# Episode 117 - Ransom, Prize & Heist

An episode of [Are You Quizzing Me?](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663104901), 27 Oct 2025, 56 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/d7afa960/podcast/play/110248179/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-9-26%2F410016926-44100-2-9b2d715ac3587.mp3

Do you know, according to legend, what currency was demanded as ransom when a major historical figure was kidnapped by pirates? Do you know why were the Nobel Prizes for Max von Laue and James Franck re-awarded decades later? Do you know which character, known for his robberies and heists, has been played by Jim Brown, Mel Gibson and Jason Statham? Tune in to the episode to find out!! You can reach us at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/areyouquizzingme/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/areyouquizzingme Email: areyouquizzingme@gmail.com Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/areyouquizzingme Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@areyouquizzingme/podcasts

## Transcript

[0:00] Great Hanoi Rat Massacre was an event in 19102 when the French
[0:06] colonial government created a doctrine whereby people would be
[0:10] rewarded for each rat they killed.
[0:13] For proof, they had to share the tails of the rats that they so
[0:17] mercilessly murdered. Later, the government actually
[0:21] saw that there were a lot of rats with no tails.
[0:24] It was then that they realized that the rat catchers just cut
[0:27] the tails, left the rats and took payment.
[0:30] This economic theory of perverse incentive gets its name from
[0:35] something that happened in India and it's named after a living
[0:39] creature. So I need you guys to tell me
[0:42] what name is given to this particular economic theory.
[0:46] That is our audience question for today's episode courtesy of
[0:51] Odeon Sen It's a fantastic question.
[0:53] I'm leaving it to the audience. You can guess the answer by the
[0:56] end of today's episode. So welcome to episode #117 of
[1:02] are you quizzing me? Welcome to are you quizzing me.
[1:07] I am Vineet Nair with my Co host Aditya Kashyap.
[1:10] This is a quizzing trivia podcast show.
[1:13] Join us as we dive deep into history, science, pop culture,
[1:17] and so much more. Let's get quizzing and I'm back
[1:22] after a break. Due to, let's just say,
[1:25] unavoidable circumstances, Aditya has been holding the Fort
[1:28] more often than not. Nowadays, it seems like Aditya's
[1:30] holding the Fort and I'm a little absent, but I'm back.
[1:33] So let's start off today's episode.
[1:35] Aditya, you have the privilege of going first.
[1:38] Perfect. Well, firstly, welcome back.
[1:41] I am happy to have you back. Yes, thank you.
[1:44] It has been fun recording with our guest quiz masters, but
[1:48] nothing like good old Vineet on the podcast, cracking questions
[1:52] left, right, center. And also before I start, and
[1:55] thank you for doing a question that was suggested by a listener
[1:58] because a bunch of listeners have reached out.
[2:01] Some of them have sent in questions.
[2:03] And as always, really, really deepest gratitude for doing
[2:06] that. It's always lovely to hear from
[2:08] you. And I will be including those
[2:10] questions in future episodes for this episode.
[2:12] I already had my set of questions.
[2:14] Yes. And that brings me to my
[2:16] question. This first one is actually my
[2:20] favorite of the lot, so I thought I'll start on a high.
[2:23] There was a product launched by IKEA Hong Kong Limited Edition
[2:29] as a collaboration with another brand.
[2:33] The name of this product was Sava and the first A has the two
[2:38] dots on top. I don't know what it's called,
[2:40] the umlaut. I think it's called umlaut.
[2:42] Yeah, So Sava was a product launched by IKEA Hong Kong
[2:48] Limited Edition as a promotion in collaboration with another
[2:53] brand. Do you know what this product
[2:55] was about? I have no clue.
[2:59] IKEA Hong Kong SAVA sounds snoddish, which makes sense
[3:04] since it's IKEA. What?
[3:06] Reminds me of one of those techie app names you know.
[3:09] Isn't that a running app called Strava or something?
[3:12] There is a Strava app, but this has nothing to do with that.
[3:15] In fact, the name is a clue. But before we get to that, let
[3:18] me describe it a little bit to you.
[3:20] It is a table and it has three legs on it.
[3:24] And there's something special about this.
[3:25] I guess what I'm asking is what is Sava referencing and what is
[3:31] the brand that they were collaborating with so.
[3:32] They were collaborating, I'm guessing with Domino's Pizza.
[3:36] Oh, come on. That is, that is.
[3:42] The three legs gave it away. The pizza separator that you see
[3:46] on Domino's pizzas or actually a lot of pizza brands.
[3:49] And not called a separator, it's called a pizza saver.
[3:51] Pizza saver. OK, Yeah.
[3:52] And that's where the name Sava comes.
[3:54] Sava, Sava. Oh, sava, sava.
[3:57] Oh, OK, OK. Yeah.
[3:58] So this was a collaboration, you are correct.
[4:01] Nice. With actually Pizza Hut, not
[4:04] Domino's Pizza, but yes it was a pizza brand.
[4:07] OK, Yeah. Yeah, well, I'll give that to
[4:09] you. And that the white, tiny white
[4:11] table that you see inside a pizza box that is meant to save
[4:14] the top of the pizza from the top, from the bottom of the lid
[4:18] of the box making contact. And they made an actual
[4:22] life-size version of that table. And it was meant to be something
[4:26] that you would eat a pizza on. The Sava was a limited edition
[4:30] product from IKEA Hong Kong. And for their part, Pizza Hut
[4:34] created a special Swedish meatball flavored pizza.
[4:39] Yeah, I don't know how how good that would have been, but well,
[4:42] I guess IKEA, Swedish meatballs. What else?
[4:45] What else could Pizza Hut have done?
[4:47] What other collaboration could a pizza have done?
[4:49] True, especially if they're going with IKEA.
[4:52] I don't think they have any other option in other than
[4:54] Swedish meatballs. Or you know what they could have
[4:56] done? They could have just sent you
[4:58] all the ingredients and been like make your own pizza.
[5:00] Yeah. Oh, that you should.
[5:02] We should be on their marketing team.
[5:03] That's a really good assemble it yourself pizza.
[5:08] The only problem is nobody would be able to make it who has a
[5:10] pizza one at home? Also at the end of it you'll be
[5:13] left with like a topping and you'll be like where does this
[5:16] go? One extra olive.
[5:21] Yeah, there's always an L-shaped bracket that supposed to be
[5:24] somewhere. But they just, I think they put
[5:26] it in just to mess with you at the end of it.
[5:29] It is scared that something is going to fall apart.
[5:31] Maybe it's a redundancy, who knows?
[5:33] OK, that was a great question. Moving on to something that's so
[5:38] very not related to marketing or pizza, this is a fill in the
[5:42] blank kind of question. So blank was an ancient unit of
[5:46] weight introduced in Mesopotamia around the end of the fourth
[5:50] Millennium BC. It was standardized during the
[5:53] Akkadian, Sumerian period in the late 3rd Millennium BC.
[5:57] And this unit was divided into 60 Minas, which was further
[6:02] divided into 60 shekels. That name still is, I think used
[6:06] as in Israel in a few places. That name is still there.
[6:09] So you can see the impact of that 4005 thousand years ago.
[6:12] Right. This system of waits was adopted
[6:15] by later civilizations including Babylonians, Sumerians,
[6:19] Phoenicians, and Hebrews. So my question is, what was the
[6:23] original ancient unit of wait? What is the name that I'm
[6:28] looking for? Is it by any chance Stone?
[6:31] Oh, no, no, no, I I can see where you got that.
[6:35] But no, this has got nothing to do with the British.
[6:37] Yeah, for those who don't know, stone is a very weird
[6:41] measurement of weight used in the British Isles and nowhere
[6:45] else, as far as I know. It's a ridiculous one.
[6:49] Weight measuring unit, Yeah, No, no idea.
[6:54] Any hint? It's a unit of weight, but as
[6:58] you can also tell from the division into Minas and shekels,
[7:02] it was also used for certain types of currency.
[7:07] Is it pound? No, it's not bound.
[7:09] It's not bound. OK, it's not bound, but yes, you
[7:13] get the idea. But it's something completely
[7:15] unrelated. So which is why, so the first
[7:17] time I heard this was when I heard, I think, the first badass
[7:22] story about this famous historical figure in which this
[7:25] featured very prominently. Badass story about a historical
[7:30] figure, not a mythological figure.
[7:31] Right? Like somebody from history.
[7:33] Oh. No, no, very, very, very
[7:35] historical figure. And it's a very, it's a badass
[7:37] story. I mean like it's like their
[7:39] origin story. I'm going to say.
[7:41] Oh, OK. I'm thinking Roman then, because
[7:44] I'm thinking Caesar suddenly, OK, And this was when he was
[7:48] kidnapped by a bunch of pirates and they asked for ransom.
[7:53] And he was offended at the amount being too low.
[7:57] And he said you should ask the Republic for more money because
[8:01] I'm a I'm a very important person.
[8:04] And whatever they paid the ransom, he was set free.
[8:07] And eventually he came back and destroyed the pilot.
[8:08] He no, no he didn't just destroyed them.
[8:11] He raised a fleet, tracked them down, and then had them all
[8:15] crucified. Like literal crucifixion, not
[8:19] the metaphorically, right? Quite the Kaiser Jose of his
[8:22] time. So when the pirates asked for
[8:24] the ransom, they specifically asked for 20 of these.
[8:29] And he was like, are you kidding me?
[8:31] I'm worth much more than that. You should ask for 50. 20
[8:37] gobbledooks. No, I have no idea.
[8:40] This is the only part of the story that I have conveniently
[8:44] forgot because I remember the other details.
[8:47] The word that I'm looking for or the name for this system of
[8:50] measurement or this particular measure of weight Now today has
[8:54] a completely different meaning. It's a very commonly used word
[8:59] in the modern day lexicon, and it has a completely different
[9:03] meaning, even though the word in its current form owes its origin
[9:08] to an ancient Greek word meaning a scale, a unit of weight, or a
[9:12] sum of money. Maybe you're telling me what the
[9:15] new meaning is. Might help, I don't know.
[9:16] Oh, the new meaning would be kind of a giveaway.
[9:19] Well then give it away. Like stop holding it to
[9:22] yourself. OK, I would say aptitude or
[9:27] skill would be the current day, meaning sometimes you have a
[9:31] natural. Knack for it.
[9:33] No. I'm not a Knack flair.
[9:38] OK, so there's another more risque meaning when it comes to
[9:43] British English. So so you may also use this
[9:48] term, especially in English slang.
[9:51] It can also be used to refer to people who you regard as
[9:54] sexually attractive or can be prospective sexual partners.
[9:58] In British slang, yes. In in British English slang,
[10:01] especially in the British IELTS. God I can't believe that I'm
[10:07] thinking of the one time I have ever indulged in reality TV show
[10:11] and I am pretentious enough to think of myself as being above
[10:14] it. But a friend of mine showed me
[10:16] Too Hot to handle and I remember they kept talking about banta
[10:21] and how you need to have banta with a person to be able to be
[10:26] attracted to them. But I don't think that's what
[10:28] they're looking for. No, no, no, no, no.
[10:32] OK. Now.
[10:34] That's my pop culture recommendation.
[10:36] If you ask me for a guilty pleasure, OK, it means aptitude.
[10:41] It also could refer to somebody you find attractive in British
[10:44] English. Aptitude, a skill I think would
[10:46] be a better. Skill.
[10:48] Skill aptitude. Skill.
[10:49] Natural aptitude. NAC.
[10:51] Oh, why is NAC stuck in my head now?
[10:53] OK. That term also is used in show
[10:56] business to refer to certain people.
[10:58] Like a professional term? Is it like a professional
[11:01] designation? Yeah, it's a professional term.
[11:03] It's a professional term. Oh, especially in the context of
[11:06] agents. What?
[11:08] An agent. I have twisted this question all
[11:11] the way around. You like a big Python?
[11:13] Yeah, my God. Yeah, an agent in show business.
[11:18] Think of Entourage and Ari Gold. Would definitely use this term.
[11:22] Oh, the agent would use that. Not used for an agent.
[11:25] So the agents, they go around and signing new.
[11:28] Talents. Very nice.
[11:30] Is the word. Talent.
[11:32] Yes, the word is talent. Come on.
[11:35] I would have never thought of that as a measurement unit.
[11:38] Wow. OK.
[11:40] Yes, OK, so let me bring all of this and all the clues together.
[11:44] Sorry, I'm sorry, which British likes his talent?
[11:47] If you like someone. No, no, So not if you like
[11:50] someone. Whether you're hearing this
[11:51] British like so. Say, for example, he's going out
[11:53] to the club. He's hunting for new talent.
[11:57] What British TV are you watching?
[12:00] OK, good. You don't want to know.
[12:02] OK, OK, So let me bring it all back together.
[12:07] Talent was an ancient unit of weight introduced in
[12:10] Mesopotamia. It was standardized by the
[12:12] Arcadians and the Sumerians. It was divided into 60 Minas,
[12:16] which were further divided into 60 shekels and and this system
[12:19] of weights was adopted by later civilizations, including the
[12:22] Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews.
[12:24] That system of weight further gave rise to certain words in
[12:28] Greek. I think it was called Talentos
[12:30] or talenta, which then came into English and Old French, and then
[12:35] it changed meaning to aptitude or skill.
[12:37] It was also a measure of some form of currency in the Roman
[12:41] times. So when Julius Caesar was
[12:43] kidnapped by pirates at the age of 25, they asked for 20 talents
[12:47] as a ransom. So that's the first time I ever
[12:49] heard about this. The talent today means some kind
[12:52] of aptitude or skill. Agents usually refer to their
[12:56] clients as their talent, especially in show business.
[12:58] So it's now all come full circle.
[13:01] Talent is the word that we're looking for.
[13:03] It was originally a system of weight, and now today it means
[13:06] something completely different. I'm so annoyed because the
[13:09] moment you said talent, I also realized, yes, that is what the
[13:12] currency was in that story. And you know what?
[13:16] I'm just gonna say Vineet, you're a nerd.
[13:18] But remembering that part of the story?
[13:21] And I very proud. Annoyed.
[13:23] Yeah, I should have gotten that. Now I enjoyed when I'm able to
[13:26] kind of spin clues around you and there are very few questions
[13:29] where you can give so many different clues from different
[13:31] directions. That is true.
[13:33] I'm back, baby. OK, hit me.
[13:35] That was that was a hard hitting question.
[13:38] I loved it. And since you gave me a question
[13:41] about talent, I'm going to ask you a question about something
[13:44] you are talented in, at least professionally.
[13:47] Oh God I hate it when you do this.
[13:50] This is just fun for me because it it tickles my funny bone, pun
[13:55] not intended, and it relates to the field of medicine.
[13:59] Fortex Sneeze reflex is an inherited and congenital
[14:03] autosomal dominant reflex condition that causes sneezing
[14:07] in response to various stimuli. Sunlight.
[14:10] Yeah, sunlight is one of the common ones apparently.
[14:13] And this actually, sorry, just a random sidebar.
[14:16] I remember being in Abu Dhabi, we have talked about living in
[14:20] the Middle East and I remember going to my school in a school
[14:22] bus and it was an air conditioned school bus.
[14:24] And as soon as I would step out, I would sneeze like 3-4 times in
[14:28] a row. And I always assumed it was
[14:30] something to do with dust, but it was surprising because it
[14:33] wouldn't happen otherwise. And then I realized I only when
[14:35] I read about this particular condition, I thought I, I
[14:39] figured that that might have been the reason because I was
[14:41] coming out from like an early morning bus.
[14:43] It's a little dark inside. And then you step out and that's
[14:45] when the sun has come up 20 minutes later.
[14:47] And I used to sneeze 3 times in a row.
[14:49] I remember it was precisely 3 sneezes in a row.
[14:52] OK. I think I have this.
[14:54] In any case, the FORTIC sneeze reflex is also called the DASH
[14:59] Syndrome, which is a contrived acronym.
[15:03] Can you take a guess as to what the DASH is in the dash
[15:07] syndrome? I'm going to wind the clock back
[15:10] to, I think, 2016. OK?
[15:13] When I was the quiz master for the Father Mother Medical
[15:17] College Arts Festival, since all the students who came for the
[15:22] quiz were MBBS medical students, there were a few questions I
[15:26] peppered in which were just fun for, you know, fun sake.
[15:30] And one of them was this. I remember the acronym when you
[15:33] said fortic sneeze reflex, it didn't click.
[15:36] But when you started describing it, immediately click.
[15:38] What you're talking about is the ACHU syndrome.
[15:41] Very nice, very, very nice. Yes, it is the Achu syndrome.
[15:46] Do you remember the full form of the Achu syndrome?
[15:48] And I don't remember it completely, but I remember at
[15:50] you it was, it's not something you forget.
[15:52] And I remember that same thing you got in sunlight and you
[15:55] start sneezing, especially we move from dark to sunlight to
[15:58] sunlight to dark, that's when you start sneezing.
[16:00] So I remember that chili ophthalmic or Helio ophthalmic
[16:05] something it is, it is autosomal dominant autosomal, OK.
[16:11] You'll have, I'll give it to you.
[16:12] You got like you got 3 words out of the five.
[16:14] Yeah, there's autosomal dominant, which is the A
[16:18] compelling C Helio H ophthalmic O and the last O is outburst.
[16:24] Outburst, Yes, OK. Yeah, autosomal dominant,
[16:28] compelling Helio ophthalmic outburst, also known as the
[16:32] Achoo syndrome or the photic. Sneeze reflex.
[16:36] That was a good walk down memory lane for me.
[16:39] I was going back through some of those quizzing PPT.
[16:44] Is that because to present the quiz, we had made admit
[16:46] PowerPoint presentations when we started the podcast, had gone
[16:49] back through some of those and I was like, OK, maybe I should
[16:52] recycle some of those questions. Then it just turns out that my
[16:55] sensibilities have changed. So I had to leave many of those
[16:58] questions on the cutting floor. But this I remember was I was
[17:01] like, no, I can't ask Aditya this.
[17:03] This is something that you would ask an MBBA student, like they,
[17:05] they would get an, you know, a kick out of this.
[17:07] You ask a regular person, they'll be like, what are you
[17:10] talking about? I think Achu is a fine question
[17:14] to ask even if you don't know the full form.
[17:16] Yeah, still a fun piece of trivia to know.
[17:18] OK, that was a great question by the way.
[17:20] And I am now going to ask you a list related list adjacent
[17:26] question. So I'm going to give you an
[17:29] exhaustive chronological list, but I want to leave out the last
[17:35] entry on that list. I need you to tell me what the
[17:37] last entry is. So the list goes as follows.
[17:41] And remember this is exhaustive and this is in chronological
[17:44] order. Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, Robert
[17:48] Duvall, Peter Coyote, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham.
[17:54] I need you to tell me the next name on the list.
[17:58] Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, Robert Duvall, Peter Coyote, Mel
[18:03] Gibson, Jason Statham. There are some names I
[18:07] recognize, some of them I don't. Jim Brown doesn't ring a bell.
[18:10] He was a actor, but he was more famous as a professional
[18:14] football player. Jason Statham had a sporting
[18:17] career also before acting. No, this is not sport related.
[18:23] Give you some years in association.
[18:26] So Lee Marvin is 1967, Jim Brown is 1968.
[18:31] Robert Duvall is 1973. Peter Coyote was 1983.
[18:37] Mel Gibson was 1999. Jason Statham was 2013 and I'll
[18:44] give you the year for the last entry, the one that you have to
[18:47] tell me the year is 2025. Mel Gibson, you said 1999.
[18:52] Yes, 1999. Is that Braveheart year?
[18:55] No, Braveheart was earlier than that.
[18:57] Braveheart is 94 or 95, something like that, right?
[19:01] Not anything to do with that. Jason Statham, 2013.
[19:09] Yeah, no clue. Is it OK?
[19:10] Is this film related? Is it related to the film career
[19:12] or is it something outside? It's film related.
[19:14] All of them are actors, right? All of them have actors.
[19:17] But is it related to the film career?
[19:19] No. If I were to rephrase this
[19:21] question or put this question a different way, I would probably
[19:23] ask you. Liam Arvin, Jim Brown, Peter
[19:26] Coyote, Robert Duvall, Mel Gibson and Jason Statham have
[19:30] all played the same character. Who is the latest person to play
[19:35] that same character in 2025? Mel Gibson played him in 99 and
[19:41] Statham played him in 2013. Yes.
[19:44] Some sort of a real character that they have played all that,
[19:48] no? No, they have played a fictional
[19:49] character. As a fictional character that
[19:51] has been played so many times, yes.
[19:53] This has to be though a different source material.
[19:55] It can't obviously be a film that is remade.
[19:58] This is either a comic book character or some.
[20:01] Some fictional work. 2013 Jason Statham movie would give you the
[20:06] name of the character because it's an eponymous movie.
[20:10] The name of the movie is the name of the character.
[20:13] Have you seen the show show leverage?
[20:15] No, I'm not. There's a female character there
[20:17] and who's a little bit of a sociopath in the beginning of
[20:19] the show who is a thief. She is given the same name as
[20:23] this character. And I've always thought that,
[20:24] you know, that was kind of a, an homage without being an homage
[20:28] because the character that they're all playing is.
[20:30] A thief. I have no idea what character
[20:34] this is. OK, so I will tell you that the
[20:37] last character, the last name on the list, the person who's
[20:40] played this character is from a 2025 Shane Black directorial.
[20:47] Oh. It's a director I like.
[20:50] Shane Black has done what decently though?
[20:53] Is it already out? It's already out.
[20:55] It's it's part of my pop culture recommendation.
[20:57] It's not a great one, but it's an introduction into the
[21:00] character which I think would allow people to explore other
[21:04] versions of them. Mel Gibson's version is probably
[21:07] the best in my opinion. OK, no, I have no idea.
[21:10] OK, so the answer that I was looking for was Parker.
[21:14] I never heard of this guy. Oh OK, so there was literally
[21:16] adjacent state, the movie called Parker in which he played the
[21:18] character Parker in 2013. In 2025, the new Mark Wahlberg
[21:24] movie. The name I was looking for was
[21:26] Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg is the latest
[21:28] actor to play Parker in this movie called Play Dirty directed
[21:31] by Shane Black. And this deviates from the
[21:34] previous Parker movies because this is an original story based
[21:37] on the character while all the others have been adaptations of
[21:40] the novel. This is also part of my pop
[21:43] culture recommendation. Definitely watch Play Dirty,
[21:45] it's an introduction into the character and then I would
[21:47] suggest you go and watch Payback by Mel Gibson where he plays a
[21:52] better version of the character I feel and so focused on a very
[21:56] particular novel. Parker is a thief, he has a
[21:59] code, he's ruthless, he's an anti hero and I really enjoy the
[22:04] character. So go check out Parker.
[22:08] It's a fictional character created by the author Donald
[22:11] Westlake, who's writing under the pseudonym Richard Starr.
[22:15] He has written, I think around 2830 something novels on this
[22:20] character. He's a robber specializing in
[22:24] large scale high profit, correct?
[22:26] Oh wow. OK.
[22:27] And he also does revenge very well.
[22:29] OK. Payback was very famous because
[22:32] the original director, I don't remember his name, the original
[22:35] director left the film after a lot of the shooting was done and
[22:40] then somebody else came in and finished the movie and then went
[22:43] down. 2006, 2007, they released a director's cut version of the
[22:48] original director's vision of that same movie.
[22:51] Those two versions are like completely different.
[22:54] Like they they watch, they are basically it's the same movie,
[22:57] but it they're like very completely different entities.
[23:00] So you can all definitely watch the same movie twice.
[23:02] You can watch Payback and you can watch Payback the Director's
[23:05] Cut. Perfect.
[23:06] So something from the pop culture space for me to check
[23:09] out and the pop culture recommendation for our listeners
[23:11] as well. And since we are in the
[23:15] entertainment space, I'm going to take you to another American
[23:20] icon in in the entertainment space.
[23:23] And this guy's name, first name, I'll give you his first name.
[23:26] And the last name will also be the answer.
[23:30] So Jack Dash was an American artist, OK, who was behind some
[23:37] of the most iconic techniques used in filmmaking.
[23:41] He is credited with developing a unique method for performing
[23:45] something in movies Ros roduction right some aspect of a
[23:50] movie's OS roduction he developed a very unique method
[23:53] of doing it O. His techniques in filmmaking are
[23:56] considered revolutionary and pretty much like the forefather
[24:01] of of that particular aspect of film making.
[24:04] Jack and Dash is his last name. He worked on pictures all the
[24:08] way from Melody of Love, which is in 1928.
[24:11] One of the early talkies 2 Spartacus.
[24:14] I think one of his last films was Spartacus in 1960.
[24:17] So a pretty long and storied career.
[24:20] Can you tell me what is Jack's last name which is today become
[24:25] a common noun used in the film making space?
[24:32] Nothing comes to mind immediately.
[24:34] I am reminded of the novel Fight Club, in which there are a lot
[24:38] of internal dialogues with Jack associated with them.
[24:41] First name is not relevant to the word in use today.
[24:45] Is the last name in question Jack Dash?
[24:47] As I mentioned, his last name is what we still use in filmmaking
[24:52] pretty commonly. And it's something to do with
[24:54] post production. Yes, it is specifically post
[24:57] production. For anybody who's not familiar,
[24:59] filmmaking is divided into 3 broadships.
[25:01] Pre production, production, post production.
[25:02] Pre production is everything you do before you start shooting.
[25:05] Production is when you're shooting and post production is
[25:07] after you shoot. So editing and so.
[25:10] Something in post production? Was he an editor?
[25:14] Yes, yes, a type of editor I would say not.
[25:18] He was not cutting scenes and not that kind of an editor, so
[25:23] not edited in the way you are thinking.
[25:25] No, because I was thinking maybe his name was Splice Jack Splice.
[25:30] That would be kind of cool. Yeah.
[25:32] But no, his name actually gave rise to.
[25:36] Like I said, it's a common used, commonly used noun to describe
[25:40] artists who still work in that particular field.
[25:43] Holy wow, Vineet, what's up? This break has really, really
[25:49] gotten something out of you. You are destroying my questions.
[25:54] OK, I was a Foley artist. These are the guys who make the
[25:56] noises that you hear sound. It's part of sound design and
[25:59] sound production. One of my favorite things to do
[26:00] is go to YouTube and just watch Foley artists at work.
[26:03] So they're. Brilliant.
[26:04] And they are doing some insane things when they're coming up
[26:07] with the sounds for whatever is happening on screen.
[26:10] So OK, for in anybody who's not familiar, a Foley artist is
[26:14] somebody who in the post production of the film, once the
[26:16] film is made, looks at the film. And usually when they record a
[26:20] film, it's done very silently or as silently as it can be done.
[26:24] And then they'll add the ambient sound.
[26:25] So even if they want to add traffic sounds, they'll add it
[26:28] later. If they want to add like crowd
[26:29] chatter, they'll add it later. They want to add applause,
[26:32] they'll add it later. So all of those things.
[26:33] Sometimes they have stock sounds, but what about like a
[26:36] sound like like somebody'd cuts being stabbed, right?
[26:40] Like it's difficult to have a real version of that.
[26:43] Or a creaking door. Creaking doors, footsteps.
[26:46] Very interesting how they how they try to get the footstep
[26:49] right. And very often, yeah, you can
[26:50] use talk sounds, but they'll go out and they'll try to recreate
[26:53] what this character in that space would have sounded like.
[26:56] I heard somewhere that they pay attention to something as simple
[27:00] as if you're in a lawyer's office, you're sitting on a sofa
[27:02] and when you get up, what kind of a sofa would it be?
[27:05] Would it be like a strip mall lawyer?
[27:07] And is it a cheap sofa? Is it a very expensive high end?
[27:10] Leather sofa, yeah. So the way that you'd get up,
[27:13] like it's those things that you perhaps don't consciously
[27:15] register, but subconsciously they do kind of affect the
[27:18] experience. And Foley artists are to be
[27:21] credited with creating that complete environment that you
[27:25] can immerse yourself in as an audience.
[27:27] And, famously, lightsaber sounds.
[27:29] All of Star Wars, honestly. All all of Star Wars, yeah.
[27:32] Chewbacca's voice or lightsaber, or the TIE fighters.
[27:37] The turbolift sounds in the on the Enterprise in Star Trek.
[27:42] The blaster sound is apparently made by was made by whoever the
[27:46] artist was for Star Wars who did it, and he's also considered
[27:49] pretty iconic. I'm so sorry I'm forgetting his
[27:51] name. He was traveling somewhere and
[27:53] he always used to carry his recorder everywhere with him.
[27:56] And he, I don't know if he did it accidentally or he was just
[27:59] fooling around, but he took a piece of stone and he threw it
[28:01] at one of those high voltage cables that transmit
[28:04] electricity. And if you throw something like
[28:07] a stone or a hard, hard object at it, it makes a sound, which
[28:13] would be the the blaster sound that comes from Han Solo's
[28:17] blaster. Yeah.
[28:18] So that's where that sound came from.
[28:20] So he recreated it later for the film.
[28:23] But yeah, he was he was sold on that.
[28:25] So all these sounds that that are so iconic that people come
[28:28] up with. I think Chewbacca is like a
[28:30] whale sound and and an Otter and like a elephant.
[28:34] I don't, I don't even know. But like a bunch of these sounds
[28:37] is layered over each other. Similarly, Johnny Weisermuller's
[28:40] Tarzan called like no that was not human that was like 5
[28:47] different animal voices and things mixed together again I
[28:49] think made. Oh.
[28:51] Yeah, yeah. OK, I don't know that the. 1930s
[28:54] So Johnny Weisenmuller was an Olympic swimmer?
[28:57] Yeah, yeah. Who was chosen to play Tarzan
[28:59] because of his physique. So he was writing the first and
[29:03] most famous Tarzan, and for his movies they created a very
[29:07] particular sound for the Tarzan call and that was mixed together
[29:10] with multiple different sounds. I don't remember what it is, but
[29:14] I remember that I remember reading about this famous sound
[29:17] effect, which was basically created by recording 2 turtles
[29:20] having sex. I'm trying to remember what it
[29:22] was, yeah. Yeah, I think the sounds
[29:26] familiar. I was not sure what sound it is,
[29:29] but it's very, very cool when you figure out and, and IMDb
[29:33] trivia pages, one of my favorite pages to go to just for this
[29:36] kind of trivia where they'll tell you how they came up with
[29:38] random different sounds, sound effects.
[29:40] So Foley artists are the ones who are doing it.
[29:42] And the punching sound and stabbing sound, all of those
[29:45] things like they'll they'll be holding a piece of meat and
[29:48] they'll be hitting it. Keep punching it, yeah.
[29:51] Breaking Bones Celery sticks are a Foley artist's best friend
[29:54] because of Breaking of a bone sounds convincing when you do it
[29:58] with a celery stick. What?
[29:59] Sound you get in. The exact sound that you need.
[30:02] Yeah. The celery stick.
[30:03] So it's it's pretty insane. And they are very, very good at,
[30:09] I mean, obviously they are the, the sense of hearing is, you
[30:12] know, much more refined than a regular person.
[30:16] And that, that's what actually gives them the talent for this.
[30:18] So Jack Foley. Jack Donovan Foley was an
[30:21] American sound effects artist. Nice.
[30:25] And he developed many of the sound effect techniques used in
[30:27] film making till late. And he's credited with designing
[30:29] this unique method for performing sound effects live
[30:32] and in synchrony with the picture during a film's post
[30:36] production. Individuals who still do this
[30:38] are called Foley artists. And I'd heard the word Foley
[30:41] artists. I just, I should have connected
[30:43] it, but I didn't realize that it's by this guy and Spartacus,
[30:46] one of the greatest films back when it was made, one of the
[30:49] most high budget films of its time.
[30:51] Yes, that was his last film, so he went out with.
[30:54] With a bang. Pun intended.
[30:56] Bang. Yes.
[30:59] OK, that was a great question, staying with the kind of theme
[31:02] of pop culture and movies and books, and this is a question
[31:07] which it was right up your alley.
[31:09] Aditya, you would love this question.
[31:12] OK, why is a short novel parodying the famous fantasy
[31:17] series Zed Y is a short novel parodying the famous fantasy
[31:23] series Z, written by Henry N Beard and Douglas C Kenny Co,
[31:28] founders of National Lampoon. This work mirrors the structure
[31:32] of the CDZ, including its preface, prologue, poems and
[31:37] song, while turning solem themes into comedic absurdity.
[31:42] For example, one line in the book reads, he would have
[31:46] finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand.
[31:51] It's a pity I've run out of bullets, he thought as he went
[31:54] back up the tunnel. Character and place names are
[32:00] also humorously twisted using brand names such as Maxi and
[32:04] Pepsi. So I want you to identify the
[32:07] fantasy series, which is fairly easy, and then I want you to see
[32:11] if you can guess the name of the short novel that is parodying
[32:17] this famous fantasy series. OK, and that is right up your
[32:21] alley. Fantasy series, but you said it
[32:23] has songs in it. This fantasy series, that's what
[32:26] they were parodying. Yes, that's the giveaway.
[32:29] Because I don't think Lord of the Rings has songs in it.
[32:32] It does. It does.
[32:34] Lord of the Rings has songs in it.
[32:36] The book has The book has songs in it.
[32:38] Song lyrics basically. If I remember correctly, the
[32:42] songs about Maria, the songs that the elves sing when what's
[32:48] his name, Frodo and Pippin and Sam and Mary are going to the
[32:53] Prancing Pony, they encounter a series of elves who are walking
[32:56] and travelling and hear them singing.
[32:58] So the lyrics and all those things are given.
[33:00] So basically there are songs and song lyrics and poems in The
[33:03] Lord of the Rings. I just know the idea of a song
[33:07] in Elotar is and I've just googled.
[33:09] This is the great music of the great song, which is apparently
[33:13] how the world in Elotar was created.
[33:16] Eluvitar. Eluvitar.
[33:18] The world of The Lord of the Rings was sung into existence.
[33:23] And I think the one the the whatever your devil equivalent
[33:28] was the one who was singing in a discordant tone or was not.
[33:32] Yeah, yeah. No, that was not Morgoth.
[33:34] It was somebody before Morgoth. Yeah.
[33:35] Just like I didn't want to embarrass myself with the
[33:37] blaster trivia, I'm not going to do that with the LOTR either.
[33:40] And not the fans I want to piss off.
[33:42] OK, then it was the LOTR then. That was the fantasy novel that
[33:44] they were parroting. It is the Lord of the Rings.
[33:46] It is Lord of the Rings. Do you know who?
[33:48] By the way, just just as an aside, because I mentioned in
[33:50] the question, character and place names were just twisted
[33:54] and replaced with brand names such as Maxi and Pepsi.
[33:58] Can you guess who they were instead?
[34:00] Like named for in the novel. OK, so maxi's Maxi's not the
[34:05] original character. So because of the brand name
[34:07] Maxi and Pepsi. Maxi is the brand name.
[34:09] Got it. Yeah, something with M Pippin
[34:12] and Mary. Mary A Doc and Pippin, yes.
[34:15] Mary and Pippin. OK, Maxi and Pepsi.
[34:18] So this is the easy part. You've identified that it is
[34:20] Lord of the Rings. Now you have to identify the
[34:23] name of the novel that parodies this.
[34:27] And as I said, it's right up your alley this.
[34:30] Is some fun on Lord of the Rings.
[34:32] Yes, it is a pun. Oh, I know it is Arundhati Roy,
[34:35] the God of small things, Lord of the Rings, God of small things,
[34:40] No. No no, no, no.
[34:43] I don't agree with Arundhati Roy on lot of her personal opinions.
[34:46] The God of Small Things is a extremely good novel.
[34:50] It's a great novel. I've read it and I loved it.
[34:52] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, very few
[34:54] writers are able to make me smell or feel the smell and feel
[35:00] and hear and, you know, very evocative writing.
[35:03] No, it's a great I read many years ago.
[35:04] I should revisit it, but it's a great book.
[35:06] Yeah, OK, but I thought that was hilarious.
[35:09] Whether God, small things, Lord drinks.
[35:12] But fine. If you don't want to give it to
[35:14] me, I will find another pun there.
[35:18] Is it something that rhymes with Lord of the Rings?
[35:20] I'm going to assume it rhymes with Lord of the Rings.
[35:23] Yes, it rhymes with It's a pun. It's a pun.
[35:25] Pun How do we pun on Lord of the Rings?
[35:28] The no I This is a very way too wide a scope.
[35:36] I need to narrow it down further.
[35:39] OK, so this parody was an early example of postmodern humor, and
[35:45] it took a literary classic and used collegiate wit and
[35:51] irreverence. OK, that doesn't help me.
[35:55] OK, let me put it this way. You're a pun master if I do say
[35:59] so myself. OK, Say, for example, you were
[36:02] partnered with somebody who was fanatic about Lord of the Rings
[36:07] and who spoke about Lord of the Rings every 10 minutes.
[36:11] I don't do that, but assume I did.
[36:14] So if I were to do that, you probably would come back with,
[36:18] oh, come on, you always talk about the Lord of the Rings.
[36:22] I am so. Done with you.
[36:28] A lot of the boring things, lot of the.
[36:31] Oh, very close, very close, very close.
[36:34] Lot of the boring things. No, no, no, you're in the
[36:37] ballpark. You just have to enter the park
[36:40] now and stand at the batter's mount.
[36:43] Lord of the Onion Rings, No OK. So you would be saying it says
[36:48] you would be like I'm. Right, right, right, right,
[36:51] right. Bored, bored.
[36:54] Oh, I'm bored of the things. Bored of the rings?
[36:57] Yes, it's bored of the rings. Oh I love it.
[37:04] Very nice. I'm bored of the rings.
[37:06] Very cool. Bored of the Rings Putting it
[37:09] all together, Board of the Rings in 1969 was a parody of JRR
[37:13] Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It was written for the Harvard
[37:17] Lampoon, and it was an early example of literary parody.
[37:20] It directly lampooned the tropes of fantasy fiction, and instead
[37:25] of noble quests and epic battles, it was replaced with
[37:29] the slapstick humor, product placement, and cynical one
[37:33] liner. The line that we had come talked
[37:37] about that I had quoted in the question.
[37:39] He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed
[37:42] his hand. Now, there's a very famous
[37:43] sequence in The Lord of the Rings when which actually dates
[37:46] back to The Hobbit. It's actually linked to The
[37:49] Hobbit, the original novel of The Hobbit, where while on his
[37:53] quest with the dwarves, Bilbo Baggins encounters Gollum and he
[37:59] finds him to be a pitiable creature.
[38:01] He takes the ring from Gollum and instead of killing Gollum,
[38:06] he lets him go out of pity. Now that's a very big point
[38:10] because that's how the ring comes to Bilbo and that's why
[38:13] probably it didn't affect him as most of the other people who
[38:17] have used the ring. So there is a very big drop
[38:19] throughout the novel about how Bilbo shares showed pity and how
[38:24] pity is about that. Pity eventually LED Gollum to
[38:29] still being alive while Frodo had to carry the ring, and then
[38:32] when Frodo went to Mount Doom with it, it was actually Gollum.
[38:35] Spoiler alert, by the way. Who falls into the depths of
[38:39] Mount Doom with the ring? So now that wouldn't have
[38:41] happened if Gollum was not there, if pity had not stayed
[38:43] his hand. So that's a very famous trope in
[38:45] the novel, and this is how they have changed it.
[38:48] He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed
[38:50] his hand. It's a pity I've run out of
[38:51] bullets, he thought as he went back up the tunnel.
[38:57] Yeah. So that's Board of the Rings.
[38:59] Wow. OK, I have a pretty contrived
[39:03] segue, but Speaking of recreating things as the Board
[39:07] of the Rings did, the rings that are made out of metal.
[39:12] I guess I'm going to talk about the Nobel Prize medals of 2
[39:19] Nobel Prize laureates, the medals of the Germans, Max von
[39:22] Lau and James Frank. Max von Lau won it in 1914 and
[39:27] James Frank won it in 1925. Why were these medals re awarded
[39:35] to these laureates almost 3-4 decades later in 1952?
[39:43] Two things come to mind. One possibility was, which is
[39:46] the less likely one, But because you mentioned 1914, was it that
[39:51] it wasn't pure gold because of some kind of shortage during the
[39:55] World War? One less likely to be the World
[39:58] War, like a war scarcity because of the fact that you said 25, So
[40:02] that's not it. The second would be that Nazis
[40:06] confiscated their metals and then I think they did that for a
[40:11] lot of laureates or something. It's great because it's almost a
[40:15] blend of those two things. Oh, OK.
[40:17] It has something to do with the gold of the metals and it has to
[40:22] do with the Nazi scare in the Second World War and them
[40:26] confiscating stuff. Were these two gentlemen Jewish?
[40:29] In which? Nazis never confiscated their
[40:32] medals. Because the Nazis didn't
[40:33] confiscate their medals. Yes, and yet these two gentlemen
[40:38] were re awarded their medals, their original medals, and I
[40:43] want to put that in quotes, but their original medals were given
[40:47] back to them even though the Nazis never confiscated it in
[40:50] 1952. So you said 1914 and 192514 and
[40:55] two 5, right? Yeah.
[40:56] The Nazis did not confiscate it. You asked.
[40:59] By the way, both of these were of the Jewish descent.
[41:03] Both of them had some. Jewish descent?
[41:05] No. I'm guessing that something to
[41:07] do with World War 2, they would have had to hide their gold.
[41:11] Or did they? Oh, did they kind of swap their
[41:15] medals to some German officer to gain the ability to leave?
[41:21] Did they bribe a German officer with this?
[41:23] Oh, that's interesting as well. But no, that's not what
[41:26] happened. I'll give you a little bit more
[41:27] information. So both of these men obviously
[41:31] knew by the time the Nazis were gaining control that they, they
[41:35] themselves are in danger, but also their medals would be in
[41:39] danger because the German authorities might confiscated.
[41:42] So they gave it to the Professor Bohrs Institute of Theoretical
[41:46] Physics in Copenhagen, which had been a refuge for German Jewish
[41:50] physicists since 1933. They gave it to the institute
[41:54] and, by the way, named after Niels Bohr, who himself is also
[41:58] a Nobel Prize laureate. And an athlete.
[42:01] And an athlete, you're right, yes.
[42:03] And they were given to that institute.
[42:05] And eventually, when Denmark was also occupied in 1940, Bohr was
[42:12] concerned as like what would happen and he entrusted George
[42:17] de Hevzie, who is a Hungarian chemist, who was a Hungarian
[42:22] chemist, also of Jewish origin, and also a 1943 Nobel Prize
[42:27] laureate in chemistry. George de Hevzie, this is before
[42:31] he won his Nobel Prize, obviously helped to kind of
[42:36] figure out a solution to this, this very pressing concern that
[42:40] they had regarding the medals of these two Nobel laureates.
[42:45] And whatever he did eventually led to the Nobel committee re
[42:50] awarding the medals in 1952. Obviously he didn't melt them
[42:55] down or something, right? Very interesting.
[42:57] You are. You are actually quite close,
[43:00] yeah. Did he electroplate it with some
[43:03] with another metal on top and hide it that way?
[43:08] OK, you know what this is going into the specifics of it's I
[43:10] won't, I won't torture you at that point.
[43:12] But yes, he decided to save it. And there were obviously a few
[43:16] suggestions, and one of the suggestions was to bury the
[43:19] metal. But Bo did not like the idea
[43:21] because he thought the metal might be unearthed and because
[43:24] the names of the scientists were on the metals as they're
[43:28] engraved. And sending any gold out of
[43:31] Germany at that point was a pretty serious offense because I
[43:34] guess they didn't want to send any precious metals out.
[43:37] That meant that the scientists would have been in grave danger.
[43:40] So they didn't want them to know that these metals belong to the
[43:42] scientists either. And if they buried it or they
[43:45] kept it somewhere and these people discovered it while they
[43:48] were, you know, confiscating stuff left, right, center, that
[43:51] would have led to very serious consequences.
[43:53] So George de Hefsey decided that he's going to dissolve it.
[43:57] Aqua regia, Aqua regia. And that's what he mentioned,
[44:01] that it was exceedingly unreactive and difficult to
[44:03] dissolve as a metal, as a metal, because gold doesn't react very
[44:08] easily. So in a solution of Aqua regia,
[44:11] there were the metals in their, in their dissolved form waiting
[44:16] till the end of the war. And the Nazis actually tried to
[44:19] search through the institute, but they never found anything
[44:21] because, well, they didn't know what to look for.
[44:24] And eventually the Nobel Prize committee, they recast the
[44:28] medals and with the names and whatever the original engravings
[44:31] would have been and re awarded it to those two gentlemen.
[44:34] So these two medals were re awarded to the original winners
[44:38] because it had been sitting like, I just love the idea of
[44:42] this mental picture of a bottle or flask or some sort of, you
[44:47] know, container in in the institute which has this liquid
[44:51] gold inside of it, quite literally.
[44:54] And it's just waiting out the war to go back to its rightful
[44:57] owners so that the Nazis can't get the hands on it.
[45:00] And I love that. Yeah.
[45:01] For those who don't know, Aqua regia, which I think translates
[45:05] to royal water, is a combination of two acids, which is
[45:11] concentrated nitric acid and sulfuric acid.
[45:14] I'm guessing this is what my high school chemistry memory
[45:19] serves me right, and it is one of the few things in the world
[45:24] which can actually dissolve gold.
[45:25] Gold is very stable and it's very inert and usually doesn't
[45:29] dissolve or do anything. So this is one of the few
[45:31] solutions which can actually dissolve.
[45:33] Gold. And that's the story behind
[45:34] these two Nobel Prize winners. Gold medals.
[45:38] And that also kind of weirdly gives me a pop culture
[45:41] recommendation. There is a Malayalam movie which
[45:43] is available on, I think it's Hot Star.
[45:46] I don't, you know, quote me on it, but there's a movie by the
[45:50] name of Sukshma Darshini. Let's just say it's Rear Window.
[45:56] It's like Hitchcock's Rear Window, but if the main
[45:59] character, instead of being confined to a wheelchair and Ray
[46:03] convalescing instead if it was a nosy Indian woman who's a
[46:08] neighbor. That's what you get with Sukshma
[46:11] Darshani. So yeah, it's it's it's a, it's
[46:13] a good movie. You can definitely watch it.
[46:15] Aqua Regia. I'm not going to give her
[46:17] anything away, but Aqua Regia was a part of the plot.
[46:23] It's a good movie. So you can definitely check it
[46:25] out. Sukshma Darshani.
[46:27] Fun I'll do. Moving on to the last question
[46:32] in today's episode is a very short question out there.
[46:35] A popular drink in Scottish bars is humorlessly referred to as
[46:41] Adam's Ale. Some columnists have labeled its
[46:45] packaged version as the biggest scam of all time.
[46:49] How do we better know Adam's Ale?
[46:53] Guinness is not Guinness is Irish.
[46:56] Yeah. Adams Ale and it's package
[46:59] version is considered a scam. Yeah, many people, many critics
[47:03] point out that the package version is a scam.
[47:06] OK, you wouldn't consider it a scam in India, but yeah, you
[47:10] might consider it a scam in many developed countries.
[47:13] Scottish, so I have to get that guess out of the way.
[47:15] Is it Scotch? No, it's not Scotch.
[47:17] No, no, no. I think they call it the water
[47:20] of life. There's some very poetic Gaelic
[47:23] way of saying that, but yeah. Is it an alcoholic drink by this
[47:27] or I don't know if you mentioned that already?
[47:29] No, it's that's, it's a big clue that, but it's not, it's not
[47:32] alcoholic. Is it some sort of like ginger
[47:36] beer root beer situation? No.
[47:39] Packaged version of a non alcoholic drink which would be a
[47:42] scam and it is Scottish in origin.
[47:46] No, I wouldn't say Scottish in origin.
[47:48] This is the Scottish name for it.
[47:50] Like this is basically a humorous reference in Scottish
[47:53] bars. Oh OK, but the drink itself is
[47:56] not Scottish. Oh no, definitely not.
[47:58] Sorry, could you repeat the specifics of the question again,
[48:00] Scottish Bars? The popular drink is humorously
[48:03] referred to as Adam's Ale. Some columnists, especially in
[48:07] developed countries. Let me add that Qualifier in
[48:10] developed countries have labeled its packaged version as the
[48:13] biggest scam of all time. So how do we better know Adam's
[48:17] Ale? So then I'm thinking it's some
[48:20] kind of water, then it's some packaged water avian or
[48:24] something like something fancy. It's just plain water.
[48:27] Plain water. You've got it.
[48:29] It's plain. It's plain water.
[48:32] So Adam's ale is a kind of ironic expression for plain
[48:37] water, going back to the idea that in the time of Adam in the
[48:41] Bible and Adam and Eve, water was the only drink available,
[48:44] which is pure and natural and the reason it's considered a
[48:48] scam. So now in places like India,
[48:50] where clean water is not available everywhere, especially
[48:55] not from the tap, packaged water has it's uses.
[48:58] It's considered an essential part of life.
[49:00] But in many developed countries, like in the US and many European
[49:03] countries, water from the tap is perfectly drinkable as far as
[49:08] they are concerned. Selling, paying for bottled
[49:11] water is a scam. So many critics have called it a
[49:14] scam and an example of clever marketing, turning a basic
[49:18] necessity into a high profit commodity.
[49:22] So Adam's Ale is a humorous reference to water.
[49:26] Wouldn't have guessed that but lovely.
[49:28] I love that it was not Scottish in origin.
[49:33] Which which culture do you credit with coming up with
[49:35] water? OK, lovely.
[49:38] Before we wind up, let's the answer the audience question,
[49:41] shall we? So the audience question was the
[49:43] Great Hanoi Rat Massacre was an event in 19 O2 when the French
[49:49] colonial government created a doctrine whereby people would be
[49:52] rewarded for each rat they killed.
[49:54] For proof they would have to share the tails of the rat.
[49:57] Later the government saw a lot of rats with no tails, and
[50:01] that's when they realized the rat catchers would just cut the
[50:04] tails and get the pavement and leave those rats to, you know,
[50:09] to live out their lives. So this has led to an economic
[50:14] theory of perverse incentive, which is better known as what?
[50:19] Like there's a name for this particular economic theory and
[50:22] that dates back to colonial India, and it's named after a
[50:27] particular animal. So what is the name of the
[50:31] effect Aditya? Do you have any idea?
[50:33] Is it the Cobra? The Indian Cobra.
[50:37] Very good. Yes.
[50:38] So it's called the cobra effect. So this term originates from a
[50:42] historical anecdote in colonial India, where the British
[50:45] government offered a bounty for every dead cobra.
[50:49] The intention was to reduce the cobra population and to prevent
[50:52] all the colonials from dying of, you know, snake bites.
[50:56] However, it backfired because instead of reducing the cobra
[50:59] population, people started breeding cobras to kill them and
[51:03] collect the bounty, they say. Jugard this has led to an
[51:06] increase in the Cobra population, and the bounty
[51:08] program was eventually scrapped. So this COBRA effect is also
[51:12] known as perverse incentives because the incentive meant to
[51:16] be positive had the opposite negative effect.
[51:19] And this fantastic question was sent to us by fan of the show
[51:22] udeon Singh. Thank you udeon for this
[51:24] fantastic question. Keep sending us questions.
[51:26] We will keep including it no matter how late it will come up
[51:29] in some episode or the other. So you have to keep listening.
[51:32] And what's our pop culture recommendation, Aditya?
[51:35] What's yours? My pop culture recommendation is
[51:38] just one film and that is the film.
[51:40] I literally just came back from the theatre after watching and
[51:45] that is Homebound. So it's still very fresh and I'm
[51:47] hoping that it doesn't change my opinion Doesn't change tomorrow
[51:51] morning but yes it was Neeraj. Gehwan has never disappointed.
[51:55] Like Masan is still one of my absolute favorite Hindi films.
[51:59] So Homebound does similar job in terms of telling you real
[52:06] stories in a way that that truly weakens you from your rivileged
[52:12] slumber I guess. And yeah, and very well acted by
[52:17] Ishant Katar. I think people keep dissing on a
[52:20] lot of the newcomers in at least in Bollywood these days.
[52:23] And Ishant Katar is one of them who who truly deserves all the
[52:26] accolades that come as we have seen some of his work always
[52:30] been very, very good and everything is done that I have
[52:32] seen and this one is no exception.
[52:34] Good job by Ishant Katar. Great direction by Niraj Gehman,
[52:37] great cinematography. Just a film that is definitely
[52:40] worth the hype. Go check it out Homebound.
[52:44] Great recommendation. I've heard great things about I
[52:46] do I'm it's on my watch list if I ever get time to go around and
[52:50] actually watch it. So my recommendations which I've
[52:52] already mentioned today are Play Dirty, which is a 2025 Shane
[52:57] Black directorial as usual said during Christmas, and it's based
[53:00] on the character Parker. It's not a great movie, but it's
[53:04] a a decent watch. I would actually prefer that you
[53:08] go watch that and use that as your entryway into watching the
[53:11] rest of the other movies which feature Parker, specifically
[53:15] Payback featuring Mel Gibson which is a 1999 movie.
[53:18] The other pop culture recommendation that I've
[53:20] mentioned is Sukshma Darshini, which is a thriller, a crime
[53:24] thriller. So those are two of my pop, two
[53:26] of my pop culture recommendations.
[53:28] One more recommendation I would do is it's by the time we're
[53:31] recording, this is already out of theaters, but it'll probably
[53:34] be on OTT soon. And I strongly recommend that
[53:36] you go watch it is Loca, which is a female superhero movie from
[53:42] Malayalam, which is made great waves.
[53:44] It's the currently the highest grossing Malayalam film of all
[53:47] time both inside Kerala in India and internationally.
[53:52] It's grossed over 300 crores and I think it's the one of the
[53:55] highest grossing films in India which are which is headlined by
[53:59] a female actor Kalyani Priyadarshan, daughter of fame
[54:05] director Priyadarshan. It's let's just say when we say
[54:09] desi superhero, this is the kind of desi superhero story that I
[54:12] would like to see. I've already watched the movie
[54:14] twice in theaters. It's a fantastic movie.
[54:18] I would turn banging music by Jake Bijoy so you can go and
[54:21] listen to the soundtrack on YouTube.
[54:23] So Loka, if you catch it in theatre is good for you.
[54:25] If not, catch it on OTT. It's a fantastic watch.
[54:28] And that's all the time we have for today's episode.
[54:30] Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoyed the show and
[54:32] learned something new. If you liked what you heard,
[54:34] please consider subscribing to our podcast and leaving us a
[54:36] review on your favorite podcast platform.
[54:38] If you're watching us on YouTube, please hit the like
[54:41] button. Share to your friends and
[54:45] subscribe and hit the bell icon for notifications whenever we
[54:48] upload a new episode. All of this helps us reach a
[54:50] wider audience, allows more people to discover and enjoy the
[54:52] show. So please, please do.
[54:54] And if you have time, please 10-2 minutes to leave us a five
[54:58] star rating on whichever podcast part from you're listening to us
[55:01] on. We'd also love to hear your
[55:02] suggestions, feedback, and even trivia.
[55:04] You can send us the questions if you want asked on the show, just
[55:07] like with you and send it. You can send it to us at
[55:10] ru.quizzing.me@gmail.com with the name of the quiz master in
[55:13] the subject line. So only that person would end up
[55:14] opening the question and seeing it.
[55:16] The other person will be completely blind of the
[55:18] question. You can also reach us on
[55:20] Instagram at Ru Quizzing Me. We have a Reddit subreddit
[55:23] community, R/RU Quizzing Me, where you can get together with
[55:27] other fans of the show and discuss and crib about our
[55:30] irregular posting schedules. We also appreciate your support
[55:33] and look forward to sharing more episodes with you in the future.
[55:36] Thanks again for tuning and have a great day.
[55:38] And we'll see you next week for episode 118.
[55:42] See you guys next week. Bye bye.
[55:55] 2 minutes. We'll just mention and go ahead.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.