#TUMBLR'S HYPERLINK LIMIT HAS FORCED ME INTO THIS

[benzgarfield]

BenzGarfield Timeline 2024

January

Pit Babe x FEED January 11, 2024

February

Japan Expo Thailand Feb 3, 2024

Pit Babe Final EP Feb 9, 2024

Pit Babe Valentine's Live Feb 14, 2024

March

Love's Journey Bangkok March 2-3, 2024

Love's Journey Hong Kong March 16, 2024

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans Presscon March 20, 2024

Vanillin Spring Summer Show March 23, 2024

EFM Fandom Live March 28, 2024

April

Love's Journey Tokyo April 7, 2024

Change 2561 Changing April 25, 2024

May

Love's Journey Korea May 11, 2024

Love's Journey Taipei May 19, 2024

TLDHLB Kaprao Challenge May 24, 2024

June

Love's Journey Vietnam June 8, 2024

Love4Garfieldmily June 16, 2024

TLDHLB Blessing Ceremony June 20, 2024

Love's Journey Manila June 22, 2024

Tsubaki x BenzGarfield June 29, 2024

July

TLDHLB Premiere July 5, 2024

EFM Fandom Live July 11, 2024

Plern Live July 12, 2024

Daily News July 12, 2024

FEED July 12, 2024

Love's Journey Macao July 14, 2024

Mellowpop July 17, 2024

TLDHLB Sound Check July 17, 2024 (aired July 23)

KAZZ Online July 17, 2024

Praew Talk July 21, 2024

Chato Studio July 24, 2024

S Vorarit Bday July 31, 2024

August

4x4 Celebrity Gameshow August 3, 2024

iQiyi Check-in August 4, 2024

Kluer Wonder August 5, 2024

TLDHLB Cast Crew Karaoke Party August 7, 2024

PoohPavel First Date August 10, 2024

Love's Journey Brazil August 17, 2024

TLDHLB Final EP August 23, 2024

BenzGarfield Sunshine Day August 25, 2024

Affair First EP August 30, 2024

ADDA Let's Walk Together August 31, 2024

September

Benz MBK Bday Project September 1, 2024

Fluke's Bday September 1, 2024

Comma And September 3, 2024

Love's Journey Cambodia September 8, 2024

Benz's Bday Party September 14, 2024

BenzGarfield x Dr Ally Sun September 15, 2024

FEED Y Awards September 21, 2024

Evotec September 27, 2024

SX Charity Concert September 28, 2024

IDEA Live September 30, 2024

October

Benz's Graduation October 3, 2024

BIFW October 4, 2024

Torriden October 11, 2024

Pit Babe the Movie October 17, 2024

Prada Opening October 18, 2024

November

iQiyi iJoy November 1, 2024

SWU Open House November 10, 2024

Quickzabb with Benzalert November 16, 2024

Pit Babe 1st Anniversary November 16 & 17, 2024

SailubPon & BenzGarfield Manila Fanmeet November 23, 2024

December

BenzGarfield Made My Day December 1, 2024

Pit Babe 2 Fitting December 12, 2024

Amazing Thailand Countdown December 31, 2024

Part 1 (2023) Part 2 (2025)

[figjelly]

About .io Domains

Okay, so I have a friend who I’ve been working with on a project. Friend made a decision to host on a .io site. I’ve been seeing this crop up a lot, so I was curious: What is the .io domain? Let’s start with the basics: the internet is simply a way to describe how a bunch of devices are connected via a particular protocol (communications and networking is a weird beast). To describe where devices are in this complicated space, hierarchies of domains are used. Top-level domains just mean the highest and, therefore, biggest umbrellas in the Domain Name System (just a system that is used for naming things connected to the internet). If you live in the United States, .com, .gov, and .edu are examples of top-level domains. .io is a country code top-level domain. All this means is that the domain is for use in a particular area. Which area? .io = British Indian Ocean Territory

From Wikipedia: “The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islands – many very small – amounting to a total land area of 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi).[6]  The largest and most southerly island is Diego Garcia, 27 km2 (10 sq mi), the site of a joint military facility of the United Kingdom and the United States. The only inhabitants of the territory are US and British military personnel and associated contractors, who collectively number around 2,500 (2012 figures).[4]  The removal of Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago occurred between 1968 and 1973.  The Chagossians, then numbering about 2,000 people, were expelled by the British government to Mauritius and Seychelles to allow the United States to build a joint UK/US military base there. Today, the exiled Chagossians are still trying to return, arguing that the forced expulsion and dispossession was illegal.[9][10]  The islands are off-limits to Chagossians, casual tourists, and the media.” [All the hyperlinks and bold and pretty much any formatting I kept from the original text.] Oh, gee golly. None of that looks particularly good. So, there I am, wondering why this domain has gotten so popular. First use seems to be in 1997 by Levi Strauss. Wikipedia gives me a lot of info but this part is particularly useful: “One reason given for the TLD's popularity is that it stands out by being shorter than other TLDs. Also, the .io TLD is less occupied than other TLDs, so it's more likely that a given term is available there.” TLD = top-level domain, so it’s talking about .io here. It’s less occupied so that means lots of catchy site names are available. One example we might all be familiar with is pillowfort, the forerunner after the Great Tumblr Apocalypse of December 2018. The network information center describes .io’s as thus: 1. .io is a new domain and therefore many more names are available. 2. Registrations are accepted quickly and efficiently. 3. Fast access to your domain from anywhere in the world. (source: nic.io as of 12.29.2018). Tagline for .io domains? “the domain powering the next generation of social websites” [copied straight from the site so all capitalization and punctuation is original] Okay, so it looks like it’s popular with start-up companies because of the the shortened TLD (.io) and the availability of names one can use for a site. Granted, I don’t do anything with networking. But, pragmatically speaking, it sounds like this area might not be the greatest at handling a lot of traffic and there might be a lot of DNS (Domain Name System) outages. Which is, um, saying, if too many people try to do too many things on it, there might be outages so no one can use it. If someone is more familiar with the particulars of networking when it comes to generic vs country use domains, please chime in. Okay, but then there’s the part where my own personal ethics/morals/values are kinda at play here: Okay, thanks wikipedia for all that info on the .io domain! I’ll be-- Wait. According to a Gigaom interview with Paul Kane, chairman of the Internet Computer Bureau, the domain name registry is required to give some of its profits to the British government, for administration of the British Indian Ocean Territory.[13] After being questioned as a result of the interview, the British Government denied receiving any funds from the sale of .io domain names, and argued that consequently, the profits could not be shared with the Chagossians, the former inhabitants forcibly removed by the British government.[14][15]  Okay, okay, so don’t take wikipedia’s word for it. Go read the article. Aptly titled: “The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal.” It does sound a little biased but I look into Gigaom and they’re a technology research and analysis firm. Our focus is on helping business leaders understand the implications of emerging technologies and their impacts on business, media, and society. I don’t know much about it. I go back to wikipedia. “The blog offers news, analysis, and opinions on startup companies, emerging technologies, and other technology related topics.” I decide to trust the article and go ahead and read it. Written in 2014, not new. It sounds well-researched and historically-grounded. First two paragraphs: “The .io country code top-level domain is pretty popular right now, particularly among tech startups that want to take advantage of the snappy input/output reference and the relative availability of names — Fusion.io, Wise.io and Import.io are just a few examples. But who benefits from the sale of .io domains? Sadly, not the people who ultimately should. While .tv brings in millions of dollars each year for the tiny South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, and .me benefits Montenegro, the people of the British Indian Ocean Territory, or the Chagos Islands, have no such luck. Indeed, profits from the sale of each .io domain flow to the very force that expelled the Chagossian or Ilois people from their equatorial land just a generation or two ago: the British government.“ So, hmm. Okay. I’m learning a lot about country-code top-level domains today (aka ccTLDs). Looks like the snappy TLDs we’ve been seeing are actually just ccTLDs that companies use to be cute and standout but, yanno, it seems only right to compensate people who live in that area since they’re domain is being used and not by them. Except, the people of the .io domain: the Chagossian. Here’s an article I found of a .io company that learned of the problem with the domain and immediately backtracked This looks like an interesting site (.io domain) but looks dedicated to making sure the way British and U.S. governments are treating the Chagossian are known This article does a great job at connecting modern networking and British involvement in the area. Looks like another perspective talking about why .io is popular with start-ups.

An article from independent.co.uk

So, yeah, my takeaway is that .io is being used by people with money to give to a couple of really bad governments and, surprise, second verse same as the first. I’d be really curious as to what the makers of pillowfort have to make of this as it seems like a lot of start-up companies don’t know this is going on. Mind you, this isn’t some X vs Y thing I’m starting about the superiority of Tumblr (tumblr sucks ass). I just worry about making sure I ethically consume crap or whatever (despite being poor and living in the United States).