A Second Solution

Welcome, welcome, to another answer session at XQZ. If you're new to this quiz blog, please see the first posting Ground Zero in order to learn the basic rules of this quiz blog. Remember to use rot13.

The truth awaits.

2.1
You know, I really wish the Academy had accepted him. The artist is Adolf Hitler. Cracked by Corpsed. Now say that fast ten times :) Oh, wait, Shrey got it too!

2.2
Croquet! Interestingly there is a move in croquet known as the roquet. Corpsed and Shrey strike again! Akshat open his account!

2.3
The diagram shown was associated with phrenology. The cat's got this one.

2.4
No twist to this tale... it is indeed Aryton Senna car wreck. Full points to everyone.

2.5
Think outside the box... a beautiful answer from everyone. I'm afraid I don't know if Bono was involved in particular. The box in this case referred to the box formed by the square of dots, and the fact that the lines drawn would have to project out of it. Neat, eh?

2.6
Kaushik had the right idea but the wrong genre.... the map showed a small, but rather famous, Gaulish village.... home to Asterix and Obelix.

2.7
The year was the clue here, and Corpsed and Shrey latched on immediately. It was the first modern Olympics.

2.8
Direct from Kaushik we have the answer - the Jaipur Foot, the easy to make and highly reliable prostethic leg.

2.9
I'll have to double check my answer, but unless I'm sorely mistaken, the answer is Alaska. Just Alaska, you see, there is a chain of islands (Aleutian?) which cross the 180 degrees meridian, putting them farther East and West then any other part of the USA. The International Date Line is crooked precisely because of these islands (as well as because of part of Asia).

2.10
Beautiful answers from everyone - it was indeed to represent the deaths due to poverty.

Don't forget to write in and rate the questions, on Quality and Toughness.

Sayanora.

Set Three

The questions this time are on average rather long, and are not necessarily framed well, but are about interesting things (well, most of them are). Persevere and ye shall discover new knowledge.

Set Three

Dent's daughter

3.1
This unofficial motto of the US Marine Corps is an abbreviation for the Mandarin Gongye Hezhoushe, or industrial cooperative. The term was used in China, starting in 1938, to refer to small, industrial operations that were being established in rural China to replace the industrial centers that had been captured by the Japanese. The phrase was clipped to the initial characters of the two words, which formed a phrase meaning "work together." This clipping became a slogan for the industrial cooperative movement.

Enter Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, US Marine Corps. Carlson was a military attache in the US embassy to China in the late-30s. In China, Carlson reported on both the operations of the Chinese army in the field as well as the country's industrial capacity and was favorably impressed by the industrial cooperatives. When he returned to the States and the US entered WWII, Carlson was appointed commander of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. Recalling his time in China, Carlson chose ___ __ as the motto for his elite battalion and by late 1942 was widely adopted throughout the Marine Corps as an expression of spirit and "can do" attitude. What is the phrase?

3.2
Connect Motorola, the US Postal Service and the Discovery Channel.

3.3
It is an extremely poor, fourth-world Eastern-European country that has recently abandoned Communism. Most of the nation is covered with waist-deep mud, which the residents use to build houses. Much of the economy is mud-based. The country is also at war with its neighbour.

Most of the natives have beards, even the females, and wear tall grey hats and black mittens. Their technology is very outdated, and includes tin can telephones, and giant slingshots (instead of airplanes). The natives are commonly portrayed as idiotic and backward. For many years the country has been mired in a civil war between the left and right-handed citizens, although the war was mostly bloodless, as the people did not realize they were allowed to use weapons.

The country's government is a dictatorship, run by a right-handed Fidel Castro-esque military strongman who strives to crush the lefties. Another tyrant briefly deposed the President and made himself dictator, turning the country into a tourist hotspot by making prostitution and gambling not only legal, but mandatory.

The national bird is the frisbee. In order to attract tourists the country openly lies in its promotional videos, and claims to host five of the seven wonders of the world. Which country is it? (Taken from Nihilanth Lone Wolf quiz)

3.4
I am a 3 feet 6 inches tall character created by Carlo Rambaldi. In the film my voice was that of Debra Winger and Pat Walsh and I was played by two dwarfs, Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bolton. My eyes were modelled on those of Einstein, Hemingway, and Carl Sandburg and my film won four Oscars in 1982. Who am I? (Thank you, Hrishi!)

3.5
Identify this helicopter (I mean, what is it called? Again from the Nihilanth Lone Wolf Quiz)



3.6
Two former college roommates Laurence K. Marshall and Vannevar Bush, along with scientist Charles G. Smith, founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1922. The company's first product was a gaseous rectifier, called the ________ ("light of the gods"). The company changed its name to ________ in 1925.

In World War II the company manufactured magnetron tubes for use in radar sets, and then complete radar systems. In 1948 they began to manufacture guided missiles.

They are responsible for the Sidewinder, Maverick, Patriot and Tomahawk Cruise missiles. However, quizzers might know them for one of their employees, who took their magnetron business in a new direction. Which company? (The blanks are the same.)

3.7
The small letters refer to people. The capital letters refer to companies with the same name as the people who started them. Identify the companies involved, except for company I.


1912, x forms company X, and the b brothers form a company.
1915 c takes lessons from x.
1916 b brothers form company B. X merges with W to form company W-X. d works for B. c starts a company.
1917 X splits off from X-W to become X again. c starts company C.
At some point e works as chief engineer at X.
1920 e starts company E. At some point B closes.
1923-26 d works for E.
1926 B is restarted with new name F, which is pronounced the same way, but is spelt in a simpler manner. d returns to work for F.
1929 d leaves F to start a company which is subsidiary to another, but which is named after himself.
1930 g starts G
1932 d returns to E, runs a subsidiary.
1933-38 h is chief engineer at X.
1938 d starts his own company D.
1939 h starts H.
1961 X merges with another company, changes name to I.
1967 E merges with H to form E-H
1994 G merges with D to form G-D
1995 F merges with I to form a company called F-X
1996 C merges with E-H
1998 F-X abandons attempt to merge with G-D.

3.8
In the world of hostile takeovers, what is the Pac-Man defence?

3.9
David Clark, a British engineer, was given a reward of $10,000 by Intel for giving them a well-preserved copy of one of the 1965 issues of Electronics magazine. Why?

3.10
In 2004, a person attempted to auction a Cinerama 160 degree Fairchild-Curtis lens, with a reserve price of $150,000. To the best of my knowledge the reserve was not met, and so the item was not sold, but why the high price? Why was this lens famous?

Be imaginative. Don't be afraid to guess! Send in your answers, and also your ratings of previous questions.

Au revoir.

One Solution

So here we are once again. All men search, for what, some do not know.... but quizzers search for what some do not know. Moral: watch your punctuation. Here are the answers to Set One.


1.1
Project Blue Book was the last official US Air Force investigation into UFO sightings. Corpsed beamed down the right answer, but Kaushik and Shrey got lost in the crop circles.

1.2
Building (usually skyscrapers),
Antenna,
Span (includes Bridges and Arches)
Earth (natural geological formations like cliffs).

Balloons and Aeroplanes won't work as they aren't fixed structures, and thus don't conform to the idea of BASE jumping. Shrey pretty much cracked it, missing only Span. We got some really innovative answers, but my personal favourite was Corpsed's 'Buildings.... And Suitably Elevated places'.

1.3
A perfect four line description of guerilla/guerrilla tactics. Kaushik and Shrey made decisive strikes, but Corsped rambled in muddy political waters.

1.4
The date was intended to mislead, but all that was in vain as Kaushik and Shrey saw through my deception. Sniff. It is indeed 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. In 1937 it referred to the aerial bombing of cities, which was a relatively new tactic, and also chemical attacks.

1.5
Ever heard of Mountain Dew? Though I'd really like to try out Corpsed's Janx Spirit Stew :). Mountain Dew was a euphemism for illegally brewed alcohol/whisky - aka moonshine.

1.6
Milkha Singh. No cigars for anyone.

1.7
'We're more popular than Jesus now,' said John Lennon. Shrey got the person, though not the line.

1.8
Somewhat ironically, Kaushik guessed Leonardo da Vinci, and Corpsed inspired by the da Vince code, and very astutely noting the crosses in the keys, guessed the Opus Dei, but the keys are the Keys of Peter, the keys to the Kingdom, and the reason you should be hitting yourself on the head is the name written below the shield, which I thought of erasing, but didn't.... it's Giovanni Paolo II.... better known as Pope John Paul II. Each Pope has his own coat of arms. Heheh... I think I can hear you banging your heads on the walls.

1.9
Unfortunately, both Kaushik and Corpsed overshot themselves this time. It's nothing to do with Operation BlueStar, but it is the annual cleaning of the tank (not a lake, Shrey, but excellent try) outside the Golden Temple.

1.10
A hesitant but very smart guess by Kaushik, and confident one from Shrey.... the 1984 climb was the first ever by an Indian woman - Bachendri Pal. In fact, you can see her standing right in the centre of the group.

Don't forget to write in and rate the questions!

Till next time, amigos!

The Zero Point Solution

Hello, and welcome to XQZ. If you're new to this quiz blog, please see the first posting Ground Zero in order to learn the basic rules of this quiz blog. Remember to use rot13.

Sorry for the delay in posting the answers to Set Zero - as usual I left my packing till the last moment. The answers for Set One should be up by tomorrow (local time), and Set Three will be up the day after that, I guess.

Don't forget to rate the questions after you've seen the answers. For details on the rating system see the post called 'Ground Zero'.

Solution Zero

0.1
The missing word is urn, and these words are found on that most holy of sports objects, the urn containing the 'ashes of English cricket'. What was burnt to get the ashes? Well, that question is still open - it has variously been said to be a ball, bail, or even a veil (someone's mother-in-law's).
Kaushik cracked this with a wild guess, Corpsed got the right word but the wrong idea - he thought a leetle too deeply.

0.2
These words are found on the India Gate in Delhi. The Gateway to India is in Bombay. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is at India Gate, but the words are engraved on the Gate itself. The common error here was mixing it up with the Gateway to India - but Kaushik came close.

0.3
These are the words you will find on the Kohima memorial, near a cemetery where lie the dead soldiers who fought to stop the advance of the Japanese into India during World War II.
And a bingo for Corpsed and Shrey.

0.4
The pictures are of Larry Ellison, Batgirl and Pythia. Ellison is the CEO of Oracle, Batgirl lost the use of her legs after being shot, and reinvented herself as the omnipotent computer expert Oracle, and Pythia was the priestess of Apollo, who acted as the Oracle at Delphi. The connection is the word/name Oracle.
Kaushik grand slammed this after a little checking to get the Batgirl connection. Corpsed recognised Pythia, but failed to see the common thread.

0.5
The pictures are of Carl Lewis and Al Oerter, who each won track and field gold medals in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympics. Lewis did it in the long jump, Oerter in the discus throw. The crucial word is 'same event', as there is one other person (Paul Elvstrom) who won individual golds in four consecutive Olympics, but in different events.
No one got this exactly right, I'm afraid.

0.6
The odds were for who would die in the 6th Harry Potter book, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'. They (the bookies) stopped accepting bets after they realised that a large amount of money was being placed on one character, and that all the bets came from the town in which the novel was being printed. :)
Kaushik had the right idea but the wrong book - Corpsed and Shrey hit it bang on though.

0.7
The slope is known as Henman Hill, after Britain's long-time best-hope to win Wimbledon. But now it has acquired another possible nickname - Murray Mound, after an enterprising Scotsman.
Corpsed and Shrey do it again!

0.8
Heheh.... the wood-pulp mill is the clue here.... it's the nokia.
And it's ..... Corpsed and Shrey!

0.9
These are the famous Satanic Verses, as it is supposed to be Satan who misled Muhammed into including them. Realizing his mistake, Muhammed later removed them.

0.10
These paintings are by a former Nobel Prize winner. Gao Xinjiang was the first winner for the Nobel Prize in Literature to come from the People's Republic of China. Actually he's in exile. He won in 2002, and his most famous novel is Soul Mountain.

I'm typing this sitting in my sister's house in the UK. I'll post details of the trip later - look out for them at my other blog. This is your last chance to solve Set One, and don't forget to look out for Set Three. And please do send in the ratings.

Adios, Amigos!

PS 0.0
Kaushik and Shrey cracked this in one... it's a Douglas Adams / Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference. I won't spoil it for you. Read it and find out. :) Must say though that I hadn't known about the quote.

Don't forget to spread the word to those who may be interested!