Been watching Fringe, and regretting it. Every episode I nearly have an aneurysm. Like, for example, this supposed IP address (by the way, immediately resolved to a street address somehow):
*holds head in hands* Don't they have a tech editor?
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Crap, I'm just not enough of a geek to get the joke (a first on Flare, I must confess).
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Yeah, I don't get the problem either. Of course, I'm an engineer, not an IT person.
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
Each segment of an IP address is an eight bit number. The maximum value you can represent with an eight bit number is 255. Therefore, the "largest" IP address could be 255.255.255.255. That being said, using a "real" IP address is dangerous for the same reason using "real" URLs is dangerous. The could have at least used something in 10.0.0.0/8, or even better, 169.254.0.0/16...
Additionally, each block of IP addresses is what maps to a street address... of the owner of the IP, i.e. the ISP, not the actual current end user of the address. In order to figure out where the user of the IP is (or claims to be), they'd need to ask the ISP, and that requires a warrant.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
What really gets me is that *every single* byte in that address is over 255
Sorry for just assuming this didn't need explanation. 'Pologies.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Ok, I have to ask, what is it with yanks and stupidly high house numbers? Just how long does a street have to be to get a number that high?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
A number in the 1100s? Eleven blocks.
Of course, the street itself doesn't need to be that long, because the numbers usually radiate out from a certain point within the city. Think of it like a graph. This block is eleven units away from one of the axes, even if the street itself is only one block long.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
TSN:
quote:This block is eleven units away from one of the axes, even if the street itself is only one block long.
Transparent domestium?? It would take years just to figure out the dynamics of this matrix!
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Stupidly high? That's a rather low number in my experience. My own number is more than twice that, and I've had past addresses that were in the 5 digit range.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well that's just crazy. Numbers should start at one end of the street, evens on the right, odds on the left and stop at the other end. Why would they need to be a grid reference?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Rev:
Where I live, we've got four quadrants: NW, NE, SW, SE. I have to specify my address as XXXX Cathedral Ave NW or I'll never get anything.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Isn't that what postcodes are for? (You lot call them Zip codes, yes?) When I ring up the local chinese, all they need for a delivery is my postcode (XX# #XX) and my TWO DIGIT house number and they know exactly where I live. Hell you can find me on google maps with just that and when I used to work in a despatch department, that's exactly what we used to confirm addresses anywhere in the UK.
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
Unlike UK postal codes, US zip codes cover a large geographical area. My zip code, 98087, covers half of the city I live in. The zip+4 system can narrow it down quite a bit, but the USPS charges an arm and a leg for that database.
Washington also uses the quadrant system, but I haven't yet determined the exact magic they use for the directions (I suspect it's quadrants of the county, but I'm not sure of this). All minor roads and most major roads here are numbered.
I'm on 143rd St SW, but it runs for maybe a quarter mile total, then picks up a few blocks east and a few blocks west (west is a highway, east is a freeway). This is where the fun begins. The area is a heavily developed suburb, so there are plenty of short streets. Directly north of us is 142nd St, then north of that is, get this, 142nd Pl. Why? Because they fall in the horizontal section that gets streets named 142nd, even if they have to fit two of them in.
I used to live on 164th St SW, which runs almost half the length of the city, and is a major road (as are most roads divisible by 32 and some divisible by 16). However, when crossing a certain street, 164th St SW becomes 164th St SE, and the address numbers start over. I had a visitor get lost terribly at one point in another city because he thought the address was SE instead of SW.
This is one of many reasons I am now glad to have a GPS available.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Thankfully that's only in cities though. Here in suburbia, we may have 5 digit house numbers, mine's 4, though, but there's none of that grid crap. Every street has a nice, pleasant sounding name.
Although, Zip codes is where it gets screwey. I live in the town of Boston, whose zip code is 14025, but my mailing address, uses the Hamburg NY zip code of 14075. It's odd. There's a post office within walking distance of my house, yet our mail goes through the post office more than 10 miles away.
Posted by Blue387 (Member # 2157) on :
Sometimes you can have addressed with hyphens. For example, in Queens neighborhoods here in NYC, you can get addresses like:
Flushing Hospital 146-01 45th Avenue Flushing, NY 11355
Throw in confusion with the multiple 45th Avenues, 45th Boulevard, 45th Street and 45th Drive.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Just because there are five times ans many Americans, that doesn't mean you have to make the system five times as complicated!
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Charles Capps: Unlike UK postal codes, US zip codes cover a large geographical area. My zip code, 98087, covers half of the city I live in. The zip+4 system can narrow it down quite a bit, but the USPS charges an arm and a leg for that database.
Washington also uses the quadrant system, but I haven't yet determined the exact magic they use for the directions (I suspect it's quadrants of the county, but I'm not sure of this). All minor roads and most major roads here are numbered.
I'm on 143rd St SW, but it runs for maybe a quarter mile total, then picks up a few blocks east and a few blocks west (west is a highway, east is a freeway). This is where the fun begins. The area is a heavily developed suburb, so there are plenty of short streets. Directly north of us is 142nd St, then north of that is, get this, 142nd Pl. Why? Because they fall in the horizontal section that gets streets named 142nd, even if they have to fit two of them in.
I used to live on 164th St SW, which runs almost half the length of the city, and is a major road (as are most roads divisible by 32 and some divisible by 16). However, when crossing a certain street, 164th St SW becomes 164th St SE, and the address numbers start over. I had a visitor get lost terribly at one point in another city because he thought the address was SE instead of SW.
This is one of many reasons I am now glad to have a GPS available.
Ok, a quick calculation shows that the UK post code system allows for 45,697,600 permutations, which granted is just fine for an island this size (and I dare say central London accounts for a good 97% of those codes) but if you just add on another two letters (not counting a state specific abbreviation) then you're up to 30,891,577,600. Surely that's enough to cover even the largest or most densely populated state.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
quote:if you just add on another two letters (not counting a state specific abbreviation) then you're up to 30,891,577,600. Surely that's enough to cover even the largest or most densely populated state.
You're right, that sounds exactly like the thinking of a machine to me.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
So how come when I write to my grandparents I have to write a house number, street, some other noun ('Primrose'), the city and postal code, and then what I assume to be the county, if UK addresses are so short? Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well because they're grandparents, obviously.
In reality the house number, street and post code should get it there, it'd just take longer. The more complete the address, the quicker it get sorted. I've had post arrive with just my name, village, city (the wrong city, as it happens) and 'UK' written on it. Took about a month from the stamp by the look of it, but it got here.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Post without the post code in the UK can get to the addressee just as fast - I've had a post card addressed similarly to Reverend get here in 2 days from Jersey, which is pretty much overseas as far as the post office is concerned.
I imagine Daniels granny and grandad live outside of a post town (i.e. one with a main sorting office), complicating matters.
UK post codes are fairly simple. They have an outwards bit, telling which postal area the letter needs to get to, and an inwards bit telling the sorting office which route it can be found on.
An example: SW1 1AA
The SW1 (the outwards part) tells you it's going to South West London. The letters are usualy abreviated from the post town, like EH for Edinburgh, CT for Canterbury, SL for Slough etc. The 1 indicates the district within that post town (if you like, which sorting office in SW London deals with that address).
The 1AA (inwards part) tells you its in sector 1, and the AA bit reduces this to a smaller number of properties, so around 20 houses might have the same postcode, but they will all be on the same street. A big business might have a postcode all to itself.
Although most people don't care how it works, just as long as their letter gets there.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Oh, and Daniel, do your Grandparents live in Primrose, Surrey? That's not too far from my college.
Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :
The map is actually pointing to a real Strathmore Road (not Boulevard) in Boston. Ironically, given the conversation here in this thread, the addresses on Strathmore Road only go up to about 200!
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