On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 12:04:05PM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 07:28:31PM +0100, Chris Benson wrote:
> > it'll-only-happen-once change where the entire country moved to
> > (XXXX) YYYY-ZZZZ
>
> Twelve and eight digit phone numbers? So phalanxes of psychologists
> noting that the human brain has the magic number seven genetically
> imprinted into it should just be tossed out the window?
That's 7+/-2 remember and the 7-2 crowd are screwed anyway :-) so
why not up the ante a bit more! Anyway who remembers full telephone
numbers? my GF used to be tyneside(0191), jesmond(281), 1143,
the taxi is tyneside(0191), newcastle-centre(261), 2222.
> I still don't see what's wrong with the US system. Sure, it's filling
> up but then the population is 5x the UK and I'd bet they have more
> per capita business (i.e. allocated business lines) than the UK.
But it *is* filling up now: the aim being, like with IPng, to not
have to change again:
<neat quote from the Economist about IPv6>
... 4 billion addresses for each of 4 billion people on each of
4 billion planets in each of 4 billion galaxies. This should be
enough to cope with expected growth in numbers of mobile devices,
Internet-capable household appliances and so on for the next
few millenia.
</neat>
> Anyway, the whole 'numbers' thing is long over due to be replaced by
> those new fangled 'letters'. Works for DNS...
But DNS maps onto ... numbers, 4-12 digit numbers, soon to be luvverly
8 x 4 hex digits!
And I'd rather dial 999^W112 than mm,mmm,r,rrr,fff,u,m,aa,r,i,a,#,p,mmm,
.... or whatever "northumbria police" translates to :-)
Hey, maybe this is another 8uffy encoding system?
> > Instead we get a numbering system consisting entirely of patches :-(
>
> Yes, it's embarrassing. "So, why *is* your country's phone system so
> utterly hosed?"
I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question since you've asked it in polite
company :-)
But you have to wonder: BT, RailTrack & the ToCs, Water Co.s, ...
The Dome, ... I've actually started sending DepressoGrams(tm) to
homesick friends in New Zealand to make them feel better!
--
Chris Benson
