.shop

.shop is a proposed top-level domain (TLD) for the Internet, submitted to ICANN for approval as a sponsored TLD (sTLD). Nine companies including Google, Amazon and Famous Four Media have filed applications for this TLD.

History

The idea of a .shop generic top-level domain was around since at least 1999, when an attempt to register it with IAHC was made. Its proposed usage is similar to current endeavors: to provide a dedicated space for ecommerce on the Internet. In 2000, Commercial Connect, LLC requested to operate a .shop registry from ICANN .

Commercial Connect's application from 2000 was well-received, but other domains were prioritized. It is still considered by ICANN to be pending. Japan's GMO Registry also expressed interest in the top level domain name space in late 2009, though Commercial Connect was the most vested candidate that had taken prior steps towards attaining delegation. In 2011, Commerccial Connect was reported to have the support of ecommerce companies, with its completed application awaiting final approval as of June 2010. To further this support, Richard E. Last of the National Retail Federation and shop.org joined the board in late 2011.

Shop

Shop may refer to:

ITV Granada

ITV Granada (formerly Granada Television or Granada TV) is the Channel 3 regional service for North West England. The licence for the region has been held by ITV Broadcasting Limited since November 2008. It is the largest independent television-franchise producing company in the UK, accounting for 25% of the total broadcasting output of the ITV network. It had been held by Granada Television, which was founded by Sidney Bernstein and based at Granada Studios on Quay Street in Manchester since its inception. This was the only surviving company of the original four Independent Television Authority franchisees from 1954; Granada Media Group (parent company of Granada Television) merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc in 2004. It covers Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, northwestern Derbyshire, part of Cumbria and North Yorkshire. On 15 July 2009, the Isle of Man was transferred to ITV Granada from ITV Border (even though the Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency and is not part of the United Kingdom).

Astronomy

Astronomy, a natural science, is the study of celestial objects (such as stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets and nebulae) and processes (such as supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation), the physics, chemistry, and evolution of such objects and processes, and more generally all phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with studying the Universe as a whole.

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, and Maya performed methodical observations of the night sky. However, the invention of the telescope was required before astronomy was able to develop into a modern science. Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is nowadays often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics.

Astronomy (Dragonland album)

Astronomy is the fourth studio album by Swedish power metal band Dragonland, released in Europe on November 13, 2006 and in North America on November 28, 2006. While their third album Starfall focused heavily on keyboards and had a more upbeat lyrical tone, according to guitarist Olof Mörck, Astronomy is "gloomier, more stygian and packed with crunching guitars; both furiously fast and bone-grindingly heavy."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Olof Mörck, except "Intuition", by Tony Harnell, Ronni Le Tekrø. 

Lyrical references

In a February 2007 interview with Metal Reviews, guitarist Olof Mörck went into details about some of musical and lyrical influences in Astronomy:

Astronomy (song)

"Astronomy" is a rock song by Blue Öyster Cult that has appeared on several of the band's albums. It was first published on their 1974 album Secret Treaties. Their second live album, Some Enchanted Evening, included a version with an extended guitar solo and a third version was included on the Imaginos album. It was also re-recorded for the band's Cult Classic collection in connection with the TV miniseries of Stephen King's The Stand. Most recently the song was included on the A Long Day's Night album.

Lyrics

The song's lyrics are selected verses from a poem by Sandy Pearlman, the band's producer and mastermind behind their image, called "The Soft Doctrines of Immaginos". In the poem, which was later partially released under the BÖC moniker in the album Imaginos, aliens known as Les Invisibles guide an altered human named Imaginos, also called Desdinova, through history, playing key roles that eventually lead to the outbreak of World War I.

In "Astronomy", the character of Imaginos comes to realize his heritage and his role as the altered human. References are made to celestial objects throughout the song: "The light that never warms" being the moon, "The Queenly flux" the constellation Cassiopeia, "My dog, fixed and consequent" being Sirius, the dog star. The "Four Winds Bar" may be a reference to the Tropic of Cancer. All in all, it has Imaginos explaining his position as part of Les Invisibles.