ICANN allows TLD .sucks domains

CALLER 2: Okay, he did a campaign to try to get a series of subdomains that were like consumer advocate subdomains like dot consumer, dot tax payer, dot shareholder, and most famously, dot sucks.

PJ: Dot sucks?

CALLER 2: Yeah, dot sucks.

PJ: So like Walmart dot sucks, like McDonalds dot sucks?

CALLER 2: Yes, and he proposed that they should, ICANN should create a dot sucks foundation which would be a independent organization that makes sure that dot sucks was only used by people who actually wanted to talk about the corporation sucking.

PJ: Huh wait, and just for people that don’t know, ICANN, they’re the, basically like the regulatory body that decides which top level domains are going to exist. So wait, so they would have like an internet right to, that every single website would have like a mirror image version of it where people just complained about the company that ran it?

CALLER 2: Yes. Yes.

PJ: That is a great idea.

ALEX: I agree.

CALLER 2: (laughs)

PJ: And who, do you know who shot him down?

CALLER 2: So ICANN decided not to go with it, but here’s the crazy thing: when they did the rerelease of all the major subdomains like when dot xyz and dot nyc, and all the new ones came out a few years ago, dot sucks made it through, and now all the companies are just buying up their own dot sucks.

PJ: Aaaaagh. So like McDonalds dot sucks is just owned by McDonalds?

CALLER 2: Yes, so–

ALEX: Yeah, McDonalds dot sucks forwards to the Contact Us page on McDonalds.

CALLER 2: A lost revolution.

PJ: Wait, hold on one second, okay?

CALLER 2: Yeah.

PJ: Yes. Alex Goldman dot sucks is available.

CALLER 2: (laughs)

ALEX: Why are you doing–why do that to me?

PJ: PJ Vogt dot sucks. [typing] Oh! I got both of them.

ALEX: PJ, don’t fucking buy my name.

CALLER 2: Maybe he’s protecting you from other people buying it.

ALEX: He’s not protecting me. You’re–have you ever listened to this show? You’re being so naive right now. He’s not protecting me.

PJ: I don’t know why you’re yelling at him, but it seems like something that will be chronicled on Alex Goldman dot sucks.

ALEX: Dude, come on.

PJ: Oh, it’s maybe not worth it. They’re $329 each.

Google Books

As of October 2015, the number of scanned book titles was over 25 million, but the scanning process has slowed down in American academic libraries.[10][11] Google estimated in 2010 that there were about 130 million distinct titles in the world,[12][13] and stated that it intended to scan all of them.[12]

.. In response to search queries, Google Books allows users to view full pages from books in which the search terms appear if the book is out of copyright or if the copyright owner has given permission. If Google believes the book is still under copyright, a user sees “snippets” of text around the queried search terms. All instances of the search terms in the book text appear with a yellow highlight.

The four access levels used on Google Books are:[14]

.. The project began in 2002 under the codename Project Ocean. Google co-founder Larry Page had always had an interest in digitizing books. When he and Marissa Mayerbegan experimenting with book scanning in 2002, it took 40 minutes for them to digitize a 300-page book. But soon after the technology had been developed to the extent that scanning operators could scan up to 6000 pages an hour.[19]

 

.. The page also displays bibliographic information, which can be exported as citations in BibTeX, EndNote and RefMan formats. Registered users logged in with their Google accounts can post reviews for books on this page. Google Books also displays reviews from Goodreads alongside these reviews.[26] For books still in print, the site provides links to the website of the publisher and booksellers.

 

.. While Google Books has digitized large numbers of journal back issues, its scans do not include the metadata required for identifying specific articles in specific issues. This has led the makers of Google Scholar to start their own program to digitize and host older journal articles (in agreement with their publishers).[43]

.. The Google Books Library Project is aimed at scanning and making searchable the collections of several major research libraries.[44] Along with bibliographic information, snippets of text from a book are often viewable. If a book is out of copyright and in the public domain, the book is fully available to read or download.[14]

Hiring teams in addition to hiring individuals?

I am wondering if the Internet Archive, and tech orgs more generally, could effectively hire teams in addition to hiring individuals.  I am thinking of 4 or 5 people that could work effectively with each other, be remote from HQ, but be really “hired” in the sense that they assimilate and integrate with the rest of the organization.  I have not tried this, so this is just random thoughts at this point.

.. How to be effective remote workers:  San Francisco is a tough place to move to, but what if a team operating in another area or another country but then went to job hunt in San Francisco, and did some training there, but then mostly lived and worked in their home location. They could learn from each other to bring up younger workers and can recruit to replace people in their team. To integrate with other people and teams in the organization they should switch people’s projects otherwise silos could solidify.  This team would then really work for the organization, not just for the team.

.. The communications issues can ease management issues with remote workers: some people are better coders than communicators, but good communications is essential in remote work, and in modern tech work in general.  What if the team had a mix of different skill sets?

.. The Internet Archive has successful teams working as scanning centers around the world, so it works for this task.  Can it work for tech groups? Don’t know but maybe we should try.