Sasken kenquiz prelims july 2011

Vivek Karthikeyan

Navin Rajaram

Venkatesh S

Welcome to the Prelims30 Questions, all-written

No NegativesQuestions *marked for

resolving tiesTop 7 Teams Qualify

1This one word term comes from the practice of Barbershop singers who would play a single tune before singing – that tune would determine how the rest of the song would be performed.

Today, this term is often used in tech seminars or conferences for the speech that lays down the underlying theme of the conference.

What term?

2It is said that when this 1946 innovation, that occupied 167 sq metres of space and weighed 30 tonnes, was turned on, it would draw so much power that the city of Philadelphia would have power cuts.

What 5 letter acronym?

3On March 24, 2009, Suw Charman-Anderson called for an annual internet event which would involve a day of international blogging to highlight women in technology.

Who was the event named after?

4What event started at 00:00 UTC on June 8, 2011 and ended at 23:59 the same day and involved major web companies, internet service providers, and OS vendors engaging in a mock drill?

5*

Logo on the left of a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, US that was started in Sep 1998. The logo on the right is that of its predecessor.

Name the organization whose logo you see on the left

6

In the context of phones, it refers to the act of removing all programming by the manufacturer and partially/completely reprogramming the phone’s OS.

What word, which derives from a form of memory?

7

One of the running jokes is to type bad commands here and laugh at the response. For example:

•Type“!:sugar's not healthy, how about saccharine?” to get the response “Bad substitute”OR•Type “If I had a ( for every unnecessary $ the Government spends, what would I have in hand? to get the response “Missing $’s”

Where?

8

On March 6, 1991, this media darling virus had users in a frenzy when it was announced that it could potentially erase 10M computer users’ hard drives on the day. Less than 10,000 PCs were eventually affected, but that did not prevent the media from naming this virus after a Renaissance painter born the same day.

What name?

9Identify this logo from the world of web applications and programming

10*Who is the heavy metal bass player in this ad? What computer was being parodied in this ad?

11What is the name of this encoding method in which the binary 1 is represented by a significant condition, usually a positive voltage, while the binary 0 is represented by another condition, usually a negative voltage and no other neutral or rest condition exists?

12

Old timers still prefer to write FORTRAN with all caps, even after ANSI declared in 1985 that the language can be written as “Fortran”

Why so?

13

This is the logo for what technology, fondly called scuzzy by hardware enthusiasts?

14

In 1984, a certain movie’s producers needed some highly nerdy looking code for a specific purpose. At close hand were source code printouts for an Apple II+ program published in Niblle, a computer magazine.

The code was run on a 70s era MOS 6502 microprocessor.

So, where might you see this code?

15*

Hackers are basically classified as follows:

•_____ _____ hackers are always bad – they always damage the system•_____ ____ hackers may damage a system, but may not always delete all data•_____ _____ hackers are the good ones that report a security breach to the relevant authorities

Fill in all 3 blanks (2nd word in all 3 cases is the same)

16Where are you likely to see one of the following statements appear?

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

17

The Cationic or the Downy cocktail is a diluted fabric softener which is often sprayed on computer room carpets for a particular reason.

What reason?

18

What is the term given to this keyboard because of what its keys resemble?

19

What term (blanked out) came from this cartoon strip and refers to a hacking run that produces results which, while superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its original objectives?

20*

Shigeru Miyamoto once said in an interview that he found it easier to design/draw his creation with a cap since it was difficult to draw hair. Technology restrictions in the mid-80s also prevented hair from being easily animated.

So, what creation?

21

Some of the features in this new rage are ‘Sparks’, ‘Hangouts’, ‘Huddle’ and ‘Mobile’; what is the predominant one?

22There’s no definition of the word in the English language; when the name was first considered, it was discussed in the context of its Chinese translation as several employees were of Chinese descent. Two interesting translations of the word in Mandarin:•A gourd. In ancient times, the gourd was used in China as a "holder of precious things". That appealed to the company given their premium content-focused mission•Interactive recording (which is a secondary definition)

Which company, co-owned by NBC Universal, News Corporation and The Walt Disney Company?

This effect refers to what happens when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it occupies all space in their mind and overshadows their mental images, dreams and thoughts. While this symptom may occur with any prolonged visual task, this effect was most observed in folks who engaged in a certain visual pastime and reported seeing repetitive images of the same objects and trying to fit in things.

Hence, what name was coined for this effect?

23

24

The House of Representatives in the US has announced that they will now allow members to use these two videoconferencing technologies for official communications after a year-long push by Republicans to adopt the applications as cost-saving measures.

Name both the brands chosen

What is the kind of animation technique used here? Which TV personality, who we associate with a larger group, created it?

25*

26

Vortex Engineering is a company incubated at IIT Chennai that has developed a very elegant and innovative Cash Dispensing Mechanism, protected by patents that does not use any conveyor belt, with the cassette mounted vertically in the top half of the ATM. This makes the notes dispensed from cassette to travel only a short distance to the cash presenter in the ATM. The Vortex ATM also uses different low power processors and LCD displays, and Linux as the OS.

What is unique about the Vortex ATMs?

27

Original concept note for?

28

A symbol that protects the copyright for something.

Either explain what it protects or what does “P” stand for?

29Linpack is a benchmark application developed to solve a dense system of linear equations. It is run and used to determine the ranking in a worldwide list. The 37th edition of the closely watched list was released on Monday, June 20, at the 2011 International Conference in Hamburg. The winner was from RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan.

What is Linpack used to rank?

30*

On Monday, June 27, 2011, the Google Enterprise Blog had an article titled, “365 reasons to consider Google Apps”, trying to get users to give 365 reasons why they preferred Google Apps. This was done to counter an impending product launch the next day. Why this title?

Time to give in your sheets…

Answers follow….

1This one word term comes from the practice of Barbershop singers who would play a single tune before singing – that tune would determine how the rest of the song would be performed.

Today, this term is often used in tech seminars or conferences for the speech that lays down the underlying theme of the conference.

What term?

Answer

Keynote

2It is said that when this 1946 innovation, that occupied 167 sq metres of space and weighed 30 tonnes, was turned on, it would draw so much power that the city of Philadelphia would have power cuts.

What 5 letter acronym?

Answer

ENIAC

3On March 24, 2009, Suw Charman-Anderson called for an annual internet event which would involve a day of international blogging to highlight women in technology.

Who was the event named after?

Answer

Ada Lovelace

4What event started at 00:00 UTC on June 8, 2011 and ended at 23:59 the same day and involved major web companies, internet service providers, OS vendors and web companies engaging in a mock drill?

Answer

World IPV6 Day

5*

Logo on the left of a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, US that was started in Sep 1998. The logo on the right is that of its predecessor. Name the organization whose logo you see on the left

Answer

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

6

In the context of phones, it refers to the act of removing all programming by the manufacturer and partially/completely reprogramming the phone’s OS.

What word, which derives from a form of memory?

Answer

Flashing, from Flash memory

7

One of the running jokes is to type bad commands here and laugh at the response. For example:

•Type“!:sugar's not healthy, how about saccharine?” to get the response “Bad substitute”OR•Type “If I had a ( for every unnecessary $ the Government spends, what would I have in hand? to get the response “Missing $’s”

Where?

Answer

CSH or C Shell in Unix

8

On March 6, 1991, this media darling virus had users in a frenzy when it was announced that it could potentially erase 10M computer users’ hard drives on the day. Less than 10,000 PCs were eventually affected, but that did not prevent the media from naming this virus after a Renaissance painter born the same day.

What name?

Answer

Michelangelo Virus

9 Identify this logo from the world of web applications and programming

Answer

Ruby on Rails

10*Who is the heavy metal bass player in this cartoon? What computer was being parodied in this ad?

Answer

Gene Simmons, Macintosh

11What is the name of this encoding method in which the binary 1 is represented by a significant condition, usually a positive voltage, while the binary 0 is represented by another condition, usually a negative voltage and no other neutral or rest condition exists?

Answer

Non Return to Zero (NRZ) encoding

12

Old timers still prefer to write FORTRAN with all caps, even after ANSI declared in 1985 that the language can be written as “Fortran”

Why so?

Answer

At the time FORTRAN was invented, computers could only type upper case

13

This is the logo for what technology, fondly called scuzzy by hardware enthusiasts?

Answer

SCSI – Small Computer System Interface

14In 1984, a certain movie’s producers needed some highly nerdy looking code for a specific purpose. At close hand were source code printouts for an Apple II+ program published in Niblle, a computer magazine.

The code was run on a 70s era MOS 6502 microprocessor.

So, where might you see this code?

answer...

Terminator

15*

Hackers are basically classified as follows:

•_____ _____ hackers are always bad – they always damage the system•_____ ____ hackers may damage a system, but may not always delete all data•_____ _____ hackers are the good ones that report a security breach to the relevant authorities

Fill in all 3 blanks (2nd word in all 3 cases is the same)

Answer

Black HatGrey HatWhite Hat

16

Where are you likely to see one of the following statements appear?

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

Answer

Easter egg – Book of Mozilla seen on Mozilla Browser when you type “about”

17

The Cationic or the Downy cocktail is a diluted fabric softener which is often sprayed on computer room carpets for a particular reason.

What reason?

Answer

Prevent static electricity buildup due to feet shuffling on the carpet

18

What is the term given to this keyboard because of what its keys resemble?

Answer

Chiclet Keyboard

19

What term (blanked out) came from this cartoon strip and refers to a hacking run that produces results which, while superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its original objectives?

Answer

Ratdance

20

Shigeru Miyamoto once said in an interview that he found it easier to design/draw his creation with a cap since it was difficult to draw hair. Technology restrictions in the mid-80s also prevented hair from being easily animated.

So, what creation?

Answer

Mario

21

Three of the features in this new rage are ‘Sparks’, ‘Hangouts’ , ‘Huddle’ and ‘Mobile’; what is the predominant one?

Answer

Circles in Google +

22

There’s no definition of the word in the English language; when the name was first considered, it was discussed in the context of its Chinese translation as several employees were of Chinese descent. Two interesting translations of the word in Mandarin:•A gourd. In ancient times, the gourd was used in China as a "holder of precious things". That appealed to the company given their premium content-focused mission•Interactive recording (which is a secondary definition)

Which company, co-owned by NBC Universal, News Corporation and The Walt Disney Company?

Answer

Hulu, the online video service

This effect refers to what happens when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it occupies all space in their mind and overshadows their mental images, dreams and thoughts. While this symptom may occur with any prolonged visual task, this effect was most observed in folks who engaged in a certain visual pastime and reported seeing repetitive images of the same objects and trying to fit in things.

Hence, what name was coined for this effect?

23

Answer

Tetris effect / Tetritis

24

The House of Representatives in the US has announced that they will now allow members to use these two videoconferencing technologies for official communications after a year-long push by Republicans to adopt the applications as cost-saving measures.

Name both the brands chosen

Answer

SkypeooVoo

What is the kind of animation technique used here? Which TV personality, who we associate with a larger group, created it?

25*

Answer

Cut out Animation, Terry Gilliam of Monty Python

26

Vortex Engineering is a company incubated at IIT Chennai that has developed a very elegant and innovative Cash Dispensing Mechanism, protected by patents that does not use any conveyor belt, with the cassette mounted vertically in the top half of the ATM. This makes the notes dispensed from cassette to travel only a short distance to the cash presenter in the ATM. The Vortex ATM also uses different low power processors and LCD displays, and Linux as the OS.

What is unique about the Vortex ATMs?

Answer

Solar powered ATMs targeted at rural India

27

Original concept note for?

Answer

Twitter

28

A symbol that protects the copyright for something.

Either explain what it protects or what does “P” stand for?

Answer

The ‘P in a circle’, is referred to as the sound recording, phono-records, phonogram or phonographic copyright symbol.

29Linpack is a benchmark application developed to solve a dense system of linear equations. It is run and used to determine the ranking in a worldwide list. The 37th edition of the closely watched list was released on Monday, June 20, at the 2011 International Conference in Hamburg. The winner was from RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan.

What is Linpack used to rank?

Answer

Supercomputer speeds

30*

On Monday, June 27, 2011, the Google Enterprise Blog had an article titled, “365 reasons to consider Google Apps”, trying to get users to give 365 reasons why they preferred Google Apps. This was done to counter an impending product launch the next day. Why this title?

Answer

Office 365 – the cloud version of MS Office

All the best! Onward to the finals in an hour…