Sure, the big ol' new DNS TLD rules mean that you can get a
dumb ol' DOT COM from any of a number of big dickhead
entrepreneur company. But did you know you can get a domain
for FREE or ALMOST FREE from the coolio .us NIC? I bet you
didn't. Well you should get one!
Dot-us domains (or "geographical" domains, as they're called) are the
absolutely super-coolest thing to ever happen ever. You probably know that the
.com, .org, .net, .gov and .mil domains are reserved for United States stuff
ONLY. In other places they have to use the name of their country at the end of
the domain name, like "loser.co.fr" or something, because that way we know that
they are foreign and we can discriminate against them.
The crazy thing is that there's this SUPER STEALTH domain that nobody ever uses
but it is the discriminate-against-me-geographical domain for the United
States. It's called the .us domain, and it's really supergreat. It's defined by
RFC 1480, which like if
you're a super-geek you're going to go check out now. But I can summarize like
this:
The .us domain is used for government agencies, companies, and individuals.
ANYONE can get a .us domain. Most .us domains are in the form
"domain-name.city.st.us" (thus the name "geographicals" -- everything's divided
up geographically). Like, you can reach me at mr.bad@bad-pe
ople-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us. OK, mine's kinda long, but you can
get much shorter ones, too. Especially if you live in, like, Lee, Florida or
something.
Anyways, the super-extra-cool part about the .us domain is that it's a widely
distributed network. Rather than having one super-huge .us TLD server, there
are thousands of city-level servers, handling .san-francisco.ca.us, for
example. And the EXTRA super cool part is that it's up to these "delegated"
servers to charge you for the registration -- and MOST of them charge you
NOTHING, or just a few bucks. Wee-haw!
The bummer part about delegated domains is that the delegates get to add big
restrictions. Like, the delegate for san-francisco.ca.us only creates one
domain per person (damn!). But the good part is that you get your own COOLIO
domain for practically NOTHING. Beaujolais! Go get a geographical domain
today, and tell 'em Pigdog sent you.
