Yes but...
with four- or five letter domains they're not proper countries. Couldn't they find unused two-letter combinations?
While the Coalition government may oppose Scottish independence, it has nevertheless given the go-ahead to a Scottish move for independence on the internet. The UK government has reportedly granted Dot Scot Registry, a not-for-profit company, with approval to apply for .scot, a new internet top-level domain. The wannabe …
No. In ISO 3166-2, most of the 2-letter codes starting with S are already taken. AFAIK, only SF, SP, SQ, and SW are left. If you resorted to one based on "Ecosse", then EC and ES are taken. On the other hand, for the 1.2% of Scots who have the Gaelic, AB (for AlBa) is still available...
"with four- or five letter domains they're not proper countries"
Aye, right, says you Jimmy! It's just a convention to use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes in the Domain Name System as country code top-level domains. It's not always followed which is why this is theregister.co.uk instead of theregister.co.gb - so Scotland can have a different alpha-2 code than it's ccTLD. Plus being the first independent nation with a four letter ccTLD would be a mark of distinction, innovation and modernity.
When this story was first reported on the Scotsman the suggestion was .Sco, and I was the first person to point out that as four letter ccTLDs were available then Dot Scot made far more sense. Partly due to a dislike of Sco-Unix, but mostly because it rhymes and is more intuitive.
"With 92% of its previous population, and NI still part of it, there'll be nothing "former" about it"
you don't know much about history do you?
First there was the union of the Crowns by James 6th of Scotland/1st of England in 1603....
THEN...what made the "United Kingdom" was the act of the union in 1707... the uniting oif Scotland and England.
Wales being subsumed as a Principality of England already by then.
with Scotland Independent then there will be no united kingdom.
Northern Ireland has nothing to do with that at all.
So when Scotland does become independent the UK will be no longer. this is plain, simple, logical and factual and, for that matter, about 300 years overdue.
Saor Alba agus Alba gu Brath!
I see cybernats have even started invading El Reg...
Actually, (according to some at least), the term "United Kingdom" only came into official use in 1801 with the union with Ireland and the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. See here for instance. Before that it was just "Great Britain" (or possibly "Kingdom of Great Britain").
So, while there is still a part of Ireland united with (a part of) Britain, there is still an argument to call it the UK, and frankly it would be too much hassle to call it anything else.
My impression is that even the folk who go in for caber-tossing draw the line at haggis.
Of course, most Americans of Scottish descent are from the Lowlands, since most Scots were and are--the pockets of highlander descent in the Carolinas are pretty tiny. This does not prevent enthusiasts from pulling on the plaids & playing the pipes their ancestors of colonial times would have abhorred.
People pulling out the kilts and tartans, despite most of that tourist type tat having been masterminded by Sir Walter Scott stirring up Scot's patriotism and an attempt way to stop a Scottish worker's revolution in the 19th century shortly before King George toured the Highlands!
erm.. we also happen to be the biggest oil producing nation in Europe and thanks to a tony Blair cock up when he took 6000 square miles of Scottish territorial waters back in 1999 he accidentally gave Scotland al the mineral rights that would have been the "UK" rights to the antarctic..
also upon independence we would be due 8.7% of all UK assets.. such as the mineral rights to the Falklands and all sorts.
Try actually knowing your subject matter and stop making statements that even the tories/labour and fib dumbs won't even use any more.
This crap that scotland would not be financially able to cope is just that.. crap.
Scotland would actually be vastly better off, even now Scotland is in surplus but dragged down by UK debt and fiscal mis-management.
this is fact... try googling stuff once and a while... you may even find some facts instead of opinion based on the guff that's been spouted at Scots for years to tell us the sky will/is fall/falling down
.scot sounds great on paper, but in reality, despite the protestations of Scotnom Ltd, it is being exploited by Alex Salmond in his pitch for glory. Meanwhile we will have to stump up extra registrar fees to keep our trademarks safe.....again.
Sad that so many will be taken in by more toxic marketing: next we will hear that we are somehow less Scottish if we do not operate under the .scot gTLD.