[338]

Gilbert Baker, a designer & activist, was asked to create a symbol for a particular movement. Baker was inspired by the hippie movement & world peace movement of 1960s.
The designer also cited the Rolling Stones song “She’s a Rainbow” as a source of inspiration.
The design was released in 1978 & has been used widely ever since.
What did Baker design?

Show Answer
Pride/Rainbow Flag
The original flag had 8 stripes, with a meaning to each one of them. Over the years, number of stripes has been reduced to 6, and that's how we know it today.
Read More.
rainbowprogression

[337]

Kendrick Lamar’s album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ very popular in 2015. But, Lamar almost ended up naming the album ‘To Pimp a Caterpillar’, before he went with the eventual title. For what reason of tribute did he want to name Caterpillar instead of Butterfly?

Show Answer
To pimp a caterpillar shortens to 2pac
Lamar changed the title to To Pimp a Butterfly to convey the brightness of life, and to represent his use of his celebrity for good.
Read why the album has been called the greatest ever.

[336]

In 1969, Dr. Karsanbhai Patel, a chemist at the Gujarat Government’s Department of Mining and Geology manufactured phosphate free synthetic X, and started selling it locally in and around Gujarat. He sold 15-20 packets of this a day through local dealers before his business boomed.
He named his product after his daughter Nirupama Patel.
How do we know this as ?

Show Answer
Nirma washing powder
At the time of launch, 1kg of Nirma powder cost Rs 3.5 as compared to HUL's Surf which cost Rs 13.
Today company is not just into detergents, but also building material & pharmaceuticals.
Read about Nirma's journey over the years.

[335]

Gregory Roberts was once a heroin addict and wanted criminal in Australia. He was caught and sentenced to a 19 year imprisonment. He escaped prison in 1980 becoming one of Australia’s most wanted criminal.
The story which follows is a mix of fiction and real life events, and become the plot for which book?

Show Answer
Shantaram
The book is based on the author's adventures in India. The novel is particularly commended by many for its vivid portrayal of life in Bombay in the early to late 1980s.
Read about the impact that the book has had.

[334]

X are a parody awards given to genuine scientists and researchers for their off beat inventions. The stated aim of the prizes are “first make people laugh, and then make them think”. Some of the recipients of the awards have been:
a bra that can be converted into a pair of gas masks
research on the “five-second rule”
converting old Russian ammunition into diamonds
discovery that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends
Id X.

Show Answer
Ig Nobel Prize
The awards for 2024 just concluded. Go through the noteworthy studies of this year.

[333]

During the early days of cinema in theaters, the owners would collect all the coins in chests and store them in a room towards the interior of the theatre complex.
This room gives its name to what in film parlance?

Show Answer
Box Office
Take a look at the Top Grossing Movies of all times.

[332]

X is an alkaloid found in chocolate, tea, cola beverages, acai berries and some other fruits. While these foods are safe for humans to consume, large doses of X can cause poisoning in smaller mammals, especially dogs and is called X or chocolate poisoning.
X in Latin also means ‘Food of the Gods‘.

Id X.

Show Answer
Theobroma
It is the chemical which gives chocolate its distinct, bitter flavour. Plus given how it was considered a luxury in Central Americas, people considered it to be from the Gods. Though don't give it to your pets.
Watch a video on how the Aztec drank their chocolate.

[331]

OpenAI recently introduced a new model called o1, which is optimized for logical reasoning. According to sources, the internal name of the model is ‘Strawberry’. The fruit can also be seen incorporated into the demo of some of the videos uploaded by the company.
Question is, what is the significance of the fruit to OpenAI & ChatGPT?

Show Answer
ChatGPT incorrectly counts the number of alphabet 'r' in the word Strawberry as 2
This is attributed to the way natural language is processes by these models, i.e., tokenization. Here's an in depth article covering the problem.
This glitch seems to have been corrected in the new o1 model.

[330]

The need to build X came during the World War II to house the additional requirement at the time.
A location was chosen & the building was shaped according to the existing road network. However, location was blocking the view to a cemetery, hence a new location was chosen nearby. But the original shape was liked so much that was retained despite no constraints.
The name of this building is now synonymous with this shape. Identify it.

Show Answer
The Pentagon
The shape was a hit with the top brass for its uniqueness & hence was retained. The shape also has a callback to medieval forts.
Watch a Video to go into more detail.
gram

[329]

X is a type of fund which is usually funded by surplus reserves from state-owned natural resource revenues, money from privatizations, etc.
The largest of its kind is valued at $1.6 trillion & based out of Norway, created through surplus form the country’s oil trade. A few other popular examples of X are Temasek from Singapore & Mubadala from UAE.
What am I talking about?

Show Answer
Sovereign Wealth Fund
A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund comprised of money generated by the government to provide a benefit for a country's economy and its citizens.
The largest being spoken about is the Norway Government Pension Fund Global.
Read More about these funds.
India is also planning to launch one of its own.

[328]

The myth goes that X married 27 daughters of Daksha but truly loved only one of them. His other wives complained about his negligent behaviour to Daksha, who cursed him that he would become ugly forever. As a penance, X prayed to lord Shiva to remove the curse, who said that he could not completely remove the curse, but that whenever X lost his beauty completely, he would again gradually gain it back and the cycle would go on.
Who is X and what resulted thus?

Show Answer
Chandra (moon) and the lunar cycle
As a result of this curse and its mitigation, the moon now waxes (gains its beauty) and wanes (loses its beauty) in a cyclic manner, representing the phases of the moon.
Read More.

[327]

James Earl Jones, known for his roles in Field of Dreams, The Lion King, and Star Wars, passed away recently at the age of 93.
Among his many distinctions was being one of the few to get an EGOT. Named after the awards of different fields in entertainment, EGOT is the ‘grand slam‘ of American show business.
Can you tell me what EGOT stands for?

Show Answer
Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards
Respectively, these awards honor outstanding achievements in television, audio recording, film, and Broadway theatre. There have only been 21 competitive winners & 6 non-competitive winners (honorary awardee) of this writing.

Read More about the distinction.

[326]

When asked why he chose to paint X, the artist offered a deadpan reply: “I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
That daily meal became the subject of this work consisting of 32 individual pieces.

Which artwork am I talking about?

Show Answer
Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans
The art piece was mocked at the time of its release because of its pedestrian nature.
However today, the work has become synonymous with Pop Art & is displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York stating "Repeating the nearly identical image, the canvases at once stress the uniformity and ubiquity of the product’s packaging and subvert the idea of painting as a medium of invention and originality".
Watch how Andy Warhol changed the face of Pop Art.
sue

[325]

While it is difficult to determine the exact reason for X, ‘camouflage’ seems to have taken less importance in recent studies.
One of the leading theory is that X confuses blood-sucking flies, and hence gives a significant advantage.
Another is possible reason for X might be be regulation of heat.
Which great mystery of the animal kingdom am I talking about?

Show Answer
Why Zebras have stripes
Watch a great video by TED on the topic.

[324]

As a young boy, he comes from a poor background, polishing and shining boots in his native Glasgow. He migrates to the US at the age of 13 and literally strikes gold & makes his first million.
Once rich, he settles down on the top of Killmotor Hill, in a building called ‘Money Bin’.
Who, from fiction, who gets his name from another work of fiction?

Show Answer
Scrooge McDuck
The character is almost exclusively portrayed as having worked his way up the financial ladder from humble immigrant roots. His characteristics are believed to be strongly influenced by the life of a real, incredibly wealthy Scottish-American business magnate, Andrew Carnegie, as well as Ebenezer Scrooge, the rich miser from Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol, McDuck's namesake.
Take a trip down Memory Lane.

[323]

The dish was likely prepared first at Anchor Bar in New York.
Served hot with vegetable sticks accompanying it, there’s usually a dressing/dip that does along with the dish.
You may be confused that the name of the dish refers to a bovine, while it actually refers to the name of the area where it was first served.

Show Answer
Buffalo Wings
Live many hit dishes, this also seems to find an origin with leftover food. Teressa Bellissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, cooked leftover chicken wings in hot sauce as a late-night snack for her son and his friends. The dish became an instant hit and went on to become a popular American appetizer.
Read More.

[322]

While this company is a world leader in its category, it also happens to be among the top food chains in the world.
The idea for a food service had come from the founder himself, who said “Hungry customers buy less”. In fact, the company sells a billion meatballs a year.
Which company am I talking about?

Show Answer
IKEA
As majority of their stores are way from city centers, IKEA started their own food service. While it started with coffees & cold products, the company now has customized menu for the different countries it's in. The Scandinavian meatballs are the bestsellers.
Read how the company is trying to bank on its food division in India.

[321]

Released 25 years ago, this movie contains a lot of talk on soap. The protagonist is a soap maker & seller (among other things). There is a crucial scene which talks about making soap in historical times.
When it came to finally deciding the poster, a pink coloured soap was chosen with the movie’s name embossed.
Which movie am I talking about?

Show Answer
Fight Club
Though the movie did not perform well, it went on to become a cult classic through DVD sales. Also, it is adapted from a book by the same name by Chuck Palahniuk.
Apparently getting Brad Pitt's body from Fight Club is thing. Read How To.

[320]

X is a valley about 10 km east of Duesseldorf in Germany where a discovery was made in 1856. While it was not the first of its kind, it coincided with publishing of one of Darwin’s books.
This made the efforts to study the discovery serious, and the discovery itself ended up being named after the valley X.
What am I talking about?

Show Answer
Neanderthal, which comes from Neander 'name of the place' & thal 'German for valley'.
While there were earlier discovery of Neanderthal remains in Belgium & Gibraltar, they were misclassified as 'modern'. It was the release of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 which spurred an interest in evolutionary studies.
Extremely detailed resource on the discovery of Neanderthal remains.
Watch how we know Modern Humans are related to Neanderthals.

[319]

The recently released cover of Time’s take on 100 influential people in the world of AI has two actors (covered in green).
The first is known for their work in movie on AI, which later became a point of issue for the actor.
The second is an Indian actor, who fought and won a case preventing AI to use his likeness.
Can you identify them both?
AI Times Q

Show Answer
Phoenix

Scarlett Johansson & Anil Kapoor
Scarlett known for voicing the AI in the movie 'Her', was at the receiving end when she found that an OpenAI model sounded exactly like her.
Anil won a case in New Delhi, preventing his likeness to be used by AI, which he went on to dedicate to actors across the globe.
The cover has also come under fire for not including biggies of the industry like Elon Musk & Sam Altman.
AI Times A