The Sixth
Anniversary Quiz
by
Hrishi Diwan &
Navin Sigamany (in absentia)
Rules
1
10 points a question unless otherwise specified. Part points at QM discretion
2
Pounce will be available on all questions.
3
No negative marking on regular clockwise/ anti-clockwise rotation.
4
NEGATIVE 5 on incorrect/ partial answer when pouncing
All QM decisions are final; QM knows best
Question 1
(The first three questions will show you three cartoons in a sequence. The three are connected. Find the connect and answer question 4.)
This first cartoon is a riff on an English principle. What is the name of the principle?
Remember: pounce is available
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August 2017 - our first quiz
Answer 1
Occam’s Razor
Occam's razor is a principle often attributed to. 14th century friar William of Ockham that says that if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.
Question 2
(The first three questions will show you three cartoons in a sequence. The three are connected. Find the connect and answer question 4.)
This second cartoon is an Austrian thought experiment. What is its well known monicker?
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Answer 2
Schrodinger’s Cat
Schrödinger's Cat is a famous thought experiment that demonstrates the idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in two states at once until they're observed.
Question 3
(The first three questions will show you three cartoons in a sequence. The three are connected. Find the connect and answer question 4.)
This final cartoon is a Russian method. What method are we speaking of (no connection to the meringue based dessert)?
Remember: pounce is available
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Answer 3
Pavlov’s Dog
Pavlov showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time that they were given food.
Question 4
The cartoons represent an English principle, an Austrian thought experiment, and a Russian method. Give me the next in the series which shares the pattern, and references ‘foreshadowing in theater and literature’.
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Answer 4
Occam’s Razor
Schrodinger’s Cat
Pavlov’s Dog(s)
Connect is… A’s B
Chekhov’s Gun! (if in Act 1 of a play you put a gun on the mantelpiece - you’re obliged to fire it by Act 3)
Question 5
This is the poet best known has Hafez (memorizer/ safe-keeper) or Khwaja Shams-ud-Din Muhammed Hafez-e Shirazi so called as he memorized the Quran at a young age. His poetry is considered some of the finest in Persian, in the Sufi tradition. Poetry so divine that one of his titles or honorifics was the ‘tongue of the unseen world’.
In contemporary speak this ancient Iranian from the city of Shiraz has been made indirectly famous by the confluence of three people; 1) a journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer who spent some time in Oregon in the 1960s, 2) another guy, Canadian auteur, and 3) a Spanish performer. Put funda - what am I talking about?
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Answer 5
Question 6
The following factors combine to give Tokyo the highest per capita concentration of what "modern" convenience? (Anecdotally there is one per 23 people in Tokyo - that’s over 400,000 In the city)
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Answer 6
Vending Machines!
Question 7
Jeopardy style question - Say out loud the question that the following is a multi-part apocryphal answer to… Imagine that the establishment’s manager is giving you this answer (and yes, we’ve all probably asked this of ourselves/ others)
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August 2018 - first anniversary quiz
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Answer 7
Why does Coke taste better/ different at McDonalds?
Question 8
The next slide is going to show you a ton of movie posters. What they have in common is the font “F” used to write the movie title. The design is based on the letterforms of capitalis monumentalis or Roman square capitals, as used for the inscription at the base of “F”’s Column (the typeface shares its name with the person whose column that is).
It first appeared on a poster in 1992, and because it was part of the Adobe suite by default quickly became commonplace. It was initially used on posters for epic movies but because of overuse has lately become associated with direct to video or low budget horror movies - if you are pressed for time and just can’t be bothered, you use F!
Question 8 (contd.)
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August 2019 - you get the drift
Answer 8
The font is Trajan, named for the Roman Emperor and his column:
Question 9
Harry M. Markopolos is an American former securities industry executive and a forensic accounting and financial fraud investigator. From 1999 to 2008, Markopolos uncovered evidence that suggested that Bernie Madoff's wealth management business was a huge Ponzi scheme. In 2000, 2001, and 2005, Markopolos alerted the U.S. SEC of this views, supplying supporting documents, but each time he was ignored. Madoff was finally revealed to be a fraud in December 2008, when his sons contacted the FBI. Madoff was sentenced in 2009 to 150 years in prison operating the largest private Ponzi scheme in history.
Interestingly, he inspired a certain Nathan Anderson to also investigate fraud (albeit for profit!) and take down a certain electric car company named after one of the pioneers of electricity. (Probably not the one you just thought of) The firm he set up is currently setting the headlines ablaze for going after other high profile targets. Name the car company he took down.
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Answer 9
Nikola Motors (now Nikola Corporation)
Question 10
On their Deadpool and Wolverine publicity tour, Ryan Reynolds made this statement about an Indian actor. Who was he talking about?
Apologies to anyone who ‘went cold’ far too soon.
Also, sound optional - there are subs, people!
Subtitles I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter.
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Answer 10
The answer
Question 11
"My partner and I will get the gold at the Los Angeles 2028 Games," said the silver medalist Yusuf Dikec of Turkey after his photo went viral. "I've only lent the gold medal until 2028."
The media also attributed another quote to him (now proven bogus) where he is alleged to have said a somewhat cliched “Sharon, _ ____ __ ___ ____” to his ex-wife. What was this funny but fake quote?
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Answer 11
Question 12
Some of the CGI work to animate Richard Parker, the tiger in Life of Pi by the Director Ang Lee was done by Rhythm and Hues Studios, a company headquartered in LA, with offices Hyderabad (near Kavuri Hills). 11 days before they won an Oscar for this work in 2013, something happened that made the headlines and brought focus onto the culture of crunch, and not paying artists their due despite their hard work. Although perhaps behind the scenes there were corporate shenanigans.
Put funda - what happened?
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Answer 12
The company filed for chapter XI bankruptcy!
They’re OK now - resold/ recovered! They did some CGI for Game of Thrones and RRR
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Question 13
The much hyped but little understood R&AW is India’s foreign intelligence agency and was formed after the intelligence failures ahead of the 1971 Sino-Indian war.
Very simple question - what is this Research and Analysis Wing, a wing of?
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Answer 13
From Wikipedia: “R&AW's legal status is unusual, in that it is not an "Agency", but a "Wing" of the Cabinet Secretariat.
Hence, R&AW is not answerable to the Parliament of India on any issue, which keeps it out of reach of the Right to Information Act.”
Former, part-time RAW operative (only worked Monday nights)
Question 14
Here's some of the longest Hindi fiction movies ever made and released theatrically (the exact numbers vary depending on the source so this is straight from Wikipedia)
The blank refers to a film that arguably deals with the same issues that were in the headlines (and a viral meme) following the presentation of the recent Union Budget of India. Fill in the blank.
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Answer 14
Question 15
Uncle Sam, a male personification of the United States is shown. Who was U, the not as commonly used female analogue?
She used to wear the flag ‘Old Glory’ (replaced by a plain cloth in the most well known modern version). She sometimes holds a torch and her name sounds like the name of another country.
She fell out of favor once a certain statue arrived from Paris, for obvious reasons but was immortalized (sort of) by Hollywood!
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Answer 15
Review
Scores
Let’s
Turn
This
Train
Around!
Question 16
_______ de Albuquerque, Duke of Goa, was a Portuguese general, a "great conqueror", a statesman, and an empire builder.
He advanced the 3-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. He was the first Renaissance European to raid the Persian Gulf, and led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He became known as "the Great", "the Terrible", "the Caesar of the East", "the Lion of the Seas", and "the Portuguese Mars".
However, ____ is a household name in India today for a completely unrelated reason: he encouraged genetic engineering, of a sort!
What is/ was the reason?
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February 2020 - from the age of innocence
Answer 16
Question 17
Name the substance shown. Its name (from original French) literally means “grey fossilized tree resin” but it is not from a tree. It is known for aromatic properties but was not gifted to Jesus.
A whole chapter in Moby Dick is dedicated to it. It is illegal to trade in it in the US and Australia.
Weighing about a pound the sample shown was evaluated at $63,000
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Answer 17
Ambergris - “grey amber” - formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of Sperm Whales, usually found washed up on coastlines or y’know, inside Moby Dick
Question 18
Sideshow!
Connect… the specific answer gets 20 points, but the obvious answer gets 5
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Answer 18
The Golden Age Flash, Captain America & Asterix all feature the “Wings of Hermes” (the Graeco-Roman god has wings on his sandaled feet/ helmet)
Question 19
Popular in the early 20th century indoor ‘movie theatres’ like the one shown charged 5c and typically showed ‘peep shows’. Film historians reckon modern cinema began here!
The compound term ZK used to describe them has roots in ancient Greece and modern currency, and is familiar to modernity for other reasons such as OTT.
Solve for ZK
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Answer 19
"Nickelodeon" was concocted from nickel, the name of the U.S. five-cent coin, and the ancient Greek word odeion, a roofed-over theater. No relation to this logo ->
Question 20
Since the year 2898 AD (Part 2) is fast approaching…
Name the fellow with the sword.
According to the Kalki Purana, he is
There is also a major connect to both the sci-fi action movie obviously and the myth cycle it is based on
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Answer 20
The demon Kali, not to be confused with the form of Adi Parashakti/ or the goddess of time and death (Mahakali) or the consort of Virabhadra (Bhadrakali).
This demonic entity/ asura Kali whose advent ends the eponymous Kali-yug is the nemesis of Kalki as played by Kamal Haasan
Question 21
The rulers commonly known as the "Five Good Emperors" were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius (of Gladiator fame, as played by Dumbledore).
Historians were compelled to argue that these Emperors earned the respect of those around them through good governing rather than divine right: “(they) had no need of praetorian cohorts, or of countless legions to guard them, but were defended by their own good lives, the good-will of their subjects, and the attachment of the senate.”
Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that their rule was a time when "the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of wisdom and virtue". The succession from Aurelius to his son Commodus (as fictionalized in Gladiator) is said to signal the beginning of the decline of Rome.
FITB - what was the thing they had in common?
Since we discussed the font, and as the movie Gladiator II comes out shortly…
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Answer 21
They were all adopted, not biological heirs to the Roman Emperors before them
Question 22
Statement: “I had fully determined at the conclusion of the Memoirs to bring Y to an end, as I felt that my literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel. That pale, clear-cut face and loose-limbed figure were taking up an undue share of my imagination. I did the deed…
I have never regretted it, for I have not in actual practice found that these lighter sketches have prevented me from exploring and finding my limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry, historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Y never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work.
And so, reader, farewell to XY! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance.”
Who said this? Who or what is XY? Put overall funda
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Answer 22
Arthur Conan Doyle
XY - Sherlock Holmes
Question 23
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, the world’s greatest detective was used by a French author (without license from Arthur Conan Doyle) as a foil and something of an antagonist to the Frenchman’s own character, labeled ‘the gentleman thief and master of disguise’.
When Doyle and his publisher learned of this and raised an eyebrow, the Frenchman immediately changed the name of the detective in his stories to Herlock Sholmes.
Both Holmes and the Gentleman Thief are now out of copyright, and in fact the latter was the subject (like Holmes) of a modern adaptation that ‘aired’ on Netflix in 2021 and has now run on for three seasons
Name the gentleman thief.
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Answer 23
Question 24
This person, in the news a lot of late, is one of just seven individuals who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal.
In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, a position he held until 2018.
He also served on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to support UN causes, from 1998 to 2021.
In 2022, he partnered with Global Esports Federation to build esports for the development movement. He played a key advisory role in the Paris 2024 Olympics, promoting social business principles and encouraging sustainable, socially responsible projects. His influence led to initiatives like prioritizing social businesses in public tenders and integrating social housing into the athletes' village redevelopment.
All of this of course has little to do with his life’s work in Finance, or for his recent notoriety as he is called on to avert a crisis. Who are we talking about?
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Answer 24
Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) the Bangladeshi entrepreneur, banker, economist, politician, and civil society leader who has been serving as the Chief Minister of the interim government of Bangladesh since 8 August 2024.
Question 25
Noted author and the Internet’s villain of the decade, J K Rowling was recently cyber-bullied into changing her DP on Meme-bro’s hell-site (aka X). She went from the picture on the left to the - er, interesting - picture on the right. Put funda - what was wrong with the original pic?
Original tweet explaining reason why
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Answer 25
Question 26
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
____________________________
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
Fill in the blanks with six words
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Answer 26
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Question 27 - obligatory Olympic question ftw
We are thinking of a two word title/ nickname. Let’s call it “One Two”
Curiously, although all of these men qualify for the “Two” part of the title, to the QM’s knowledge none are capable of doing “One”, nor have they done so using machinery, or professionally, or anything. Even curiouser, the name was also given to a low-cost commercial service that ceased operations in 2004
Solve for “One Two”
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Answer 27
Question 28
The now legendary paper “Attention is All You Need”, was co-authored in 2017 by Ashish Vaswani, Noam Shazeer, Niki Parmar, Jakob Uszkoreit, Llion Jones, Aidan N. Gomez, Łukasz Kaiser, and Illia Polosukhin, all from Google.
It is generally agreed that this paper was what unleashed the key insight that led to the rise of Generative AI.
What did they invent/ think up?
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Answer 28
“Attention is all you Need” invented/ thought up the concept of a “Transformer”
Unlike the one shown here with a human for size comparison, the Transformer is the T in Chat GPT
Question 29
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Answer 29
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Question 30
This mug celebrates a fictional painting, “The Pandorica Opens”, also the title for an episode in Series 5 of Doctor Who (Matt Smith’s Run)
Simply identify: Who paints it?
(No Whovian knowledge needed)
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Jan 2020 - one of our longest, best attended quizzes
Answer 30
The Sixth
Anniversary Quiz
by
Hrishi Diwan &
Navin Sigamany (in absentia)
Photo & Scores Time!