Snakes in a Motel

Canadian animal welfare officers have rescued 40 distressed pythons from plastic storage bins in a motel room in Brantford, a city about 100 km southwest of Toronto. The snakes, ranging from 30cm to 137cm long, belonged to guests, a manager at the motel said. The couple, who had checked into a room for one night, were out when police seized the animals on Thursday evening (Eastern Daylight Time). Pythons are not legal for home ownership in Brantford, according to the city's animal control by-laws. So why did they even have them on their person? Were they planning on eating them? Let's not dwell on that because contrary to popular thinking, Google doesn't always get its way when it comes to all things Internet - at least, not if the latest pronouncement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is any indication. ICANN, the organization in charge of a major overhaul of Internet addresses, ruled this week that it's passed a resolution prohibiting so-called dotless domain names, essentially putting the kibosh on Google's plans for a dotless "http://search" domain. Google outlined its interest in the dotless search domain in a letter it sent to the ICANN board in April. The idea behind a dotless domain is that a top-level domain name could resolve without a dot - for instance, http://music instead of http://amazon.music. Sounds handy, but dotless domain names have their disadvantages. Well before Google sent its letter to the organization, ICANN had already warned that dotless domain names could be detrimental to the Internet. A report (PDF) last year said the group's staff "recommends strongly against their use" and urged that dotless domains be "contractually prohibited where appropriate and strongly discouraged in all cases." ICANN explained that dotless domains can break applications and protocols such as SMTP. They could also create incompatibilities with intranets. Nevertheless, Google needn't give up entirely on all its plans. There's still the possibility that it may end up owning the .search generic top-level domain (gTLD), even if it's not allowed to operate it as a dotless domain. But enough about that because residents accusing the Earthquake Commission (EQC) of bullying their way out of repairs are considering a collective lawsuit to get their homes fixed. EQC now requires homeowners with wiring and other aspects not up to new codes to upgrade at their own expense, or accept a payout instead of repairs. At a public meeting in the Christchurch suburb of Burwood today, affected residents will discuss joining forces to take the commission to court. The meeting has been called by Warwick and Judith Stephens, who said EQC had refused to fix their Avondale home because of the thickness of a concrete driveway slab. They also want EQC top brass, local politicians, and interest groups to attend. The commission was "using excuses" and "grasping at straws", Warwick Stephens said. He estimated 5500 people were in a similar situation.