Boiledbeans

Drama! Intrigue!! Geekiness!!!

March 2011

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Read it to me!

—devadutta @ 23:59

Simple question. Patent for what?

Cracked by: Raghuvansh, Rogi, KK, Aravind, Dibyo, vinayaknp, Bharath, Sumanth Patlolla, dineshk, Riyaz Usman, shrik, Shwetha Maiya, shrey, Siddarth Pai, Goyal, Debjani, Smitha R Maiya, jowens, Manish Achuth, SV, rohanquizzer, puneet_k, Logik, Aparna, raklodramA and Abinash

Show Answer

Google Books scanner that can scan open books and produce resultant images that are flat!


A visionary, vision of scary...

—srikanth @ 23:59

Hot off the presses, so to speak. What’s blanked out?

Hint: Think computer security. Pseudo-bonus points for the full story.

Cracked by: udupendra, Rogi, shrik, dineshk, Raghuvansh, jowens and Bharath

Show Answer

F-Secure’s Mikko Hyponnen recently went on a video shoot to trace the origins of the first ever DOS boot-sector virus “Brain”. “Brain” was written by the brothers Farooq Alvi from Pakistan more as a DRM mechanism than anything else. What’s blanked out is, obviously, brain.


Friday, March 11, 2011

Mini Me?

—devadutta @ 23:59

First it was 1, then 2, now 3. What?

P.S: We are keeping Rogi’s 3 for 500 puzzle open for 2 more days. Give it a shot!

Cracked by: udupendra, dineshk, Riyaz Usman, Rogi, Bharath, KK, shrik, Goyal, jowens, rohanquizzer, Logik, raklodramA, Siddarth Pai, S M MUNEER ALI, Thejas V R, Sumanth Patlolla, puneet_k, Manish Achuth, Dibyo and Shwetha Maiya

Show Answer

Quoting Shwetha: [3] is Geminoid DK, which was constructed to look exactly like Associate Professor Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark.


Thursday, March 10, 2011

Cacophonic

—srikanth @ 11:05

What’s the connection?

Early question is early, for a change :-)

PS: Plug - the people over at QFI Chennai are holding an open IT quiz on Saturday. Be there!

Another Plug: RVCE QuizCorp is conducting UTPT on 18th,19th and 20th of March, 2011. Check Flyers for details.

Cracked by: Logik, Rogi, Kaustubh, Raghuvansh, KK, jowens, Siddarth Pai, Bharath, Shwetha Maiya, Sumanth Patlolla, shrik, vishal golcha, dineshk, rohanquizzer, Abinash, raklodramA, vinayaknp, Antariksh Bothale, udupendra and Thejas V R

Show Answer

Richard James a.k.a Aphex Twin released a single which was titled the equation in the 2nd pic. In this, if you analyzed the music signal in a spectrograph, he managed to ’encode’ his face into the signal. Pic 1 is that signal.


Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Set it free

—devadutta @ 23:59

Big company trying to get people to stop using their creation. What?

Cracked by: udupendra, mrsgollum, Riyaz Usman, Siddarth Pai, Anonymous, Anjul, Shwetha Maiya, rohanquizzer, vinayaknp, Atul Mathew, KK, Goyal, shrik, Rogi, Higgers, Logik, shrey, Vijayaraghavan, Raghuvansh, Sandesh, dineshk, shubhang, jowens, Aravind, Bharath, Sumanth Patlolla, vishal golcha, raklodramA, Antariksh Bothale, Abinash, Dibyo and Anubhav

Show Answer

Microsoft’s latest effort to rid the world of IE6.


Tuesday, March 8, 2011

3 for 500

—devadutta @ 23:59

Today, we are posting a special round of 3 questions all sent in by %gqh% Rogi. Reason? Rogi registered an unbeaten runlength of 500 correct answers in a row! Congrats sire! Just fantastic!

Leave your answers (and any note to Rogi) in a single comment. One point per correct answer. Get at least one correct for keeping your runlength intact.

  1. The actor (1) starred in two movies, made almost three decades apart, based on ideas put forth by (2) and shared with his screenwriter wife (3). Name either of the 2 films.
    Note: While the pic in (1) is a clip from a movie, it is not one of the movies we’re looking for.

  1. Connect the three gentlemen by naming a fourth. The last one wasn’t as smart as the other two.

Hint:

  1. This is a cool puzzle.

Tell us what’s found here
[Sum of all digits].[1991, AUC] , -1 x [Unbitrium].[Lucas Number]

(Maybe a different Lucas?)

Update: Made the question 1 simpler.

Update 2: Fixed a typo in Q 3

Update 3: Question 3 is super cool. Do not miss it. Hint: Zoom in and look around.

Cracked by: Rogi(3), shrik(3), jowens(3), Raghuvansh(3), dineshk(3), Siddarth Pai(2), udupendra(2), Bharath(2), Logik, Sumanth Patlolla, Shwetha Maiya, Mo and Anubhav

Only shrik, jowens, Raghuvansh and dineshk(close enough :) ) cracked the puzzle! Good crack guys! That was an awesome puzzle and you got it!

Answers:

  1. TRON or TRON:Legacy
    1=Jeff Bridges (As seen in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot)
    2=Alan Kay (Yes the guy from PARC)
    3=Bonnie MacBird

  1. The three guys pictured are:
    Hugo de Vries
    Carl Correns
    Erich von Tschermak

All of whom were thought to have independently “rediscovered” in the year 1900, the work of Gregor Mendel and after some prodding for at least one of them, gave him the posthumous credit for his discoveries in genetics. Tschermak is no longer recognized as a rediscoverer as he obviously didn’t understand what Mendel had figured out, earlier.


  1. Sum of digits 0-9 is 45
    “Ab urbe condita” 1991 is “Gregorian”, 1238
    Unbitrium’s atomic number will be 123
    George Lucas’ Easter Egg number is 1138 (Not to be confused with the Numbers of François Édouard Anatole Lucas)

Filling in the variables gives:
45.1238
-123.1138

Or:
45.1238, -123.1138

Quick link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=45.1238,-123.1138&aq=&sll=45.125284,-123.113393&sspn=0.010401,0.018904&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=45.123989,-123.113673&spn=0.004088,0.018711&z=16

Answer is: “Firefox” or “Firefox logo”


Monday, March 7, 2011

Objectify?

—srikanth @ 23:59

Kinda staying with the “spirit” of the day. Identify the greenish stuff in the first pic, and connect to the lady in the second.

Cracked by: Rogi, jowens, shrik, Siddarth Pai, Sri Priyanka, Keerthi Kiran M, Shwetha Maiya, dineshk, Thejas V R, Logik and Bharath

Show Answer

The greenish object is the so-called “Hanny’s Voorwerp”. It was named so because it was discovered by amateur astronomer and Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel. The name translates to Hanny’s object. Why this region of space behaves this way is still unknown, although some hypotheses exist.


Sunday, March 6, 2011

No escape...

—srikanth @ 23:59

Who connects?

Cracked by: udupendra, shrik, Rogi, dineshk, Sumanth Patlolla, Raghuvansh, vinayaknp, jowens, Dibyo, Bharath, lanu, Qbrain, Muthu sndaresan, Siddarth Pai, puneet_k, Ananth, Shwetha Maiya and Thejas V R

Show Answer

Karl Schwarzschild - the headstone on his grave, and a typical illustration of the so-called Schwarzschild radius.


Saturday, March 5, 2011

Lets hack that too!

—devadutta @ 23:59

Influential and very popular blogger. Who she? What popular blog did she start (and sell)?

Hint:

Cracked by: lanu, vinayaknp, raklodramA, udupendra, puneet_k, shrik, Raghuvansh, srinivasan, Siddarth Pai, Amarendra, Dibyo, wanderlust, Thejas V R, rohanquizzer, Muthu sndaresan, S.M.MUNEER ALI, vishal golcha, Rahulk, KK, Ananth, Manish Achuth, Logik, Abinash, Rogi, Riyaz Usman, dineshk, Sumanth Patlolla, jowens, Bharath and Anjul

Show Answer

Gina Trapani - Lifehacker


Friday, March 4, 2011

Orbit Me

—devadutta @ 23:59

Guest question from %gqh% sidsen. After a long long time. Thank you sire!

The text in the image reads(approximately :) ) The gentlemen above were nominated but did not make it. The mooning characters below did. What would they collectively be known as.

Apologies for the delay folks.

Cracked by: shrik, vinayaknp, udupendra, Rogi, jowens, Raghuvansh, Siddarth Pai, Thejas V R, Rahulk, dineshk, Ananth and Bharath

Show Answer

The Galilean Moons! Galileo first proposed the name Medicea Sidera (“theMedicianstars”), honouring the four Medici brothers: Cosimo, Francesco, Carlo, and Lorenzo.