Most people have heard of IP addresses (the numbers behind the dotcoms): every computer connected to the internet requires one. Did you know that the supply is soon to run out? It's my business to care about such things. (There's a song & a pretty picture further below for those who may become numbed by it all...)
These addresses are limited to 4 binary octets (or 32-bit), giving a total of some 4.3 billion addresses (many reserved or otherwise unusable). As a consequence, the usable addresses will be exhausted most likely by the end of 2010.
At least, this is the case with the current standard (IPv4). As this becomes deprecated it will be replaced by IPv6 - the numbers involved with which are staggering. The new (actually now decade-old) standard will be 128-bit. A single sub-net in the new architecture is 2^64 addresses, which equates to the square of the size of the entire Internet (well, the IPv4 incarnation).
Wiki tells me that this is the same number of IP addresses per person as the number of atoms in a metric ton of carbon. And we all know wiki never lies.
-Days of the New - Dirty Road
-
So, does that mean that the internet will crash? What will happen, Bobby?
ReplyDeleteAlso - did you know that Cat Power has this sweet-as tune called 'Song For Bobby'? I was doing my makeup yesterday and it came on and I thought of you. Have a great day!
I reckon we give it a reboot and the problem should go away.
ReplyDeleteOh thankyou for turning me on to this! piano... guitar... husky vocals... yes please.
You know, I've written songs for others but not-so-secretly dream about having one written for me, so I'll just pretend this one's mine and not about Bob Dylan =)