Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/30/2012_year_end_what_is_the_it_angle_quiz/
From post-coital squid to high-res Playboy bunnies: The 2012 'IT angle?!' quiz
Test your knowledge of the year's most stimulating stories
Posted in Bootnotes, 30th December 2012 21:26 GMT
How much do you remember about what really mattered in 2012? You're about to find out.
Last year The Reg chronicled more than just the birth of Windows 8, the rise of ARM, the battle between iOS and Android, the genesis of the buzzword de l'année "big data", Apple's crap Maps app flap, and other communiqués from the front lines of the tech wars.
We considered it our duty, for example, to inform you in March that a Lithuanian court denied Carlsberg brewery workers the right to strike by declaring beer to be "vitally essential," placing it "in the same category as medical supplies and drinking water."
Occasionally a Reg commenter will respond to such stories with a dismissive "IT angle?!" We, however, believe there's more to life than servers, admin tools, and security hassles, so we've cooked up a year-end quiz to see if you've been paying attention to our departures from the IT straight and narrow.
It's time to test your Reg recall on the following questions, and we offer a couple of ways to track your progress: you can click on "Answer" at the end of each question to go to the Reg story that prompted it, or download a printable scoresheet here then check out the Answers page at the end of the quiz.
And, yes, a few IT stories made it into this quiz as well. After all, this is The Reg – what did you expect, consistency?
Fast gas, WIMPs, and Playboy bunnies
1. A man in Seattle, Washington, claimed he was attacked and bloodied by what?
A. leprechauns
B. feral pigs
C. laid-off Microsoft employees
D. kindergarteners
Answer
2. How much did Bill Gates' 1979 Porche 911 sell for at auction?
A. $8,000
B. $80,000
C. $180,000
D. zero – there were no bidders
Answer
3. Why do scammers still employ obviously stupid and transparently fraudulent "Nigerian" scams?
A. Only idiots respond, so the scams are highly efficient since the victims are self-selecting
B. The number of internet users is still growing, and newbies fall for scams
C. The scams are becoming more sophisticated, thus more effective
D. A recent study has shown that greed suppresses rational thought
Answer
4. According to McAfee (the Intel division, not the man), what was the celebrity name most likely to lead to malware infection in 2012?
A. Eva Mendes
B. Selena Gomez
C. Halle Berry
D. Emma Watson
Answer
5. Before ending his run in January 2012, how long had William Shatner been Priceline.com's spokesman?
A. 12 years
B. 14 years
C. 16 years
D. since Al Gore invented the internet
Answer
6. Groupon got in trouble with the UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for selling what?
A. penis-enlargement pills
B. alcohol to minors
C. snake oil
D. voodoo dolls of religious figures
Answer
7. How much longer did ex-SAP chief Léo Apotheker keep his CEO position at HP than did ex-PayPal prez Scott Thompson remain the CEO of Yahoo!?
A. Just under twice as long
B. Just over twice as long
C. Around a third of a year longer
D. Just about the same length of time
Answer: Thompson hired, Thompson leaves; Apotheker hired, Apotheker leaves
8. Which US presidential candidate wanted to make it possible for the Moon to become the 51st state?
A. Ron Paul
B. Rick Perry
C. Newt Gingrich
D. Michele Bachmann
Answer
9. To publicize its argument for more funding, NASA arranged what event?
A. A benefit performance by David Bowie, who sang "Life on Mars"
B. Driving a scale model of the Curiosity rover up the Washington Mall to the US Capital
C. Holding a "Planetary Exploration Car Wash and Bake Sale"
D. A softball game between NASA scientists and budget committee members, with balls painted to resemble the Moon and planets
Answer
10. How many wannabe astronauts applied for a position in the 21st US astronaut class?
A. over 15,000
B. 6,300
C. 5,200
D. 666
Answer
11. About how fast are gasses swirling around black hole IGR J17091-3624?
A. 17,500 miles per hour
B. 20,000,000 miles per hour
C. 175,000,000 miles per hour
D. just under 50 per cent of the speed of light
Answer
12. What did one MIT graduate student suggest be used to deflect earth-threatening asteroids?
A. paintballs
B. other asteroids
C. a cluster of obsolete Soviet and US ICBMs
D. one nuclear warhead donated by each nuclear-armed nation – including the ones that haven't yet admitted owning any
Answer
13. Scientists estimate that each of us is bombarded by a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) approximately how often?
A. millions of times per second
B. once per minute
C. once per lifetime
D. never, unless we live at the South Pole when the ozone layer is depleted
Answer
14. What's the ratio of the megapixalage of the camera on the US Department of Energy's Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to that of the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S III?
A. 4:1
B. 40:1
C. 400:1
D. 4,000:1
Answer
15. Approximately what was the resolution of the photo of Playboy model Lena Söderberg printed by Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and 16Research, measured in dots per inch?
A. 10,000
B. 100,000
C. 1,000,000
D. irrelevant – it was a continuous-tone image
Answer
The Woz and frustrated fruit flies
16. A French perfume house has developed a scent that evokes a remembrance of what?
A. a Peugeot fresh from the showroom
B. bacon
C. unboxing an Apple MacBook
D. mimeograph ink
Answer
17. Apple applied for a patent for a keyboard that could be made of what material?
A. five nanometer–thick graphene
B. environmentally sustainable hardwoods
C. polished meteorite
D. a lightweight, rigid plastic for which Apple also holds a patent
Answer
18. What percentage of a $499 iPad's price goes to the Chinese workers who built it?
A. 1.6
B. 2.8
C. 4.1
D. 9.3
Answer
19. Chinese police raided a company that was selling what items branded as Apple iPhones?
A. knock-off New Balance shoes (Steve Jobs' favorite brand)
B. instant noodles
C. gas stoves
D. reconditioned Nokia phones
Answer
20. A Chinese woman was arrested for attempting to smuggle iPhones in what?
A. her pet dog
B. beer bottles
C. diplomatic pouches
D. various bodily cavities
Answer
21. What was the distance achieved by Ere Karjalainen, the winner of the 12th annual World Phone Throwing championships in Savonlinna, Finland?
A. one meter more than the maximum distance between the try lines (goal lines) of a regulation rugby pitch
B. 6.175 double-decker buses
C. 3.75 average blue whales
D. exact distance unknown, because the phones were thrown into the Koululahti waterway
Answer
22. In how many Reg stories was Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak mentioned during 2012?
A. 26
B. not enough
C. too many
D. Steve who?
Answer
23. What do male fruit flies who have been sexually rejected do?
A. drink booze
B. engage in male-to-male sexual stimulation
C. fly as high as they can until exhausted, then fall to their deaths
D. lie about their failure to other male fruit flies
Answer
24. What physical challenge did genome sequencing uncover that a 5,000-year-old murder victim named Ötzi not have?
A. Lyme disease
B. a genetic predisposition to heart disease
C. male pattern baldness
D. lactose intolerance
Answer
25. What movie did the Vatican declare to be a "modern classic" and "now enshrined as a masterpiece"?
A. Ben Hur
B. Bedtime for Bonzo
C. Braveheart
D. Blues Brothers
Answer
26. Place the following movies in the order in which Reg readers voted them as being the worst five of all time (worst first).
A. Highlander II
B. Avatar
C. The Phantom Menace
D. Battlefield Earth
E. Twilight
Answer
27. Where does the Simpsons family of television fame live?
A. Springfield, Oregon
B. Springfield, Massachusetts
C. Springfield, Illinois
D. Springfield, Missouri
Answer
28. What company faked a game demo at CES 2012?
A. Nvidia
B. AMD
C. Intel
D. Electronic Arts
Answer
29. A Turkish cybersquatter registered a dozen or more .xxx domains based on what public figure's name?
A. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
B. Lady Gaga
C. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
D. Pope Benedict XVI
Answer
30. According to a Cisco survey, which of the following would an IT manager not prefer over migrating his or her business to a private or public cloud?
A. getting a root canal
B. digging a ditch
C. eating soap
D. doing his or her taxes
Answer
Cattle farts and sushi
31. Who or what did Australia's Livestock Methane Research Cluster employ to measure cattle farts?
A. sniffer dogs
B. lasers
C. retired wine tasters
D. fly traps
Answer
32. A sushibot invented by Suzumo Machinery can crank out how many pieces of inari-sushi per hour?
A. 60 to 120
B. 240 to 480
C. 960 to 1,920
D. 1,200 to 2,500
Answer
33. At what game is a Japanese robot capable of beating a human opponent 100 per cent of the time?
A. snooker
B. Jenga
C. rock, paper, scissors
D. Scrabble (either hiragana or katakana)
Answer
34. Where did a retired US doctor claim to have found the controversial Gräfenberg Spot (aka G-spot)?
A. in bonobos
B. in Poland
C. in a computer model of the adult female nervous system (but not in a living female)
D. exactly where she told you it was all along
Answer
35. Male bar-goers in Michigan are being advised by whom or what to take a cab rather than risk a drunk-driving arrest?
A. talking urinal cakes
B. off-duty prostitutes
C. LED messages on the inside of the bottom of pint glasses
D. bar employees wearing realistic police uniforms, complete with loaded guns
Answer
36. What is an Australian restaurant legally recycling?
A. uneaten food for meat and vegetable pies
B. patron's urine for fertilizer
C. trapped rodents for sausage meat
D. paper plates, washed and dried
Answer
37. The Pirate Bay warned its fans not to use websites that advertise themselves as what?
A. The Pirate Bay
B. torrent-user forums and chat rooms
C. online storage and backup services
D. alternatives to iTunes
Answer
38. If you download a torrent from sites such as The Pirate Bay, how long will it be before your IP address has likely been logged by copyright enforcers?
A. three seconds
B. three minutes
C. three hours
D. three days
Answer
39. Who shares the most photos online?
A. American teenage girls
B. Japanese teenage girls
C. British teenage girls
D. Australian teenage girls
Answer
40. Who shares the fewest photos online?
A. American teenage boys
B. Japanese teenage boys
C. British teenage boys
D. Australian teenage boys
Answer
41. On average, how many text messages do American teens send each day?
A. one dozen
B. three dozen
C. five dozen
D. who cares?
Answer
42. How did an American IT pro respond to an anti-parental diatribe posted by his teenage daughter on Facebook?
A. He drove over her MacBook Pro with his Ford F-350 pickup truck.
B. He hacked the online applications to each college to which she was applying, adding the rant.
C. He shot up her laptop with his .45 loaded with hollow-point bullets.
D. He posted naked baby picture of her onto her Facebook page.
Answer
43. How long did Taiwanese gamer Chen Rong-yu sit in an internet cafe, immobile, before other gamers noticed he was dead?
A. two hours
B. nine hours
C. a day and a half
D. until a power failure brought down all the computers in the cafe
Answer
44. What did a team of Korean scientists discover to be the secret to a long life?
A. frequent orgasms, whether alone or with a partner
B. daily intake of 350ml of 40-proof soju (distilled grain or potato liquor)
C. occasional outbursts of rage
D. castration
Answer
45. For what type of developers did the Melbourne company Flippa advertise?
A. "angrier birds"
B. "mediocre"
C. "insanely great but Apple-averse"
D. "independently wealthy"
Answer
Greenhouse gasses and post-coital squid
46. Who gave a speech in February saying, "Greenhouse gas emissions and global warming are among humanity's most pressing concerns"?
A. Climatologist Judith Curry
B. then-Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Yaobang
C. Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi
D. Exxon Mobile Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson
Answer
47. What did a Stanford University study determine would cause carbon-sequestration schemes to fail?
A. economics
B. earthquakes
C. politics
D. fuggedaboutit: it's too late
Answer
48. What traditional British delicacy is threatened by climate change?
A. bangers and mash
B. spotted dick
C. fish and chips
D. Marmite
Answer
49. What has been an unexpected side effect of the persistent US drought?
A. fewer teen pregnancies
B. higher ticket prices and profits at water parks
C. a rise in veganism
D. rabid skunks invading suburbia
Answer
50. The world may soon face a shortage of what?
A. chocolate
B. condoms
C. crack cocaine
D. clarinets
Answer
51. According to a group of American scientists, drinking too much coffee can result in what?
A. blindness
B. deep vein thrombosis
C. extramarital affairs
D. coquetery
Answer
52. What has been suggested by a member of France's Centre national de la recherche scientifique as a possible painkiller?
A. late-1970s Europop
B. civet musk
C. the aroma of strong coffee
D. black-mamba venom
Answer
53. From what did a marijuana farmer sustain a bite at the Clarkston, Washington, Walmart?
A. a tarantula hiding in the bananas he consumed to assuage his munchies while at the same time stabilizing his electrolytes
B. a scorpion hiding in a pile of towels he intended to buy as hospitable additions to his hot-tub soirées with clients
C. a rattlesnake hiding in the mulch in which he planned to nurture his cannabis crop
D. a toddler who wanted the Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse with which he was going to gift his girlfriend's child
Answer
54. After mating for three hours – a reasonable average for the species – the dumpling squid suffers what challenge?
A. the inability to communicate by skin-color changes, since both male and female are flushed
B. a reduction of both the male's and female's ability to swim
C. the longer the mating, the longer the female waits to be re-impregnated, thus lowering genetic diversity
D. the inability to light post-coital cigarettes underwater
Answer
55. In a stunning example of nominative determinism, what was the name of the graduate student or students who studied Pelodiscus sinensis, a turtle that urinates through its mouth?
A. Willie Makit and Betty Wonnt
B. Taykapee Singh
C. Shit Fun Chew
D. Newt Gingrich
Answer
56. What tweet ruminating on English usage got an Indiana student expelled from school shortly before graduation?
A. "Get Fucked! should be a way to wish a friend good luck, not a put down."
B. "Fuck is one of those Fucking words you can Fucking put anywhere in a Fucking sentence and it still Fucking makes sense."
C. "The vast majority of Motherfucking people you think are Motherfuckers aren't, literally."
D. "Why the Fuck is Cocksucker an insult when most guys wish their girlfriend was one?"
Answer
Answers
1, A; 2, B; 3, A; 4, D; 5, B; 6, C; 7, A (Thompson hired, Thompson leaves; Apotheker hired, Apotheker leaves); 8, C; 9, C.
10, B; 11, B; 12, A; 13, B; 14, C; 15, B; 16, C; 17, C; 18, A; 19, C.
20 B; 21, A; 22, A; 23, A; 24, C; 25, D; 26, D, C, E, A, B; 27, A; 28, C; 29, D.
30, C; 31, B; 32, D; 33, C; 34, B; 35, A; 36, B; 37, A; 38, C; 39, D
40, B; 41, C or D; 42, C; 43, B; 44, D; 45, B; 46, C; 47, B; 48, C; 49, D.