The Pitcairn Islands. What are they? Where are they? Are they for real?
I thought it sounded like the islands where “Sabine” comes from in Griffin & Sabine– but it isn’t, that would be the “Sicmon Islands.” There is even a site where this guy tries to extrapolate where the Sicmon Islands are, which is too funny. Why was I even thinking about the Pitcairn Islands? Shac recently showed me thisIANA report on the history of redelegation of the .pn top-level domain.
A top-level domain is the set of all the machine names (used in URLs, like “www.prestonscandy.com” which end in a particular word- like “.com” or “.net.” Other countries have their own top-level domains- so for example Amazon‘s Japanese site is www.amazon.co.jp, because Japan’s top-level domain is “.jp.”
Okay now that we’re caught up: the IANA report
describes the (not very interesting) history of the account… then, as part of its analysis, describes the population-
has a total population consisting of approximately 50 descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian wives.
…and the state of the existing information infrastructure:
Pitcairn Island’s telephone service consists of a local party-line telephone system. International telephone service is limited to Inmarsat service within a daily window. The local system is not presently capable of transmitting e-mail. The island has no airstrip. The economy consists of subsistence farming, fishing, and handicrafts made for sale to passing ships.
And now they have their own top-level domain! I just think that’s funny.
The Pitcairn Islands, like their fictional counterparts in Nick Bantock’s books, have their own stamps… although of course they are not quite as pretty. And since they are printed in Singapore and the entire island is only 50 people, I have the impression they are mostly used for collecting, rather than actual postage.- Official site for Griffin & Sabine
- Official site for Nick Bantock
- Nick Bantock rubber stamps
I thought the Pitcairn Islands sounded like the islands where “Sabine” comes from in Griffin & Sabine– but it isn’t, that would be the “Sicmon Islands.” There is even a site where this guy tries to extrapolate where the Sicmon Islands are, which is too funny.