THE QUIZZITCH CUP FINALE – PRELIMSBy Stupid-O Sudipto Basu

RULES:

Write down your answers. No shouting and prompting – may lead to

disqualification of teams. Don’t use mobile phones. +1 for each correct answer. No negatives in

the prelims. Guessing encouraged. There are 5 star-marked questions, which act

as tie-breakers. The QM’s decision is final and binding.

QUESTION 1.

The smallest of the six original and distinct spitz breeds from Japan, Shiba Inu copes very well on mountainous terrain and was originally bred for hunting.

What is its position in pop culture?

THE DOGE MEME.

QUESTION 2.

“No matter what he or she does, or how long or short they live, everyone on this planet plays a central role in forming the history of the world”

What project, founded in Feb 2010 by Anusha Yadav, has this motto?

THE INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT Anyone can submit photos/letters/memories

to the site, which are then reviewed and posted.

QUESTION 3.

“I will carry out great _______ on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the ____, when I take _____ on them.”

Certain words have been blanked out. You DON’T need to fill them in. Instead, name the passage/verse which hath been presented.

EZEKIEL 25:17

QT’s deliberately botched verse from the Bible.

QUESTION 4.

What was founded by a merger in 1950 of four Bengali banks: Comilla Banking Corporation, Bengal Central Bank, Comilla Union Bank and Hooghly Bank?

UNITED BANK OF INDIA

The four Bengali-owned banks merged to fight the competition from “Marwari” businessmen.

QUESTION 5.***

Around a couple of weeks back, law enforcement agencies saw a blue-tinted variant of a recreational drug being circulated in Albuquerque, New Mexico. However, contrary to popular belief, this variant did not have a high level of purity and was making users ill.

Funda?

Blue-tinted crystal meth to cash in on the Breaking Bad madness.

QUESTION 6.

Official codename: Development of Substitute Materials.

MANHATTAN PROJECT, LOS ALAMOS, TRINITY

QUESTION 7.***

Niijima is an island which emerged around this New Year's eve when a volcano erupted in the sea around 500 metres from the existing island Nishino-shima, some 600 miles (1,000km) south of Tokyo. Just as satellite images of it went online, it was nicknamed ______ Island.

SNOOPY, FROM PEANUTS

QUESTION 8.

One speculation is that the specific digit sequence was chosen because one had to travel from one end of the rotating dial to the other, thereby reducing the chance of calling accidentally. What am I talking of?

911, EMERGENCY NUMBER

QUESTION 9.

Whose studio is this? Artist pictured.

BANKSY

QUESTION 10.

In the 2000s, he ran a Delhi-based IT firm Madgen Solutions based in Delhi. The Spamhaus Project accused him of spamming on behalf of TopSites LLC, naming him in Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) as one of the top spam operators in the world.

In 2013, Patiala House Court had indicted him for "tampering with evidence" along with his client Pawan Kumar in a corruption case.

Who is he?

SOMNATH BHARTI

A little irony there!

QUESTION 11.***

Sylvester daCunha, Kumar Morey and Bharat Dabholkar have been involved at various points with an iconic effort – which flourishes to this date. They disagreed with the prevalent trend in their industry and often persevered against political pressure to maintain their integrity. Which effort is being talked of, that started in 1966?

AMUL ADS

They were against the idea of using stars for endorsing products. The topicality of their ads landed them in trouble sometimes.

QUESTION 12.

An educational institution in the north of Westchester County, New York has a Latin motto which literally means "by changing those things which have to be changed." Who are the primary occupants of this institution?

X-MANSION.

The motto is: “Mutatis Mutandis”

QUESTION 13.

What indigenous variant of gambling – supposedly devised by Ratan Khatri – gets its name from an utensil?

Gamblers bet on 2 or 3 digit numbers and the winning number gets upto 80 times the money wagered.

MATKA GAMBLING

QUESTION 14.

Whose contributions to literature are these?1. The Alchemy of Desire (2006)2. Story of my Assassins (2010)3. The Valley of Masks (2011)

TARUN TEJPAL

QUESTION 15.

Jhochhen Tole is a small street located at the south of Kathmandu Durbar Square. The street gets its colloquial name from the people frequenting it in the ‘60s and ‘70s. A change in legislation brought about a downturn in its particular brand of tourism, but the street is still called by its old name. What?

OLD FREAK STREET

QUESTION 16.***

What derives its name from a Latin word, technically meaning the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly necessary to conduct the business of that group?

QUORUM/QUORA

QUESTION 17.

Auguste Antoine Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer. What did he inspire?

PROF. CUTHBERT CALCULUS

QUESTION 18.

X is an extremely lightweight but feature-rich software. It has a Greek letter in its name which denotes the SI prefix "micro-", as a reference to the program's very small memory footprint. X is owned by Y, a company founded in 2004 by Ashwin Navin and Bram Cohen. Y is also the name of the protocol which supports software such as X.

Name X & Y. Half points for each.

X – UTORRENT, Y - BITTORRENT

Half points for each.

QUESTION 19.

Fill in the blank.

MOSES

QUESTION 20. The shape of this product is

modelled after a hyperbolic paraboloid.

The name of the product came from a street in Cincinnati, chosen simply for its sound and appeal.

The design characteristic is beneficial as it helps keep the product from breaking during distribution by eliminating lines of stress along which a small crack may easily propagate. Further, it keeps a stack of the product tightly interlocked or nested during distribution.

PRINGLES

QUESTION 21.***

The meaning of the word in German is “herb”, designating the stem and leaves of a plant as opposed to its root.

However it became a slang from the time of World War I, via its association with traditional German or central European food.

What is the word?

KRAUT

During World War I, it came to be a derogatory term for German soldiers in the US through their association with the sauerkraut sandwich.

QUESTION 22.

Who was the first Indian actress to win an award at an international film festival?

SUCHITRA SEN / ROMA DASGUPTA

QUESTION 23.

Motor vehicle theft (sometimes referred to as _____ _____ ____ by the media and police departments in the US) is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a car. FITB.

GRAND THEFT AUTO

QUESTION 24.***

Connect these 4 ladies.

QUEENS IN A PACK OF PLAYING CARDS.

The traditional Paris court card names were: Queen of Spades - Pallas Queen of Hearts - Judith Queen of Diamonds - Rachel Queen of Clubs - Argina/Argea

QUESTION 25.

Explain funda.

GOOGLE IN HACKER/LEETSPEAK.

Leet/1337 (derived from elite), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters.

Google offers some rather unusual choices of user languages – including Elmer Fudd (Ewmeww Fwudd), Hacker, Pirate and Bork! Bork! Bork! (from the Swedish chef in The Muppet Show).