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Kiwi Geeks Seek Domain
Codeine writes "A group of professional Internet engineers and technicians from New Zealand are following the published procedure to obtain the delegation of GEEK.NZ from the NZ Domain Name Commissioner (DNC). If successful, GEEK.NZ would be New Zealand's twelfth second-level domain."
This won't happen, I'm still waiting on the paperwork on GoatMe.nz
Why is this such a big issue? Well the "12th second level domain" phrase surprised me. This reminds of the recent Australian IT minister's speech, which was discussed (mercilessly) at slashdot. Looks like the NZ internet situation is even worse than the Australian situation. Anyways, I hope these geeks succeed.
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Come now, we all know what number 13 must be: SHEEP.NZ ! It's gotta happen.
Like the world gives a crap about 1/2 of the US centric stories posted here.
How hard would it have been for you to just ignore the story? It's not like they can satisfy 100% of readers 100% of the time. I personally found it to be interesting. Also, you don't really speak for all of Slashdot.
slashdot!=valid HTML
Sorry, but this story is just too geeky for this time of the morning
Speak it, my brother... Night-shifters of the world unite.
/. is one of the few websites where it's constantly updated 24/7 with tidbits, discussion, and stories... It's certainly a major portion of my nightshift entertainment.
Actually,
Crappy stories are better than no stories... what more could you possibly want? Human/machine interaction, hardware hax, IT disasters, RIAA/MPAA FUD, MS-bashing, and L33T H4X0r 3Xp10iT5 all day/night long...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Like the rest of the world needs to hear about everytime senator palpatine^H^H^H^H^H^H^H hollings takes a shit?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Indeed. I did not know that. That's pretty sick. The stuff you learn by clicking on slashdot links. I thought people who bit heads off chickens were hobo's.
Sex - Find It
Wow. Upon reading the summary, my first thought was "Why do I care?" I mean, geek.nz... they're just going to put up a website or something, right?
.org.nz, .net.nz and .co.nz. (I don't know whether I should blame the story submitter, the Slashdot editor, or the guys who wrote the webpage for the completely ordinary, ho-hum writeup, since all of them seemed to assume that we understood exactly what they were trying to do.)
.co.nz, .net.nz, and .org.nz based on the criteria in the linked PDF above (namely, that they have a long-standing common interest and should get a second-level domain for it.)
Actually, they're trying to get a domain extension of sorts, much like the pre-existing
From what I gather, the domain name commissioner of New Zealand is in charge of approving second-level domains. There is a list of criteria for these domains here (which is linked from the geek.nz website.) These people are trying to put geek.nz in the same realm as
The linked website is pretty terrible in terms of explaining to the rest of the world these geeks' true motivation to do this. Okay, you want a second-level domain, and you meet the criteria... and? Is this to make your government open up its domain name system to anyone who has a legitimate interest? Is it just a cool project? Unfortunately, the website that they made shows none of their motivation for doing this.
As it is, it seems to be a cool novelty, but these geeks failed to express any sort of goal for this project. Interesting? I suppose. Slashdot-worthy? Not really.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Well why would an Australian site register a New Zealand domain name??
Echoing the above (as of my writing, of course -- things may have changed as of your reading) comment: what is the big deal? Not trying to troll, but as a site looking for community support, there isn't an easily-accessible, clear condensation of the issue in getting a second-level .nz domain. It seems to be a case of getting approval by a controlling body, which can be swayed by public opinion to a certain extent. I think their campaign would be more successful if they made it clear why support of other wordly geeks is a good thing (sorry Martha).
Secondly, from a geeky perspective, geek.nz would be wickedly, uber-cool. Unfortunately I think it may be also possible to have the other, non-geek part of the population to look at the whole operation with a little disdain or perhaps disrespect (insert faviourite geek stereotype). I can certainly see some people (those outsiders) losing/not having respect for a project or company because it's on the geek.nz domain. That said, as an internal (within the geek community) testing ground, as was somewhat suggested on the site, it'd be pretty darn cool.
Does anyone else have their site read by Bert? They seem to be on Bert's good list. Care to make a few spurious correlations?
"this is a really good piece of cantoloupe."
Yeah, sounds great! Let me point my 'wizard.crack.nz' domain to your production server :-)
:))
(okay, I know, reverse resolving would fix that, but I just had to make that comment
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
I realize as a web programmer I'm in a "geeky" line of work, but it never occurred to me advertise myself as a geek. I don't like it. I mean I'm no stud, I don't sport Olympic wood, and I not better than you, but I consider geekiness a rung on the totem pole I don't want to be below. Not to rant really, but I just consider the term "geek" to be derogatory.
Once Were Warriors (imdb)
Peter Jackson movies such as Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles (The Muppet Show, but miss piggy is a fat fuck and Kermit is a heroin addict) and Heavenly Creatures.
CNN on NZ Sailor, Peter Blake (who was shot by pirates last year!)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
"One of the press releases on the linked page answers 'why?'."
You know, some people bang their heads on the wall when they see bad code. Others get really frustrated when they see bad design, or bad grammar, or any number of things.
I get frustrated when I see a project whose founders obviously think is "cool," but which completely fails to answer the question "Why should I care?"
Obviously, you found that answer, and you certainly did better than I did.
I read the Slashdot summary, which completely failed to answer the question "Why should I care?" Then I clicked on the link, which also completely failed to answer that question. It's really frustrating to see the pertinent information on the site buried in a freakin' press release that very few people will ever read. (I mean, I'm guessing you clicked on the press release as sort of a last resort, and it's certainly not the place where most people would go to find out why this project is cool.)
The lesson I would like other geeks to learn from this article is damn, people, if you're doing something cool, put it in bold type on your front page! Say "We are here because we want to kick some ass. We're going to kick the ass of the domain name commissioner because we want to try out the latest cool geek technologies and this is the best way for us to do it! Hey, JOIN US! Help us out!"
The first rule of sales is that you have to convince the prospect that your product matters. This holds true whether you're selling encyclopedias door-to-door or whether you're trying to convince your boss to fund the purchase of new server equipment! Unfortunately, geeks have this tendency to throw out facts and just hope that people make the connection between those facts and their product being awesome. It really comes to light in a situation like this, where 95% of the audience doesn't know anything about New Zealand's domain structure or why a new second-level domain is a ground-breaking, earth-shattering, AWESOME achievement! That's why almost all of the posts here have been either "Huh?" or "Why should I care?"
As much as you may hate sales; as much as you want to believe that the facts will speak for themselves... take this article and the responses to it as a reason why they won't. Next time you're trying to convince someone that they absolutely should go with Linux, or that they absolutely, without a doubt, should use this piece of awesome software for their projects, answer the question that they will always think of first: "Why should I care?" If you can answer that, you've won half the battle.
If you can't answer that, and you try to just throw out facts and hope that they speak for themselves, you'll get the same response that these guys got...
"Huh?"
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
As I'm from NZ, it's a welcome change to actually be able to see news like this on Slashdot as there is not real place locally to see anything like this.
But I sure hope it passes as it will be a SLD for, well, geeks and I don't think there are ANY of those out there.
A more accurate second-level domain for these fellas would be peoplewithtoomuchtimeontheirhands.nz, no?
Recently, the maori.nz domain was created. It was created on the grounds that it was of cultural value for a clearly defined subculture of NZ, AIR.
:-)
However, there was something of a geek feeling that this wasn't very fair - it was a domain created on the basis of race and race alone.
In protest, and in a "if they can get it, why can't we" various people attempted to create the geek.nz domain. There is something of a race issue that we have to work through around here - thoughout the greater culture, stretching as far back as The Treaty of Waitangi
(Yes, there is something of an opening-the-floodgates problem, but there is a moritorim on new applications at the moment.)
(BTW, this isn't exactly news, as the idea was mooted, AIR, many months ago.)
Oh, and New Zealand Herald / NZPA Coverage
It's a cool thing, let us have our fun!
Okay, I'm probably overplaying the race issue - it is something of a bugbear for me, however, that is the rationale behind.
Sounds like the eu.org domain, which is a free-to-register one used by European people. Go geeks!
bash$
I wish the .us had something like this. If you want a .us domain it has to be something like yourname.city.county.us
I wish I could just get myname.us
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Recently a consortium of New Zealand banks tried to get .bank.nz off the ground for the second time - and failed. This was the subject of much mockery and debate on the NZNOG mailing list. The "team" listed on the page looks much like the "From" column in my NZNOG mailbox. Poking fun at the process, and the incorporated society that administers it, has at least as much to do with seeking .geek.nz as any desire for a geeksafe playpen.
That is encredibly facinating. Certanly more intresting then any of the following
Have you been drinking?
I certainly agree with you though, your submissions were definitely more interesting.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Recently .bank.nz was put through the aproval process for the 2nd time, and failed to reach the 70% support required. Basically I see it being totally pointless to have a .bank.nz tld as there are only about 10 different banks in NZ. (and they all have the relevant .co.nz TLD)
:)
But, finally a tld comes out that is worth supporting, and fits me perfectly. And reading through all the latest postings on the InternetNZ mailing list, I think it has a good chance of getting put through. I am definately voting for it, though I am a bit biased as I just want a.geek.nz for an IRC host
Some useful links, which may or may not be redundant:
Outline of the process
More info
NZ Registry Services
All in all its a pretty good time for domain names in NZ, with our new Shared Registry System (SRS) just coming online last Saturday. Finally some competition in NZ for domain registrations.
Just where is this New Zealand thats getting the geek domain? Is that up on the east cost with all thouse other New states? My geology wasn't very good in school.
I just can't spelkl. I am also very tired. hehehe.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Here are my thoughts on this SLD (Second Level Domain) proposal: It's unnecessary.
.com domain or any other TLD. This idea is very specialized, hence serves no purpose.
.com/.net/.org domains already.
Hear me out. New Zealand has 3,908,037 people, give or take a few. I seriously doubt there are even 5,000 geeks who would get those domains. No one would pass up an opportunity to aquire
Besides, all my friends from NZ have
I do have a proposal on what type of domains New Zealand government should implement, since the topic came up.
*.holycowmyinternetisslow.nz - for people who are still on 28.8k dialup modems inside of New Zealand
*.udpmatch.nz - for packet kiddies who are looking for a mate
*.neal.nz - will be reserved for Cowboy Neal in case he ever moves there
*.sheep.nz - hot sheep erotic fanfiction
*.cliche.nz - will serve as the domain for humor sites incorporating "beowulf cluster" and "In Soviet Russia" jokes all the time!
*.rom.nz - domain for Romainians who are considering moving to New Zealand to trade ROMS and Emulators for Atari 9600
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some NZ official to see these suggestions and put them on a fasttrack.
This is New Zealand we're talking about. There's gotta be a LoTR related domain. Something like hobbiton.nz or shire.nz should do nicely.
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Open Source Shirts
The thing about it is this.
A lot of people would torment the kids for which this general website (Please, don't forget the big words at the top that say "News For Nerds") is geared. A lot of us (and I say us as being what I would consider a geek myself) got pushed around and picked on as a kid. God knows the number of times I've been stuffed in a locker (think it's a joke for Saved By The Bell? Think again) or had the shit kicked out of me for dressing in a way that was inappropriate (I swore by sweat pants right up until grade 6).
The point of the matter is that turning the word that tormented us so as kids around and saying "I'm a geek. So what?" in a true Revenge-Of-The-Nerds fashion helps people have their own identity. Sure, a lot of the stuff I do might not be considered "cool" or the "in" thing or whatever, but fuck it. I'm more than happy to do what I do simply because I'm doing it. People who proudly wear the name "geek" are people that truly just don't care that if they do geeky stuff, like say wear sweatpants on a regular basis, or sit around playing with your computer all day, or charge at Gallstaff with your Magic Missile spell with +5 damage because of your charm ring or whatever.
Point of the matter is, this is a website for basically self-proclaimed geeks and nerds. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should have turned away when you saw the "News For Nerds" sign that is CLEARLY present on the front page.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Cool! ....let me know who I need to write a petition to!
As a Canadian Geek now in NZ, and working for the incumbent telco, I'm going to try and get some of the guys interested! I'm sure some of the people from the big incumbent ISPs will want to help too! Hey, maybe we can have our own little country-wide internet!
Anyone want to help? dszego@mindslip.com or 025419512
mindslip
Guys. This was a response to some clown saying how trivial NZ news is. It's a relevant post now divorced from the parent by the fact it was modded as a troll.
Looks bad out of context.
Gee and I thought the first rule of sales was sell *your* product (or self-promote on /.) whether you know the geeks have gotten the details right or not.
Such as advertising solid web hosting service, when your own servers are running known-vulnerable apache, ssl and ssh?
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Others are going off over their hypothetical .nz's, here is mine.
por.nz
Talk about get rich quick...
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I hereby request a domain for enthusiastic New Zealand golf fanatics: Tee.nz
I hope http://tee.nz/ will encourage more people to swing their clubs and go for a hole in one. Or even a birdy.
It bothers me that the USA think
DNS was designed to be a diverse tree structure over possible areas of interest. Within this there are two approaches - break things down into categories (2LD's, co, org, net, mil etc), or create as many 2LD's as possible.
When
It might be argued that there are less geeks in NZ than Maori people, but
- the percentage of geeks on the Internet is (of course) far larger than the percentage of Maori people
- "geek" as a term doesn't just have to relate to computer users
There has been some discussion on the Domain Name Commissioner's mailing list (Does anyone else find it funny that we have a DNC? Sounds like Commissioner Gordon. Quick, fire the DNS signal!) about if geeks getThis article is smack on. The reason that the NZ Network Operators' Group are pushing for
While it is obvious that the gap between Pakeha and Maori with access to internet needs to be addressed to bring us together as a society, I don't think that segregation of the name space will help achieve this at all.
Oh, and thank you everyone for the sheep jokes, they were most appreciated. Have you ever BEEN to New Zealand?
They should make it so that modded-down posts still get shown if they have posts above the viewer's threshhold in reply.
Events or developments like this always remind me how small New Zealand is, and how tightly-knit its IT/Internet/Telco geek community is. I look down the list of proposal supporters and recognise maybe three quarters of the names there; know personally maybe half the names there; and know on a first-name, face-to-face, is-it-your-round-or-mine basis maybe a quarter of the names there.
Kia kaha!
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I mean, it's not like we're using up some precious resource here. .druid.au registered as a domain,
If I want to jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to get
what's the harm?
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
"2. Lots of territory,"
This is a Joke, yes.
If you take a wrong turn, you can miss it entirely.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)