© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

Any Questions #394: Internet Domains

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel are back with a show about internet domains, not counting wamc.org.Last week's challenge
Start with the phrase “Busted Bracket.” Rearrange the letters and you can spell the seven-letter name of a playwright, and a six-letter adjective often used to describe that playwright. What are the words?
Answer: BECKETT, ABSURD.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: INTERNET DOMAINS
On-air questions: On March 15, 1985, the first internet domain name was registered when a computer systems company in Cambridge, MA called Symbolics Inc. registered symbolics.com. By the end of 1992, fewer than 15,000 .com domain names had been registered, but as of 2015 that number was around 294 million, with the largest percentage of those being .com addresses. The .com domain name has been, over the years, administered by the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Commerce. Registration of .com addresses is now overseen by a private company. To commemorate the first domain name, this week, each correct answer will contain a common three-letter domain name.

1. What word containing "net" describes a dome-shaped theater onto which the night sky is often projected, including the one at the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey which, at 27 meters in diameter, is the largest in the Western Hemisphere?
2. What word containing "org" is the name of a town in northern Italy northeast of Milan which lends its name to a blue cheese that has, according to its residents, been produced in the town since the ninth century?
3. What word containing "edu" is used for a system of pipes, canals, ditches, or other structures used to carry water from a source to distant points and is also the name of a racetrack that opened in Queens in 1894 that is home to the New York Racing Association's headquarters?
4. What title containing "com" is the name of the first book in a trilogy by Philip Pullman collectively titled His Dark Materials, followed by The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, and was adapted into a 2007 film that won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects?
5. What three-word name containing "gov" is missing from this otherwise complete list: Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia?

Extra credit
1. There are three spaces on a standard U.S. Monopoly board whose names contain the same common three-letter internet domain name (either "net", "org", "edu", "com", or "gov"). What three spaces are they?
2. Only one film that has won Best Picture contains one of "net", "org", "edu", "com", or "gov". What film is it?

This week's challenge
Start with the phrase DOMAIN NAMES. Add a letter and you can spell the seven-letter last name of a U.S. president and the five-letter last name of a painter. What are the names?

ANSWERS
On-air questions

1. Planetarium
2. Gorgonzola
3. Aqueduct
4. The Golden Compass
5. Bosnia and Herzegovina

Extra credit
1. Community Chest, Electric Company, Income Tax
2. Unforgiven

 

A lifelong resident of the Capital Region, Ian joined WAMC in late 2008 and became news director in 2013. He began working on Morning Edition and has produced The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, and several other WAMC programs. Ian can also be heard as the host of the WAMC News Podcast and on The Roundtable and various newscasts. Ian holds a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English, both from the University at Albany, where he has taught journalism since 2013.
Related Content