Alphabit 2020 Quiz Finals

AlphaBit 2020
Q?Bit - Finals
Harsaaj Singh
Jaisal Kothari
Pranav Gupta
Vaibhav Jain

Rules
● Total 24 questions in grid format.
● Teams to choose any question from the grid at random.
● Infinite Pounce. Pounce window will be open for 10 seconds after question has been read.
● Teams to write ‘Pounce Team X’ in the chat box. QM will come to the respective voice
channels on Discord to check the pounces.
● Direct +10
● Pounce +10/-5
● No part points on pounce.
● No pass.
● QM is God. All decisions will be final.

1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24

Q.1
In June 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing for first prescription X to treat
ADHD in children. The X, titled Endeavour RX, aims to activate the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It
carefully integrates sensory stimuli and motor challenges, which helps improve focus.
However, this idea isn’t new. Zoolingo has also been used to help enhance children’s “emotional
vocabulary”, improve socialisation, and practice eye contact, and Autcraft is partnering with therapists,
who meet with their clients at a safe place on the platform. Thousands of people have already signed up
for the purpose.
What is Endeavour RX the first of?

Answer
First prescription video game

Q.2
The turboencabulator is a fictional machine whose technobabble description is an in-joke among
engineers.
The following quote is from the original 1944 Students' Quarterly Journal article by "J. H. Quick".
“The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic
casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan.
The latter consists simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft
that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type
placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a
nonreversible tremmie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the "up" end of the grammeters.”
What is the function of turboencabulator, something that was also stated in a popular 2009 film?

Answer
To remind people to minimize the use of jargon

Q.3
Air Force Institute of Technology associate dean Curtis McGiffin and Louisiana Tech Research Institute
researcher Adam Lowther, also affiliated with the Air Force, co-wrote an article — with the ominous title
“America Needs a ‘Dead Hand’” — arguing that the United States needs to develop “an automated
strategic response system based on artificial intelligence.” In other words, they want to give an AI the
nuclear codes.
The “Dead Hand” referenced in the title refers to the Soviet Union’s semi-automated system that would
have launched nuclear weapons if certain conditions were met, including the death of the Union’s leader.
The authors themselves admitted that this sounds like the device X from the movie Y, a cold war satire.
However, the movie highlights the fact that just claiming that you have such a device is enough to deter
attacks as the device was first developed because of rumours in the new york times stating that the device
has been already developed by the americans.
Id X and Y.

Answer
X- Doomsday machine
Y- Dr. Strangelove

Q.4
A new crop of emojis has recently been approved by the Unicode Consortium. These include Face
Exhaling, Face with spiral eyes, Face in clouds (or smoke), Heart on fire and Mending heart. There is also
an approved tag to add a beard to any face emoji.
What are these emojis inspired by?

Q.5
Japanese toy and video games manufacturer Bandai has launched the electronic version of X. X is often
used as a stress relief. But the problem with X is that it can be used as a stress relief only for a limited
period of time. Bandai’s electronic version eliminates this problem associated with X while replicating the
original experience.
It replicates both the sensation as well as the sound you get from X. To make the experience even better,
the toy makes a random sound effect, including a doorbell, a spring, a whoop, a chime and a dog bark,
after 100 clicks.
Id X

Q.6
X is a social mobile application, created by Israeli developer Or Arbel in just a day, at a request to create a
single-button app to send a notification to his assistant or wife. It was launched on April Fools’ Day 2014 for
Android and iOS, but was initially rejected for its simplicity.
The app enables users to send individual text and audio notifications to other users, simply containing the
word X. The app has been seen boasting that it takes 11 taps to send an X on a rival messaging service,
compared to just 2 on the app. It has been described as ‘an app hugely popular with the world’s population
of Sylvester Stallone’.
The app has an API, enabling brands to send X to a group of users. Examples are when the World Cup sent
an X everytime a goal was scored, and when FedEx allowed users to receive an X when their package was
being delivered.
A number of apps inspired by X have since been released, including an Indian version which sends a similar
sounding word Y.
Id X and Y.

Answer
Windows Copy File Dialog

Q.8
X agreed to acquire Y for $3.1 billion in 2005. By acquiring Y, X hoped to improve communications
between two different groups of users by allowing them to speak to each other. X had already tried to
reduce friction in its field, referring to its acquisition of PayPal in 2002 as a means to already make an
aspect of the platform easier and safer.
However, the acquisition failed disastrously as even though X had bought Y, it had not bought the key
peer-to-peer (P2P) technology behind it, which was still owned by the software’s original developers,
giving them leverage against X which they used to threaten to end the license that powered Y’s P2P
technology.
Analysts had already warned that real-time communications could hinder, rather than enhance, the
platform. When X finally sold off the platform Y for $1.2 billion less than it paid, its original owners popped
back up and hit X with a copyright lawsuit, which was settled finally in 2009 with Y being sold and spun off
its own company, separate from X.

Q.9
The company X recently came into a legal battle with Y, claiming Y's unlawful monopoly and that Y has
violated US antitrust laws when Y took down X's popular online game from their digital distribution
platform. X, in its complaint, leans heavily on the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, a monumental piece of
antitrust legislation in the US used to break up monopolies during the turn of the 20th century. It remains
the pillar of US antitrust law, and X claims Y has violated separate accounts of the Sherman Antitrust Act:
“unlawful monopoly” , “denial of essential facility” , “unreasonable restraints of trade”.
Id X and Y.

Q.10
According to CEO Reed Hastings, X is Netflix’ biggest competitor. However, he doesn’t put much stock in
his rival, as he said that they were winning. Netflix’s revenue has skyrocketed due to the trends of binge
watching and binge racing.
“Sometimes employees at Netflix think, ‘Oh my god, we’re competing with FX, HBO, or Amazon,” said
Hastings, “but think about if you didn’t watch Netflix last night: What did you do? There’s such a broad
range of things that you did to relax and unwind, hang out, and connect–and we compete with all of that.”
More specifically, explains Hastings, there are only a certain amount of hours which humans can tend to
activities, and Netflix’s goal is to occupy those moments–and deliver the utmost joy to the consumer
during that opportunity.
Id X

Q.11
In the early days of radio, amateurs nailed bare copper wires or terminal strips to a wooden board and
soldered electronic components to them. These boards were actually used for another household purpose
which is what they are named after. Later better models were developed but the name stuck on. This is
the etymology behind what common object used in electronics?

Q.11
Six years prior to release, the foundations for X began through work with Asobo on a product called
HoloTour for Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality headset. A challenge that later inspired the X project
was to build a digital version of Machu Picchu's vast mountainside and vistas vs. normal buildings at street
level.
This challenge spurred Microsoft executive and project leader Jörg Neumann to consult with the Bing
Maps team to use their detailed photogrammetry data, which included the actual ruins of Machu Picchu, in
order to create a HoloLens replica of Machu Picchu.
X streams data to the computer or console in real time, with AI being utilized to extrapolate geometry from
a blend of satellite and flyover imagery. X converts 3D scans of the environment into the game world.
Other sources of data include terrain data for landscaping, data for foliage density, real-time
meteorological data etc. A separate atmospheric renderer simulates accurate humidity and pollution
ID-X

Answer
X- Microsoft Flight Simulator

Q.12
In order to get in touch with millennials, X released the Follow JC __, based on the game Y. The game
involves collecting saints and other Biblical figures by answering philosophical questions about them.
Once players “catch ’em all” using geolocation, their spiritual squad becomes an “evangelization team”
that follows Jesus together. Players have to keep track of their avatars’ nutrition, hydration and “prayer
count” by collecting special objects, saying prayers for the sick in hospitals and going into a church
whenever they pass one.
Id X and Y

Answer
X- Vatican
Y- Pokemon Go

Q.13
This house was built by San Francisco-based startup Apis cor in Yaroslavl, Russia. It was constructed in just 26 hours and it
costs less than $11,000.
“We ________ the building in parts (the walls of the house, decorative elements, the tower), took the parts to the
construction site and assembled them as a Lego kit. Since then, of course, the equipment has been improved. But even our
first model proved to be reliable and efficient equipment,” said Alexander Maslov,the general director of Apis Cor, while
describing the construction process. What’s special about this house?

Q.14
The term "X" first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist Susanne Ussing and her partner architect
Carsten Hoff constituted themselves as ‘atelier X’. Under this name the two made a series of installations and images
entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human
movement and the behaviour of new materials.
In a 2015-interview Carsten Hoff recollects:
To us, "X" was simply about managing spaces. There was nothing esoteric about it. Nothing digital, either. It was just a tool.
The space was concrete, physical.
According to Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, X is defined more by the social interactions involved rather than its
technical implementation.In their view, the computational medium in X is an augmentation of the communication channel
between real people; the core characteristic of X is that it offers an environment that consists of many participants with the
ability to affect and influence each other. They derive this concept from the observation that people seek richness,
complexity, and depth within a virtual world.
ID-X

Q.15
X was first debuted in 2000 to polarising reception from the media, and has since attained a cult following,
specially helped through memes. X is often represented with a yellow Γ symbol (as an allusion to the
symbol L used somewhere else).
r/Y is a popular QnA/FITB subreddit with 711,000 followers, where answers are given by collective inputs,
no matter how small they may be, from a variety of spirits. However, a number of the answers on the
subreddit mostly end up about X. Recognising this, r/Z was created, a subreddit now with 13400 followers,
Z being a portmanteau term of X and Y.
Id X,Y and Z

Answer
X- Waluigi
Y- r/Ouija
Z- r/Walouija

Q.16
Google X, often called gX, was announced on 1 April, 2008. The core technology that powers gX is
Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation, which can create a fuzzy sophisticated model of what the
internet will look like in 24 hours.
Using Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation’s machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques
developed in Google’s Sydney offices, elements of the future can be constructed. This can then be used
to predict share price movements, footy results, or news events. Using language regression analysis, the
actual wordings of newspaper columns and blogs can also be predicted 24 hours in advance.
Id X.

Q.18
When Intel launched the core i9-9900K and the 9900KS in 2019, they were to be shipped in an eye-
catching, translucent piece of packaging. However, Intel announced that the special packaging is being
discontinued, instead being replaced by standard folding carton packaging.
The decision to discontinue was based on the fact that the packaging is more wasteful - as its shape
meant fewer chips per box, and that it cost extra to protect the chips from damage in transit. However,
unless you wanted a box that could double up as a dice for a MMORPG game, this change is not as
important.
What was special about the original packaging?

Q.19
The newest solution to a problem on the rise in Team Fortress 2 uses players called ‘terminators’ or
‘exterminators’, which target a certain group of players on the game.
Team Fortress 2 has recently noticed a significant rise in certain ‘players’ on the game. However, with its
developer, Valve, taking minor steps to address this issue, a subset of players took matters into their own
hands by developing the terminators.
Even though the terminators don’t solve the problem entirely, by being part of the problem itself, they have
been scripted specially to go after only a certain group of players, and are friendly to other players.
What problem do the terminators hope to solve?

Answer
Increase in cheating bots

Q.20
A Danish photo news agency recently tasked two of its photos with creating a series that shows how easy
it is to lie through photography. By shooting before and after photos of the same scene, they showed how
angle and perspective can, consciously or not, manipulate viewers and lead to accusations of fake news.
What fake news do these photos provide the proof of?

Answer
Non compliance with social distancing norms

Answer
Recursion
(Droste effect)

Q.23
What do these parameters decide?
● Did the user instantly move to the exact coordinates of the _______ or did they traverse
through the page to get it?
● Did they scroll into it or did they remotely execute a javascript to trigger a scroll into the
_______?
● How long after the page had loaded did the user find the _______?
These are some basic considerations that are taken into account on determining something seen
in a commonplace internet feature.

Answer
Why bots can’t clear captcha

Q.24
The advent of 3D games that utilized all the dimensions, didn’t just require better Graphics card, it
required a way to control movement and vision , quickly and easily. Once mouselook became standard in
3D games, it made little sense (at least for right-handed players) to hold your left arm across your chest to
reach ____.
The ____ were more comfortable, and offered easy access to Shift and Space. Dennis Fong is credited
with popularizing this method. Fong made history when he took home John Carmack's Ferrari 328 after
winning the first-ever nationwide Quake tournament in 1997. And when he won that tournament, defeating
Tom "Entropy" Kimzey on Castle of the Damned, his form was adopted by a generation of players?
What is Dennis Fong said to have popularized? (Both blanks are different)

Tiebreakers
● 3 questions; sudden death.
● Answer to be given on Discord when the QM enters your voice channel.
● If a tie still persists at the end of the 3 questions, the team with the higher
score in the prelims will be adjudged the winner of the tiebreak.

Tiebreaker 1
“People often ask us why our logo is a/an _______. There goes a saying that ________s
never forget. This focuses so well on the core idea.” The company then settled on a logo;
however, the initial draft was rejected because the idea felt “a little too political”. Redesigns
of the initial draft gave us the now recognisable logo.
Id the company.

Tiebreaker 2
What is the reason for
the late surge in
downloads?

Tiebreaker 3
Pre-orders for an upcoming next generation console X were only recently
launched. Despite being the pre-order day for X, the console Y was, at one point,
747% up in sales on the Amazon’s Movers and Shakers chart.
This confusion was compared to some users to what had happened previously
between A and B, when A was released in late 2012. This confusion had caused
A to be the slowest-selling console ever from its manufacturer. Users said that if
the names A and B had caused chaos, it was bound to happen with X and Y, and
it was nothing unexpected.
Id X, Y, A, B.

Answer
X – Xbox Series X
Y – Xbox One X
A – Wii U
B – Wii

Alphabit 2020 Quiz Finals

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