Identify X and Y. -Jan 29

The term X was originally coined for the antics of the person it is named after. This practice claimed such famous victims as Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dorothy Parker, Paul Robeson and Orson Welles.

One of the most influential opponents of X was Y, who in 1954 made the following famous comments:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men."

Identify X and Y. Can you also describe the current use of the word X?

Question for January 28

X is described as following in various languages around the world.

Chinese - 'little mouse',

Danish - 'elephant's trunk',

Dutch - 'monkey's tail',

French, Hebrew, Italian, Korean - 'snail',

Hungarian - 'worm/maggot',

Russian - 'little dog',

Swedish - 'cat's foot',

Arabic, German, Turkish - 'ear'

Swedish - 'cinnamon bun',

Czech/Slovak - 'collared herring/rollmop'

Serbian - crazy "a"

Identify X.

Question for Jan 27 - PS

The term "X effect" originated when X unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million.

What followed after X lost the case is what is now popularly known as "X effect".

Some other examples:

- September 2006 - Brazilian television personality Daniela Cicarelli.

- April 2007 - MPAA AACS key - Digg.

- April 2007 - Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand.

- January 2008 - The Church of Scientology - Tom Cruise's speech.

- 5 December 2008 - Scorpions album Virgin Killer

- May 2009 - Amanda Bonnen vs. Chicago's Horizon Group Management LLC.

- September 2009 - Polo Ralph Lauren vs. BoingBoing.

- December 2009 - Ted Alvin Klaudt, former South Dakota state legislator.

Name and explain the effect. Be as specific as possible.

Question for Jan 26-GK

A memorial to what and where is it located?

Question for Jan 25

The location shown in the visual has an approximate address: 3050 Fremont Dr (Sonoma Hwy), Sonoma, CA.

What is the claim to fame of this location?

Hint: Everyone (at least 99.99%) of the blog's patrons would have 'visited' this location at some point in their lives.

Question for 22nd Jan, 2010

What's going on the video below?

Anecdotes on X- January 21st

When Ludwig Wittgenstein went to Cambridge in 1929, he was met at the railway station by a crowd of England's greatest intellectuals, among whom was X. In a letter to his wife, Lydia Lopokova, X wrote: "Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5.15 train."

But X was no commoner himself. X received praise ranging from:

"He was the one really great man I ever knew, and for whom I had unbounded admiration"- Friedrich Hayek

"Every time I argued with X, I felt that I took my life in my hands and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool"- Bertrand Russel

"X was in his most lucid and persuasive mood: and the effect was irresistible. At such moments, I often find myself thinking that X must be one of the most remarkable men that have ever lived - the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement"- Lionel Robbins

X's crowning achievement was a conference in July 1944 (bonus points for identifying the name) when his ideas were accepted as the basis for the post-world war II order which still survives.

Question for Jan 20, 2010

X was a scientist directly responsible for the creation of the Manhattan Project. In 1939, he drafted a letter to Roosevelt, explaining the possibility of nuclear weapons, and recommending the creation of a nuclear program to counter Nazi work on such weapons. He had earlier conceived the idea of nuclear fission when in London, partly inspired by the atomic bomb described in H. G. Wells's novel, "The World Set Free". The impetus for the idea was an article by Ernest Rutherford, who dismissed the possibility of using atomic energy for practical purposes, which annoyed X. Legend states that he conceived the process of a chain reaction while waiting for the traffic lights to change at Southampton Row, something he had never done before. Horrified by the destruction caused by nuclear weapons, X switched to molecular biology after the war. Identify X.

Identify the word - Jan. 19th

The original meaning of the word X was a suitcase (X was formed from the French words for "carry" and "cloak"). The usage of X in the current sense first appeared in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book, Through the Looking Glass, in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in Jabberwocky (a poem in the book).

Charles Dickens used X to name many of his characters, most notably "Scrooge".

Also, "Tanzania" is an example of X.

Question for January 18

X was the world's first national electronic media service organization and was founded on 18 October 1922. The original Company was founded in 1922 by a group of six telecommunications companies to start experimental radio services. The first transmission was on 14 November of that year, from station 2LO. X was created by the General Post Office (GPO). The company was wound-up and in 1927 a new non-commercial entity called Y (it’s current name) became successor in interest. To represent its purpose and values, the Y adopted the coat of arms, incorporating the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation". Y is now the largest electronic media service organization in the world. Identify X or Y.

Question for Jan 15, 2010 - PS

Connect the images:

1:


2:


3:


4:

In case you can't see the whole image, click on the image.

Question for Jan 14-GK

Connect the 3 pictures

Question for Jan 13

The visual shows the 'Plano Piloto' of X (as presented in 1957). When seen from above, the main planned part of X's shape resembles an airplane. X (a national capital) is the only city in the world built in the 20th century to be awarded (in 1987) the status of Historical and Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. X also holds the distinction of waiting the shortest amount of time to be designated a World Heritage Site of any UNESCO entry, which occurred just 27 years after its completion in 1960.

Identify X.

Question for 12th Jan, 2010

X is a game designed by Alexey Pajitnov, a computer engineer while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow. In the game, the user plays with 7 ____: I, J, L, O, S, T and Z. X was in the news in 2009 as a possible prevention technique for Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) where an Oxford University research group reported that playing X soon after viewing traumatic material reduced the number of flashbacks to those scenes in the following week. They believe that X may disrupt the memories that are retained of the sights and sounds witnessed at the time, and which are later re-experienced through involuntary, distressing flashbacks of that moment. But playing too much of X can also cause a repetitive stress symptom in that the brain will involuntarily picture X even when the player is not playing the game. This is known as the X effect.

What's X? Bonus points for indentifying the blanked out word.

Maps for Monday- Jan 11th

Today's question has to do with maps. The following 4 maps are ordered according to a criterion arising out of political maps. The first map can be considered one of a kind (which has a special name too! Bonus points for identifying the name) or a special case of the other 3 maps. In the latter understanding, each map has a characteristic D associated with it.

For the first map below, D= 0.

View Larger Map

For the second map below, D= 9.

View Larger Map

For the third map below, D= 39.

View Larger Map

For the fourth map below, D= 40.

View Larger Map

Obviously this list is ordered. But it is not exhaustive. The question is to identify D. Zooming and Panning the embedded maps is kosher.

Question for Jan 8, 2010

The first of these occured in 1984, the next in 1989, and since then there been a further 21 occasions, the latest occuring in Feb 2008, and arguably the most famous instance occured in Birmingham in 1999. There have been two further instances which are not counted in this list due to the particular rules used. Ten different nations have been involved in this, and this has happened in nine different nations. Similar instances have also occured in variations of this setting. There are two different variations, and there have been two instances in each of those. What am I talking about?

Fascinating Arguments...

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the motion of the Earth was a hot topic of debate. X considered his theory of the tides to provide the required physical proof of the motion of the earth. For X, the tides were caused by the sloshing back and forth of water in the seas as a point on the Earth's surface sped up and slowed down because of the Earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the Sun.

If this theory were correct, there would be only one high tide per day. X and his contemporaries were aware of this inadequacy because there are two daily high tides at Venice instead of one, about twelve hours apart. X dismissed this anomaly as the result of several secondary causes, including the shape of the sea, its depth, and other factors.

X dismissed as a "useless fiction" the idea, held by his contemporary Y, that the moon caused the tides. X also refused to accept Y's elliptical orbits of the planets, considering the circle the "perfect" shape for planetary orbits.

Against the assertion that X was deceptive in making these arguments, Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that X developed his "fascinating arguments" and accepted them uncritically out of a desire for physical proof of the motion of the Earth.


Identify the famous and highly respected scientists X and Y.

Hint: There is a famous conjecture about sphere packing, named after Y.

Question for Jan 6th, 2010

What is common to the paintings -

Erased de Kooning Drawing.
The Blue Epoch.
First communion of anemic young girls in the snow.

Hint: Read into the names of the paintings.

Reader Question

This is a question courtesy Varsha.

X is a three story tall structure viewed from 30-foot long bridge through its interiors. It is made up of thick stained glass panels fitted into a bronze frame that holds the entire structure together. It was designed by an American architect and was opened to public in mid 1935. This structure has an unusual acoustic quality which was unintentional at the time of its construction. The odd acoustics are such that if two people stand at the end of the 30-foot bridge and whisper, they can hear each other as if they were standing side by side. The main purpose of X was for educational service. It is claimed that in X you can view the world in a unique perspective and just see how much the world had changed over time.

What is X and where is it located?

Hint: X invites comparison with another piece located outside a private business school in Wellesley, MA.

Question for January 5, 2010

Happy New Year to one and all. Here is an easy one,

Connect the following and identify the blank. The list is in chronological order but not exhaustive.

Willie, Juanito, Tip and Tap, Gauchito, Niranjito, Pique, Ciao, Ato & Kaz & Nik, Goleo VI, -------.

Question for Jan 4, 2010 - PS

Welcome back, and happy new year! Lets kickstart the new year with an X,Y,Z type question.

X, is a multinational corporation which is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. Y was the president of X, who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Today's question though, is about Z.

Y summarized the X philosophy with a motto consisting of one word, Z. X's first U.S. trademark was for the name "Z" filed as a U.S. trademark on June 6, 1935 with the description "periodical publications". This trademark was filed fourteen years before the company filed for a U.S. trademark on the name X. A biographical article in 1940 noted that "This word is on the most conspicuous wall of every room in every X building. Each employee carries a Z notebook in which to record inspirations. The company stationery, matches, scratch pads all bear the inscription, Z. A monthly magazine called 'Z' is distributed to the employees." Z remains a part of X's corporate culture to this day; it was the inspiration behind naming X's very successful line of computers. In 2008, X Mid America Employees Federal Credit Union changed its name to Z Mutual Bank.

Identify X, Y and Z.