Saturday, September 17, 2005

Set Eight

Once again, welcome to another page of questions at XQZ. First, the - you know, I wonder how many of you actually read the intro. I guess I should include a series of personal insults and then see who respond. Oh well. For those of you who are new to this, please check out the first posting Ground Zero in order to learn the basic rules of this quiz blog. Remember to use rot13.

In other news, Shanth has continued his series of intriguing and very hard to google questions. Please do check out African or European. In yet more news, Set Seven is still up for grabs, so please do send in your answers, as well as the ratings for previous sets - thank you, Kaushik and Shanth, for being so regular with your feedback, but I'd appreciate it if you other people would also chip in so that I get a more balanced viewpoint. Also do write in and tell me if you feel that the distribution of questions is tilting too much one way or the other.

But you're impatient now. Very well. After a long time, this set contains several picture questions. They are still amenable to googling, but try to resist that temptation as far as possible. You appreciate the answer more if you wait for it :)
Any way -

En avant!

Set Eight

We start with a easy one:

8.1
This fly was named after a person for his contributions to Dipterology (the science of flies). Who?




8.2
Name this marvel of nature, about which statesman and orator Daniel Webster once said, "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."



8.3
Fill in the blank, and name the book from which this extract is taken.

Her destination was one of the dubious software rental complexes that lined Memory Lane. There was a stillness, a hush. Booths lined a central hall. The clientele were young, few of them out of their teens. They all seemed to have carbon sockets planted behind the left ear, but she didn't focus on them. The counters that fronted the booths displayed hundreds of slivers of _________, angular fragments of coloured silicon mounted under oblong transparent bubbles on square of white cardboard. Molly went to the seventh booth along the south wall. Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space, a dozen spikes of _________ protruding from the socket behind his ear.

8.4
Identify and connect these pictures. The first three are perhaps more relevant, but the other two are also useful.







8.5
Fill in the blank with a word, which has come to denote any word used as a catch-phrase or codeword among a select group:

Then the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever one of the fugitives of Ephraim said, "Let me go over," the men of Gilead would say to him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" When he said, "No," they said to him, "Then say __________," and he said, "_________," for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time.

*Commercial break*

Usual Useless Bonus question

It's a silly question, but it occured to me and I didn't know the answer straight away, though it can actually be worked out quite easily. We all use ROT13 a lot, but why is it called ROT13?


*We now return to our regular programming*

8.6
E. Montagu noted that this man was the only man ever to join the Royal Marines after he was dead! He had a fiancée named Pam, and when his body was recovered, they found a photograph of her and love letters. They also found a set of keys, theater stubs for a recent performance, a statement from his club for lodging in London, and so forth. His careless nature was revealed in his overdue bills, a replacement identification card to replace the one he lost, an expired pass to Combined Operations HQ that he forgot to renew, and an irate missive from a bank manager from Lloyds Bank for an overdraft of £17 19s 11d.

Who was he, and why was he important?

8.7
If a red ribbon stands for awareness about AIDS/supporting AIDS patients, what are the following for?





8.8
Identify and connect these three pictures:





8.9
Identify these lovely ladies and connect. It's not a superficial connect, but it is a simple and nice answer.







8.10
My personal favourite, partly because I put in such a lot of work editing the pic, partly because it's a touching moment.

Identify this place. The photo has been heavily Photoshopped, but the man visible in the picture is doing something ....



Till next time, kameraden.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Six Degrees

If you're new to this blog, please see the first posting Ground Zero in order to learn the basic rules of this quiz blog. Remember to use rot13. If you've been here before, well, it's time to let the cats out of the bag again, so here are the answers:

6.1
Guy Fawkes, the man who trie to blow up the British parliament. Guy Fawkes day is still celebrated, and is immortalised in the rhyme:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Shanth googled this.

6.2
Kermit the Frog, from Sesame Street.

Shanth (googled)

6.3
This is the infamous Polish Plumber.
To quote from the BBC & Wikipedia: "The "Polish plumber" became a catchphrase of the French "No" camp during the referendum on the EU constitution. It was first used by Philippe de Villiers and opponents of the European Constitution as a symbol of cheap labour coming in from Eastern Europe as a result of the Directive on services in the internal market during the EU Constitution referendum in France in 2005.

It was then featured in a poster by the Polish tourism board in response to what was perceived as negative rhetoric against Poland. "I'm staying in Poland - do come over (in great numbers)," says the new ad on the Polish tourist board's website for French visitors."
"

Shanth (googled) got it.

6.4
At 3 was the Sony Walkman, and number 2 was the first modern telvision remote(!), the Zenith Space Command.

Shanth (googled) (For shame, Shanth, take a guess! That's better than googling everything!)

6.5
Largest two manmade islands in the world. Actually, I'm wrong there - in 2004, the Crown Prince of Dubai announced the construction of the Palm Deira which would be the largest of the three. Dubai is also planning to make a set of islands that resemble a map of the world.




(Googled by Shanth)

RSBQ answer:
Inscriptions on the edges of British coins.

The mottoes are from England, Scotland and Wales.

(Googled by Shanth)

6.6a Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, Bullfighting.

Cracked by Googleshanth and by Varun, who remembered Hemingway and the sport, but had to search for the book.

6.6b
The UN peacekeepers

Hurray for Hrishikesh! This is Hrishi's first foray into XQZ (at least, answering the questions) and he got it! (Shanth and Google again!) Kaushik thought they were a Canadian Hockey team.... heheh.

6.7
Clippy, the annoying paper clip (Office Assistant) that gave users advice in Microsoft Word.

Shanth (without Google's help! hurray!). Kaushik got it straight off. Hrishi came close with Excel's Merlin, but that's the wizard. Varun thought it might have something to do with ET - nice funda, so you get a virtual chocolate (The first!).

6.8
Telesur.

(Shanth with Google - maybe I should abbreviate it to SWG). Kaushik succumbed to curiosity and googled, but modestly refused to claim points :)

6.9
The connection is director Terry Gilliam. The pictures are of:

Jabberwocky (Jabberwocky)
The Quest for the Holy Grail (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
Hunter S. Thompson's logo (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
The Brothers Grimm (The Brothers Grimm)

Shanth, again without Googling - well done! However, you missed the Brothers Grimm.

6.10
The slaying of King Duncan by Macbeth. Macbeth was the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor. Interestingly, the Queen Mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, is from Glamis castle.

Shanth - got it by a wild guess and then confirmed by Google. Kaushik took a wild guess and stuck with it. Hrishi also recognised Macbeth, but went for his defeat.

Don't forget to send in your ratings of the questions. Adios, and don't forget to check out sets Seven and Eight!