I get to play with IPv6!
A month ago I signed up for Comcast’s IPv6 test roll out. I just got an email from Comcast that says we get to participate! They even provide a free IPv6 router. I’m very excited to be part of a group of the very first consumers to have IPv6. So cool!
For those not in the know, the Internet currently works on IPv4 which are the unique numerical addresses behind every host name. www.google.com, for example, would translate to 64.233.169.103. Each computer or device you use also has one. This is the fundamental communication scheme on the Internet. Turns out, IPv4 is 32-bit which only allows for 3.7 billion addresses. We’re just about out of them! IPv4 has been around since the 60′s and no one then foresaw just how huge the Internet would become. When you consider there are 6.6 billion people in the world and many have multiple Internet connected devices you can start to get the idea…there just aren’t enough addresses for everything. This has been mitigated somewhat in recent years with NAT but even with that we’re still running out. And when we’re out, that’s it, no new devices connected to the Internet!
Enter IPv6: 128-bit addresses with about 2128 number of addresses available. This is a mind bogglingly huge number. You can’t really say it or write it in any sort of meaningful way without resorting to math notation.
This guy did the calcs and came up with this number:
340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
I think it’s safe to say we won’t run out any time soon. It’s very difficult to replace the fundamental communication layer on the Internet. Every ISP, private company, and individual in the world will have to do something for it to happen. Getting the whole world to coordinate on something is exceptionally difficult. Not to mention billions of dollars in legacy hardware (every router, firewall, switch etc) that would need to updated to support it. It’s a very difficult situation and we’re just beginning to tackle it. Comcast is making a great first step here.
I will be reporting on my experiences using IPv6 and whatever public IPv6 services are available. I hear Google is already available over IPv6. Terribly exciting to be on the forefront of what amounts to a revolution in how the Internet works.
Smoke Ring Collision
Perdy.
What Came Before the Big Bang?
String theorists Neil Turok of Cambridge University and Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein Professor in Science and Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton believe that the cosmos we live in was actually created by the cyclical trillion-year collision of two universes which they define as three-dimensional branes plus time that were attracted toward each other by the leaking of gravity out of one of the universes.
via What Came Before the Big Bang? Leading Physicist Presents a Radical Theory.
Electric toothbrush and drums = Fun!
Easy Fun way to find the resonate frequency of your cymbals. Use the bristle side and set it gently against the cymbal. Slowly press harder until you get a sudden loud ringing tone. Get it resonating real good with a solid tone, record it and match the note with a piano or guitar. Our ride cymbal is a G, dead on, which is 392 Hz. Against the drums we got some awesome sliding tone sounds. Super Mom Laura had the idea. Jack had fun experimenting. Good times. Listen:
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Cubestormer
Made from lego robotics kits. Solves any Rubik’s cube puzzle in 12 seconds. Wish I had that kind of free time…
Buzz – Freeing your information
Just throwing this out there as I’m seeing a lot of confusion about what Google is trying to do with Buzz. Buzz is not meant to replace Facebook, Twitter, MySpace et al. It’s intended to force open the walled social network model. They believe the social networking platform should not matter. Facebook users should be able to friend and follow users from any other social network and vice-versa. In their proposed model, I could easily open my own social network site and be able to participate in all the other social networks from it. Really, it’s freeing the information behind these “walled” networks. Buzz just becomes another node in a larger inter-connected social networking ecosystem. The web becomes one immense social network. Sort of brilliant really. Reminds me of something Trent the Uncatchable would think up.
Further reading:
DeWitt Clinton from Google – Stating Google’s intentions
The Buzz API site – Backs up DeWitt with proposed protocols and programming info
Discovery News- Stephen Hawking is Such a Troublemaker
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