Driving Theory Test

A week ago I finally got around to sorting my Theory and Hazard Perception Test, this may shock some since I own cars and number plates with plans to buy more, yet I don’t actually drive. I always joke, why drive when you can be driven ;).

DVLA Trainng Apps

DVLA Trainng Apps

In the middle of August around my birthday, there were an argument or “debate” on Facebook about some minor highway code rule. The original poster said “those who break it shouldn’t have a license”. I checked the highway code before I said anything, and they were wrong. They decided they have been driving since Moses partied with the Hebrews in Gomorrah and they were right, I were wrong. Their reasoning “Because out there in the jungle, I mean on the road its different”. Who shouldn’t have the license really?, perhaps those who think the rules no longer apply to them.

A day or two after that, the 22nd August to be exact, I download the highway code app and various driving apps. I read the highway code, played the different types of quiz and apps. I decided, this is easy, I know this stuff.

On 27th August I booked my Theory and Hazard Perception test for first thing in the morning in just over 2 weeks time. I started to read a dozen different road acts and laws, the official highway code website and anything else that I could find. The day before the test started watching The Strain, I ended up awake until 4am, and had to wake up at 7am to get showered and ready for the test. Powered by Grenade Hydra-6 Chocolate Charge and Gatorade Orange I headed out just before 9am for the test at 10:30am.

The Test Centre

You should arrive around 30 minutes early, this is to allow for queues, check in, and you have some stuff you have to read before hand. As soon as you enter the test centre, even in the waiting area, you must turn your phone off. Not on silent, not aeroplane mode, OFF! failure to do, is a refusal to allow you to do your test.

You queue up, and its important you stand behind the Queue Here stand, otherwise you are told to step back and look a tool which I witnessed several times. Once you have queued up, they ask you for your drivers license, to confirm some details and book you in.

If you have any special requirements, you have to let them know here and they can make provisions. Such as voice overs, larger print, medications, etc.

Lockers

After booking in, they give you a locker key with essentially a brick attached (looks more like an Anne Summers Special) and some information you have to read and agree too. In the locker you have to lock hats, coats, drinks, food, phones, wallets, jackets, fleeces, keys, pens, paper, pretty much anything. This is all on the stuff they give you to read along with other rules and guidelines, 3 pages in total.

The only things you are permitted to take on to the “killing floor” or test booths are suitable clothing, your drivers license and the locker key and brick.

The Test Booths

Theory Test Booths

Theory Test Booths

The room at my test centre were a small is room, with squared semi-circle like a [ shape, with 8 or 9 wooden office dividers, making small booths. There were an observation area behind where the inspector guy sits where he can see all the booths. He explains if there are any problems, raise your hand he’ll come over to you.

Inside each booth were a computer case, a mouse, a keyboard and a white square the size of a mouse mat which says “place your belongings here”. This is where the locker key with the huge stick attached to it, and your drivers license are to be placed. Over head is a CCTV Camera on each booth to watch you’re not cheating and such, and to the left a pair of headphones hung on the divider.

Adjust the seat, and the screen make sure you have a good view, as moving it during the test makes them suspicious. I also suggest adjusting the headphones to fit as you’ll need them later on. You have been logged in by the inspector guy who is behind you, so you just need to click start.

The Actual Test

The test is broken up into various parts, each part has a set time limit, and various controls and options. You are given some choices as well, some you don’t have to do, some you do have to do.

Learning Mode

Initially you are given a system run through over how the system works. Where it asks you to select, and deselect things, change options and such like. I guess this is mostly to test everything works and make sure you can use it.

This is timed at 5:00 minutes.

Practice Mode

You are then given the option of doing a “practice session” which is really just a more in-depth version of the above. In this you are asked to select options, flag options for later review if you are unsure. Explained exactly how it all works, what each option on the menus do, etc.

This works exactly like the real test only it only has about a dozen pages / questions. Its well worth doing this, so you know how to flag and review, I used this feature myself.

This is timed at 15:00 minutes.

Break Time

You are given a short period of time to prepare and relax before you perform the on screen instructions to start the test. You cannot move from your booth at this time and should remain looking forward.

This is timed at 2:00 minutes.

Multiple Choice Theory Test

This is 50 questions, and 43 questions are required to be correct in order to pass. Approx 44 of my questions were general highway code questions. Stopping distances, road signs, vehicle marks, first aid, traffic lights etc, mostly basics.

Towards the end were a “case study”, it gives you approx 6-7 sentences about a fictional journey, for example it may say…

You are moving house, so you get a roof rack fitted to your car and load it up with your belongings. 

You travel down a 3 lane motorway for most of the journey. On this journey you notice a sign with “40” on it over the hard shoulder.

The motorway is quite congested so you move from the left lane to the right lane to overtake slow moving vehicles before moving back to the left lane. 

You notice a warning sign saying “Fog Ahead”, shortly after you find yourself in the fog, but it clears up in a few miles. 

Some of your belongings fall off the roof rack in the left hand lane. After dealing with this incident, you leave the motorway. 

You want to go ahead and take the 3nd exit of 5 on the round about.

Theory Test Results Screen

Theory Test Results Screen

It then asked a series of multiple choice questions based on the above description, one of them were like, “while you were overtaking, what colour were the reflective studs on your right”, “What did you do when you saw the fog sign”, stuff like that.

One question answer troubled me, which is related to the left hand lane. Its not clear if round about is on the slip road, nor how many lanes the round about has. It then asks you “which lane would you go in”, with the answers “left, right, middle or most appropriate“, there are other questions like this which are in my opinion are tricky.

This kind of threw me off guard as I hadn’t seen this before in any of the apps or literature I read.

At the end you are told how many incomplete, flagged and answers questions there are on the review screen. You have the option to review the unanswered, the flagged, the answered or indeed the entire test before you hit end test and confirm it.

This is timed at 57:00 minutes.

Break Time Part Deux

You are given anther short break after the Multiple Choice Test, to relax a little bit and prepare for the theory test. You cannot move from your booth during this break.

This is timed at 3:00 mintues.

Hazard Perception Test

Much like the multiple choice section, this is broken into 2 parts. A demo or introduction mode, which talks you through it and shows you step by step how it works.

Followed by the actual test being administered.

Introduction Mode

At the start of the test you are advised to put your headphones on, to listen to the introduction. The introduction shows you a demo video and explains how the clicking works. It explains you should click on developing hazards as soon as you see them develop, and as they are happening. It explains about clicking too fast or too many times, or in any sort of pattern, and you’ll score 0 for that clip.

What I din’t know is, you don’t have to click the mouse where the hazard as is happening, just as soon as you see it developing. You can’t actually see the mouse cursor on the screen unlike in the multiple choice where you can.

After this, it shows the same video click again, and explains the various potential hazards, and shows you how the scoring of 5-1 points would work on that clip when the actual hazard develops and explains the whole clip.

It also tells you, if you click the hazard on 5, then again on 3 and again too late, the computer counts your first click, so you will still score a full 5 for that hazard.

You can watch this twice if you are unsure or the volume were low etc. You don’t need the headphones after this.

This is timed at 5:00 minutes.

The Actual Test

The test is 14 Computer Generated Videos, each lasting 60 seconds (ish) with a 10 second break between each one. Do NOT click the mouse during the 10 second countdown as it can register those clicks and result in a 0 score penalty.

One of the videos has 2 hazards, the other 13 have only 1 hazard.

Each hazard you spot, depending on how early you catch it developing is worth up to 5 points. You need a minimum of 44 points to pass, this is out of a possible 75 points.

What I did is click each potential hazard as soon as I saw it, then clicked again if and when it developed. This didn’t trigger any penalties, and seemed acceptable.

This is timed at 15:00 minutes.

Potential Questions

At the end it may or may not ask you about some potential future questions, you were asked before the test started if you were interested in these. These don’t affect your test score at all. These are questions which they are considering adding to the multiple choice or hazard tests in future.

For me this were about 5 multiple choice questions, which seemed to be more like “word play” on existing questions. For example in the theory test, I were asked:

What is the stopping distance when travelling at 50mph ?

in the potential future questions I were asked:

What is the stopping distance on a clear, dry road while travelling at 50mph?

This may mean there is also a “What is the stopping distance on a wet road at 50mph?” question in the bank, somewhere or maybe its just wordplay to make you question it.

Customer Satisfaction

Lastly you are asked about a dozen questions, everything from how long did it take to get your provisional license, if you booked online how happy are you with the service, were you happy with the way the system worked etc.

One question threw me a little “What is your ethnicity, this is so we can ensure the test is administered fairly”, how exactly is knowing if I’m black, white or polkadot going to change how the test is administered ?

My Test Results

I scored 49 correct multiple choice out of 50  (98%), and 67 hazard points out of 75 (90%), giving me 94% total score. So I got a pretty good pass, a very good pass for some ones first test, and apparently astonishing for someone who has never had a professional driving lesson in their life.

What You Need to Build A Domain Drop List

Nomient Logo

Nomient Logo

This article is going to be a 4 part jobby, with a few side articles possibly, as it turned out to be somewhat longer than I expected. Most people reading this blog will know what a drop list is, but you may not know how to make one or how much effort and expense goes into it. Currently a lot less effort goes into since Nominet released the zone files. The old way will be one of the side articles I cover another time.

What is a drop list is quite a simple question; a list of domains due to expire on any given day. I’m going to talk about what you need to build one in this post, and in the next one how you build your own drop list and the costs you will likely incur in both parts. After that it will be an article on maintaining the drop list and buying drop lists in the final part. Some of the methods are hard earned lessons, which will save you time. I won’t be giving all my secrets away, some will be old methods, so there are better ways to do it, but they still work. I will also be dropping in some chunks of code too, the missing bits will be easy enough with basic coding skills which I assume you have.

Where To Start ?

Building your own drop list, isn’t too hard. It is however quite costly and time consuming, not to mention fraught with rules from Nominet. The rules are somewhat open to interpretation so I’m not going to go there, better to speak to Nominet directly about them.

Nominet Membership

Firstly a Nominet Tag is required, which is FREE, however this isn’t enough, a Nominet Membership is required. This membership costs £400+Vat to Join, then £100+Vat per year membership.

You will also need DAC Access which is £25+VAT per year, that’s the last of the Nominet costs, but not the end.

A list of Fee’s are available here… Nominet Fee Schedule, you can see the main benefit here is the cost of domains at wholesale prices, but direct access to Nominet systems is essential for list building and drop catching.

Suitable Hosting

Suitable hosting is quite subjective, but I would recommend a VPS Hosting Account. This is because shared hosting almost certainly won’t be suitable. You’ll hit your resource limits and get an get somewhat unhappy email from your host, if not asking you to upgrade or sling your hook.

A suitable VPS will cost you anywhere from £10-30 per month. This is assuming you are comfortable and able to manage a Linux Server and install PHP, MySQL, Apache and manage the required security updates yourself. Otherwise a Managed VPS will be possibly £30-80+ per month, do your own research and choose wisely.

An important factor here to remember is, unlike with Drop Catching where the speed between your server and Nominet is Critical, in this instance it doesn’t matter at all, so cheap with a decent reputation and good support is your objective.

Alternatives to VPS and Shared Hosting

I have heard of people doing this on a business hosting account, which is often half way between a low end VPS and a standard shared account or more simply a shared hosting account with more resources.

There are also a number of people who have claim they used an install of WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP 0r MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL an PHP) on a local machine, machine on their network or even on their own PC.

You could also build such a thing on a local NAS Server like a Synology NAS Server or qNAP or any other for that matter. I personally have a test environment on one of my Synology units and see no reason most 2-Bay units wouldn’t be able to handle a project of this size.

These routes are worth looking in to, but I can’t comment on any of them with regards to efficacy, as I haven’t done them.

Apply for Zone File Access

Once you’re 1, a Nominet Member with DAC Access, 2, have your hosting sorted, you need apply to Nominet for Zone File access. You have to be a Nominet Member to gain access to this. When you’ve been granted Zone File access, you need to download and process the file. I blogged on the .UK Zone File Release, to give you an idea of the process.

Nominet Zonefile Zip File Content

Nominet Zonefile Zip File Content

The file you will download is around 240mb; a zip file which contains 9 unique files inside (see right). These are individual Zone File for each available extension under the .UK ccTLD, all managed by Nominet. Exacting them all will consume just over 1.5GB of storage, more or less depending on destination disk format.

Even though there are 9 files in the archive there are only 2 types of file.

1, Zone Files, these contain details about the zone, along with domains and their name servers. We won’t be using these, for drop lists we don’t need name servers.

2, Database Dump, which is a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file.

The CSV file is a literally just a list of domains, with nothing in there which makes it very very easy to process and quite fast. It will look like the list below…

domain1.co.uk
domain2.co.uk
domain3.net.uk
domain4.org.uk
domain5.uk

Its important to note, neither the individual zone files, or the database dump contain any dates, tags or anything more other than domain names or domain names, zone data and name servers.

In Part 2, I will discuss bringing the above together to actually build a drop list.

Shoulder Surgery

Some of you who read my health/fitness blog before I moved to blogging here, will know I have quite extensive injuries/damage to both of my shoulders. The consultant doctor who interpreted the last scan (an MRI) used fun words like “Tumorous”, “Cystic”, “Moth Eaten”, “Jagged” and “Arthritic”, lots of fun words like that. The only upside were my rotator cuff has “improved” and is “better”, I couldn’t get him to quantify more than that. Its some times hard to get solid answers, even harder to get the various clinics, consultants, doctors, registrars etc to sing from the same hymn sheet. As a result everything is a little sketchy, and this may not be 100% accurate.

AC Joint Grades I to VI

AC Joint Grade Images courtesy of DurrantOrtho.

The rather informative Durrant Ortho site has a page on AC Joint Injuries which is awesome and where I borrowed the above image. Mine is somewhere between Grade 2 and Grade 3, its hard to visualise from the descriptions and various explanations but it fits. I’m told once the surgeon physically look inside my shoulder they will tell me exactly what damage were and what were fixed/repaired once I’ve come around from surgery.

After a boat load of therapies and various drugs, the last being Triamcinolone injections along with a nerve block (I think), which are injections directly into the shoulder joint and injured areas, which hurts like hell. After that, they finally transferred me from the shoulder specialist to the shoulder trauma clinic. The trauma clinic tell me I have about 4 weeks to make my mind up if I want a rather painful surgery on both shoulders or try more injections.  Since its both of my shoulders which are messed up, they would perform surgery unilaterally about 18 months apart.

Pain and Recovery

Currently the surgery waiting list for a case like mine, is 2-4 months, which lands the surgery Dec-Feb.

The timeline and pain doesn’t sound good at all. When I asked about the pain score, on a scale of 1 to 10, instead they only described it as “horrendous” rather than a score, so I’m guessing that’s about 11 out 10.

They went on to explain they going to cut some of my shoulder blade (scapula) off and my collarbone. I didn’t quite catch what about the collarbone. The also very good ShoulderDoc website, which I borrowed the below image from, gives loads of details about the surgery and what happens. It looks BRUTAL!

ACJ Excision ShoulderDoc

ACJ Excision from ShoulderDoc

They are also going to clean up my shoulder, which I understand would be removing tumours, cysts, ground bone chips, calcium deposits, general clean up and tidy of the shoulder joint.

The “official” word on the various websites inc the Local NHS and Others for recovery and rehabilitation is up to a week in a sling before starting physio, 1-2 weeks before returning to sedentary job, up to 4-6 weeks for a physical work and back to 75% in 3 months. Then up to a 12-18 months for fully healed, slowing improving the whole time.

Unofficial Recovery

The shoulder trauma consultant (I think she were a registrar, but not sure) used various patients to give me examples of healing times and recovery. She were saying its more likely to be near enough double what the official story says. It could be 6+ months before I could return to the gym, and 18+ months before 100%, at which point I’d need to start building again.

Looking at the comments and questions online for example Sports Injury Info makes it look like it could be even worse than that. However the problem is that ACJ Repair, is like saying Car Engine Repair, it could be any of 100 things, all with different healing times. Some have a Rotator Repair (which is a bigger along with Shoulder Girdle), some only the scapula filed, others just a ligament cut, some need extensive stabiliser work, loads of different things. There are also various techniques as well open or keyhole surgery which affect it all too.

Its wildly varied, and inconsistent.

The only consistent thing, seems to be when you cut parts of the bone away, its intensely painful, and a long slow healing process, lucky me. The things I’m dreading the most are (1) the surgery falling during icy/frozen times and me slipping, (2) person hygiene with my right arm essential out of order for months and (3) being out the gym for months.

Images Copyright of DurrantOrtho and ShoulderDoc.

Sugar Tax Hitting the Wrong Spot

Caramel Coffee by Razman CalimanWe’ve all read about the sugar tax being applied to fizzy drinks, which is all well and good. However the tax is bollocks, if they were applying the sugar tax and using the money generated to offset healthier options that would be fine.

Instead the sugar tax just vanishes into the government coffers and is probably spent on more champagne at the government party conference instead.

Action on Sugar

Action on Sugar is a campaign group with the goal of reducing the countries sugar intake, they have a fair bit of pull with both producers and government bodies. They surveyed the most sugar filled drinks, and posted the results here… (and images below).

Are Coca Cola or Fanta the big bad sugar demons or were the sugar highs found elsewhere ?

I wasn’t quite expecting the result to be as it is. Action on Sugar investigated 131 popular hot drinks, and calculated the sugars contained within each of them according to the venue selling them.

The biggest were 99g, which is 3 times the amount contained in a can of coca cola (33g).

The top 20 drinks, with 45% (9) of them being from Starbucks, 40% (8) from Costa Coffee, 10% (2) from KFC and 5% (1) from Cafe Nero, only 1 of them had less than 50g of sugar, and that is only 0.7g less at 49.3g.

Sugar Tax Exempt

There are two bands of tax based on the total sugar contained in the drinks. Medium Sugar at 5 grams and over per 100 millilitres, and High Sugar at over 8 grams per 100 millilitres. The actual rate of taxation is expected to be between 18-24 pence per litre, up to about 50p per standard 2 litre bottle.

The problem is, these hot drinks won’t be subject to the sugar tax, they are exempt.

The biggest were the “Hot Mulled Fruit Venti” from Starbucks, which contains 14.5 grams per 100 millilitres, which is nearly 50% more than Coca Cola at 10g per 100ml, and nearly double the upper sugar tax limit. Yet still Starbucks and Costa Coffee remain exempt from the sugar tax.

A Better Idea

Lazytown

Lazytown – Magnus Scheving

One of my friends says we need to stop tampering with foods so much and return them back to a more natural state.

Magnus Scheving the man behind Lazy Town who is 52 years old, kind of agrees. He uses the example along the lines of you take a fish from the sea and eat it raw its 100% good, steam the fish its 80% good, batter it in breadcrumbs and fry it its 40% good, process the left overs, mash it up, and reform it into fish cakes, roll it in breadcrumbs, deep fry it, and its practically worthless.

The more you process something from its original state the less it becomes worth nutritionally speaking. Given the dude is over 50 and looking damned good, dude may just have a point.

I’m not entirely sure this is what my friend meant, since they were talking about processing foods breaking down natural properties then having to replace said properties and augment tastes with additives but the message is similar. I think my friends idea is an almost an impossible thing to change quickly.

Healthier Options WILL be Taxed

Surely it would be a better idea, if the Tax were calculated, and the supermarkets applied the discount to alternatives. So Diet Coke would be 50p cheaper per bottle and so on. Make it cheaper to eat and drink healthy options. Instead what is likely to happen instead is everything will just increase.

Full Sugar Coca Cola will go up, 50 pence per bottle and SHOCK HORROR, Diet Coke will also increase by the same amount to maintain parity.

How will sugar tax actually help anyone other than making people poorer by taking more tax… perhaps in another 10 yrs, we’ll say we need more tax on sugar drinks and we can increase diets drink another 50p along with healthier drinks?

Below is the results of the investigation by Action on Sugar.

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Action on Sugar High Sugar Hot Drinks

Caramel Coffee image by Razman Caliman, Sugar Charts by Action on Sugar, Lazytown Wallpaper Copyright LazyTown.

Private Number Plates

MR57 EVE Number Plate

MR57 EVE Number Plate (not a real plate)

Like many people who deal in domain names, who also deal in other rarities. The most common of which are Car Registration Plates and Mobile Phone Numbers among various others.

I’m always watching DVLA Auctions for any decent number plates or plates which I like coming up. There maybe 1 or 2 I like in the 21st September to 23rd September auction (Catalogue Here). It made me think about my biggest personal reg plate purchase.

Suitable Cars

I bought the personal number plate which closest matches my surname, which were madness since I didn’t even have a car new enough to hold the plate. In general the rule is, you can’t put a plate on a car which is newer than the date of the car. So you can’t put a 2016 Plate on a 2012 registered vehicle, but you can put a 2012 Plate on a 2016 Registered Vehicle.

The person I took with me, had never been to a DVLA Auction, or even any auction before so they didn’t know the hammer price is a far cry from the price you pay. In this instance the hammer dropped at £4,000, on top of this you have pay VAT, Buyers Premium at 8%+VAT and a £80 DVLA Assignment Fee (about the only thing without VAT).

The break down of the costs looks something, more or less like this…

Hammer Price: £4,000.00
VAT on Hammer: £800.00
Buyers Premium: £384.00
VAT on Premium: £76.80
DVLA Assignment Fee: £80.00

Total Cost: £5240.80

This means the final price is just over 31% extra on the hammer price, so its a hell of a whack on top. When you add hotels, fuel, 2 days of food, drink, etc due to distance the auction were held away from my home, it were closer to £6,000 all in.

DVLA Auctions

New Look Plate

New Look Plate

This is just a standard auction, so I’ve decided to bid online, since there isn’t a plate I 100% want no matter what.

Some of the interesting ones are… I especially like “New 100K”, which as a personal trainer / fitness coach / body transformation expert / make over coach, this plate would be spectacular.

That’s not the plate I’m mostly interested in, but I have listed some of the nice plates due up in this auction… I have also added the perceived alphabetic words too.

Day 1 – 21st September
Lot 353, Plate: 848ES (BABES), Guide Price: £2200
Lot 346, Plate 82ENT (BRENT), Guide Price: £1200
Lot 462, Plate GRO11S (GROWS), Guide Price: £300

Day 2 – 22nd September
Lot 549, Plate: H311 KAT (HELL KAT), Guide Price: £250
Lot 689, Plate: KN16HTS (KNIGHTS), Guide Price: £700
Lot 890, Plate: NEW100K (NEW LOOK), Guide Price: £250

Day 3 – 23rd September
Lot 1099, Plate: RU13BER (RUBBER), Guide Price: £700
Lot 1228, Plate: THE 145T (THE LAST), Guide Price: £250
Lot 1229, Plate: THE 800T (THE BOOT), Guide Price: £250

Awesome Branding Opportunity

Its worth considering a private plate as an awesome branding tool. Can you imagine, you’re a professional, top of your game in Scratch and Dent Removal, so you turn up and your number plate is “RU13 BER” like in an eraser. You “rub out” spots, scratches and dents.

Tata Group Want to Get .TATA ccTLD

Tata - Oasis Sagrado by Tomas Paz

Tata – Oasis Sagrado by Tomas Paz

This is an interesting story, I have heard of companies being bought to acquire domains, cars to get number plates, people hired to consult to obtain twitter handles but this is a little different. Its not the first time a cash injection has “helped” a country or nation to hand control of its ccTLD over to a private entity, nor is it even the first time someones bought a school to get a domain name but its still unique.

Tuvalu .TV ccTLD

I think the first were the tiny island Tuvalu who “leased” the rights for .TV (Country Code TLD) to a Verisign Company (dotTV) in return for a $50,000,000 advanced payment followed by $1,000,000 a year in a 12 yr deal.  Some other sources omit the $50m and suggest its just $1m a year for 12 years. The details are somewhat varied, what is clear is, they gain 10% of their countries total income from .TV domains and its sorely needed. There were lots of discontent from the government of Tuvalu over the deal, more information here. According to Wikipedia, this has been resolved and they are now paid approx $1,000,000 per quarter. Which would account for close to 25% of their GDP.

.BAR cityTLD

.Bar .Rest .Cafe Logos

.Bar .Rest .Cafe Logos

A few years ago a company called Punto 2012 successfully invested $100,000 in a small Montenegreo city in return for said country releasing its hold on the .BAR ccTLD. Which is now available for bobs.bar or newyork.bar domains to be registered like any other.

As of the time of this article there were 6,256 domains in the .BAR registry, with an average sale price of £50/$65 a pop, giving it $407,000 per year in registrations according to NameStat. The $100k is being paid yearly at a rate of $10,000 a pop to fund a school until 2024. I would assume come 2024, this number could either sky rocket or plunge depending on the success of .BAR. Currently I would say its going to increase somewhat perhaps fund multiple schools.  More from Register.BAR here.

Something along these lines were done in 2014, before .BAR. GoDaddy who using the Laos country code extension which is .LA rebranded it as “.LosAngeles” for LA based businesses.

.TATA cTLD and The TATA Group

The .TATA TLD is a little different to the other examples. The Tata Group are a private corp with $108,000,000,000 revenue, yeah 108 BILLION, so very deep pockets. They are not looking to assume control over .tata an then start selling first/second level domain under it like .TV and .BAR have. Instead its going to be I assume much like .BARCLAYS or .BBC used for company emails and websites.

Tata Logo

Tata Logo

Looking at the list of TATA Associated Companies, its extensive even in the UK with Jaguar, Land Rover, Tetleys Tea, Fiat and Daewoo all in the list. dotTATA as far as I know is is Moroccan, and presumably a quite poor area, so I suspect a huge chunk of change shall change hands in exchange for the release of .TATA, perhaps even bigger than .TV  depending how badly Tata Group want it.

What else is interesting is, that TATA apparently produced a letter of release from Morocco in 2014 only for the Moroccan Digital Minster to basically discredit the claim. I get the feeling this will cost them dearly, on the assumption it were not genuine.

Its been suggested that much like Punto 2012, they invest… erm sponsor…erm build and sponsor some (a tonne of) schools in Morocco, and this would certainly open up lots of doorways.

Personally, if it were me and I’d be signing my homes peoples right to own a .town/city I’d want to wrangle as much money as possible. If my people were able to register their names still like in the case of .BAR or .LA, I’d just want a cheaper wholesale rate for residents or something as well as a bung.

I had a google search of Tata, Morocco and its a stunning place, one particular Oasis (pictured above) looks so beautiful. Thomas Paz who’s image I borrowed, has some amazing photos all over Morocco, seems he’s a cyclist. Check them out on Tomas Paz’s Wikiloc page.

It may just set a precedent for all the deep pocketed companies to simply buy it from the poorer countries/cities. If the countries/cities are happy and the deal is renegotiated/tendered from time to time, I guess its all good.

 

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