Question - 669

A famous depiction of which practice?

Hint: Few hits so far. There is a famous Greek myth related to the animal in the sculpture.

Answer: Bull leaping. The statue is called the Minoan bull. Matti and Iam (but of course) got it. Raghu answered a lot closer to home. Well done.

Question - 668

Identify the person caricatured and also the blanked out word.

Answer: This is the cover of God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian by the inimitable Kurt Vonneghut. The good doctor himself passed away last week. Karthik, Raghu, Krishna, Mihir, Rajesh K, Matti, nice try and Krithi got it. Well done.

Question - 667

What is this?

Answer: The Wow signal - the most promising signature detected by SETI program yet which inspired the remark. I was about to cast aspersions on whether the signal is genuine since it came out of research at Ohio state but then I found out that the researcher (Jerry Ehman) graduated out of the University of Michigan. Oh Well!!! Matti, Karthik, Raghu, Barry Belmont, anon and Mihir got it. Well done.

Question - 666

What is the controversy around the logo? The place in the first visual can serve as a hint.

Answer: Iran claims that the logo for the 2012 Summer Olympics subliminally reads Zion and hence are threatening to boycott the event. The place of course is Zion national park. Question dedicated to the intrepid souls that hiked Angels landing this memorial day. Raghu, Divya Shankar and Dips got it. Krithi points to another controversy related to the logo. Well done all.

Question - 665

Identify the women in the painting. Connect one of them to the second visual. The connect is slightly tangential.

Answer: The painting is that of Orpha, Ruth and Naomi from the Book of Ruth. Orpha is the given name of Oprah Winfrey whose friends found it too hard to pronounce it and changed it to Oprah. Orpah literally means turning back in Hebrew and Oprah turned her name backwards to name her production company Harpo. The picture is of course Harpo Marx. Question marks the conclusion of the wildly successful Oprah show and I was hoping the tags would help with the tough visuals. Krishna is the only one to get it. Bravo.

Question - 664

What happened here?

Answer: The Boston Molasses disaster - In 1919, a gigantic molasses tank burst open creating a molasses wave over 10 ft tall that was strong enough to hurl trains off their tracks. There is an urban legend that the area still smells of molasses in hot summer days. Ameya, Divya Shankar and apoorv got it. Well done.

Question - 663

Seriously inspiring stuff. Identify them.

Answer: Team Hoyt - a father-son team which has competed in several endurance events despite the son suffering from cerebral palsy. Karthik is the only one to get it. Bravo.

Question - 662

Identify him.

Answer: Robert Stroud aka the birdman of Alcatraz. Raghu, Matti, Ameya, Iam and Krishna got it. Well done.

Question - 661

What controversy (shown in the first pic) is referenced in the second pic?

Answer: The controversy is that a decidedly unheroic Han Solo shoots the alien first in the bar scene in StarWars I. This was edited out or modified in later releases. Raghu, Harshit, anon, Jamie, allornothing and Firebringer got it. Well done.

Question - 660

Identify these people and a common position they have all held. (Not an exhaustive list)

Update: No hits so far. Maybe I should word the question better. I am looking for a common title that they all hold. A variant of this title is used in politics and is almost always dubious and unjustified. The 2nd and 4th guys should be recognizable - the second one is named for a Nobel winning chemist/a cartoon character. Note the attire of the fourth one.

Answer: Guido Van Rossum (python), Linus Torvalds (linux), Larry Wall (perl) and Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu)- they all hold the post of "Benevolent dictator for life" for their respective open source projects. Krishna, Paddy, Shrey Banga, Iam, Raghu and Avi got it. Well done.

Question - 659

Easy one for today. Identify the blanked out portion.

Answer: "The buck stops here" - a phrase made famous by Harry Truman. Tee, Anand, Raghu, Matti, Rajesh K, Jamie, Krishna, Manu, Karthik, Hari, Iam, Firebringer, nice try and Paddy got it. Well done.

Question - 658

Identify the man and the location.

Answer: The famously eccentric Werner Herzog in the sets of his movie Fitzcarraldo for which he attempted to transport a 300 ton ship across a mountain. Divya Shankar, Raghu, Karthik, Tee and Matti got it. Well done.

Question - 657

The man on the left saw the movie on the right and said something very famous. What?

Answer: Justice Potter Stewart defined pornography as "I know it when I see it" while discussing the French movie "The Lovers". Matti, Krishna, Jaggi, Siddarth Pai and nice try got it. Well done.

Question - 656

A lazy cop out of a question today. Identify the ladies and the two phrases that one of them trademarked.

Answer: Ann and Anna Jarvis - the women behind Mother's day. Siddarth Pai, Mekie, Krithi and Jaggi got it. Well done.

Question - 655

Identify the person and the reason behind the title.

Answer: George Best who was at least as famous for his off the field exploits as he was for his incredible football talent. He was once asked how close to a match he has had sex and he replied Half-time and thus the title. Divya Shankar, Krithi, Raghu, Kapinjal, Krishna, Matti and Siddarth Pai got it. Well done.

Question - 654

Someone was accused of using this product. What resulted?

Answer: This is a deodorant called "Teen spirit". Kurt Cobain 's friend spray painted "Kurt Cobain smells like teen spirit" on his wall as a joke. He liked the sound of the phrase and the song resulted. Matti, Rajeev and Mekie got it. Well done.

Question - 653

Identify the man. To the right is a poem he wrote.

Answer: This is Major James Abbott, a British colonial officer stationed in India after whom the city and district of Abbottabad are named. You might have heard about this town in the news recently. Deepanshu, nice try, Kapinjal Chowdhury, Divya Shankar, Siddarth Pai, Matti, Raghu, Hari, arpit, anon, Divya, Krishna and Mekie got it. Well done.

Question - 652

What incident is being portrayed?

Answer: Xerxes having the sea whipped as a punishment for destroying his bridges at Hellespont during his famous invasion of Greece. Karthik, Siddarth Pai, Raghu, Matti, Jaggi and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 651

What's the lady's name?

Hint: No attempts on this one so far. The thing to her left is named after her and is reasonably famous.

Hint2: No love still for this question. The thing to her left is a dinosaur fossil.

Answer: Sue Hendrickson, an amateur fossil hunter who discovered the most complete T-Rex skeleton to date - the Sue skeleton in Chicago. Matti, Divya and Karthik took pity on the QM and answered it. Well done.

Question - 650

What is happening here?

Answer: Obama retaking his Presidential oath for the second time because he spoke a word out of sequence the first time around. Krithi, Rajesh K, Jamie, Matti, Divya, Divya Shankar, Krishna, Karthik and giantamoeba got it. Well done.