry Nobel laureates. They studied a green fluorescent protein (GFP) produced by the Jellyfish Aequorea Victoria and modified it to serve as a cell marker. The green mice are a result of such experiments as are the spectacular "brainbows" shown in the bottom right. The gene that creates the GFP was first isolated by Douglas Prasher of the Woods Hole Oceonographic institute which he freely provided to both Tsien and Chalfie. Sadly, Prasher lost his job due to lack of grants and now drives a courtesy shuttle for a car dealership in Huntsville, Alabama. Arvind, Divya, Mekhala, Hirak, RajeshK, Ashwin, Iam, Adi and Rahul Trivedi got it. Well done.

Question - 75

Identify the award shown.

Answer: This is the Chess Oscar statuette nicknamed The Fascinated Wanderer. The award is presented annually to the best chess player as judged by a poll conducted among chess players and chess experts around the world. The effort is coordinated by the Russian chess magazine 64 and a small logo of the journal can be found at the base. Vikrant and Raghu got it. Well done.

Question - 74

Connect the visuals. When there are multiple people, only one would be relevant to the connect.

Answer: From top left clockwise - David and Goliath by Caravaggio, Charlemagne, Alexander the great and Julius Caesar. The four kings in a pack of playing cards are modeled after these kings. Rajesh was the only one to crack it. Bravo.

Question - 73

The blanked out region in the map gets its name from the geographical features shown in the first visual. Identify.

Answer: The Thermopylae pass where the 300 spartans made their famous last stand. The name means "hot gates" and derives from the hot springs found in that area. Divya, Keshav, Mekhala, Iam, Swapnaa, Rajesh, QoD and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 72

I was a bit unwell yesterday and could not update the blog. Regular updates resume today. Connect the visuals.

Answer: Jimmy Hoffa is the connect. The logo is that of International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union organization he was the head of. The second visual is the Machus red fox restaurant in Michigan where he was last seen alive. Spirit airlines ran an ad campaign called "Hunt for Hoffa" where players were asked to dig for Hoffa's body by clicking grids on the airline's website. This idea was good enough to land the 8th place in CNN's 101 dumbest moments in business. Rajeev, Raghu, Iam and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 71

Third visual is an artist's interpretation of what happened to the statue shown in the first visual after the event in the second visual. Etymological significance?

Answer: Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a statue made of many different materials (starting with the nobler ones and becoming baser as one goes down) which is destroyed by a fireball hurled from the heavens. The feet of the statue are made of clay and the statue is destroyed. Daniel interpreted this dream as the progression of various empires which are all ultimately destroyed. More details can be found here. The statue is inspired by this dream. The phrase "Feet of clay" takes its meaning from this incident. Raghu and Vateez got it. Well done.

Question - 70

Identify the building and the purpose of that green light that comes out of this building.

Answer: The building is the Greenwich observatory. The red stripe that runs through the building's facade is the prime meridian. The green laser also highlights the same line. Iam, Rajeev, Vateez, QoD, Divya, Hirak, Manix and Adi got it. Well done.

Question - 69

Identify.

Answer: This is Winnipeg the bear who was the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. Standing alongside is Christopher Robin who was the inspiration for uh...Christopher Robin. Swapnaa and Iam got the bear, not the guy. Well done.

Question - 68

Today's question is courtesy Manix. Connect the visuals. It is not an exhaustive list (but only a couple of visuals are missing). There is also an ordering of the different images(top row from L to R followed by bottom row L to R).

Answer: These are the animals after which the different releases of Ubuntu are named. In order from top left, they are the warty warthog, hoary hedgehog, dapper drake, edgy eft, feisty fawn and the intrepid ibex. I left out some of the other releases. QoD and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 67

Today's question is courtesy Ashwin Parthasarathy. Identify and connect.

Answer: The images are (clockwise from top left) Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jim Croce, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Aaliyah and Randy Rhoads. The connect is that these are all musicians who died in plane crashes. Iam, Rajeev and Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 66

Identify all visuals and connect.

Answer: The satellite picture is that of Mt. Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica. In 1979, a sightseeing plane operating out of New Zealand crashed into the slopes of this mountain in white-out conditions killing all 257 people aboard. Edmund Hillary (third pic) was supposed to be the guide for the fatal trip but pulled out at the last minute and sent his friend Peter Mulgrew in his stead. Mekhala and Hirak got it right. Well done.

Question - 65

The top two visuals show the front and back of a coin. Identify the person being commemorated and connect with the bottom visual.

I was at a conference the last couple of days and couldn't update the blog regularly. I am now back in A2 and updates should be regular from now.

Answer: The person in the coin is Jorge Luis Borges and the bottom visual is the character Jorge of Burgos in the movie Name of the Rose. The character is similar in a lot of ways to Borges and is Umberto Eco's homage to him. If you like short stories, you should definitely give Borges a try. His "The House of Asterion" is one of my all-time favorites. Hirak, Raghu, Mekhala, Iam and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 64

Today's question is courtesy Rajeev. What caused the anomalous downward spike?

Answer: The visual shows the stock of United airlines plummeting on Sept 8th, 2008 within just a few minutes. The reason was that Google news picked up an old news from 2002 about the airline (a bankruptcy article the airline had filed) and ran it as though the news were current. A Bloomburg analyst saw this and ran it as headline news without checking it out causing massive selling of UA stocks. Trade was briefly halted to restore order and UA lost about $300 million dollars in market value. Adi and Raghu got it. Well done.

I simply have to mention Iam's excellent guess. His answer (which he told me in person) was that the stock markets halted when they turned on the LHC to see if it created any black holes which might make trading a moot point. It doesn't explain the spike but still...

Question - 63

Identify the visuals and connect.

Answer: The connect is the chronophage (literally "time eater"), a sculptural clock in Cambridge. The clock pays homage to John Harrison (top right), a legendary clock maker who solved the longitude problem by making the first accurate clocks. His major invention was the grasshopper escapement (bottom right), a low friction mechanism for moving the clock's gears. The chronophage features a large grasshopper at the top as a reference to this. More details can be found here. Vateez, Iam, Adi, Mekhala, Manix and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 62

Shown are several examples of a certain phenomenon. What is the phenomenon (be as precise as possible) and what is its historical significance?
Update: I refuse to believe there is no one out there who is as geeky as me. So, I am running the question again with a clue.

Answer: The answer I was looking for was "Einstein Rings", multiple images of stars/galaxies formed due to gravitational lensing. This phenomenon served as one of the first experimental verifications of Einstein's general theory of relativity. A schematic of Arthur Eddington's experiment verifying this effect is shown in the second visual. Adi, Rajeev, capt. p j Vogon, Vikrant and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 61

Connect the visuals.

Answer: The connect is George Carlin, the legendary stand-up comedian. The pictures clockwise from the top left are (a) George Carlin getting arrested for his "Seven dirty words" routine, (b) the Mark Twain award that Carlin was given posthumously this year, (c) his arrest warrant on obscenity charges and (d) the character Fillmore from the movie Cars who was voiced by Carlin. Arvind, Rajeev, Mekhala, Iam, Keshav, Adi, Rajesh, Vateez and Swapnaa got it. Well done. If you haven't watched Carlin's routines, check them about in youtube. They are absolutely great.

Question - 60

Connect the two visuals with the guy in the bottom right.

Answer: The comic strip is the graphic version of the series Artemis Fowl written by Eoin Colfer whose picture is at the bottom right. The top left picture is Simon Jones' famous BBC portrayal of Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. The connect is that Colfer has been roped in to write the sixth installment of what was till now a trilogy in five parts. Vateez, Rajeev, Mekhala, Iam and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 59

Connect the three visuals.

Answer: The connect is Lehman Brothers. The first visual shows the brothers who founded the company, the second one is their share value dropping after the company declared bankruptcy on Monday, the third is the logo of Barclays who are acquiring a portion of the company. Bala, Vijay, Rajeev, Mekhala, Hirak, Adi, Vikrant and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 58

Today's question is courtesy Raghu. Connect the visuals.

Answer: The girl with the crown of candles is participating in St. Lucia's festival in Sweden. The medallion on the right is the Nobel prize. The connect Raghu had in mind is that the Lucy brides bring Lussekatt to all the Nobel laureates on the morning of the ceremony. Rajesh was the only one to get this. However, Iam, Vikrant+Keshav, Hirak and A new thought all had different legitimate connects as well. Great job all around.

Question - 57

Connect the two visuals. Apologies about missing yesterday's update.

Answer: The picture on the left is the "Hungarian patriot" - Time person of the year in 1956. The one on the right is the famous "Blood in the water" water polo match between USSR and Hungary played in the backdrop of the Hungarian revolution. There was no love lost between the countries and it reflected in the game. The player with the bloodied face is Ervin Zador. Mekhala, Raghu, Hirak, Divya, Iam, Rajeev, Vj, Rajeshk, Manix, Rajesh, Vikrant and Keshav got it right. Well done.

Question - 56

Identify the two characters and the event being portrayed.

Answer: The weaving contest between Athena and Arachne. Arachne was a great weaver who dared challenge Athena, the goddess of fine arts, to a contest. During the contest, Arachne weaved a tapestry depicting the Gods in a less than flattering manner. Enraged, Athena changes her to a spider which is why spiders are forever weaving webs and the class of spiders is termed Arachnids, the fear of spiders is Arachnophobia etc. Raghu, Rajesh, Divya, Hirak and Iam got it. Well done and apologies for the late update.

Question - 55

Connect all the visuals. Question courtesy Iam.

Answer: The connect is Snipers. The map is that of the Battle of Stalingrad where Soviet snipers fought against German troops (made famous in the movie "Enemy at the gates"), a map of JFK's parade route on the day of his assassination, the bird snipe which is supposedly very difficult to hunt and from which the term sniper came to refer to sharpshooters and finally the clock tower at UT Austin from where Charles Whitman sniped down 14 people. Ashwin, Raghu+Mekhala, Vikrant+Keshav and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 54

Today's question is courtesy Hirak. The banner holders were planning to do something to the Xs but the police wouldn't let them. So they settled for throwing the Xs, mops, girdles, pots, pans and playboy magazines which were "instruments of female torture" according to them into garbage bins. Identify X, what they were planning to do to X and connect with the picture.

Answer: X is Bra and they were planning to burn it prompting the press to name these protesters "Bra Burners". Sica, Mekhala, Manix, Iam, Adi, Rajeev, Keshav, Rajesh and Ashwin got it. Well done.

Question - 53

Today's question is courtesy Manix. Identify all the visuals and a common theme that connects them.

Answer: The connect is Jimmy Johnson. Clockwise from left to right: (a) Janis Joplin, a classmate of JJ, (b) Jerry Jones, the cowboys owner under whom JJ coached, (c) Barry Switzer, the OU coach who is the only other man to have won a national championship and a super bowl, (d) Doug Flutie after throwing the legendary Hail Mary against JJ's Hurricanes and (e) Dan Marino who played for JJ towards the end of his career. Raghu and Ashwin got it right. Well done.

Question - 52

Depiction of what event?

Answer: Queen Victoria at the opening ceremony of crystal palace, London. It was considered a great engineering achievement and all subsequent world fairs (like the ones in New York) were inspired by this. Iam and Mekhala got it. Well done. Mekhala gives some more info in the comments.

Question - 51

I have blanked out two words labeled X & Y. Identify the words and also for brownie points, identify the comics.

Answer: X is the Large Hadron Collider, Y - Higgs Boson. They are running the first proton beams around the accelerator tonight. A whooping 15 correct responses including one with a rap song celebrating the occasion. Well done.

Question - 50

Identify these three ladies and the collective name they are given.

Answer: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas - three great primatologists who all studied with Louis Leakey and hence were dubbed Leakey's angels. As Rajesh points out, they were also known as the "Trimates". Arvind, Raghu, Mekhala, Hirak, Manix, Swapnaa, Rajesh and Rajeev got it. Well done.

I think the 50 question mark is a good time to take stock. So, let me know any suggestions/brickbats you might have regarding the blog.

Question - 49

Identify the person shown and also the event being reenacted. Update: Since this question has garnered exactly 0 tries so far, I will let it stay up for another day with a clue. The person is an author and he was in the news recently.

Answer: Alexander Solzhenitsyn - the Russian author who passed away last month. His famous work "The Gulag Archipelago" is based on the time he spent in a Russian labour camp. Here, he gives a re-enactment of him getting frisked at the Gulag. Hirak and Manix got it right. Well done.

Question - 48

Today's question is courtesy Mekhala. Identify the significance of the photo on the right and if possible the individuals as well. The visual on the left is a clue towards identifying them.

Answer: The people on the right were the so called "Traitorous Eight". They left Shockley semiconductors to form Fairchild semiconductors whose spinoff companies eventually created the Silicon valley (shown in the first visual). Rajeev, QoD, Ramji, Ashwin, Adi and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 47

Identify both and connect.

Answer: Verghese Kurian and M.S. Swaminathan, the fathers of India's white and green revolution respectively. Arvind, Mekhala, Raghu, QoD, Rajesh and Vatheez + Shyam + Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 46

Identify the shaded region in the map and connect with the second visual. Be warned that the connect is rather facetious.

Answer: The map shows the pacific ring of fire - an area of active volcanic activity. The rather lame finding nemo connect that I had in mind is that there is a "ring of fire" in the aquarium atop Mt. Wannahockaloogie. However, Swapnaa offers a much better connect namely the NeMO project that is designed to explore biodiversity in the ring of fire. Iam and Swapnaa got it. Well done and apologies if the finding nemo bit misled you.