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What is it ?
"N" is a Pan-African secular holiday primarily honoring African-American heritage. It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, almost exclusively in the US. It derives its name from the Swahili phrase “first fruit”. It was created by Ron Karenga in California in 1966, during his leadership of the black nationalist United Slaves Organization. Each of the seven days of N is dedicated to one of the following principles, which are explained by Karenga as follows:
Umoja (Unity)
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
Nia (Purpose)
Kuumba (Creativity)
Imani (Faith)
N = Kwanzaa
What is it ?
A hand with a pair of 8’s in a game of Texas Hold’em poker. (Hint : James Bond)
Octopussy
What is it ?
"S" was tentatively called Radium F upon discovery by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie in 1898 and was named to highlight a political controversy. This element was the first one discovered by the Curies while they were investigating the cause of pitchblende radioactivity. The pitchblende, after removal of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium, was more radioactive than both the uranium and thorium put together. This spurred the Curies on to find additional radioactive elements. The Curies first separated out S from the pitchblende, and then within a few years, also isolated radium.
Extra Credit : Why was S in the news, rather terrifyingly, lately ?
Polonium.
Poland at the time was under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian partition, and did not exist as an independent country. It was Curie's hope that naming the element after her native land would publicize its lack of independence.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy and dissident, became a rare victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning under highly suspicious circumstances.
What is it ?
Originally (and still) inhabited by the Wampanoag Indians, "P" was known in their language as Noepe, or "land amid the streams". It was named by the English explorer, Bartholomew Gosnold, who sailed to the island in 1602. The name P derived from Gosnold's mother-in-law as well as his daughter, who died in infancy. The United States Board on Geographic Names worked to standardize placename spellings in the late 19th century, including the dropping of apostrophes, but the Board reversed its decision in the early 20th century, making P one of the few placenames in the United States today with a possessive apostrophe.
In 1974, Steven Spielberg filmed the movie Jaws on P.
The Clinton’s made P famous in the 90’s as their favorite vacationing spot.
P received unwanted infamy on July 16, 1999 when a small plane crashed off its coast, claiming the lives of pilot John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister, Lauren Bessette.
P = Martha’s Vineyard
What is it ?
"U" is an evolutionary hypothesis to explain two different phenomena :
Microevolutionary version - by making every individual an experiment when mixing mother's and father's genes, sex may allow a species to adapt quickly just to hold onto the ecological niche that it already has in the ecosystem.
Macroevolutionary) version - the probability of extinction for groups (usually families) of organisms is hypothesized to be constant within the group and random among groups.
Originally proposed by Leigh Van Valen (1973), the metaphor of an evolutionary arms race has been found appropriate for the descriptions of biological processes with dynamics similar to arms races.
The term derives from an incident that appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.
The microevolutionary version of the U was proposed by G. Bell (1982), also citing Lewis Carroll, but not citing Van Valen.
U = Red Queen’s Race
The Red Queen's race is an incident that appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and involves the Red Queen and Alice constantly running but remaining in the same spot.
See Image
Who is it ?
R was a 14th -century English logician and Franciscan friar who proposed this famous tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism. Often taken today as a heuristic maxim that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity in scientific theories. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (law of succinctness)
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
which translates to :
entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
R = William of Ockham (from Occam’s Razor)
Who is it ?
E is a legendary Anglo-Saxon hero and king. He was the son of Ecgtheow, a banished warrior of the Swedish Wægmundings. The Danish king Horthgar generously paid Ecgtheow’s weregild (payment for wrongful killing) to get him his freedom. When King Horthgar’s court was terrorized by the monstrous dragon Grendel, E went to fight it in order to pay his father's debt. After killing Grendel, E also killed Grendel’s mother (also a dragon) who came to avenge her son. E ruled the Geats for 50 years and died defending his realm from another dragon.
E is also a design for high-performance parallel computing clusters on inexpensive personal computer hardware. Originally developed by Donald Becker at NASA, E systems are now deployed worldwide, chiefly in support of scientific computing. It is usually identical PC computers running a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Unix-like operating system, such as Linux or BSD.
E = Beowulf
Who is it ?
Z has been nominated for 45 Academy Awards, of which he has won 5 for,
* Jaws
* Star Wars (now known as Episode IV: A New Hope)
* E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Also won the Golden Globe for the above 3.
* Schindler's List
* Fiddler on the Roof
He currently holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person and has the same number of Oscar nominations as Alfred Newman. He has jokingly stated that this means he also holds the record for the most Academy Award losses ever. (With four more losses than Newman, Z would need to win on his next five nominations to match Alfred Newman's overall Oscar record.)
Z has received two Emmy Awards, seven BAFTAs and the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. In 2006, Z won a Golden Globe, his fourth, for Memoirs of a Geisha.
Z = John Williams
What is it ?
G, a SciFi novel by Frank Herbert, is set far in the future amidst a sprawling feudal intergalactic empire where planetary fiefdoms are controlled by noble Houses that owe allegiance to the Imperial House Corrino. The novel tells the story of young Paul Atreides (heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and scion of House Atreides) as he and his family relocate to the planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe.
In a story that explores the complex interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, the fate of Paul, his family, his new planet and its native inhabitants, as well as the Padishah Emperor, the powerful Spacing Guild, and the secretive female order of the Bene Gesserit, are all drawn together into a confrontation that will change the course of humanity.
The 1984 cult movie version of the novel directed by David Lynch, features among other Sting, Patrick Stewart and Kyle MacLachlan.
G = Dune
What is it ?
D is also known by another name, Wadadli, which means approximately "our own" (Wadadli is also the name of the local beer brewed on the island). It was first inhabited by the Siboney, which means "stone people" in the Arawak language, whose settlements date at least to 2400 BC.
D was discovered by accident in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, who is said to have named it after a church in Seville, Spain, called Santa Maria la D. It remained, however, virtually uninhabited until 1632, when a body of English settlers took possession of it. For the next few decades, it changed hands between the English and the French, till it was formally restored to the English by the Treaty of Breda. in 1674, Sir Christopher Codrington arrived on D, bringing with him the newest techniques in sugarcane farming, which dominated the island’s economy for the next century or so. D remained under British control until 1981, when it gained independence.
D was one of the first nations to legalize, license and regulate online gaming. Some countries, most notably the United States, argue that because the gaming transaction is initiated in their jurisdictions that the act of online wagering is illegal. This argument has been repudiated by the World Trade Organization. Still in 2006, US Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gaming Act, which criminalizes the operations of offshore gaming operators while protecting American based providers of the same facilities.
D = Antigua
Home to “King” Viv, Eric Clapton and
WC 2007 Super 8 matches.
Ponniyin Selvan is a romantic story, which has real historical characters and real historical incidents. It was the sobriquet given to Raja Raja Chola.
The story revolves around Vandiyathevan, a charming young man who sets out to the Chola land to deliver a message to the King and the princess from the Crown Prince. The story shuttles between Vandiaythevan's travels in Chola country and the young Prince's travels in Sri Lanka. The narrative deals with attempts by his sister Kundavai to bring back Arulmozhi (as Raja Raja was called before his crowning) to establish political peace in a land seemingly getting besot with unrest and signs of civil war, plotted by vassals and petty chieftains.
FTP (for the point) :
Kalki (the author), apparantly, based Vandhiya Thevan's escape sequence from the Prison on which other famous story.
Count of Monte Cristo
Connect (exhaustive)
1. The First scene/chapter of The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party” :
"Please come for tea- any time you like."
"I am looking for someone to share in an adventure."
2. The Riddle Game when Bilbo gets the Ring of Power :
"What has it got in its pocketses, eh?”
3. Frodo's stay in Lothlorien :
“...the full moon cycled a full time.”
4. The Battle of Pelennor Fields from Return of the King :
“Aragorn's parting for the Paths of the Dead.”
Led Zeppelin songs completely based on events in JRR Tolkein's writings (Lord of the Rings/ Hobbit)
Songs :
1. Misty Mountain Hop
2. Over the Hills and Far Away
3. Battle of Evermore
4. Ramble on
What is it ?
V was created by architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938.
In 1948, lawyer James Brunot, a resident of Newtown, Connecticut, bought the rights to manufacture V in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Brunot came up with its present name V and sold sets to, among other customers, Macy's department store, which created a demand for it.
In 1953, unable to meet demand himself, Brunot sold manufacturing rights to Selchow and Righter (one of the manufacturers who, like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected it).
In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold V to Coleco, who soon after sold it to Hasbro.
The name V is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the US and Canada and of J. W. Spear & Sons PLC elsewhere.
V is sold in 121 countries in 29 different language versions. World-wide, one hundred million sets have been sold, and sets are found in one out of every three American homes.
V = Scrabble
What is it ?
F in antiquity, in addition to being the name of a monster, was the name of a volcanic site which was held, by euhemerizing geographers, to have inspired the myth.
Geographically, F has been identified with an area of permanent gas vents which can still be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey. Called in Turkish Yanartas (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaistos about 3 km north of Cirali, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit burning methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which in ancient times sailors could navigate by, and which today is used to brew tea.
Isidore of Seville, a commentator on Virgil’s Aeneid, quotes writers on natural history that F was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes everywhere.
F = Chimera See Image
Can you decipher this Quiz ?
D = Antigua
E = Beowulf
F = Chimera
G = Dune
N = Kwanzaa
P = Martha’s Vineyard
R = Occam, William of
S = Polonium
U = Red Queen Hypothesis
V = Scrabble
Z = Williams, John
The Caesar Cipher See Image
