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ELC-2021-trivia.txt
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Here are some ideas for trivia questions for ELC 2021
Categories:
== space stuff:
Q.5 (space) How many times has Linux landed on Mars?
green - once
red - 14 times
green and red - more than 14 times
answer:
green and red more than 14 times
There were 14 for the Ingenuity helicopter, (including 1 while the
helicopter was stowed in the Perserverance rover, during the rover
landing), and 1 "landing" by the descent stage (Linux was used for EDL
video work)
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/23/perseverance_landing_video/
----
Q.8 (space) How many instances of Linux are now in outer space?
green - less than 100
red - more than 100
red - more than 100. There are actually about 106,000 instances of
Linux in outer space, most of them in the 1607 working Starlink
satellites.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
----
Q.15 (space) How many private, all non-professional missions to outer space have there
been, ever?
green - one
red - two
green and red - three
red - The Inspiration 4 mission is the only orbital one I'm aware of, and
the Blue Origin sub-orbital flight. The Virgin Galactic sub-orbital flight
had a professional pilot.
mission: spaceX (inspiration 4), VG, Blue Origin, other missions
privately funded missions: yes yes yes no
all non-professional: yes no* yes no
orbital: yes no no most
to ISS: no no no most
to moon: no no no a few
elsewhere: no no no a few*
* e.g. to service the hubble space telescope
----
Q.16 (space) During the landing sequence for the Inspiration4 private space mission,
one of the crew members is shown watching which "in-flight" movie?
green - Star Wars
red - Alien
red and green - Spaceballs
both - Spaceballs
Source: this youtube video: https://youtu.be/dpFKNNl47AM?t=789
You can see Spaceballs playing on Chris Sembroski's tablet during the
landing video.
== IOT: Real or fake
== license news
Q.25 (license) The FSF recently blogged about:
green - finally making a GPL v4 version of the license
red - Writing their own version of the DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin)
answer:
red - writing their own version of the DCO
They want something that provides more of the capabilities that copyright
assignment provides, since some projects (notably gcc) have started
accepting DCOs in place of copyright assignment, and the FSF doesn't think
any of the the current industry-standard DCOs are adequate for this.
Source:
== Linux kernel
Q.1 (linux) The currently released version of Linux is:
green - 5.15-rc5
red - 5.14.6
red: 5.14.6
A release "candidate" doesn't count as a released kernel.
And the current rc number is -rc3, not -rc5
----
Q.2 (linux) A group of academics got in trouble for what this past year?
green - submitting patches with intentionally security bugs to the Linux kernel
red - disclosing security flaws in the Linux kernel, without first notifying the kernel community
green - University of Minnesota researchers submitted some patches
to various mailing lists, that contained known flaws. Their stated intention
was not to introduce bugs, but rather to test kernel security review practices.
This caused great consternation.
source:
----
----
Q.13 (linux) printk has been changed in the 5.15 Linux kernel with the ability to:
green - automatically translate messages into other languages besides English
red - get a list of all printk message strings included in the kernel
answer: red - get a list of all printk messages included in the kernel
The purpose is to allow checking that kernel messages that are checked
by diagnostics tools are still present, despite kernel code changes.
Source: lwn.net
https://lwn.net/Articles/857148/
----
Q.14 (linux) The 5.15 kernel now uses the -Werror flag by default.
The intended result is that:
green - any compiler warning is converted into an error that will halt the build
red - certain errors (specified in a special variable) are ignored as warnings
Answer:
green - any compiler warning is converted into an error that will halt the build
Source: lwn.net
https://lwn.net/Articles/868221/
---
Q.12 (linux) PREEMPT_RT has finally been merged into the mainstream Linux kernel
green - True
red - False
answer:
red - False
Significant parts of the PREEMPT_RT patch were merged in the 5.13 and 5.15
kernels, but there are still some parts remaining: 175 patches, affetcing
215 files, 1350+ 2650- lines. A few items, such related to cpu_chill() and
NOHZ remain.
source: https://marketresearchtelecast.com/linux-central-real-time-patches-integrated-after-17-years/161932
Note: While researching this, I found articles announcing that PREEMPT_RT
was close to being integrated into mainline in 2015, 2017 2019, 2020, and 2021.
== conference news
Q.3 (conference) How many Embedded Linux Conferences have there been?
green - 16
red - 30
sub: Tim counting ELC Europe or not???
Source: https://embeddedlinuxconference.com/
- counting the Embedded Linux Conference
Europe (and not counting the CELF worldwide technical conference)
there have been 30)
Q.24 (conference) How many countries has Embedded Linux Conference been in?
- green - 6
- red - 8
Countries and States where ELC has been held:
2021 - Washington
2020 - virtual
2020 - virtual
2019 - France
2019 - California
2018 - Scotland
2018 - Oregon
2017 - Czech Republic
2017 - Oregon
2016 - Germany
2016 - California
2015 - Ireland
2015 - California
2014 - Germany
2014 - California
2013 - Scotland
2013 - California
2012 - Spain
2012 - California
2011 - Czech Republic
2011-2005 - California - 7
2010 - England
2009 - France
2008 - The Netherlands
2007 - Austria
California - 13
Oregon - 2
Washington - 1
Austria - 1
France - 2
Germany - 2
UK - 3
Ireland - 1
Czech Republic - 2
Spain - 1
virtual - 2
Linux history:
Q.4 (linux history) How old was Linus Torvalds when he made the first announcement of Linux?
- green - 21
- red - 24
Answer: Green - 21
Linus was 21 years old, and a student at the University of Helsinki, in Finland,
when he announced Linux (in 1991).
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#The_creation_of_Linux
-----
Q.17 (linux history) Hold old is Tux now:
green - 30 years old
red - 25 years old
red and green - 20 years old
red = 25 years old
Tux was announced by Linus Torvalds in 1996
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Official_mascot
----
== Science Fiction
Q.23 (science fiction) Free Guy is about:
green - a Non-player character in a video game becoming sentient
red - a government agent who travels forwards and backwards in time
Answer:
green - a Non-player character in a video game becoming sentient
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Guy
-----
Science Fiction
Q.27 (science fiction) What epic science fiction trilogy is coming to streaming this fall
green - Dune
red - Foundation
green and red - both
Answer:
green and red - both
----
Q.6 (science fiction) Who wrote the "War of the Worlds"?
green - Edgar Rice Burroughs
red - Jules Verne
green and red - H.G. Wells
answer
green and red - H.G. Wells
source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds
Full Text available at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds
Note: One of the rare science fiction books for which copyright has expired!
== Famous quotes
----
== Seattle trivia
- Seattle regional trivia
- Seattle tech trivia
Q.9 (space/seattle) The Space Needle is:
green - the name of a hypothetical space elevator (project) proposed 2 years ago by NASA
red - an observation tower in Seattle, Washington
red & green - both
answer:
red - an observation tower in Washington State
NASA has studied space elevators, but has no project named "Space Needle".
source: The most serious study of space elevators appears to
have been the NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts)
Phase 2 report from 2003. See
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/521Edwards.pdf
---
Q.10 (seattle) How old is the Space Needle?
green - <50 years old
red - >50 years old
red - greater than 50 years old
It was originally built in April, 1962 the 1962 world's fair in Seattle, making it currently 59 years old. I visited in when I was 10 years old, in the early 70s.
When it was built, it was the tallest structure in the US west of the
Mississippi region.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Needle
----
Q.21 (seattle) What large technology company is headquartered in Seattle?
green - Amazon
red - Microsoft
answer:
green - Amazon
Microsoft's headquarters are in Redmond Washington, about 12 miles away.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)
== Technology
Q.22 (tech history) What is the Beowulf project?
green - the name of a new quantum computer by Google
red - one of the earliest uses of Linux in supercomputer clusters
answer:
red - one of the earliest uses of Linux in supercomputer clusters
Google's quantum computer is named "Sycamore"
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_cluster
== from trivia
Q.11 (science) Scientist recently demonstrate two ways to create truly random numbers
extremely quickly using a laser. Which solution was quicker:
green - a laser reflecting with itself in an special micro-cavity
red - a laser interacting with the quantum vacuum state
answer
green - a laser reflecting with itself in an special micro-cavity
Both of these were demonstrated this year.
green = 250 terabytes per second
red = 18.8 gigabits per second
The 'vacuum state' solution was susceptible to external noise which could
bias (and de-randomize) the output, which had to removed in post-processing.
sources: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-laser-random-ultrafast.html
https://physicsworld.com/a/fast-quantum-random-number-generator-fits-on-a-fingertip/
----
Q.7 (license) Which of the following companies was victorious in an important lawsuit
about copyright of APIs, that went all the way to the US Supreme Court?
green - Oracle
red - Google
answer:
red - Google
The court ruled that Google's use of the JAVA API constituted "fair use"
under copyright law.
source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-beats-oracle-in-biggest-programming-copyright-supreme-court-case-ever/
----
Q.26 (linux) Which longstanding kernel interface was removed in 2021, due to security considerations:
green - /dev/kmem
red - /proc/sys/kernel/keys
answer:
green - /dev/kmem
/dev/kmem was finally removed, after years of being deprecated, in v5.12
of the Linux kernel.
Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/851531/
----
Q.20 (embedded) What major phone vendor has announced a program to "upcycle" old phones
into useful IOT devices:
green - Samsung
red - Apple
green and red - Sony
answer:
green - Samsung
Samsung is releasing special firmware updates for old Galaxy phones that
turn them into smart home devices such as a childcare monitor,
a pet care solution, or a light sensor (for home automation control).
source:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-launches-software-update-to-turn-older-galaxy-phones-into-iot-devices/
----
Q.18 (science) New technology has been refined (pun intended) that can power a
bus from garbage. It uses:
green - human waste (poo and pee)
red - banana peels and beer
Answer:
Recent work by the University of Bristol's Robotics Laboratory,
has taken existing Microbial Fuel Cells technology, and has
minituarized it to demonstrate MFCs that are smaller than
a AA battery, with similar performance
The 'banana peels and beer' is from a scene where Doc Brown is filling
a "Mr. Fusion" device in the movie "Back to the Future". Note:
"Mr. Fusion" is a fictional device.
source:
https://robohub.org/robot-stomachs-powering-machines-with-garbage-and-pee/
----
Q.19 (tech news) A record size for chip feature density was announced in May
by IBM. The feature density was described as:
green - 4 nanometers
red - 2 nanometers
Answer:
red - 2 nanometers
Individual physical elements on the chip are larger than 2 nanometers, but
due to 3-D stacking the effective density of a demonstration wafer
had about 333 million transistors per square millimeter.
source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16656/ibm-creates-first-2nm-chip
What will those craze scientists think of next!!
----