Boiledbeans

Drama! Intrigue!! Geekiness!!!

May 2011

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Command line is good enough. No?

—devadutta @ 19:33

Identify this really popular software. 2 is its mascot.

For bonus cookie points, connect the answer to this question to the answer of the previous question :)

And yes, this question is on time. After a long long time. Phew!

Cracked by: raklodramA, badideabear, grey_matters, Manish Achuth, Sumanth Patlolla, Rogi, ht, Anjul, shrik, Ananth, dineshk, Raghuvansh, Siddarth Pai, anurag, udupendra, Rahulk, Riyaz Usman, Sajith T S, krudebox, rajeshvj, Nithin George, Thejas V R and s m muneer ali

Show Answer

Norton Commander, the first orthodox file manager. The connect to previous question is that John Socha wrote the first screensaver and also wrote Norton Commander.


Monday, May 30, 2011

SOS

—devadutta @ 23:59

What has happened to this CRT display? What class of software was created to resolve this problem?

Cracked by: raklodramA, badideabear, Urthstripe, Sumanth Patlolla, Rogi, Anjul, shrik, Ananth, dineshk, Raghuvansh, Siddarth Pai, Aravind, anurag and udupendra

Show Answer

The screen is burnt. Screen savers were introduced to fix this problem.


Sunday, May 29, 2011

Queue it up now...

—srikanth @ 23:59

What age-old protocol takes its name from this picture?

Cracked by: Ananth, shrik, Jayaprakash B R, Rogi, Manish Achuth, Sumanth Patlolla, Logik, Thejas V R and Raghuvansh

Show Answer

Kermit - the serial file transfer protocol. Full story here.


Saturday, May 28, 2011

UFO

—devadutta @ 23:59

Company X made and sold pies in tins like this. People who bought the pie figured out the tin had some amazing entertainment value and another company bought rights to the name X and started selling these tins as a toy. Identify X

Cracked by: Ananth, badideabear, RISHI, nikhil, Thejas V R, Rogi, Sumanth Patlolla, raklodramA, Rahulk, Jayaprakash B R, vishwanath, jins, rajeshwer, Manish Achuth, shrik, Swarun, KK, Urthstripe, Anjul, Aravind, dineshk, Sanador, grey_matters, sandeep bhat, krudebox, Shwetha Maiya, shrey, dhruv, Dibyo, Raghuvansh, Siddarth Pai, udupendra, vkamath and Martin

Show Answer

Frisbie Baking Company, and the Frisbe


Friday, May 27, 2011

Disregard points.

—srikanth @ 23:59

Possibly the most sober painting of this man. Who is he, and why has his work suddenly become famous?

Cracked by: S M MUNEER ALI, vishwanath, shrik, KK, krudebox, Mo, Ananth, Raghuvansh, Rogi, badideabear, Manish Achuth, Dibyo, raklodramA, Sumanth Patlolla, Charu, Thejas V R, Urthstripe, Shwetha Maiya and Rahulk

Show Answer

Joseph Ducreux. His “Portrait de l’artiste sous les traits d’un moqueur” has become the subject of the infamous “Archaic Rap” meme.


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Dotted-line.

—srikanth @ 23:59

What organization connects -

[This will be a replacement for the lavarand repeat]

Cracked by: Raghuvansh, shrik, krudebox, Rogi and Thejas V R

Show Answer

Texas instruments - two boards called the ‘Beagleboard’ and the ‘Panda board’, the DaVinci series of DSP hardware, and the Arago linux overlay for TI embedded devices.


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Groovy!

—srikanth @ 23:58

Ed - 28May: Sorry folks, turns out this was a repeat of a question I had asked earlier (I was convinced I’d asked it in a live quiz and not BB, but I guess I was wrong. Oh well :( ). I’ll replace this with another question soon.

What invention?

Cracked by: badideabear, Urthstripe, Ananth, shrik, Rogi, Raghuvansh, shrey and dineshk

Show Answer

SGI’s patent for a random number generator that was seeded by the state of a lava lamp. Most likely, many trees were smoked in the invention of this device :P


Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Play to learn

—devadutta @ 23:59

Identify this fully functional computer “toy”

Video of it in action

Cracked by: raklodramA, Rogi, badideabear, Ananth and Raghuvansh

Show Answer

Digi Comp 1. Fully functional mechanical digital computer.


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Rock this!

—devadutta @ 23:59

First, our sincere apologies for not posting questions and answers on time. Very crazy times, please to adjust. We will be back to normal posting schedule ASAP. Some questions are kept open without answers for longer duration intentionally. These questions would have been posted insanely late.

If all had went well, this phone would have been the best selling phone in market now and two companies would not have had epic legal battles going on.


Identify the phone and tell us who built it.

Cracked by: shrik, Jayaprakash B R, Rahulk, Thejas V R, raklodramA, krudebox, Rogi, KK, Ananth, dineshk, badideabear, sandeep bhat, Manish Achuth, Shwetha Maiya, Sumanth Patlolla, udupendra, Raghuvansh and Dibyo

Show Answer

Motorola ROKR which was the first phone to support iTunes sync.


Monday, May 23, 2011

No, young man, I am not mad

—srikanth @ 23:59

Which fictional scientist character was inspired by this real scientist with a penchant for balloons?

Cracked by: Raghuvansh, Mo, Ananth, badideabear, Anjul, Dibyo, v.chandrashekar, Manish Achuth, raklodramA, Sumanth Patlolla, Rogi, shrik, Rahulk, Supreeth Raveesh, Thejas V R, jins, thiru d gr8, dineshk, Nanda, Rithwik K, Jayaprakash B R, krudebox, Shwetha Maiya and udupendra

Show Answer

Professor Cuthbert Calculus, from the Tintin series, inspired by Prof Auguste Picard.