Supposedly, this quiz has been called the World’s Easiest Quiz. I leave it upto you to decide whether it is indeed the easiest or not. But for sure, it is fun to attempt.
Since its quite popular so I am not hiding the answers. You might hve already seen it via email. But still I would like to hear how did you score. Share it in the comments area . To pass this quiz, you need to have four correct answers. So, lets get to the quiz:
1) How long did the Hundred Years’ War last?
.
2) Which country makes Panama Hats?
.
3) From which animal do we get cat gut?
.
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
.
5) What is a camel’s hair brush made of?
.
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
.
7) What was King George VI’s first name?
. What color is a purple finch?
.
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
.
10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?
.
So friends, how did it go? Are you ready for the answers?
Lets scroll down.
A bit more.
A little further.
Few more lines.
And here we are:
The Correct Answers to the Quiz
1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?
116 years
2) Which country makes Panama Hats?
Ecuador
3) From which animal do we get cat gut?
Sheep and Horses
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
November
5) What is a camel’s hair brush made of?
Squirrel fur
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
Dogs
7) What was King George VI’s first name?
Albert
What colour is a purple finch?
Crimson
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
New Zealand
10) What is the colour of the black box in a commercial airplane?
Orange (of course)
I must admit, I don’t have an RSS reader as yet, and I rarely used Google Reader!!!
I did create an account on Google Reader, and probably added a few RSS feeds to, just to see how this baby works, but that was about as far as I went. Today’s blog post from Gmail gang did make me think twice about this service from Google.
And, here’s why: You see, sometimes a tool may be really cool, and simple, or rather “Really Simple” but the light bulb in your head does not turn on until you see someone using it. I must say, same is the case with mind mapping tools. But, lets leave that discussion for some other day!
When you go through this blog post “Find Great Stuff to read in Google Reader” and then the new section on Google, Power Readers, it shows you various real world use-cases of how Google Reader is being used by big boys and girls and it did make me think: Hey, probably it is for serious use too!
Google never ceases to amaze us. Google Indic Transliteration tool as shown in the above screen grab lets you type in roman, a.k.a. English characters and as you finish a word a press the space bar, the tool immediately converts it into Urdu. If the word you see is not exactly what you wanted, click on the word and a drop down will show you other related possibilities.
The speed and performance is simply amazing. It also allows you to type in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
The 4th annual e-book fair is on from July 4 to August 4. I am told that some 2 million e-books in PDF format will be available for free download during these dates.
Their collection is normally available for an annual membership fees of $8.95.So if you don’t take advantage of the bookfair period then you will have to contribute the annual fee. Although its a nominal fee compared to what they are offering, but who doesn’t like books for free?!?!
Hasan recently shared this ad on the Mensa Pakistan Yahoo group.
Although, while writing this article I am wondering, “Oh, yet another movement, and we still seem to be standing still!!!”
An interesting idea, and if properly implemented, it should give the city a neat look for few months. Beuase, the griffiti writers are not going to stop anyway.
When I changed the content management system of Mensa website to wordpress sometime ago, one reason was to encourage the members participation in the technical aspects of this website. But don’t be scared by the word “technical”.
The beauty of wordpress is that you dont need to know anything about programming. Its all click and click there.
I want to change the look and feel of this website. In other words, I want to change the wordpress theme. But I want your help in this. Please go through the Wordpress Themes Gallery , checkout the several thousand, yes, I mean thousands, of themes available for download free of charge and pick your favourites. Then, comeback and comment this post with the name of the theme you like the most. You can suggest upto 3 themes.
Once we finalise the theme, I will involve some of you (who would be interested) in going through the process of changing the theme. And, that step would take about 5 minutes.
I remember the times when we used to argue and debate concepts, ideas (no, I am not talking about the hot new idea for a urinal with a fly printed on it!!!) and the debate would go on and on until we would realise that its morning. But, ah! Those were the times. Thanks to economic pressures, now even late dinners are usually with business partners and the discussions are interspersed with issues and strategies related to on-going projects.
For weeks I have an item on my to-do list: “Organise a philisophy night”. The key figure for this project lives 4 houses away from mine, in the very same street. Yet, thanks to the “busy-ness” of everyday, its still an item on the list.
I don’t want to take-away the core of Lee’s article and would encourage you to go there and read it yourself.
Wednesday 18 Mar 2009 by Abeer Habibullah |
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Filed under: Rants
Yes you read it right folks! This is actually an all-girl band and they have produced a song entirely played through a bunch of standard, off-the-shelf, or rather off-the-appstore apps downloading on their iPhones. Amazing amazing stuff.
Mensa Pakistan is proud to Announce that it has now been recognized as Provisional National Mensa … and is in final stages to claim its full NATIONAL STATUS.
Kindly come to this meeting and also invite any Mensa current or old Mensa member that you know.
1. Convince yourself that you do have a good memory that will improve. Too many people get stuck here and convince themselves that their memory is bad, that they are just not good with names, that numbers just slip out of their minds for some reason. Erase those thoughts and vow to improve your memory. Commit yourself to the task and bask in your achievements — it’s hard to keep motivated if you beat yourself down every time you make a little bit of progress.
2. Keep your brain active. The brain is not a muscle, but regularly “exercising” the brain actually does keep it growing and spurs the development of new nerve connections that can help improve memory. By developing new mental skills—especially complex ones such as learning a new language or learning to play a new musical instrument—and challenging your brain with puzzles and games you can keep your brain active and improve its physiological functioning.
8. Create vivid, memorable images. You remember information more easily if you can visualize it. If you want to associate a child with a book, try not to visualize the child reading the book – that’s too simple and forgettable. Instead, come up with something more jarring, something that sticks, like the book chasing the child, or the child eating the book. It’s your mind – make the images as shocking and emotional as possible to keep the associations strong.
9. Repeat things you need to learn. The more times you hear, see, or think about something, the more surely you’ll remember it, right? It’s a no-brainer. When you want to remember something, be it your new coworker’s name or your best friend’s birthday, repeat it, either out loud or silently. Try writing it down; think about it.
10. Group things you need to remember. Random lists of things (a shopping list, for example) can be especially difficult to remember. To make it easier, try categorizing the individual things from the list. If you can remember that, among other things, you wanted to buy four different kinds of vegetables, you’ll find it easier to remember all four.
11. Organize your life. Keep items that you frequently need, such as keys and eyeglasses, in the same place every time. Use an electronic organizer or daily planner to keep track of appointments, due dates for bills, and other tasks. Keep phone numbers and addresses in an address book or enter them into your computer or cell phone. Improved organization can help free up your powers of concentration so that you can remember less routine things. Even if being organized doesn’t improve your memory, you’ll receive a lot of the same benefits (i.e. you won’t have to search for your keys anymore).
12. Try meditation. Research now suggests that people who regularly practice “mindfulness” meditation are able to focus better and may have better memories. Mindfulness (also known as awareness or insight meditation) is the type commonly practiced in Western countries and is easy to learn. Studies at Massachusetts General Hospital show that regular meditation thickens the cerebral cortex in the brain by increasing the blood flow to that region. Some researchers believe this can enhance attention span, focus, and memory.
13. Sleep well. The amount of sleep we get affects the brain’s ability to recall recently learned information. Getting a good night’s sleep – a minimum of seven hours a night – may improve your short-term memory and long-term relational memory, according to recent studies conducted at the Harvard Medical School.
14. Build your memorization arsenal. Learn pegs, memory palaces, and the Dominic System. These techniques form the foundation for mnemonic techniques, and will visibly improve your memory.
15. Venture out and learn from your mistakes. Go ahead and take a stab at memorizing the first one hundred digits of pi, or, if you’ve done that already, the first one thousand. Memorize the monarchs of England through your memory palaces, or your grocery list through visualization. Through diligent effort you will eventually master the art of memorization.
Web is all gaga about a game being launched by Empire Interactive. According to a number of blog posts and press releases Empire Interactive has signed a deal with American Mensa and British Mensa and they plan to bring out a mensa themed game on an entire range of platforms… console, handheld, PC, and Mac! And this video game would be the first such game approved by Mensa.
On a related note, while browsing the British Mensa website while writing this blog post I came across a whole range of Mensa games. Now that sounds interesting.
Way back many centuries ago – in internet terms, of course – we could choose a password that typically had 3 to 4 characters… and were often the same 4 digits that were the ATM pin code, or the 3-digit code of our favorite number lock.
Then we saw the era of minimum 8-character passwords. We moaned and agonised but the many apps and web services forced us to memorise a longer password.
But hackers and online thugs did not give up. And, now, the rules of the game have changed once again.
We have now entered the era where not only your password must contain 8 or more characters, it MUST contain all of the following:
At least one or more Alphabets
At least one or more Numbers
At least one alphabet should be in upper case, a.k.a Capital letter.
At least one or more special characters like !@#$%^&*(){}. It almost appears like I am suggesting some foul word!!!
I am told, that with a password that may look like Hy76%@W2 the chances of your account at a web based email or social networking service would be hugely minimised.
But please don’t go to sleep with this gospel. Soon, very soon, in internet terms, of course, the theives and thugs and their merry men will crack this too. And, I hate to wonder what will we have to memorise then?
1. No Breakfast People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar
level.
This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing
brain degeneration.
2. Overeating It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental
power.
3. Smoking It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.
4. High Sugar consumption Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients
causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.
5. Air Pollution The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air
decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in
brain efficiency.
6. Sleep Deprivation Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will
accelerate the death of brain cells.
7. Head covered while sleeping Sleeping with the head covered, increases the concentration of carbon
dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain
damaging effects.
8. Working your brain during illness Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in
effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.
9. Lacking in stimulating thoughts Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation
thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.
10. Talking Rarely Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain
Four couples (each a boy and a girl) are in a queue at the cinema. Adam is ahead of Blenda, who is not with Colin, who is behind Annie, who is behind Brian, who is not with Denise, who is behind Dave, who is not with Chloe and is ahead of Adam. Can you reconstruct the pairings and order?
Another JK Rowling title? I thought the Harry Potter series was over for good.
But I was so wrong! “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” was the “book” Professor Dumbledore presented to Hermione in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. Of course, this “book” had to see the light of the day too. And yes friends, this latest title by J K Rowling has already hit the shelves in the bookstores.
In “Deathly Hallows” this book “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” helped Harry Potter to achieve Voldemont’s defeat. To quote from wikipedia:
The book Hermione receives in Dumbledore’s will is a copy of the original edition of the fictional book.[10] It is described as an ancient-looking small book with its binding “stained and peeling in places”. In the novel it is also said the book has a title on its cover, written in embossed runic symbols.[2]
The book acts as the vehicle for introducing the Deathly Hallows.[6] Above the story “The Tale of the Three Brothers”, Hermione Granger finds a strange symbol which later is revealed by Xenophilius Lovegood to be the symbol of the Hallows. The triangle from the symbol represents the Invisibility Cloak, the circle inside the triangle symbolizes the Resurrection Stone, and the vertical line represents the Elder Wand.[10]
These three objects are also mentioned in the story itself (see below), and are said to belong to the Peverell brothers,[10] who are later revealed as being Harry Potter’s ancestors.[11] Towards the end of the novel, Albus Dumbledore also confirms Harry’s connection to the Peverells, and states that the three brothers might in fact have been the creators of the Hallows.[12]
Whenever I come across something ingenious I often wonder how would this guy score on a Mensa test. Same thought comes to mind when I look at the lego bricks.
Watching my 3-year old come up with amazingly sturdy and evenly balanced designs with these bricks prompted me to google “lego designs”. I wont deny my own passion and love for these bricks. I was delighted with tons of resources.
But my biggest joy came from the horse’s mouth: The official lego website.
Check these links:
Lego Creator is the destination I am talking about. It has an exciting mix of content, from design studio to step-by-step construction method of various designs, videos, blog, downloads and more.
The lego design school where you can learn everything from the very basics to pretty advanced lego construction techniques.
The Lego Digital Designer. A software that you can download from Lego website and create your designs on the PC, and you can even upload them to Lego’s gallery.
Ever wished you could ask someone for help? Now you have two options:
Ask A Designer section for expert replies from the official representatives
The Messageboard provides you a place to hang out and exchange ideas with other Lego buffs.
All in all, this should be a wonderful treat. Even though I have played with Lego since childhood, there are several things I learnt at the Lego school mentioned above.
Gerald Celente has been monitoring and forecasting trends for a long time. Since mid 80s to be precise. I recently received the following text from Asim Basra, a fellow Mensan who works in the banking industry. When I googled about it, I found that it has been echoing across the blogosphere.
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting a revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions – all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is going to be more important then putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.
“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
“There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”
“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”
“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”
“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”
But that’s not all. Youtube is loaded with his interviews and appearances in talk shows. One of them, as reported on Daily Newscaster was on Alex Jones Live. Listen to this one.
Simply google “Gerald Celente” and you will be inundated with content he has been forecasting and what the public has been saying.
My question to the world wide Mensa community is this: With all the intelligence and knowledge bestowed upon the members of Mensa, and for that matter, all the others with similar levels of IQ, are we all simply going to watch the world fall into this spiral and philosophize about it, OR, is there anything that can be done and will be done to prevent it, or perhaps at least reduce the impact of this collapse?
I don’t know about you, but my love of the big RR, the angel-mascot car will probably never be taken over by any other car. Its not to say that no other car is as beautiful or as “wow”, but Rolls Royce is something special, very unique, in a class of its own.
And, then, to suddenly come face-to-face with a mint condition 1922 model was a real heart-stopper. Enjoy this collection, friends:
Rolls Royce Mascot
This beauty is currently owned by the Hashoo Group, or most probably by the Pearl Continental, and was on display in the hotel lobby in June, 2008. But the history of this car is far more royal. Its original owner was one of the nawabs, and later it was also honoured to be used by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
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For the photography minded, the collection was shot with the iphone.
Certificate distribution ceremony and general body meeting of the Mensa Lahore City Council was held at the Ritz Cinema at Sukh Chan Wellness Club on Friday, November 28th, 2008.
The meeting was attended by Hasan Zuberi, Mensa Pakistan Chairman, Raza Jaffri, General Secretary, Amir Rana, Treasurer, Usman Zaheer & Ahmad Babar of the Lahore City Council, as well as several other members of the Mensa Management Committee, as the members of the Lahore City Council.
The above pictures were few of those taken during the function. The event was invoked by tilawat, followed by a welcome address by the Lahore City Council. Next in line was a presentation about Mensa, Intelligence and Mensa Pakistan. Two short musical films by Animusic.com were screened at the theatre. This was followed by the distribution of certificates to the qualifiers of the last Mensa test held in Lahore.
The event was followed by snacks and refreshments.
On a recent shopping trip I visited four shops, spending 5$, $10, $15, and $20 but not in that order. The items I bought in the last two shops totalled $30 while those from Lewis Johns and Wellys came to $20. I spent less in S&M, which was not my last shop, than I did in Lewis Johns and $5 more in Nick Harveys than I did in the first shop. How much did I spend in each shop and in what order did I patronize them?
I drive a taxi and yesterday I started with four quick fares, picking up my next customer as the previous one got out. One trip was from Regent’s Station to Waterloo Square. My first fare needed to get to Leicester Circus, where I picked up Amy. I took Barry to Northminster and Chris sat in my cab earler than Delia. Can you reconstruct my first four fares of the day?
. To pass this quiz, you need to have four correct answers. So, lets get to the quiz:
What color is a purple finch?
