Domain names today

There was a day when a domain name was a simple exercise of national identity, if you were a commercial enterprise you chose .com, otherwise you could be .net for networks, .edu for educational institutions and .org for non-profits, organizations, trade institutions and such.

Then, you could have been a Jordanian business and opted for an account such as Royal Jordanian's rja.com.jo, or you could have been an institution like Cambridge University and opted for cam.ac.uk, where .ac stands for academic. Those were the days, now its not so simple.

Today, rarely anybody types in URLs directly, but the URL still matters apparently. Comedy Central uses the .cc domain in some of its ads in Europe, while a software called ClipConverter uses .cc as well. .cc is neither this nor that, it is Cocos Island's domain! Italy and Libya are other countries with similar uses of their domains.

bit.ly, visual.ly and others are actually using the Libyan Top Level Domain, while all major television networks use the Tuvaluan .tv domain and many IT companies are clamoring to use the Italian .it domain.

It would be nice if my website became www.ra.di, or something similar but what would be funny is if the Soviet Union country code came back, and lawyers started owning something like johnson.su or Ammanlaw.su.

Get it? Oh, it was worth a shot.  

But the new change is that domain names now are a huge variety from .email, .boutique,.cheap, .rich and go all the way to .international, .guitars, .management and .sexy. The worst one? companies in Cock Islands might use .co.ck

How much would a site like rr.com cost me? Well, I don't know but rr00.com is on sale for $3,000 and rr.com is being used by TWC a company belonging to the Time Warner Conglomerate and for all I know is has nothing to do with me, and therefore maybe I should contact AmmanLaw.su and sue them for using my Initials?

Peace, Out 

When you have the title to lose

Liverpool Football Club have achieved a level of comfort on the top of the table that I don't recall in my history with the club that goes back 18 years! It is ours to lose and we don't intend to lose it.

There used to be the feeling that we are becoming the Red-Sox of the Premier League, that we could try and try but that the premiership has passed us by. We don't have the budget of Manchester United, and we certainly don't have a sponsor as rich as Ettihad to buy us a whole array of players like Manchester City. Our stadium is still called Anfield, and it is not named after a rich gulf carrier like the Emirates or Ettihad. What we do have, however, is a comradeship and a global following the rivals the best of them.

This time last year, we were actually 7th on the tables and this year we are definitely playing it differently:

 

Last year seems so far back, but I recall wondering if playing the Europa League is achievable, now we are looking at not only a Champions League position, but we #daretodream, after 24-years of our last title, we are on the verge of something historic.

The information giant Bloomberg has us pegged at a 59.4% chance to win the title, and 100% chance to make it to the Champions League. It does make sense that we should be dreaming, and the only way we can make it work is to keep the current 10-wins-form running until the end of the season. The 27th of April is arguably the most important date for both us and Chelsea. 

When we play them in ten days time we will have to remind them that:

My first flight to Lagos (LOS/DNMM)

It is a matter of fact that Nigeria is growing at an exponential rate, and it has just been announced that the country has become the continent's largest economy. Royal Jordanian should be able to find a decent market in there, and our connectivity in the region is unparalleled. However, it is unfortunate that the passenger load in our airline is not high enough to maintain an A330 profitable operation. Royal Jordanian has decided to operate the route on more profitable equipment. Therefore, once again it is the A320 to the rescue.

My outfit has a fleet of A320 family A/C that can fill the role, however, our A320s are not ETOPS approved, which simply means we should have an acceptable airport within one hour of our route at all times. Unfortunately, our route is mainly over underdeveloped airports, and the only approach in there is built on GPS. Also the flight is a tad longer than 6 hours, which is much of a stretch for our machine! Remember, the A320 was designed for a maximum range of around 2000 NM (Nautical Miles) and the route we intend to fly is 2,600 NM. Add to it the wind and our Air Distance is around 3000 NM.

The way to get that is by lightening the aircraft up and we did just that. I was lucky enough to be part of the first crew to operate the A320 to Lagos. What we did to prepare for the flight for previous months is significant. Whether it was the GPS signal prediction software, or the re-scheduling of the flight to allow for a daylight operation or the contacts our staff made to make sure we have the weather. Whatever it was, we beat it to the bush and when I came back from the flight, I was proud to report that we made it work.

Around 6:30 of flight time and 7:00 hours of block time later and we got there. Royal Jordanian now has a scheduled operation to Lagos on the A320 and I'm proud to have played a part in it.