A Humorous Introduction To IPv6

zollman writes "Jonathan Richards, in the London times, explains how the introduction of IPv6 will change the Internet. From the article: 'As use [of the Internet] grew, it became clear that the old protocol, IPv4, wasn't big enough, so a new one was created using 32-bit numbers. That increased the number of available addresses to 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion -- enough for the foreseeable future.'"

Comments

Fuzzy Math

[Wonko the Sane]

I think the author doesn't really understand binary math.

They gave each address a "16-bit" number, which meant that the total number of available addresses worked out at about four billion (2 to the power of 32).

Re:Fuzzy Math

[skraps]

Here are some interesting order-of-magnitude comparisons.

Funny?

[Umbral Blot]

Um, I guess it as somewhat informative (if you didn't you about IPv6 already, if you didn't you should leave /. right now). I don't see how it was funny though. Am I missing something obvious?

This is humorous?

[Caspian]

I somehow forgot to laugh.

Re:This is humorous?

[rm999]

"the funny part is how many mistakes this guy made writing such a short article"

That is not funny. Laughing at non-technical people for making technical mistakes is intellectually elitist, pompous and displays a bad sense of humor.

Sorry for being so harsh, but I hate it when nerds belittle non-nerds to make themselves feel better. Yes, this guy is a bad journalist - should it really be on the front page of slashdot though?

Re:This is humorous?

[CastrTroy]

He's writing a freaking article. He's not talking to his friends at the bar. He's actually writing an article in The Times that millions of people may read. If I wrote an article in the news paper saying that G.W. Bush is a communist, then would I be let off because i'm not a political scientist? If you're going to bother to write something that millions of people may read, then you had better make sure you have at least the basic facts correct. It seems to me like the author read somewhere that there was going to be 340..... addressees, and then made up the rest from what he thought sounded right, without doing any actual research.

Re:This is humorous?

[drsquare]

What's elitist about expecting a technical article on a technical subject to be technically correct?

Re:This is humorous?

[Dun Malg]

What's elitist about expecting a technical article on a technical subject to be technically correct?

My thoughts exactly. There do seem to be some out there who think that full credit should be awarded merely for effort, even if the results are completely lacking; or that anything done in jest is free to be wildly inaccurate in any way, failing to understand that humor (exaggerative humor especially) must be firmly rooted on a bed of truth.

Quotation Fingers

[XanC]

Always weird to see what journalists feel aren't real words and need to be quoted. These "16-bit" "addresses" allow "packets" to "reach" their "destinations".

Re:A New British Math?

[Bender0x7D1]

This apparant discrepancy stems from the fact that not everyone on the planet has an email address.

We can solve for the assumed number of email accounts in use by:

50 billion emails sent = 32 emails received * number of email accounts to receive them
50 billion emails sent / 32 emails received = 1.56 billion email accounts to receive them

According to the this page with World Internet Usage Stats, the number of people online is: 1,022,863,307. Meaning that the average person has 1.5 email accounts. True, some have a lot more email accounts, but there are also a lot of people who only have the one their ISP provides them. While I won't say these are the correct numbers, they are certainly in the ballpark.

Wait a sec.

[PatTheGreat]

The very last thing in the article is "8 The average age at which a child gets a mobile phone in Britain."

Now, it seems to me that not every kid out there gets a mobile phone. Shouldn't this push average WAY up? I can't believe that eight year olds need cell phones. Who are they calling? Why are they calling? What is wrong with today's society?

Dang whippersnappers. How can I be 18 and feel old and set in my ways? It just ain't right.

Re:London Times?

[CastrTroy]

Exactly. If you live in New York and someone mentions "The Times" they assume you're talking about the New York Times. Same thing goes for LA. That's why you have toe specify London when talking about The Times (from London) because otherwise nobody will know which one you're talking about.

Two Thirds... not used so much

[StarWreck]

People who've been behind the scenes know that in reality not anywhere near 2/3 of IPv4 is currently being used up. Large swaths of IP thats supposedly being used are abandoned. Entire Class A segments are assigned to companies that were large at one time but have since been swept aside and they get to keep their unused Class A networks for some obscure "historical" purpose. If abandoned chunks were released for use to currently functioning companies we wouldn't need IPv6 for 20 more years!

Better yet, since it's a WEB PAGE...

[The Monster]

Rather than explaining each term parenthetically, it would be better to introduce any jargon terms in the form of a nice clickable link to the definition, or even allow an on-hover tooltip that explains the new concept. This is a technique I'm trying to use in my own writing; any attempt to explain an idea fully will bore more knowledgable readers to tears, while failing to do so will leave the newbies behind.

Some day, I'll be able to make an entire sentence of a single word:

Heh.

Then I'll know I'm good.