Question - 489

Identify or connect.

Answer: The connect is Luis Ramirez de Lucena (bottom right). He is the author of the oldest existing printed book on chess - Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez or Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess published in 1497 (a page from the book is shown on the left). The Lucena postion (top right) is a famous chess endgame position named after him. Matti, Kamal, Manix, Divya, Anand, and Rajeev got it right. Well done. Dinky is back at the helm from Monday. It's been fun. Thanks for playing.

Question - 488

Identify and connect.

Answer: The connect is Flashman, a character in Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's Schooldays (right) later developed into the antihero Henry Paget Flashman in the Flashman novels (left) by George MacDonald Fraser. Karthik, Mekie, Dinesh, Anon, and Kamal Rathi got it. Nicely done.

Question - 487

Connect.

Hint: Origin of the McMeme.

Answer: Gray's/Grey's Anatomy. On the left is Henry Gray, the eponymous author of the classic medical textbook Gray's Anatomy, now in its 40th edition. On the right is Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the popcult classic Grey's Anatomy -- which gave us McDreamy, McSteamy, and other McMemes. Dinesh, Mekie, and Kamal Rathi got it right. Well done.

Question - 486

This is the procedure for doing what?

Answer: Harvesting the Mandrake root. According to legend, the screams of the Mandrake root could kill the person uprooting it. So an elaborate procedure was devised involving a sacrificial dog. Of course, J. K. Rowling used the more animal-friendly "earmuffs" approach in her books. Dinesh, Ameya, Anon, Adi, Jaggi, and Mekie answered correctly. Well done.

Question - 485

Identify this uniquely original manuscript.

Answer: This "scroll" is the original manuscript of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Dinesh, Rajeev, Adi, Karthik, Mekie, Matti Tapaninen, and Hirak got it right. Well done. Apologies for the goof up of leaving the file names of the images unaltered (since corrected).

Question - 484

Connect (non-exhaustive).

Answer: The connect is authors whose characters have been portrayed by Johnny Depp. Clockwise from top left: J. M. Barrie (as himself in Finding Neverland), Roald Dahl (Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Hunter S. Thompson (Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Paul Kemp in the upcoming The Rum Dairy), Lord Byron (Don Juan in Don Juan DeMarco), Stephan King (Mort Rainey in Secret Window), and Lewis Carroll (Mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland). Tough one. Rajeev, Dinesh, Abstract Randomness, and Rithwik got it. Awesome crack.

Question - 483

Connect.

Answer: The connect is Saki. It was the pen name of the brilliant H. H. Munro (bottom right) and supposedly referred to the cupbearer in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (top right). It may also refer to a South American primate of the same name (left). Ramji, Dinesh, Mekie, Arvind, Adi, and Karthik got it.

Question - 482

Identify and connect. (Hint: Microsoft Office and Martha Stewart)

Answer: The folks (clockwise from the top) are software architect and space tourist Charles Simonyi, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, and ethologist Richard Dawkins. The latter two have held the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Tough one, but kudos to Dinesh for cracking it before the hint. Ramji, Arvind, Adi, and Karthik got it too. Well done.

Question - 481

What originated as a result of this statute?

Answer: The Statute of Anne gave rise to copyright law. Mekie, Karthik, Prachi, Paragbm, Matti Tapaninen, Rajesh K., Hirak, Nemani, Iam (credited for previous question as well), and Dinesh got it.

Question - 480

Connect. (Hint: Hindi)

Answer: The elephant logo belongs to the HathiTrust, which is in an alliance of several universities that have a partnership with Google Book Search to digitize all their books. Hathi is the Hindi term for an elephant and was used because elephants can remember. Hotmanoj and Hirak got it. Great job.

Question - 479

This was the first of its kind and gave rise to the term that defines this genre. What term?

Answer: The term is "soap opera." Clara, Lu, and Em (shown above) was radio's first soap opera, so called because of its sponsor 'Super Suds', a Colgate-Palmolive-Peet product. Anand, Arvind, Adi, Iam, Mohan, Hirak, Avi, and Nemani got it. Well done.

Question - 478

Connect.

Answer: The connect is the MP3 audio compression format. Karlheinz Brandenburg (bottom left) used the song Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega (bottom right) to test this compression scheme. The diner in the song is Tom's Restaurant (top) later made famous as Monk's Cafe in Seinfeld. Arvind, Rajesh, and Rajesh K. got it. Nice crack.

Question - 477

Identify him.

Aside: I will be pretty busy this coming weekend and probably even into next week. Expect the updates to be sporadic/non-existent till at least next Tuesday . Raghu Kainkaryam, a regular of both the UM quiz club and the blog will be the quiz master for the next week or so.

Answer: This is Adi Dassler, co-founder of Adidas. Ameya, Manix, Anand and Arvind got it. Well done.

Question - 476

What is being illustrated?

Answer: The buttered cat paradox - a humorous (?) combination of two adages about cats always landing on their feet and toast always landing on the buttered side. So, what happens if a cat is dropped with a buttered toast tied to it like shown above? Karthik, Matti Tapaninen, Raghu, anon, Mainak, Ramji, nice try, Riskit, anon, Arvind, hotmanoj and Nemani got it. Well done.

Question - 475

Identify him.

Answer: This is Spencer Elden, the kid in the cover of Nirvana's Nervermind. goutamjay, Nemani, Matti Tapaninen, tsp, pranav, anon, Raghu, Arvind, Ramji, Iam, hotmanoj, rajesh, Karthik, anon and Jaggi got it. Well done.

Question - 474

This is another tangential connect question similar to questions 444 and 461. Connect the images. The connect is more closely related to some visuals than to others. This is not an exhaustive list. More hints based on the response.

Hint: I just noticed an oversight on my part that might have made the question confusing. The first visual on the top left and the last one on the bottom right really point to the same thing. I meant to include just one of those two and included both by mistake. Hints for other visuals (in order from left to right, top to bottom) - the magazine he appears in, the character portrayed by the actress, the photographer, the novelist whose work the movie is based on and the television character.

Answer: The connect is unusual units of measurement. The visuals in order are a poster for the movie Supersize Me, a documentary about McDonalds, Alfred E. Neumann from Mad magazine, Diane Kruger as Helen of Troy, photo of Elvis by Andy Warhol, a screen shot from the movie Contact, Fonzie from Happy Days and the McDonalds shop in Sedona, Arizona (apparently the only McDonalds with non-yellow arches because turquoise suits the town's red rock). The connect to the theme is as follows - Big Mac index for exchange rates, Potrzebie for length (thickness of the magazine as defined by Donald Knuth), Helen for beauty (1 milliHelen is the amount of beauty enough to launch one ship), Warhol for fame (from the 15 minutes of fame quote), Sagan for 4 billion (from his "billions and billions" quote) and fonzie for coolness. Ramki was the only one to get it before the hint. Raghu, Ramji, Rajesh, Karthik and Matti Tapaninen got it after the hint. Well done.

Question - 473

Some captions in the comics have been edited out. What comes in the blanked space denoted by the question mark? Connect it to the event shown on the right.

Answer: The first visual is a Pogo strip commemorating Earth day. The blanked quote at the end is "We have met the enemy and he is us" - a take on the message commander Perry sent to the headquarters after defeating the British in the Battle of lake Erie ("we have met the enemy and he is ours"). Nemani, Raghu, Karthik and Ramji got it. Well done.

Question - 472

What is the purpose of this rather curious looking structure? Where is it located?

Answer: This is the lotus bridge on the border between China and Macau. China follows driving on the right side of the road while Macau follows driving on the left side. The bridge facilitates the switch. Iam + Balls, hotmanoj, Rajesh K, Kamal Rathi, Karthik, Nemani, Rajeev and Krithi got it. Well done.

Question - 471

What is happening?

Answer: A culture jamming group called The Yes Men have made a habit of pretending to be spokespersons for corporations and appearing on various shows to make shocking confessions and announcements on behalf of these corporations. Here, Andy Bichlbaum, a member of the group is posing as a spokesperson for Dow and fully accepts responsibility for the Bhopal disaster. Nemani, Karthik, Matti Tapaninen, Mekie, Raghu, hotmanoj and Hari got it. Well done.

Question - 470

The two statues are of the same man - in his youth and old age. Identify him and the location of the statue.

Answer: This is the statue of the legendary long distance runner John Kelley located on the Boston marathon course about a mile from the notorious Heartbreak hill. He won it twice and completed the marathon a whooping 58 times running his last full marathon when he was 84 years old. Just like this year's champion Robert Cheruiyot and the 2007 champion of the same name, there was another John Kelley who won the Boston Marathon in 1957. Karthik, Mohan, Raghu, Matti Tapaninen, Nemani and Adi got it. Well done.

Question - 469

Shown is an illustration of a biblical story. What is the etymological significance?

Answer: This is Rembrandt's painting "Belshazzar's Feast". In the Biblical story, a hand mysteriously appears during the feast and pronounces doom on the king's reign by writing on the wall. The phrase "writing on the wall" originates from this incident. Rohan, AJ, Manix, Karthik, Nemani and anon got it. Well done.

Question - 468

Memorial for what?

Answer: This is Buddy Holly's memorial near the site of his plane crash (the day the music died). Shibin azad, Nemani, Karthik, Matti Tapaninen, Rajesh K, Rithwik and v. chandrashekar got it. Well done.

Question - 467

Identify the building.

Answer: The Pennsylvania paper & supply company's tower featured most prominently in the opening credits of The Office. paragbm, Nemani, Sumit, Mohan Phadnis, Raghu, Jaggi, Karthik, hotmanoj, NJ and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 466

Identify him. This one is probably a bit too geeky even by my standards.

Answer: The man is British mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose. He is standing on a floor tiled with an aperiodic tiling pattern that he discovered in the 70s. While it is trivial to tile a space with periodic tilings (square tiles for example), Penrose found a family of aperiodic tiles that have no translational symmetry. Raghu, Rajesh, hotmanoj and Amresh got it. Well done.

Question - 465

The pictures show two of the most famous events of this kind. Identify the events.

Answer: The answer I was looking for was the "Last Spike" - an event marking the end of construction of a railway when they get some celebrity to drive the last spike in. The two visuals show the construction of Grand Trunk Pacific railway and the Canadian Pacific railway. Mohan Phadnis, Nemani, Jaggi, Adi, Krithi, Matti Tapaninen and hotmanoj got it. Well done.

Question - 464

This is a child's doodle. What did this inspire?

Answer: John Lennon's son Julian drew this and called it Lucy in the sky with diamonds. At least, that is the excuse the fab four came up with for writing a song about acid. Anirudh Patil, Nihar, Avi, Adi, Rajeev, Nemani and Krishnan got it. Well done.

Question - 463

Identify the event and the associated memorial.

Answer: The sinking of the Greenpeace ship The Rainbow Warrior off the coast of Auckland by agents of the French government. While originally planned as a sabotage, it resulted in the accidental death of a photographer named Fernando Pereira. There was a major fallout between the French and New Zealand governments and this event went a long way towards shaping New Zealand's policy on nuclear weapons. Krithi, Matti Tapaninen, Prachi, Karthik, Mohan Phadnis, 2lrbl, Schmetterling, Corina and Rithwik got it. To the QM's intense delight, Iam guesses incorrectly. Well done.

Question - 462

What is happening here?

Answer: Dorando Pietri, an Italian marathon runner in the 1908 Olympics marathon who repeatedly collapsed during the finishing stages of the race. He was helped up by the officials each time and finally crossed the line to win the gold. However, the American team protested this external aid and got him disqualified. The resulting press made him very famous. Krithi, Manix, Pavan, Rohit, anon, Adi, Arvind, Rajesh, anon, Iam, Matti Tapaninen, Hirak, Mohan Phadnis, Nemani and Rithwik got it. Well done.

Question - 461

This is another attempt at a tangential connect similar to Q444. Identify each of the images and the central theme connecting them. The connect isn't exhaustive (only a few items left out though) and some images connect to the theme more tangentially than others.

Hint 1: The connect isn't related to Greek mythology (at least not directly).

Hint 2: The connect is movie related.

Hints on how each visual connects to the theme (from top to bottom, left to right): Her lineage, his (not dubya's) nickname, the custom, the ferryman (slightly vague), the company, the story that inspired the movie, her Greek name and a generic term for the characters.

Answer: The visuals are Sophie Neveu from Da Vinci's code, Karl Rove with the Bushes, the practice of Sati, Charon the boatman from Greek myth, the BMW Oracle that won the America's cup in 2010, a scene from 2001: A space Odyssey, Persephone from Greek myth and Phoebe and Ursula from Friends. The connect I had in mind was that these are the names of some of the programs in the Matrix trilogy. The connects are as follows: Sophie Neveu is a descendant of Jesus through the Merovingians, Karl Rove was nicknamed the Architect, Sati is straightforward, Charon inspired the trainman character, BMW Oracle is owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle, 2001 (novel & the film both) was inspired by a short story called the Sentinel, Persephone is obvious and the Buffays are twins. Iam, Pavan, Rajesh, Jaggi, Karthik and Mohan Phadnis got it. buckingfastard identified most of the visuals before the hints. Well done all.

Question - 460

These are the two most famous examples of what?

Answer: The answer I was looking for was Kill Screen - the name given to a level in a video game beyond which it is impossible for any player to proceed due to fundamental programming flaws or design oversights. They are most often found in the early arcade games (Pac-man and Donkey Kong shown here) where register overflow errors were the frequent culprits. The Pac-man kill screen is especially famous with even a $100,000 reward for a player who can get past this level. Mekie, Iam and Hari got the answer I had in mind while Adi and Schmetterling went with more generic connects. Well done.

Question - 459

Connect the two events.

Answer: The original tea party at Boston Harbour and the modern tea party movement protesting increased government spending. The already easy question was made even easier because I forgot to edit the second visual. Ramki, Raghu, Prachi, Matti Tapaninen, Schmetterling, Manix, Ramji, Hari, Iam, Shravan, Mekie, Karthik and Adi got it. Well done.

Question - 458

Today's question is courtesy Matti Tapaninen who asks you to identify all and connect.

Answer: Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, Bela Lugosi, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Mickey Rooney and Marilyn Monroe all find mention in the 1972 Kinks song Celluloid Heroes. Pavan identified many of the people but didn't get the connect. Well done.

Question - 457

What is the blanked out caption?

Answer: "On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog" - a cartoon in the New Yorker by Peter Steiner that became enormously popular. Trevor Burnham, Ramji, Matti Tapaninen, JW, Krithi, nice try, Aparna , anon, Hari, Rajesh K, DrDate and Kamal Rathi got it. Well done.

Question - 456

Identify the guy in the middle.

Answer: George A. Romero, (grand) father of the zombie movies. Krithi, Kamal Rathi, Matti Tapaninen, Manix, Nihar, Hirak, Rajeev and DrDate got it. Well done.

Question - 455

Who he? Identify the events portrayed.

Hints: Not many tries yet. He is the (indirect) namesake of a US city. The two events portrayed took place about 16 days apart and mark the beginning and end of an event. George Washington often draws parallels with him.

Answer: This is the Roman dictator Cincinnatus who is indirectly the namesake of Cincinnati. He was asked to become the dictator of Rome during wartime by the Roman senate. Giving up his life of farming, he assumed dictatorial powers. He won the war in 16 days and immediately relinquished his power to return to farming. George Washington's refusal to serve a third term as president often is compared to his actions. Ramki, Matti Tapaninen, Jaggi, anon, Kamal Rathi and DrDate got it. Well done.

Question - 454

Today's question is courtesy Rajesh K. Connect these works (not an exhaustive list).

Answer: The novels are Andromeda Strain, Gulliver's travels, Don Quixote and the Scarlet letter. They all employ a literary technique called the False document. By quoting extensively from sources that appear to be factual but in fact are not, such novels invite the reader to suspend his/her disbelief more so than usual. Aparna and Rajesh were the only ones to get it. Great job.

Question - 453

Connect the three images from (the viewer's) left to right in that order.

Hints: Not many attempts. I guess the question doesn't give much to work with. The best hint I can give is that the last visual got an Ig Noble prize (unjustifiably in my opinion).

Answer: These are the three longest running scientific experiments in the world. They are in order the Oxford electric bell (which has been ringing continuously for 160 years now and works on electrostatic principles), the Beverley Clock (which has been ticking since 1864 and derives its energy from atmospheric pressure and temperature variations) and the pitch drop experiment (which was set up in 1927 and demonstrates that pitch while looking solid really is a high viscosity liquid). Since the pitch drop experiment has been running, 8 drops have fallen and it can be a very existential experience to watch the experiment live during work hours. I recommend it to all of you. Jaggi, Matti Tapaninen, Adi, Rahul Trivedi (who worries his own research is slated to join the list) and Nihar got it. Well done all.

Aside: I accidentally pressed the comment reject button and only a quick print screen saved the names of the people who had answered. Blogger has no way of undoing a reject apparently.

Question - 452

Connect.

Answer: The guy on the left is Clarence Long, the original Marlboro man. He was the highlight of a great ad campaign that transformed Marlboro cigarettes from a woman's cigarette brand to a macho brand. The guy on the right is Lance Corporal James Miller whose close-up photograph became famous during the Iraq War in 2004. He has been dubbed the Marlboro marine. Hari, DrDate, Matti Tapaninen, Rithwik, V.Chandrasekhar, Karthik and Ramki got it. Well done.

Aside: I accidentally pressed the comment reject button and only a quick print screen saved the names of the people who had answered. Blogger has no way of undoing a reject apparently.

Question - 451

The animal shown in the bottom plays an important part in Japanese mythology where they are believed to be reincarnations of the warriors who died in a major battle in Japanese history. As such these animals are revered in Japanese culture and this has led to an interesting biological phenomenon. What?

Answer: These are Heikegani crabs also known as Samurai crabs for the resemblance of their shells to human faces. Fishermen often throw these crabs back into sea if they are caught. This has led to those crabs whose shells more strongly resemble human faces surviving more often resulting in an artificial (or) unnatural selection process. Manix, Rajesh, Adi, DrDate, Matti Tapaninen, Aparna, Hirak, Iam and Swapnaa got it. Well done all.

Question - 450

Today's question is more of a personal indulgence and is probably not a quiz question in the strict sense. Nevertheless, I wanted to spread the word and ergo the question - Identify the work from which these scenes are taken.

Answer: HBO's crime drama The Wire. It has gotten rave reviews with more than one critic calling it the greatest television series ever made (link) but for all this has never been quite popular. I thoroughly love the show (especially seasons 1, 3 & 4) and couldn't resist the question. Rajeev, Matti Tapaninen, Hirak, Manix and Rajesh K got it. Well done all and WATCH IT.

Question - 449

Identify.

Answer: Jackson Pollock aka Jack the Dripper. He had a rather unique painting style which has been extensively documented by photographer Hans Namuth. Rahul Trivedi, Pavan, Mitun, Arvind, Karthik, Krithi, Raghu, Matti Tapaninen, Jaggi, Rajesh K, DrDate, Mekie, Adi, Rajeev (who chose to go with Ed harris instead:)), Ramji, anon and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 448

Connect the event to the group.

Answer: The painting shows the mutiny on the HMS Bounty. The mutineers settled in Pitcairn islands where their descendants (numbering around 40 or so - all descended from the handful of English mutineers and the Tahitian women they took with them) still live. Arvind, Adi, Nihar, Matti Tapaninen and Karthik got it. Well done all.

Question - 447

Who is this? What phrase owes its etymology to a feature of this painting?

Update: Many correctly identified the person but no one got the phrase I am looking for. It is not a nickname of the man in the painting. Rather, the phrase is derived from a feature of this and other paintings of this man and in fact was uttered by him in connection with his portraits. It is now idiomatically used in all kinds of situations (and not just in reference to him).

Answer: The person is Oliver Cromwell as was correctly identified by Matti Tapaninen, Pavan, Nihar, anon, Rithwik, Krithi, Hirak, Adi and DrDate. Cromwell wanted his portraits to not cover up his facial blemishes and was known to have instructed a painter to paint his face as it is "warts and all". This phrase has now come to mean taking something as a whole and not concealing the unattractive parts. Adi, Matti Tapaninen, Pavan and DrDate got the etymology right as well. Well done all.

Question - 446

Identify the novelist.

Answer: The cover shows a very rare photograph of the notoriously reclusive J.D. Salinger with his daughter Margaret A. Salinger. The title is an obvious reference to Catcher in the Rye. DrDate, Karthik, Matti Tapaninen, Krithi, Arvind, Rajesh, Vetti, RIJO P, Renuka, Ramki, Nihar, Abstract Randomness, Raghu and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 445

Identify.

Hint: Several correct responses so far. The answer can be worked out from the visual.

Answer: Bob Young and Marc Ewing - the founders of Red Hat Linux. While a student at CMU, Ewing always sported a red hat and he named his first company after it. The rest as they say is history. Raghu, Shravan, Matti Tapaninen, Karthik, Iam, Rajesh, Arvind, Renuka, Nihar and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 444

Today's question is slightly different. This being a Friday, this question will stay up for a couple of days and I have tried to make it a bit heavier than the usual questions. The five visuals have a connect but each visual is interesting enough to make a question by itself. So, identify each and connect.

Update 1: The five images form an exhaustive connect. More hints tomorrow night depending upon the response.

Update 2: Many identified the visuals but no correct connects so far. Almost all went with Gold as the connect but that isn't what I had in mind. More hints: The relevant portion of the images are as follows - the location(loosely speaking) of the event, the main object in the myth, what the woman is most famous for, the nickname of the man and the element featured prominently.

Answer: The visuals are 1) the US team that won the miracle at Lake Placid lighting the Olympic torch for the 2002 Salt Lake City winter Olympics, 2) a painting of the Sword of Damocles story, 3) Diablo Cody who won the Oscar for Juno, 4) Jill Masterson in an iconic scene from Goldfinger where she dies of skin asphyxiation from being completely covered in Gold and 5) Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha. The images point to Utah, Sword, Juno, Gold and Omaha - the code name for the beaches in the Normandy landings on D-day. Rajeev, Matti Tapaninen, Ajinkya, Raghu, Iam and Rajesh got the complete connect after the hints while Krithi and Pavan identified all the visuals correctly. Well done all.

Question - 443

Both pictures show the same location. Identify this spectacularly inaccessible place. This place also served as an inspiration for a novel and a movie. Name both.

Answer: This is Mount Roraima tepui in Venezuela. The inaccessibility of the place inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to place his Lost World on top of this mountain in a world where dinosaurs still survive. The recent Pixar movie Up which is itself inspired by Doyle's work is set in a landscape very similar to the one in this tepui and its surrounding areas. Raghu, Divya, Karthik, Pavan, An0n, Ramki, Iam, Ajinkya, Hari, Mekie, Mainak and Adi got it. Well done.

Question - 442

Today's question is courtesy Sriram. Connect the man, the movie and the place.

Answer: The connect is Four seasons. It is Antonio Vivaldi's most famous piece, the movie is called four seasons and the place is the luxurious Four Seasons hotel in New York. Matti Tapaninen, An0n, Prachi, Rajeev, Raghu, Karthik, Ajinkya, Manix, Jaggi and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 441

Reunion of what event?

Answer: These are the surviving members of the first all-women Chipko movement near Reni village. Madhura, Arvind, @MeeN, Iam and Ramki got it. Well done.

Question - 440

Identify the man in the red shirt. Update: Again, the answer can be worked out from the visual.

Answer: Richard Feynman was sufficiently geeky to sketch his famous Feynman diagrams on the side of his van. Raghu, Ramki, Rajesh, Ramji, Madhura, Arvind, Anand, Karthik, Rajeev and Manix got it. Rithwik thinks the shirt is a bit too tight. Well done all.