About Blank - Chapter 3
Hi there!
Let’s start with the elephant in the room - the answer to a question was present as a part of the question in the previous newsletter and I will ensure that we have a stronger proofreading process going forward.
We are also a tad bit late this week; it was just one of those weeks. Anyway, below are the answers to the questions that I had shared in the newsletter sent last week:
Big Brother
Alfonso/Alphonso (A breed of Mango)
X - Sherlock Holmes; Y - John Watson
Lo-fi
People seen on the album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Netflix Intro (Duh-Dum!)
Alexa device bug that caused them to laugh without being prompted
X - Akira Kurosawa; Y - Rashomon
X - Bonobo
Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve
I am excited to share the list of the next 10 questions with you all. If you are new here, this is how the newsletter works:
There are 10 trivia questions below; none of them require studying a particular topic
I would suggest that you read and re-read the question; the answer is only your first guess away
You can, if you want to, respond to this email with the list of answers that you think are correct; I will try to maintain a monthly scoreboard
I will share the answers for this quiz in the newsletter sent next week
About Blank Trivia Quiz (Week of Sep 19, 2022)
We originally used Bugzilla for bug tracking and the developers in the office started calling it by the Japanese name for Godzilla, Go____ (the original black-and-white Japanese Godzilla films are also office favourites). As we developed our own bug tracker, and then it became an issue tracker, the name stuck, but the Go got dropped - hence ____!
Further investigation into the name has revealed that Gorira is Japanese for "gorilla", whilst Ku____ is Japanese for "whale". So Go____ is roughly translated to mean "gorilla the size of a whale"!
Fill in the blankRoland wanted to develop a drum machine that could be used by professionals for writing demos and experimenting with sounds. Users would be able to edit parameters, such as decay and tuning, having more control over their sound, tweaking it to their liking.
The ___ was launched in 1980 to poor reviews. It was quickly dismissed by producers, saying that the sounds available were too simplistic and synthetic.But that was exactly it. The ___ wasn’t using samples – it was using synthesis. It was creating those sounds, not regurgitating them.
After the disappointing release, the ___ attracted a cult following among musicians in the 1980s. Initially because of its affordability on the secondhand market. As producers started digging deeper, word of the peculiar sounds you could achieve with the ___ began to spread far and wide, especially its deep, booming bass drum sound.
What are we talking about?A B C D was a game instigated by the patriarch of the family in Season 2. The rules of the game are simple: you pick your emotionally weakest dinner guests, and force them to crawl around on the ground making pig noises while you throw sausages at them and chant: “A B C D”.
What fictional game is being discussed here?A recent report from Variety further corroborates that this movie is a "piece of branded content" that is making use of "Antetokounmpo's worldwide fame." It aims to subtly (or not so subtly) hint that X can bring people together.
Speaking to Variety, Vivian Odior, X’s global head of marketing, stated that "'Naija Odyssey' is a story that reinforces how X helps us embrace our multifaceted lives."
"In navigating relationships, identity, and even adversity, X is there — enabling you to embrace all sides of you by connecting you to those who matter most."
The short film is said to have a 12-minute runtime and will also be released on social media channels, including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video, Variety reports.
What messenger turned OTT producer are we talking about?As the story goes, the show's creator and star, X discovered the jaunty tune by accident when he heard it in a bank commercial four years prior. "It just sort of introduces the idea that you're in for something pretty idiotic," he said in a 2009 interview. The title of the lighthearted track was "Frolic," and the man behind it was Rome-based pianist, conductor, and teacher Luciano Michelini, whose career began in the early 1970s mainly composing for Italian and foreign films.
In the time since the globally beloved show ended in 2011, the song has enjoyed a second life courtesy of countless internet mashup videos, which pairs the track with other pop culture and political clips.
What tune are we talking about?The term “A of B’’ was coined in 1999 by the computer scientist Kevin Ashton. While working at Procter & Gamble, Ashton proposed putting radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips on products to track them through a supply chain.
He reportedly worked the then-buzzword A into his proposal to get the executives’ attention. And the phrase stuck.
Over the next decade, public interest in the technology began to take off, as more and more connected devices came to market.
In 2000, LG announced the first smart refrigerator, in 2007 the first iPhone was launched and by 2008, the number of connected devices exceeded the number of people on the planet.
What term was coined by Kevin Ashton?What connects the below territories?
Kentucky
Australia
Massachusetts
Bahamas
Pennsylvania
Dominica
Virginia
The title A B C D was partly the result of the group's reputation at the BBC. Michael Mills, the BBC's Head of Comedy, wanted their name to include the word "D" because the BBC referred to the six members wandering around the building as a D, in particular, "Baron Von Took's D", after Barry Took, who had brought them to the BBC. The group added "C" to make it sound less like an actual D and more like something from World War I. The group was coming up with their name at a time when the 1966 Royal Guardsmen song Snoopy vs. the Red Baron had been at a peak. Freiherr Manfred von Richthofen, the World War I German flying ace known as The Red Baron, commanded the Jagdgeschwader 1 squadron of planes known as "The C D".
The words "A B" were added because they claimed it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, the sort of person who would have brought them together, with John Cleese suggesting "B" as something slimy and slithery, and Eric Idle suggesting "A".
What is ABCD?
According to corporatebullshitdirectory.com (WOW!), there is no doubt that the origin of the term is murky. They have heard it said that it started as a military term, where the troops would quite literally make the geometric form in question on the path back to their origin. Hence, the origin of the phrase. They have literally no proof of this but they have heard this version of the origin story!
What jargon are we talking about?The idiom suggests that by imitating confidence, competence and an optimistic mindset, a person can understand those qualities in their real life and achieve the results they are looking for. The expression first appeared around 1973 and the earliest reference to a very similar saying occurs in the Simon & Garfunkel song ____-in It, released in 1968 as a single and also on their Bookends album. There, Simon sings, “And I know I am ____-in it, I’m not really _____-in it.”
What is the idiom being discussed here?
About Blank Recommendation
Before the BBC made Sherlock a household name with Benedict Cumberbatch helming the role, the image of this fictitious character was best supported by Australian actor Jeremy Brett. In Sherlock Holmes, a series produced by Granada Television, Brett stars as the titular character, living (and often surpassing) the ethos of the character. These adaptations, roughly an hour long, stay true to the original script with extreme attention to detail to aspects such as set and sound design as well as the costumes; it all comes together in a magical amalgamation of an experience where the viewer feels as if the story is being narrated to them in visuals. The series also remains faithful to the description of Holmes as depicted in Sidney Edward Piaget’s illustrations that accompanied the stories.
However, the series is not my recommendation for this week. My recommendation is a podcast that is based on this series - The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast.
This podcast is a work of art, a labour of love, that goes above and beyond the common observations that one may have about the stories and the episodes. It dedicates itself wholly to breaking down individual episodes and often lifting the curtain to reveal the thought process that went into creating the series. It includes snippets of interview conversations, references across books and dialogues from the series to make its listeners feel as if they were in the writing rooms and on sets of this gripping series.
I recommend that you watch the series and then visit the podcast to have the complete experience. And, if you really like it, reach out to Luke and Gus Horwelda (the creators of the podcast) to let them know that you saw the recommendation here!
I hope you have a great weekend ahead, I will see you next week.
Sameer
On Behalf of About Blank