Set from Weekend Quiz sessions at IISER Kolkata

1. Another Quiz
By 8erdcules

2. Obligatory rules slide

3. What is the term?
This term, when used today immediately reminds one of a certain
industry/sector.
The term originated from the sound made by a machine which was
widely used in the sector after Thomas Edison perfected one for
practical use in 1867.
The remnants of the physical workings of the machine can still be seen
today in this industry’s daily working, in connection with the modern
usage of the term.

5. Ticker

7. What coincidence?
• MH 370 was a Malaysian airlines flight that disappeared on 8th march
2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing
• The aircraft itself was a Boeing 777-2H6ER
• There was a certain coincidence regarding the manufacture of the
plane which had people quite stunned
• Hint: Think internet
Q2

9. It was the 404th Boeing 777 manufactured

11. *insert title here*
• Finland released a set of emojis to “explain some hard-to-describe
Finnish emotions, Finnish words and customs.”
• What does the blanked out emoji depict?
Q3

16. ID X
• There is a popular misconception that X’s were made only in black.
• The X was introduced Oct. 1, 1908, and through the 1913 model year
buyers had a choice of several colors, including black. Then, in 1926
and 1927, colors included green, light blue, brown, maroon - and, of
course, black.
• Black was the only color the X came in from 1914 through 1925, and
the reason was economics, not style.
• The company started making X only in black since it dried fastest, they
had to meet large volumes of orders.
Q4

18. Ford Model T

20. The name X comes from the Latin words “nix, nivis” and means “snow”. When
translated, X literally means “snow white”.
This product we all know has an iconic form of packaging, preserved till date,
although with a changed appearance.
This was the original look
ID X
Q5

24. ID X and Y
• Herzogenaurach is a small town in Bavaria which is known as the ‘town of bent
necks’
• A man started making something in his mother’s laundry room in the 1920s
which led to the birth of a legacy. He was later joined by his brother.
• In 1947, a falling out between the brothers caused the splitting of the business in
to two companies X and Y that are huge till date
• The entire town is involved in this family dispute, which has turned into a bitter,
deep-seated rivalry with all town residents taking sides, The town is even
geographically divided based on support for X and Y, X on the southern bank of
the Aurach river that divides the town, and Y to the north.
• In an interview about this, a town resident says he automatically looks at what a
person is wearing on their feet before saying hello.
• Give me X and Y. Bonus points for the brothers.
Q6

26. Adidas & Puma
Adolf and Rudolf Dassler

28. Origin story of which famous site?
• Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social, and trusting communal
ways on the Internet and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco,
__________ founder _____ Newmark decided to create something similar for local
events. In early 1995, he began an email distribution list to friends. Most of the early
postings were submitted by Newmark and were notices of social events of interest to
software and Internet developers living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Soon, word of mouth led to rapid growth. The number of subscribers and postings grew
rapidly. There was no moderation and Newmark was surprised when people started
using the mailing list for non-event postings. People trying to get technical positions filled
found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for.
This led to the addition of a jobs category. User demand for more categories caused the
list of categories to grow. The initial technology encountered some limits, so by June
1995 Majordomo had been installed and the mailing list “_______" resumed operations.
Community members started asking for a web interface. Newmark registered
“_______.org", and the website went live in 1996.
Q7

30. craigslist

32. FITB.
• CapitalG (formerly ___(1)____ Capital) is the late-stage growth
venture capital fund financed by ___(2)____., and based in San
Francisco, CA. Founded in 2013, it focuses on larger, growth stage
technology companies, and invests for profit rather than strategically
for ___(1)____. In addition to capital investment, CapitalG's approach
includes giving portfolio companies access to ___(1)____ 's people,
knowledge, and culture to support the companies' growth and offer
them guidance.
Q8

34. (1)Google
(2)Alphabet Inc.

36. Put funda
• In a high-profile 6 March 2014 article in the magazine Newsweek,
journalist Leah McGrath Goodman wrote about Dorian Prentice
________ _________, a Japanese American man living in California,
whose birth name is ________ _________ .
• As additional evidence to the theory put forward in the article (which
was ultimately disproved), internet armchair detectives uncovered
that Dorian lived a couple of blocks away from Hal Finney’s house in
Temple City, a town of just 36,000. Finney was the recipient of a
historical transaction regarding the subject of the article.
Q9

38. Satoshi Nakamoto

40. Put Funda
• In a recent ad for Amazon’s Alexa, which was aired during the
superbowl, sounds in the frequency range between 3000-6000 Hz
were muted. Watch the ad and put funda
Q10

43. So that Amazon Echos in people’s houses
don’t switch on during that time

45. ID X
• X was born as Jehangir on 29 July 1904 to mother Suzanne Brière
• French was his first language. He attended the Janson De Sailly School in
Paris. One of the teachers at that school used to call him L'Egyptian for
some strange reason.X also served for one year in a Spahis regiment during
the Second World War. After he left the service the whole regiment
perished on an expedition in Morocco.
• When X was in tour, he was inspired by his friends father pioneer Louis
Blériot the first Man to fly across English channel, and took to flying. On 10
February 1929, he obtained the first pilot licence issued in India.
• X died in Geneva, Switzerland on 29 November 1993 at the age of 89 of a
kidney infection. Upon his death, the Indian Parliament was adjourned in
his memory – an honour not usually given to persons who are not
members of parliament.
Q11

47. JRD Tata

49. FITB
• Saudi ___ ______ Group is a multinational construction conglomerate and is
headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Saudi ___ ______ Group were during
2011 signed to a US$1.23 billion contractual agreement to construct the tallest
building in the world, Jeddah Tower in Jeddah, and in addition are bound to a
US$3.4 billion agreement to construct the Doha Metro located at Doha.
• The group was founded in 1931 by Sheikh Mohammed ___ ______ Sayyid, father
of _______ ___ ______, whose relationship with the country's founder, Abdel
Aziz al Saud, led to important government contracts such as refurbishing the
mosques at Mecca and Medina.
• On 11 September 2015, while doing construction work in the Grand Mosque in
Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the Group's cranes collapsed due to high winds
causing 118 deaths and almost 400 injuries. As a result, the Saudi king banned
the firm from taking new projects while having its current projects reviewed. The
Saudi government removed the ban on the ___ ______ Group in May 2016,
allowing them to bid on new projects.
Q12

51. Bin Laden/Binladin

53. This picture was clicked in Bangalore in 1999, the gentleman on the
extreme left is Dr. James D. Watson, ID the lady on the extreme right.

55. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

57. This is an exhaustive list leaving out one recent
addition which is centuries newer than the
members listed below. FITB
• Austrian ________________________
• Danish ________________________
• Dutch ________________________, also known as the United ________________________
• French ________________________
• Portuguese ________________________
• Swedish ________________________
Q14

59. East India Company

61. 23 Wall Street is a building popularly known as “Morgan House” that
used to headquarter JP Morgan Chase
The building is only four stories tall and stands out among the
skyscrapers surrounding it
What was the logic behind designing it in this manner?
Q15

63. They built only 4 floors as a show of wealth

65. ID
• The following slide consists of an exhaustive list of what?
Q16

66. #
Exchange
ticker
Companies Date Added
1 532921Adani Ports & SEZ 21 December 2015[5]
2 500820Asian Paints 21 December 2015[5]
3 532215Axis Bank
4 532977Bajaj Auto
5 532454Bharti Airtel
6 533278Coal India 8 August 2011[6]
7 500124Dr. Reddy's Laboratories
8 500180HDFC Bank
9 500182Hero MotoCorp
10 500696Hindustan Unilever
11 500010
Housing Development
Finance Corporation
12 532174ICICI Bank
13 532187IndusInd Bank 18 December 2017[7]
14 500209Infosys
15 500875ITC
16 500247Kotak Mahindra Bank 19 June 2017[8]
17 500510Larsen & Toubro
18 500520Mahindra & Mahindra
19 532500Maruti Suzuki
20 532555NTPC
21 500312
Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation
22 532898
Power Grid Corporation of
India
20 June 2016[9]
23 500325Reliance Industries
24 500112State Bank of India
25 524715Sun Pharmaceutical 8 August 2011[6]
26 532540Tata Consultancy Services
27 500570Tata Motors
28 570001Tata Motors DVR 19 June 2017[8]
29 500470Tata Steel
30 507685Wipro
31 532648Yes Bank 18 December 2017[7]

68. Companies that make up SENSEX

70. ID the search termQ17

72. Modi
• Initially for NaMo and the latest peak in Feb for Nirav Modi

74. ID the siteQ18

79. Vintage advertisements
round
5 Questions, written,+10/0
+10 for full house

100. ID the product
• The inventor of ______—which you definitely have a can of somewhere in
your house—is Norm Larsen, who started his company Rocket Chemical
with two other employees in 1953. As a chemist, Norm was self-taught—
his only education was high school, but he loved reading books about
chemistry and really, really wanted to invent something helpful and useful.
• This was early in the US space program, and a major monkey wrench in the
Atlas rocket program was corrosion caused by moisture. Norm and his
employees figured this was not a problem that a little chemistry couldn’t
solve, and went about attempting to create a formula capable of displacing
water and preventing corrosion. After many failed attempts—thirty-nine,
to be exact—they hit upon the successful formula on attempt number
forty, and water displacement formula 40 was born.
Q19

104. Which brand?
• Sitting in a small village in the bylanes of Kolkata, Dr. S.K. Burman
would cure several Indian villagers of their diseases with his Ayurvedic
medicines. The news of his ‘miraculous medicines’ spread far and
wide and soon ‘Daktur Burman’, as the villagers fondly called him,
became a renowned name across the region.
• This small clinic grew into a large business and is now one of the
largest FMCGs in India, with it’s name derived from ‘Daktur Burman’
Q20

108. ID the product
• Corning Inc. is a 160 year old pioneer in the glass industry. The company
had a history of science-based innovations and the strategy by
management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product
innovation.
• In 1962, Corning developed Chemcor, a windshield technology, designed to
be thinner and lighter than existing windshields, which reduced danger of
personal injury by shattering into small granules when smashed. It also
developed a rapid manufacturing process for the glass for Lightbulbs and
was the Glass supplier to the Edison General Electric Company.
• The company came into the limelight in modern times for an innovation
made for the tech world in 2011 when it was approached by Apple to
develop a particular solution. The product it developed has now become a
staple in the sector. Which Product?
Q21

112. What is being talked about?
• The first such proposal appeared on the Adbusters website on
February 2, 2011, under the title "A Million Man March on Y Z.“
• Kalle Lasn registered the XYZ.org web address on June 9.
• That same month, Adbusters emailed its subscribers saying “America
needs its own Tahrir.”
• The slogan “We are the 99%” became strongly associated with this
• Give XYZ
Q22

114. X Y Z=Occupy Wall Street

116. What were the flights carrying?
• The Mysore Airport at Mandakahalli was inaugurated in 2010 but left
practically unused after a few initial flights.
• However it was recently learnt that the central government paid a
private company 1 Lakh Euros to run a series of chartered flights that
would enable transport from a local facility in the city to various other
important places in the country.
Q23

118. Notes from the Bank Note Printing Press at
Mysore

120. Who famously responded to this ad and worked at INVESTOR’S CENTER,
selling pink sheet stocks?Q24

122. Jordan Belfort

124. ID X
• In 2012, the world saw a hostile takeover attempt made on X’s
company that involved an armed attack on the New York stock
exchange and stolen fingerprints of X used to make fraudulent
investments on X’s behalf in long term stock options that expired
soon, rendering X bankrupt.
• X was determined to foil this hostile takeover attempt in order to
protect a volatile energy project of the company from falling into the
wrong hands.
Q25

126. Wayne Enterprises

128. ID the Company
• In the following slide, you will see a screenshot from Stanley Kubrick’s
masterpiece, “2001 : A Space Odyssey” that was released in 1968.
• The screenshot is from the initial part of the movie as Dr. Heywood is
flying to a Hilton Space Station to fly from there to the moon
• The movie is acclaimed for it’s realistic depiction of futuristic concepts
and technology, the movie showed contemporary brands as it
expected them to be in the future (as evident by the use of Hilton for
the space station, another instance is IBM logo on the flight monitors
and technology)
• ID the then successful company that Kubrick thought would pioneer
space tourism/travel
Q26

132. Give Funda
• A ‘Paper Town’ is a town that exists only in maps and not in real life,
The term gained popularity after the release of John Green’s novel of
the same name
• What is the purpose of a paper town?/ Why did mapmakers putr
paper towns in their maps?
Q27

134. To prevent plagiarism

136. Give Funda
• ‘Her’ is a 2013 Movie which is a Love Story between Theodore and
Samantha (Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johannson)
• What is special about their romance?
Q28

138. Scarlet Johannson’s character Samantha is an AI

140. Who is the recipient of this letter thanking them for investing in Apple
Computers Inc.? The owner’s Shrimp company fortune had been
invested in what he thought to be a “fruit company” by his former
business partner.
Q29

142. Forrest Gump

144. fitb
• French Connection is a UK based fashion brand that since
1991 has branded itself with the initialism _ _ _ _
• Allegedly, the idea originated when a fax was sent from the
brand’s Hong Kong office to its London office with the
heading “_ _ hk to _ _ _ _”
Q30

146. fcuk.

148. Which Product?
• Some have speculated that the name was inspired by one-syllable beer
names in the United States (such as "Bud"), and the writers had found the
name humorous. However, longtime animator, producer, and director
David Silverman has stated that Matt Groening named the beer “____"
simply for the convenient rhyme in the slogan "Can't Get Enough of that
Wonderful ____".
• In an excerpt from his autobiography, Guns N' Roses bassist Micheal
McKagan claimed that the beer was named after him as the writers were
fans of the band and he was known for his extreme alcohol consumption
and was popularly called "The King of Beers". This is a claim Matt Groening
has called "absurd". In response McKagan has stated that he thought it was
common knowledge and uncontroversial that he was the origin of the
name, and jokingly called assertions to the contrary "absurd."
Q31

152. ID the video [+10 for the person]Q32

154. Me at the zoo. First video on YouTube
• Person is Jawed Karim, co-founder with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen

156. ID the object
The location of which object is 4,962,150* miles (7,985,808 km,
0.053 AU) from Earth? It is moving at a speed of 7,258* mi/h
(11,680 km/h, 3.24 km/s) and can be considered the fastest in its class.
*data accurate as of 1245 hrs IST, 6th March
Q33

160. FITB
• The _______ principle refers to a 1990s theory by cartoonist Scott
Adams stating that companies tend to systematically promote their
least-competent employees to management (generally middle
management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are
capable of doing.
Q34

162. The Dilbert principle

164. Origin of which term?
• The story goes that in 1946, when Grace Murray Hopper was released
from active duty, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation
Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II and Mark III.
Operators traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay,
coining the term. This ___ was carefully removed and taped to the log
book.
Q35

166. Bug

168. Back to Kubrick. This is one of the small shuttles that were present in the spaceship,
Kubrick called it a ___ as immortalized in the line “Open the ___ bay doors HAL”
similar crafts are always referred to with the same name in SciFi. This word is the
inspiration behind the naming of which iconic product??
Q36

170. iPod
• At the time of the iPod's introduction, Apple was thinking of its
consumer-grade products as part of a "digital hub." Freelance
copywriter Vinnie Chieco had been hired to work on naming the
device and was trying out associations with the word "hub“, Chieco
thought of spaceships as hubs, which then led him to think about the
smaller space shuttles in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," which
looked a bit like the original iPod. Once "2001" was in mind, that led
to one of the movie's most famous quotes: "Open the pod bay doors,
Hal.“
• With the word "pod" from the quote and Apple's "i" branding, the
"iPod" name was born.

172. The Tom Swift series is a series of young adult adventure novels written by Victor
Appleton first published in the early 1900’s that follows the adventures of Thomas A
Swift
This is the cover of Volume 10 of the series
Which device gets its name directly from the subject of the title of this book, a
childhood favourite of the inventor’s?
Q37

174. TASER [Thomas A Smith’s Electric Rifle]

176. This is a list of all things named after or due to XY
• The term "spam" in reference to bulk, unsolicited email
• In 1985, a fossil of a previously unknown species of gigantic prehistoric snake from the Miocene was
discovered in Riversleigh, Queensland, Australia. The Australian palaeontologist who discovered the fossil
snake was a fan of XY, and he gave the snake the taxonomic name of XYoides riversleighensis in honour of
the XY team
• In 2006, Ben & Jerry's, known for their "celebrity flavours", introduced to the line-up "VerXY", a coffee
liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and fudge cows. The name "Minty Y" had been
suggested before in 1996 in a contest to select the quintessential British ice cream flavour In 1999, in
connection with the group's 30th anniversary, a beer named "Holy Grail Ale" was released by the Black
Sheep Brewery in North Yorkshire.
• Geneticists discovered a mutant gene which caused mutant flies to live twice as long as normal ones. They
dubbed the gene "Indy," which is an acronym for the line of dialogue: "I'm not dead yet!", from the The Holy
Grail.
• The band Toad the Wet Sprocket took its name from the Rock Notes sketch on the comedy album, XY's
Contractual Obligation Album

179. What is being talked about
• It was originally designed and implemented by David Bradley, the
chief engineer of the IBM PC
• Bradley reportedly once said “I invented it, but Bill Gates made it
famous, I win whenever he loses”
• It has been compared to Spock’s Vulcan Nerve pinch
• Another name used to refer to it might remind one of The Hunger
Games
Q39

181. Ctrl-Alt-Del

183. Which network
• The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do
communications over the mobile network", and is also from a
compound word ______, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese.
• The company is owned by NTT and is the predominant mobile
network operator in Japan
Q40

185. Docomo
• The Japanese word dokomo means “everywhere”

187. Which company?
• _______ Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by
______ _______, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. _____
described the Android project as "tremendous potential in developing
smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location
and preferences". The early intentions of the company were to
develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras, and this
was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004. The company then
decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its
goals, and by five months later it had diverted its efforts and was
pitching _______ as a handset operating system that would rival
Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile.
Q41

189. Android Inc.
• Andy Rubin was blanked out

191. FITB
• ______ _______ is an Open Source OS based on android, part of
ASOSP.
• In September 2015, PC Advisor called it the most famous ROM along
with CyanogenMod, and The Economic Times called it the second-
largest custom Android ROM in the world with over 200,000 users.
• It shares its name with an extremely famous Radiohead song, which
in turn gets its name from a character in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers
Guide to The Galaxy.

193. Paranoid Android.