Identify 1 and 2 and indicate the controversy between them

Looks like it was a piece of cake for **Dhruva , bs , Ganesh Prasad , iamniks , udupendra , alephnull , prasanth , sharath , Shakeel , Mahesh , Gammafunction , uma , Varun.M , yaksha , Shashank **and Poornima.

1. Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC)
2. ENIAC

There was a controversy over which was the first electronic digital computer. ENIAC was patented by John Mauchly to be the first digital computing device, and one of the students of John Mauchly alleged that his examination of ABC in 1941 influenced his work.

In 1967 Honeywell sued Sperry Rand in an attempt to break their ENIAC patents, and claiming the ABC as prior art. The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota released its judgement on October 19, 1973, finding in Honeywell v. Sperry Rand that the ENIAC patent was a derivative of John Atanasoff’s invention. The decision was not appealed.

[Shamelessly ripped from Shashank, Mahesh and wiki]

Dhruva, bs, Ganesh Prasad, iamniks, udupendra, alephnull, prasanth, sharath, Shakeel, Mahesh, Gammafunction, uma, Varun.M, yaksha, Shashank and Poornima

What is this an illustration of?

Clues:

Cracked by: udupendra , sharath , Varun.M , Poornima , Archana , bobo , Ganesh Prasad , sidsen , Prasad , Gammafunction , and rajeshv.

udupendra, sharath, Varun.M, Poornima, Archana, bobo, Ganesh Prasad, sidsen, Prasad, Gammafunction and rajeshvj

Question: what’s special about the comic? It’s chock full of clues, BTW.

Cracked by: devadutta , jayanth , bobo , udupendra , yaksha , BiGFooT , iamniks and Poornima.

devadutta, jayanth, bobo, udupendra, yaksha, BiGFooT, iamniks and Poornima

Identify this TV nerd:

Nothing can stop this man, as long as he has science on his side! With a seemingly never-ending supply of bright ideas, bad guys, and conveniently placed props, this dude has pulled of some extremely awesome “hacks”. For example, he

• once created a rocket launcher using fertilizer and some farming implements.
• unlocked a car’s remote locking system with a mobile phone.
• constructed an airgun from a telescope and an air horn

In short, this man’s genius knows no bounds. He’s more awesome than Chuck Norris and Rajanikanth together. Who is he?

Jayanth , Shashank , Dhruva , sharath , alephnull , Gammafunction , prasanth , iamniks , Prasad , Abhishek , shivathilak , uma , Poornima , bobo and nihit figured it out, using naught but google and wikipedia.

jayanth, Shashank, Dhruva, sharath, alephnull, Gammafunction, prasanth, iamniks, Prasad, Abhishek, shivathilak, uma, Poornima, bobo and nihit

Identify the logo in 1.

When 1 talks about Wikipedia, it shows wikipedia’s logo as 2.

What is wikipedia’s logo made to look like in 2?

Cracked by: srikanth , Dhruva , Varun.M , rajeshvj , Keerthi , Mahesh , sai_ganesh , prasanth , Goutham , shyam , iamniks , BiGFooT , Poornima , alephnull , Gammafunction , yaksha , nihit and Shashank.

1. Is the logo of Uncyclopedia - The content free encyclopedia. It is a satirical parody of Wikipedia and surprisingly enough, it is hosted by none other than Wikia. It is one of the most popular wikis on Wikia. They post articles which are “funny”, not “stupid”. Nice timepass page.

2. Is Wikipedia’s logo made to look like the “Death star” from Star Wars. This appears on a page on Uncyclopedia which describes Wikipedia.

Read articles on both sites describing each other for a good laugh.

Dhruva, Varun.M, rajeshvj, Keerthi, Mahesh, sai_ganesh, prasanth, Goutham, shyam, iamniks, BiGFooT, Poornima, alephnull, Gammafunction, yaksha, nihit and Shashank

Major thanks to Arjun Chennu for filming this and sending it to us. May he have many visitors on his blog, and may his nerdiness know no bounds.

Originally discovered by X, this device shows a phenomenon that has intrigued lots of scientists for ages. X suggested a theory based on Maxwell’s work, which was proved to be false. Schuster and Lebedev conducted lots of experiments to prove that many theories, including X’s, were bunk.

Einstein himself stepped in, and gave part of the reason. But his part wasn’t sufficient. The final part of the explanation was proposed by Osborne Reynolds, based on Maxwell’s updated work :-)

What is this object, and who is X ?

Cracked by: Poornima , devadutta , sridhar , 2ndratequizzer , Varun.M , prasanth , Keerthi , Ganesh Prasad , Mahesh Herle , Dhruva , iamniks , Keerthi Kiran M , shyam , yaksha , fsdgdsg , BiGFooT , alephnull , nihit , Shakeel , and Prasad.

Answer: X is Sir William Crookes, and the object is what is called a “Crooke’s Radiometer”. Interesting little thing, if you read up about it a bit. Look through the comments for some linkage, and especially check out John Baez’s physics FAQ page on that.

Poornima, devadutta, sridhar, 2ndratequizzer, Varun.M, prasanth, Keerthi, Ganesh Prasad, Mahesh Herle, Dhruva, iamniks, Keerthi Kiran M, shyam, yaksha, fsdgdsg, BiGFooT, alephnull, nihit, Shakeel and Prasad

Connect

1. 2.

and

Cracked by: **srikanth , Dhruva , arjmage , prasanth , Gammafunction , Atul Mathew , alephnull , Varun.M , Tathagata Chatterjee , 2ndratequizzer , nihit , yaksha and prasad(late latif :) )
**

Connect: Paul Allen

1. Seattle Sea hawks, NFL team funded by Paul Allen

2. Allen Telescope Array again funded by Paul Allen

3. Spaceship One, Funded bu Paul Allen

Most people did not get 2, but I have given points to anyone in the general vicinity of Paul Allen.

srikanth, Dhruva, arjmage, prasanth, Gammafunction, Atul Mathew, alephnull, Varun.M, Tathagata Chatterjee, 2ndratequizzer, nihit, yaksha and Prasad

Many years ago, in universities far far away, strange devices with many blinkenlights (no clues there) were constantly being hacked to do peculiar things. Among those, one of the more interesting hacks was what we now call the Internet.

This giant organism used to run on some very clunky hardware. In fact, one of the central functions of the internet was once performed by a DEC LSI-11 (an evolution of the venerable PDP-11). This job was performed by a package of the LSI-11 and some specialized software that used to run on it, written by one of the grandest of the grand-old-hackers (some of his stuff helps us keep all our clocks together).

The image you see above is an image of this package. The question: what was it called? Bonus: Who’s the grand old man?

Cracked by: Varun.M , Gammafunction , Dhruva , Tathagata Chatterjee , Abhishek , bs , yaksha and nihit.

Varun.M, Gammafunction, Dhruva, Tathagata Chatterjee, Abhishek, bs, yaksha and nihit

A little bit of explosives technology for today. The object in the picture below is a unique kind of explosive. It was typically used for clearing barbed wire fences in the battlefield. A series of these would be joined together, slid under the wire, and then the whole thing would be detonated. All this had to be done under fire, of course. What it is?

Answered by: nihit , udupendra , Dhruva , fsdgdsg , bobo , bs , Ganesh Prasad , Varun.M , prasanth , 2ndratequizzer , rajeshvj , Swetha , jayanth , sridhar , iamniks , yaksha , Prasad and Biki.

nihit, udupendra, Dhruva, fsdgdsg, bobo, bs, Ganesh Prasad, Varun.M, prasanth, 2ndratequizzer, rajeshvj, Swetha, jayanth, sridhar, iamniks, yaksha, Prasad and Biki

Who is this?( you have all the required information on the currency note :) )

Ye gods. Large quantities of people got this one right… bs , pratap , zatar , Atul Mathew , jayanth , Gammafunction , Varun.M , Shakeel , prasanth , SidSen , shivani , Ganesh Prasad , piezocake , yaksha , 2ndratequizzer , bobo , Dhruva , iamniks , Goutham , udupendra , nihit , Prasad , BiGFooT and sridhar got this.

bs, pratap, zatar, Atul Mathew, jayanth, Gammafunction, Varun.M, Shakeel, prasanth, sidsen, shivani, Ganesh Prasad, piezocake, yaksha, 2ndratequizzer, bobo, Dhruva, iamniks, Goutham, udupendra, nihit, Prasad, BiGFooT and sridhar