Visual Byte Answers.

The first issue of Visual Bytes was a success.If the two genuine attempts at the question in the comments section and a mail in my otherwise empty gmail inbox and a reference link in the Orkut Kerala Quizzers community is anything to go by, this blog might actually get a launch.Thanks everybody.

The Answers

1.
The painting was of Tipu sultan's rocket attack on the British.

In the l8th century in India. Haider Ali, prince of Mysore, developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometer). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Haider A1i's son, Tipu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1200 to a corps of 5000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British.

2.
The Buddhas of Bamyan were two monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan. Built during the 6th century, the statues represented the classic blended style of Indo-Greek art.

3.
These are the only Space tourists so far(as on 2007 october)
names in order:

Anousheh Ansari (Iranian / American), 2006 (one of her better pictures !)

Charles Simonyi (Hungarian / American),2007

Gregory Olsen (American), 2005

Mark Shuttleworth (South African / British), 2002

Dennis Tito (American), 2001

Got pics of them in tux just to make it a bit tough.Still cudn't help giving away the shuttle and space station graphics in the back ground of a few .

4.
The connection is 'Kubla Khan'

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 1772 – 1834) . English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England ,wrote the epic poem oriental Kubla Khan.

The inspiration for this poem comes from Marco Polo's description (from his book Il Milione) of Shangdu and Kublai Khan ,the Mongol and Chinese emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty,who is the handsome fella in the final pic.

Legend has it that Coleridge wrote it after an Opium dream ,and while he was at it a certain 'person from Porlock' showed up at the doorstep and engaged him in some business.As a result Coleridge lost the thread and Kubla Khan, only 54 lines long, was never completed.The picture is ofcourse of present day Porlock village.Thus "Person from Porlock", "Man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" has become a literary allusion to unwanted intruders.

William Dalrymple authored the travelogue 'In Xanadu ', which is the tale of the journey of the Polos all the way from Jerusalem to China.During its creation he actually treaded the same path taken by the Polos which renders the book a unique charm.

5.
Yanni's Santorini.Beautiful composition.

6.
Jeff Bezos of amazon fame (hence the head in a bookshelf)

7.
Stuart Broad

Dan Van Bung

Malcolm Nash

All 3 suffered the wrath of batsmen when they were hit for 6 sixes in a single over(by Yuvraj , Gibbs ,Sobers respectively).In addition to this Tilak Raj has also achieved the feat when Ravi Shastri cleared him 6 times in an over.But i couldn't find a picture of him.May be u could help me get a pic of his.I got photographs of them in minimal sporting outfit ,and black n Whitened and photoshoped the 1st two so as to give an 'old pic' look like that of nash's.

8.
Channel 4

9.
Game Cube

10.
Steve Jobs (in 2005) announcing that Apple would be transitioning from its long favored PowerPC architecture to the Intel x86 architecture, because the future PowerPC road map was unable to satisfy Apple's needs. The lowered "e" is a humorous reference to Intel's former logo.

clues
i) Intel HQ and Apple HQ in Santa Clara Valley
ii) The famous Apple '1984' ad .


I hope to keep up the standards in future posts.Do keep commenting.

Adios.