12 ms·

Live Free or Die: The Origins of the Geek License Plate

49 points by CrankyBear 10y ago

GuiA 10y ago
> Connecticut introduced [vanity license plates] in 1937 as a perk for drivers with five years of accident free driving 1937 gamification, nice. I always wondered why more countries didn't offer vanity license plates. It's a trivial service to offer in the internet age, and has the potential to bring in a nice additional lump of money every year for the government. Plus, it's just fun.
- domador 10y ago
  Maybe other countries have larger numbers of conformists and squares in charge...
- fowl2 10y ago
  my state (in a different country) does - https://www.vplates.com.au/ https://www.vplates.com.au/
- seszett 10y ago
  > has the potential to bring in a nice additional lump of money every year for the government If there is a fee for these plates, it makes people more unequal than they already are in their relation to the state for no other reason than allowing the rich to show they are rich. Many places take the approach that the state should never provide different classes of services depending on who can afford them or not.
  - MrPatan 10y ago
    Venezuela is calling. They don't have anything snarky to say, they are just very hungry and would like some food, please, thanks.
    - seszett 10y ago
      You're obviously trying to make a point but I don't really get it, could you try to explain it without the snark?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Because, as we all know, equality == Venezuela. And in the same, intelligent manner, one can say: Hello, piss poor people in the US called, they'd like some food too.
  - cafard 10y ago
    Well, rich and (perhaps) vain: they are called vanity tags. I don't think that I could infer the relative wealth of the people I see by the tags on their cars. In your view are turnpikes and toll bridges OK?
    - seszett 10y ago
      > In your view are turnpikes and toll bridges OK? For private owned roads (or conceded to a private company for maintenance) they are OK of course, but not for state-maintained roads. Bridges are a bit different as they usually are much more expensive to build, but once the initial investment is recovered they should become toll-free IMO (once again, unless privately maintained). However, I think your question has little to do with what I was talking about: a better comparison would be having a second set of publicly-built parallel roads with higher tolls for those who can afford them, or offering higher toll fees allowing a higher speed limit. I personally wouldn't be OK with this.
      - cafard 10y ago
        The situation exists throughout the US. One can, as far as I know, get anywhere in Pennsylvania that the turnpike will take you without using the turnpike. It will just take a fair bit longer to do so.
  - douche 10y ago
    If vanity plates cost more per year than a large pizza, which has been roughly the case in every state I've lived in, I'd worry more about some sort of wealth signalling effect. And if I didn't see so many wrecks rolling down the road held together with bondo and baling wire sporting vanity plates... There's also often a whole suite of charity plates, where you can proudly display your support of XYZ for an additional fee, some of which is donated to charity. Growing up, I remember many people in Maine who thought the old lobster plates[1] were ugly enough to opt for the loonie plates[2]. [1] http://www.15q.net/us2/me00b.jpg http://www.15q.net/us2/me00b.jpg [2] http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/images/loonPlate.jpg http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/images/loonPlat...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjc50 10y ago
    That's a rather strange way of looking at it, since the custom plates aren't actually "better" in a functional sense. Just more desirable.
- DocTomoe 10y ago
  Sometimes, parts of the license numbers carry Information. For instance, German license plate KA-WT 342 is from the City of Karlsruhe ("KA"), and is privately registered (letters after the dash). KA-T 34H is a Karlsruhe privately-owned historic car (H at the end). KA-4734 is a car owned by the Regierungsbezirk Karlsruhe (most likely a police car) 0 57-274 is a car owned by the embassy of Indonesia in Germany (0 for diplomatic, 57 for Indonesia) BN-173-345H is a historic car owned by an UNHCR (173) employee with diplomatic immunity working from Bonn (BN). Cars owned by the UNHCR itself would be 0 173-788H... This kind of quick-glance information gets lost when you introduce vanity plates. We do have "Wunschkennzeichen", though, allowing you to choose the random letters and numbers from the pool of those combinations not yet used.
  - tremon 10y ago
    Does that also mean that Germans have to apply for new license plates when moving from one district to another, or does the license plate only refer to the district of original purchase?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      From other places where this holds, it only refers to the district of the original purchase. And people don't move that much either, so 90% of the plates or such are accurate as to their owner's district too.
    - DocTomoe 10y ago
      If you move, you used to get new license plates. There was talk about changing this, but I am not aware that it has.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      In Poland you have to get a new license plate every time the car changes its owner, unless they happen to live in the same city. But the first 2-3 letters change depending on where you live, and it's quite granular, so even if you sell your car to a city not far away it might need a new license plate.
- dingaling 10y ago
  Northern Ireland has a strange approach. Generally they follow a pre-1963 county-based system in monotonic sequential order but occasionally a profitable prefix arises; recently BIG nnnn where nnnn is integer. So they can reserve the 'nice' ones in the sequence e.g. BIG 1 and sell those on the market. But they don't sell them in advance of sequence.
microtherion 10y ago
One of my favorite geek license plates is '4BSD755' on a California car, which happens to perfectly match the format for a generic license plate in that state. It could be a coincidence, but I suspect not.
- toast0 10y ago
  California currently prohibits vanity plates which match the sequential plate patterns, although it's possible that was ordered before it was assigned and before they prohibited it. If it's a vehicle you see often, you can estimate the date of the plate based on its style and see if it was made earlier than it would have been if sequential. Edit: It looks like if it's sequential, it would be a white plate, with California in cursive at the current (large) size, where the descender on the f almost touches the plate number, and it might have no subtitle or the sesquicentennial subtitle.
  - jonah 10y ago
    I assumed that too, but it doesn't appear to be prohibited.[1] Indeed, I tried 8BSD755 and 9BSD755 which were accepted. (The current sequential plates start with 7.) [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/ipp2/initPers.do https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/ipp2/initPers.do
    - toast0 10y ago
      On the (paper) order form[1] it says: > DMV has the right to refuse any combination of letters and/or letters and numbers for any of the following reason(s): [...] it conficts with any regular license plate series issued. My understanding is that all vanity plates are reviewed by at least one human, so it's possible they handle denying vanity plates that fit the sequential series that probably should have been denied in the online form. [1] https://dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/6d97bdef-c5b1-46ee-a558-28ab938e4ec3/reg17.pdf?MOD=AJPERES https://dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/6d97bdef-c5b1-46ee-a55...
- bcbrown 10y ago
  My favorite was a VW Beetle with the plate "FEATURE". No, it's not a bug...
x1798DE 10y ago
Article is from 2012.
libeclipse 10y ago
Live free or die is also the motto of the U.S. state of New Hampshire, who ironically mandated that it be placed on all licence plates and attempted to sue people who refused. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die
- akvadrako 10y ago
  Although it's not clear from the title, the article is about the origins of fake license plates that were a copy of a NH license plate from the 1980's with the number "UNIX".
  - 7Z7 10y ago
    The article is about both real vanity plates and fake promotional ones.
  - erbo 10y ago
    Compaq later created similar promotional license plates with the number "LINUX," and yes, they still said "Live Free or Die" on them. I managed to wheedle one out of a trade show representative, knowing the history of the original "UNIX" promotional plates. Besides the motto and the big number, the plates carry the Compaq logo, "1999" (the year they were made), and the statement "LINUX is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds."
batbkw 10y ago
A new plate: https://twitter.com/barakkassar/status/788434103171284994 https://twitter.com/barakkassar/status/788434103171284994
shaftoe 10y ago
My favorite vanity licence plate is NULL. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361757
jgrahamc 10y ago
Driving up 280 one day I was overtaken by a hexadecimal-loving Shakespeare nerd with the license plate: 2B OR D4
jeffdubin 10y ago
Outside a Micro Center in central Ohio, on a nice lookin' Tesla, I saw the plate FSM 1337. I was convinced this was the geekiest geek around these parts, and when the guy walked up to the car to get in, I said "nice plate!". He had no idea what I was talking about. Zero. I had to explain the whole thing, and though I initially thought he was just pulling my leg, I then thought about it and realized that Ohio plates as given are three letters followed by four numbers. What are the chances???
- rhapsodic 10y ago
  Uh, to what does "FSM 1337" refer?
  - lwhalen 10y ago
    "Flying Spaghetti Monster", and '1337' is leet-speak for, well, 'leet'. Aka 'elite'.
- madcaptenor 10y ago
  This could happen in Georgia as well, which has the same license plate format. I'd like the plate CAB 1729, after the story Hardy told about Ramanujan. (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html) but I suspect that either someone out there already has it and doesn't know of its significance, or that they don't give out plates starting with CAB.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
michaelcampbell 10y ago
I had at various points in my life, "DAEMON" and "DEV NULL" (in FL). I go with a standard issue plate now on a totally generic car.
madcaptenor 10y ago
Knuth once wrote an article on mathematical vanity plates: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-010-9170-7 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-010-9170-7

49 points by CrankyBear 10y ago

GuiA 10y ago

> Connecticut introduced [vanity license plates] in 1937 as a perk for drivers with five years of accident free driving 1937 gamification, nice. I always wondered why more countries didn't offer vanity license plates. It's a trivial service to offer in the internet age, and has the potential to bring in a nice additional lump of money every year for the government. Plus, it's just fun.

domador 10y ago
Maybe other countries have larger numbers of conformists and squares in charge...
fowl2 10y ago
my state (in a different country) does - https://www.vplates.com.au/ https://www.vplates.com.au/
seszett 10y ago
> has the potential to bring in a nice additional lump of money every year for the government If there is a fee for these plates, it makes people more unequal than they already are in their relation to the state for no other reason than allowing the rich to show they are rich. Many places take the approach that the state should never provide different classes of services depending on who can afford them or not.
- MrPatan 10y ago
  Venezuela is calling. They don't have anything snarky to say, they are just very hungry and would like some food, please, thanks.
  - seszett 10y ago
    You're obviously trying to make a point but I don't really get it, could you try to explain it without the snark?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Because, as we all know, equality == Venezuela. And in the same, intelligent manner, one can say: Hello, piss poor people in the US called, they'd like some food too.
- cafard 10y ago
  Well, rich and (perhaps) vain: they are called vanity tags. I don't think that I could infer the relative wealth of the people I see by the tags on their cars. In your view are turnpikes and toll bridges OK?
  - seszett 10y ago
    > In your view are turnpikes and toll bridges OK? For private owned roads (or conceded to a private company for maintenance) they are OK of course, but not for state-maintained roads. Bridges are a bit different as they usually are much more expensive to build, but once the initial investment is recovered they should become toll-free IMO (once again, unless privately maintained). However, I think your question has little to do with what I was talking about: a better comparison would be having a second set of publicly-built parallel roads with higher tolls for those who can afford them, or offering higher toll fees allowing a higher speed limit. I personally wouldn't be OK with this.
    - cafard 10y ago
      The situation exists throughout the US. One can, as far as I know, get anywhere in Pennsylvania that the turnpike will take you without using the turnpike. It will just take a fair bit longer to do so.
- douche 10y ago
  If vanity plates cost more per year than a large pizza, which has been roughly the case in every state I've lived in, I'd worry more about some sort of wealth signalling effect. And if I didn't see so many wrecks rolling down the road held together with bondo and baling wire sporting vanity plates... There's also often a whole suite of charity plates, where you can proudly display your support of XYZ for an additional fee, some of which is donated to charity. Growing up, I remember many people in Maine who thought the old lobster plates[1] were ugly enough to opt for the loonie plates[2]. [1] http://www.15q.net/us2/me00b.jpg http://www.15q.net/us2/me00b.jpg [2] http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/images/loonPlate.jpg http://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/get_involved/images/loonPlat...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 10y ago
  That's a rather strange way of looking at it, since the custom plates aren't actually "better" in a functional sense. Just more desirable.
DocTomoe 10y ago
Sometimes, parts of the license numbers carry Information. For instance, German license plate KA-WT 342 is from the City of Karlsruhe ("KA"), and is privately registered (letters after the dash). KA-T 34H is a Karlsruhe privately-owned historic car (H at the end). KA-4734 is a car owned by the Regierungsbezirk Karlsruhe (most likely a police car) 0 57-274 is a car owned by the embassy of Indonesia in Germany (0 for diplomatic, 57 for Indonesia) BN-173-345H is a historic car owned by an UNHCR (173) employee with diplomatic immunity working from Bonn (BN). Cars owned by the UNHCR itself would be 0 173-788H... This kind of quick-glance information gets lost when you introduce vanity plates. We do have "Wunschkennzeichen", though, allowing you to choose the random letters and numbers from the pool of those combinations not yet used.
- tremon 10y ago
  Does that also mean that Germans have to apply for new license plates when moving from one district to another, or does the license plate only refer to the district of original purchase?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    From other places where this holds, it only refers to the district of the original purchase. And people don't move that much either, so 90% of the plates or such are accurate as to their owner's district too.
  - DocTomoe 10y ago
    If you move, you used to get new license plates. There was talk about changing this, but I am not aware that it has.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    In Poland you have to get a new license plate every time the car changes its owner, unless they happen to live in the same city. But the first 2-3 letters change depending on where you live, and it's quite granular, so even if you sell your car to a city not far away it might need a new license plate.
dingaling 10y ago
Northern Ireland has a strange approach. Generally they follow a pre-1963 county-based system in monotonic sequential order but occasionally a profitable prefix arises; recently BIG nnnn where nnnn is integer. So they can reserve the 'nice' ones in the sequence e.g. BIG 1 and sell those on the market. But they don't sell them in advance of sequence.

microtherion 10y ago

One of my favorite geek license plates is '4BSD755' on a California car, which happens to perfectly match the format for a generic license plate in that state. It could be a coincidence, but I suspect not.

toast0 10y ago
California currently prohibits vanity plates which match the sequential plate patterns, although it's possible that was ordered before it was assigned and before they prohibited it. If it's a vehicle you see often, you can estimate the date of the plate based on its style and see if it was made earlier than it would have been if sequential. Edit: It looks like if it's sequential, it would be a white plate, with California in cursive at the current (large) size, where the descender on the f almost touches the plate number, and it might have no subtitle or the sesquicentennial subtitle.
- jonah 10y ago
  I assumed that too, but it doesn't appear to be prohibited.[1] Indeed, I tried 8BSD755 and 9BSD755 which were accepted. (The current sequential plates start with 7.) [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/ipp2/initPers.do https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/ipp2/initPers.do
  - toast0 10y ago
    On the (paper) order form[1] it says: > DMV has the right to refuse any combination of letters and/or letters and numbers for any of the following reason(s): [...] it conficts with any regular license plate series issued. My understanding is that all vanity plates are reviewed by at least one human, so it's possible they handle denying vanity plates that fit the sequential series that probably should have been denied in the online form. [1] https://dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/6d97bdef-c5b1-46ee-a558-28ab938e4ec3/reg17.pdf?MOD=AJPERES https://dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/6d97bdef-c5b1-46ee-a55...
bcbrown 10y ago
My favorite was a VW Beetle with the plate "FEATURE". No, it's not a bug...

x1798DE 10y ago

Article is from 2012.

libeclipse 10y ago

Live free or die is also the motto of the U.S. state of New Hampshire, who ironically mandated that it be placed on all licence plates and attempted to sue people who refused. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die

akvadrako 10y ago
Although it's not clear from the title, the article is about the origins of fake license plates that were a copy of a NH license plate from the 1980's with the number "UNIX".
- 7Z7 10y ago
  The article is about both real vanity plates and fake promotional ones.
- erbo 10y ago
  Compaq later created similar promotional license plates with the number "LINUX," and yes, they still said "Live Free or Die" on them. I managed to wheedle one out of a trade show representative, knowing the history of the original "UNIX" promotional plates. Besides the motto and the big number, the plates carry the Compaq logo, "1999" (the year they were made), and the statement "LINUX is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds."

batbkw 10y ago

A new plate: https://twitter.com/barakkassar/status/788434103171284994 https://twitter.com/barakkassar/status/788434103171284994

shaftoe 10y ago

My favorite vanity licence plate is NULL. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11361757

jgrahamc 10y ago

Driving up 280 one day I was overtaken by a hexadecimal-loving Shakespeare nerd with the license plate: 2B OR D4

jeffdubin 10y ago

Outside a Micro Center in central Ohio, on a nice lookin' Tesla, I saw the plate FSM 1337. I was convinced this was the geekiest geek around these parts, and when the guy walked up to the car to get in, I said "nice plate!". He had no idea what I was talking about. Zero. I had to explain the whole thing, and though I initially thought he was just pulling my leg, I then thought about it and realized that Ohio plates as given are three letters followed by four numbers. What are the chances???

rhapsodic 10y ago
Uh, to what does "FSM 1337" refer?
- lwhalen 10y ago
  "Flying Spaghetti Monster", and '1337' is leet-speak for, well, 'leet'. Aka 'elite'.
madcaptenor 10y ago
This could happen in Georgia as well, which has the same license plate format. I'd like the plate CAB 1729, after the story Hardy told about Ramanujan. (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html) but I suspect that either someone out there already has it and doesn't know of its significance, or that they don't give out plates starting with CAB.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

michaelcampbell 10y ago

I had at various points in my life, "DAEMON" and "DEV NULL" (in FL). I go with a standard issue plate now on a totally generic car.

madcaptenor 10y ago

Knuth once wrote an article on mathematical vanity plates: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-010-9170-7 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-010-9170-7