Welcome to Quintessentially Qrious. This site is dedicated to providing food for thought for all avid quizzers. Enjoy!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Ssshhh....!

X

X was a good student, an alumnus of Stanford Graduate School of Business. One fine day in 1977, he went out shopping for his wife. But he was thoroughly embarrassed when he tried to buy lingerie for his wife at a department store. What did this inspire him to start?

Saturday, October 30, 2010

It's dynamic!

X


Y



X originally came up with the idea of Y in 1968. Although Y could be used by adults and children alike, it primarily targeted children. He envisioned it to embody the theories of Seymour Papert. It was one of the earliest instances of the use of GUI. Although a much more sophisticated and highly popular version of Y (Z) has been released since then, X still believes that the Y, as he conceived it, is unrealized as of yet. Identify X,Y and Z.

Friday, October 29, 2010

The day when David spun a web around the Jackal.....

X is a notorious murderer, presently incarcerated for good. He is mostly known by his attacks on OPEC headquarters in Vienna, when he murdered 3 people. He is also a member of  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and was, at one time, one of the most wanted international fugitives. He is popularly known by a moniker which The Guardian accorded to him after a famous novel Y by Z was found among his belongings during a police raid. He is much more famously portrayed in a popular trilogy A by B, where the main antagonist shares the same moniker and even has the same mannerisms and crime-pattern. Identify X, Y, Z, A, B.


Thursday, October 28, 2010

Tastes so good, your character hides under a hood.....

Ernesto X was a notorious American criminal of 1960s. He was regularly imprisoned for robbing, raping and assaulting women. Finally one rape victim identified him positively, and he was arrested. The police then did a tactical mistake, which resulted in a long chain of events that included his acquittal and subsequent arrest and trial, which finally incarcerated him for a long time. However the law was wise enough to learn a lesson from the loophole that had nearly allowed Ernesto to get off scott-free, and since then had incorporated that lesson as an important feature of all legal proceedings against such convicts. Give me the funda. Think of The Shawshank Redemption.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

If you watch Set Pix, you will surely gain knowledge....













Give me the connection.

This is just fabulous!



This painting Y by X had spawned a famous art movement Z.  X used vividly contrasting colours as early as 1899 and came to realize the potential of colour freed from its traditional descriptive role when he painted with Signac in the bright light of Saint Tropez in the summer of 1904 and with Derain at Collioure in the summer of 1905. When this painting was first exhibited, it earned the wrath of many art-critics, with one going on to say  "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public." A certain critic exclaimed after seeing the painting-"Donatello among the wild beasts!" This comment may have been partly induced by another painting (by a different artist) which was being exhibited near Y:






However this comment lent the art form its name, and now this art has become a cult phenomenon. Identify X,Y and Z.

Monday, October 25, 2010

If everything is free, why don't you run?

A.



B.


C.



Q. Just give me the connection.
                                                               

I can't refuse your offer...!


According to George Lucas, the character Han Solo from Star Wars series was based on X. X is one of the most influential directors of all time. Although his career as a film director started with a low budget softcore porn flick, he soon found his niche and delivered four masterpieces, all within a single decade. Often he had severe clash with the producers over the choice of his actors or with his way of direction. He is also a noted scriptwriter, winning multiple Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, two in films directed by himself. Criticisms of him tend towards the fact that all his productivity was confined to one decade only, after which his creativity slowly dwindled away.  However that one decade is more than enough to see him into a respected position in almost all polls for top directors of all time conducted by different magazines. Identify X. (The pic is that of X during childhood.)

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Good bye Baby!

This is a very well-known word, in fact, too well-known word. However we know the word in a context entirely different from what in which it was originally used. According to some, it is of Aramaic origins, meaning "I will create as I speak". Some sources posit that it derives from a conflation of a Hebrew word meaning "the blessing" (used in this sense as a euphemism for "the curse") and an Aramaic form another Hebrew word  meaning pestilence. One of its earliest recorded instances is in the poem De Medicina Praecepta written by Serenus Sammonicus (royal physician of Roman emperor Caracalla), where he suggests that people suffering from malaria should wear an amulet bearing the word in the form of an inverted Pascal Triangle. It was later used by certain gnostics to invoke beneficent spirits for combating evil spirits. Its Greek roots suggest that it is a cabalistic word for the supreme god. Which word am I talking about?

He bridges the gap between near and far....



He is somebody all engineers are acquainted with. He is credited with the invention of spectacular things like Concertina, Stereoscope and Playfair Cipher. He also made significant contributions to the development of telegraph. However we all know him for something which wasn't originally his idea. Identify him.

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