Trivia from The Matrix Trilogy

Although the movie has been around for a while now, I have to admit, I had never seen it despite so much hype around it’s special effects. But when I saw the movie, a few weeks back, I couldn’t help but go ‘WOAH!’ The film contains many references to the cyberpunk and hacker subcultures; philosophical and religious ideas; and homages to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Hong Kong action cinema, Spaghetti Westerns, dystopian fiction, and Japanese animation. All in the same movie!!

The film describes a future in which reality perceived by humans is actually the Matrix: a simulated reality created by sentient machines in order to pacify and subdue the human population while their bodies’ heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Upon learning this, computer programmer “Neo” is drawn into a rebellion against the machines.

Here are a few interesting facts I found on the internet about the first movie from the trilogy;

• Will Smith was approached to play Neo but turned it down in order make Wild Wild West (1999).
• There are numerous references to “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There”.
• The glyphs on the computer screens, with the exception of the call traces, consists of reversed letters, numbers, and Japanese katakana characters.
• Trinity’s room number is 303 (“trinity” 3). Neo is The One and number of his apartment is 101.
• Neo’s room number is 101. Room 101 was the place in George Orwell’s book “1984″ where people were sent to be tortured and would end up believing something that wasn’t true.
• Neo is often referred to as the “One”. One is an anagram of Neo.
• By the middle of 2002, the famous “Bullet Time” sequence had been spoofed in over 20 different movies.
• When Neo is running away from the agents, the window washers are played by the two directors of the movie.
• The movie was inspired by the Hex trilogy of books by Rhiannon Lassiter.
• The hotel and room number where Neo has to pick up the phone to get out of the Matrix (at the end) are the same where Trinity awaits the police in the beginning of the movie.

And lots more can be found at the official IMDb site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/trivia

I’d like to leave you with a really memorable quote from the movie which Morpheus tells Neo when the fromer is training him; “Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize just as I did that there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.“

Bhargav, Student Representative, Sedes Minerva

Did the Americans really land on the moon?

Turns out, they did!

A hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive or trick an audience into believing, or accepting, that something is real, when the hoaxster knows it is not; or that something is true, when it is false. All of us, at one time or another, have heard of the dinner plate UFO’s and the man made crop cirlces, and probably even the greatest hoax of them all; Did the Appolo 11 Lunar Module actually land on the moon?

they did, and here are a few myths and the facts that debunk them;

Myth: There can’t be any pictures taken on the Moon because the film would melt in the 250° temperatures.

Fact: The situation on the airless Moon is much different than in your oven, for instance. Without convection or conduction, the only method of heat transfer is radiation. Radiative heat can be effectively directed away from an object by wrapping it in a material with a reflective surface, usually simply a white material. The camera casings, as well as most of the astronauts’ clothing, were indeed white.

Myth: The black sky should be full of stars, yet none are visible in any of the Apollo photographs.

Fact: The Apollo photos are of brightly lit objects on the surface of the Moon, for which fast exposure settings were required. The fast exposures simply did not allow enough starlight into the camera to record an image on the film.

Myth: If Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who shot the video of him descending the ladder and taking his initial steps on the lunar surface?

Fact: The TV camera was stowed in an instrument pallet in the LM descent stage. When Armstrong was at the top of the ladder, he pulled a lanyard to swing open the pallet, which was hinged at the bottom. The TV camera, which was attached to it, also swung down. Buzz Aldrin then switched on the camera from the LM cabin. The camera was pointing at the ladder of the LM so that TV pictures of Armstrong’s initial steps on the Moon could be relayed to the world.

Myth: Some of the Apollo video shows the American flag fluttering. How can the flag flutter when there is no wind on the airless Moon?

Fact: I find this myth really stupid as in the video showing a fluttering flag is one in which an astronaut is grasping the flagpole. He is obviously twisting or jostling the pole, which is making the flag move.

Myth: To reach the Moon astronauts would have to travel through the Van Allen Radiation Belts, resulting in lethal doses of radiation.

Fact: This is really a gross exaggeration as it took Apollo about an hour to pass through the radiation belts – once on the outbound trip and once again on the return trip. The total radiation dose received by the astronauts was about one rem. A person will experience radiation sickness with a dose of 100-200 rem, and death with a dose of 300+ rem.

So, there you  have it, if you have anymore myths that you want debunked, please visit http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm

Bhargav, Student Representative, Sedes Minerva

‘Un’cyclopedia?

Spoofs of movies? Check! (Scary movie, Hot Shots, etc.)

Spoofs of songs? check! (‘Weird Al’ Yankovic)

Spoofs of websites! Check! Uncyclopedia (“the content-free encyclopedia”) is a website that parodies Wikipedia. It was founded in 2005, in which various different styles of humor are used as a vehicle for parody, from sophisticated satire to the apparently random.

A parody, or a spoof in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation.

This site is completely Anti-Wikipedia in every sense! Right from it’s logo hollow potato, named Sophia after the Gnostic deity, that serves as a spoof of Wikipedia’s globe logo. The articles in the site are spoofed, fabricated or parodied to such an extent that very little factual accuracy remains as Uncyclopedia has a core set of rules called the “Five pliers” ( again a parody of Wikipedia’s Five Pillars) which include “a satirical point of view”.  The project currently spans over 50 languages. The English version has over 24,000 pages of content! The site was not created to insult, but to generally have fun and that is clearly embodied in their “chill out, it’s only humour!”  policy.

Bhargav, Student Representative, Sedes Minerva

The IT and Business Quiz!

We’ve heard of CEO’s (Chief Executive Officer) and CXO’s (Chief Experience Officer), but how many of us knew there was only one Chief HAPPINESS Officer and to find out who,  you will have to reach to the end of this post!

The IT and Business Quiz preliminary had a great turnout which had a mixture of both first and second years from all the sections! The Preliminary was a written quiz of about twenty questions and the teams of three were given forty-five minutes to crack them. The highest score achieved by a team was 13 but Kavya S., who could not find team mates and had to participate alone, scored a very impressive 17!

The finals were held the coming week, when we met Mr. Harish, our quiz master for the first time! His rules for the entire quiz were simple, a correct answer earned you +10, a wrong answer, -5;  and if you called Harish ’sir’, you’d be punished with a  -20!!  Although most of the finalists had not turned up, the teams who did turn up were given a chance to participate on the finals after a round of questions and you could even qualify if you were enthusiastic enough! The finals were a little rushed with only three rounds as it was conducted during a lunch break.

The winners were Suma and team from I PUC commerce with 15 points, who won on a tie breaker question.  At second place were Ameya and team from I PUC science with 10 points and in third place was Harish and team from II PUC science with 5 points.

All in all, it was a great quiz with a few questions outside the topic and the quiz master always had a little anecdote to share with us related to each question. Oh and I almost forgot!

The only CHO in the world is..

RONALD McDONALD!! That’s right! The mascot of McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain.  So I urge everyone who have read this post to join us for our next meeting, because you don’t need to be awfully smart, you just need a thirst for knowledge.

‘Sedes Minerva’?

Hey everyone! This is the Quiz Club Speaking!

Now we all know that the CJC quiz club is called Sedes Minerva, but I’ve always wondered what the name meant. The first thing that popped into my mind when I heard the name was this really old Polish punk band called Sedes that’s almost 29 years old!

After a little more of looking into, I came across this Portugese  Association, which formed at around 1970 called SEDES, which was one of Portugal’s earliest think tanks. The members of this association were brought together by great desire for change and to establish a diverse social activism: academic associations, a practice of political opposition against the system of the Estado Novo regime that ruled Portugal since the 1920’s.

What’s fascinating is that they organized themselves into working groups, facilitated debates on various locations of Portugal, was the first Portuguese organization to proclaim the advantages of a rapprochement with the European Community.

Certainly an apt name for an organization of experimental thinkers such as ourselves!

And the second part of the name, ‘Minerva’, brought to my mind Harry Potter’s transfiguration teacher’s name, Minerva McGonagall and few of us, who have read the ‘Unofficial Guide to Harry Potter’  know that every name in J.K. Rowling’s books have some back ground;

Minerva was the Roman goddess of warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom and commerce.. She is often depicted with an owl, the creature of wisdom, and hence the phrase, ‘as wise as an owl’!

Minerva frequently features in statuary, as an image on seals, and in other forms, at educational establishments such as the Columbia University, the University of Proto and so on..

It is also interesting to note that Minerva is displayed on the Medal of Honour, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government!

And thus I conclude this entry with a quote by the American essayist and naturalist Henry David Thoreau,

“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance”.

Did you know that in 1844, Thoreau and a friend of his accidentally set the Concord woods in Massachusetts on fire??

Bhargava, Student Representative, Sedes Minerva, The Quiz Club