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Month: February 2003

Techy: UK Second Level Domain Names

February 8, 2003
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[UK Domain names]This recent article on “El Reg” (The Register) about .uk domain names got me feeling like just listing all the .uk secondary level domain names that currently exist and who administers them. A number of these were actually missed out in Kieren’s article – but who am I to point out omissions on such an excellent site (yep, The Register is one of my regular reads and has been for several years now).

ac.uk
Used by academic establishments. Administered by Ja.Net
bl.uk
The British Library.
co.uk
Commercial enterprises. Administered by Nominet
gov.uk
Governmental bodies. Administered by Ja.Net
jet.uk
European Fusion Development Agreement JET (near Oxford). The site now mainly resides under the jet.efda.org domain.
ltd.uk
Private Limited Companies Only. Administered by Nominet
me.uk
Personal domains. Administered by Nominet.
mod.uk
Ministry of Defence. Administered by DRA (Defence Research Agency) Malvern on behalf of the MOD.
net.uk
Internet Service Providers. Administered by Nominet.
nhs.uk
National Health Service organisations. Administered by the NHS coordinator. See also the Nominet page
nic.uk
Nominet itself
org.uk
Non-commercial organisations. Administered by Nominet.
parliament.uk
United Kingdom Parliament
police.uk
UK Police Force.
plc.uk
Public Limited Companies Only. Administered by Nominet
sch.uk
Schools. Administered by Nominet

Game: Barb-Jump

February 8, 2003
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[Barbed Wire Jump]I haven’t blogged about fun games for a while – mainly because I hadn’t come across any. But that’s about to change!

I’ve just recently come across Barb-Jump (originally by Netron but I can’t find it on their site anymore, that’s why I’m hosting a copy).

Basically, it’s a little Flash game where you’ve simply got the jump the barbed wire skipping rope by pressing the Space bar. Of course, if you don’t jump the rope correctly – the you start to lose limbs. Two arms and two legs later and my highest score so far has been 63 points.

Go – jump my beauties, jump!

(standard disclaimer: Do not try this at home. Richy’s Random Ramblings cannot take liability for any loss of limb, time, employment or sanity that may result in enjoyment of this game. Not for use in life-support situations. No ducks, revolving or not, were hurt during the posting of this entry. No total excessive force was too proud to be used in the creation of the fishbowl. Yadda yadda yadda)

Snippet: New Source Of Energy

February 8, 2003
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*snippet* Whilst laying in bed last night (8pm – I was feeling very tired again), I devised a way of generating large amounts of electrical power from a single AAA battery. Basically, I could take that AAA battery and power a house for an infinite amount of time on the “power generator” I devised. I’m still trying to find a flaw/fault in the “design” of the thing (very basic design using proven technology) as I know one must exist, but I’m having difficulties finding the flaw. It’s practically a perpetual motion machine (except it just generates electricity continuously and doesn’t actually “move”) and a great philosopher once said “In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics” (H.Simpson).

Techy: Phonetic Alphabet

February 8, 2003
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[A CB radio whose users need to know the Phonetic alphabet]I’ve just got off the phone with a company where I had to spell my surname: I’ve got quite a difficult to correctly spell surname so I often have to spell it out phonetically (the “a for alpha” business), but three-quarters through I realised I couldn’t remember what ‘W’ was for (it’s for whisky). Oops. Anyway, as an aid to my memory more than anything, here’s the phonetic alphabet that dates from around 1995 (and has been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, International Telecommunications Union and the FAA – so it’s “quite official”):

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whisky Xray Yankee Zulu

The UK police sometimes use “Indigo” instead of “India” and the actual spellings of some of the words may vary – but since they are made to be said rather the spelt themselves, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

In aviation, they also use the following phonetic digits mainly to avoid “conflicts” with other words and digits (“five” may be mistaken for “fire”, but fife won’t be):
zero one two tree fower fife six seven eight niner

Guess That Movie: XXIII: Birthday Girl

February 8, 2003
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[Guess That Movie Round 23]After 5 incorrect guesses, LD correctly recognised Guess That Movie 22 as being taken from the 1997 movie Air Force One [Order from Amazon.co.uk] . It showed Dean Stockwell as “Defence Secretary Walter Dean” – the clue I gave out (if you didn’t recognise him from the photo) was the corrupted introduction to Quantum Leap [Order from Amazon.co.uk] (in which I know him as “Al” the hologram). I should have realised that he was a distinguished actor and had been in many other movies other than Air Force One (126 movies/TV programmes according to his IMDb profile.

I’ve now updated the high score tables and whilst the last two rounds have made a little difference, there’s been no change in the rankings. It’s still Ph33r_m3 followed by LD (now on 445 points), then “Super Beastmaster” and then Kymberlie R. McGuire (who only managed to gain an extra 55 points with the rather difficult round 21: The Cure).

Anyway, here’s round 23 (already? *shocked*) of Guess That Movie. Which movie is this image taken from then?

A: Birthday Girl. Correctly guessed by Kymberlie R. McGuire