6 ms·

IPv6 is great if you control lots of components that need to talk to one another. Life is much simpler when you can trivially have thousands of globally routab

IPv6 is great if you control lots of components that need to talk to one another. Life is much simpler when you can trivially have thousands of globally routable addresses. It provides great value without having to be 100% deployed and for that, I am grateful. I liken it to a commercial kitchen. Large numbers of identical steel pans, everything measured in grams, Cambros, walk-in refrigeration. Ideas and tech that are unlikely to catch on in the home kitchen, but when you operate at a larger scale, invaluable.

tomalpha 6y ago
> ...everything measured in grams... > Ideas and tech that are unlikely to catch on in the home kitchen Given the posting time I’d guess you were likely not US based so I found this surprising. Even if that is so, then I continue to be surprised every time I rediscover the fact that the US hasn’t moved towards metrification. Edit: rereading this the wording is harsher than intended. So to add: Either way the wording tickled me for some reason. Whether intentional or not, thank you (genuinely) for the smile this morning.
- nikanj 6y ago
  Metric units are a mouthful. Centiliter <-> ounce. Kilometer <-> mile. Centimeter <-> inch. I think having easy-to-pronounce names for the metric units would help. Kliks are much better than kilometers.
  - tomalpha 6y ago
    Completely agreed. And being in the UK, and of a certain age, I still use inches, miles, pounds and stone but I think that’s due to familiarity during childhood. I don’t use Fahrenheit like my parents did though when describing the weather. Oddly, I also tend to use metres instead of feet/miles for distances that aren’t drivable, or human-height related. It’s also interesting that in speech I often hear (and find myself), contracting to the SI prefix itself when the unit can be derived from context. For example: “It’s 25 millis” [long]
    - wahern 6y ago
      The argument for Fahrenheit over Celsius is actually relatively strong: http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html I also have a soft spot for fractional units and different bases (e.g. 12, 60, etc) over decimal, but I can admit the practical case is comparatively weak and inconsequential.
      - stormdennis 6y ago
        The author states that the best system is the one you're used to, in his conclusion. Earlier he says that he doesn't like the other system because it uses negative numbers for temperatures that aren't that cold and that also it's good to be able to avoid using negative numbers. Those seem like very subjective reasons to me.
        em-bee 6y ago
        very subjective indeed. i find that knowing whether water will feeeze or snow will melt without having to memorize a number for that rather useful.
        em-bee 6y ago
        well, actually memorizing a number is probably not a problem. i realized that the real advantage is to be able to look whether the number is positive or negative without taking a close look at the actual value.
        buran77 6y ago
        > aren't that cold Something very relative to where the author lived and developed the preference. This changes from person to person, and region to region. "Not that cold" could be -25C in Siberia (well... not with the recent heatwave) or +25C in Quatar. It makes sense for the whole world to use a common measuring system (and not just for temperature), perhaps even one where 1 degree is equal to 1 degree Kelvin since this would fit better with the science crowd. But whatever point of reference is chosen it will definitely fall short of expectation in different parts of the world. The freezing point of water as the 0 is as good as any. Body temperature (~37C) could also be a universal 0 with plenty of advantages and disadvantages that I never considered.
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    In my experience kilometre is pronounced “k”, centimetre is pronounced “ten mil”, and centilitre is “hundred mil”.
    - martyvis 6y ago
      Yup, I'm an Aussie, born when inches and miles ruled and I live ninety two "k" from my office and I drink beer from three seventy "mil" stubbies (glass bottles). Not hard at all
    - Steltek 6y ago
      In more worldly/sciencey/engineering parts of the US, I tried shortening metric like that and then I ran into this fucking abomination of a measurement, which is also abbreviated to "mil" in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch I'm 100% American and I despise the imperial system so much. Maybe our plummeting stature in world politics and power will force us to convert. Not exactly the way I wanted it to go but a silver lining is still a silver lining.
  - dx034 6y ago
    I've never heard anyone say Centiliter. It's milliliters or liters. You find cl or dl on bottles but I've never encountered it in spoken language. Which is nice because having fewer units make it easier to compare, even if converting in metric system is easy.
    - andrewshadura 6y ago
      In some countries like Slovakia, they say deci for decilitre.
    - ralls_ebfe 6y ago
      Shot glasses are 2cl around here.
      - dx034 6y ago
        I believe they're 2cl in all of Europe, never heard anyone use it outside of refering to it.
    - BrandoElFollito 6y ago
      This is rather common in France. We use centiliters quite often when speaking.
- aequitas 6y ago
  Aren't all imperial units standardized on metric values nowadays? So technically Americans are using metric, they just use a different notation?
  - why_only_15 6y ago
    I mean in theory a foot is defined as xyz centimeters but i don't think that matters for any practical purpose.
    - p1mrx 6y ago
      1 foot is exactly 30.48 cm, thanks to Carl Edvard Johansson.
  - m463 6y ago
    Yes, I think you're right. Product specs are often in inches like 3.9 inches (which is ~ 100mm) Although sometimes it's the opposite - computer pins are commonly 2.54 mm apart (0.1 inches)
- rascul 6y ago
  > the US hasn’t moved towards metrification. I couldn't care less about which system is used, i just want there to be only one. I'm not a fan of owning two sets of tools, and I'm not a fan of working on a car and coming across something I need my second tool set for because people can't figure out what system to use.
guenthert 6y ago
> IPv6 is great if you control lots of components that need to talk to one another. And that's the fallacy. Those things don't need to talk to each other (my toaster doesn't need to talk to your fridge), they do talk to a well defined peer (gateway, server, whatever). There might be someday more than a few billion networked things out there, but there won't be even remotely a billion gateways on the Internet in the foreseeable future. Enterprises generally don't like outside elements access elements within their network at will. That's not going to change, it will always be through some form of gateway.
- Dagger2 6y ago
  There are still benefits to using unique address space on all networks though. The fact that my fridge doesn't need to talk to your toaster isn't a reason for us to not do v6. If you've never had to deal with clashing RFC1918 blocks when doing a VPN or network merger, consider yourself lucky. It's a giant headache that can never be properly fixed, yet v6 completely avoids it.
  - guenthert 6y ago
    I've only witnessed it on the sidelines (while the internationally distributed company I worked for was acquired). > It's a giant headache that can never be properly fixed, yet v6 completely avoids it. It's a headache, sure. But that it can't be fixed is hyperbole. All it takes is reassignment of IP addresses, there are plenty after all. The headache comes only from IP addresses stored in places they don't belong. If they were only stored in the DHCP and DNS servers, a script could fix this in no time. Part of the problem I witnessed was, that people are hesitant to use DHCP for static IP addresses (servers) and some devices (switches) are incapable of using DHCP. I also observed (much earlier) misguided sysadmins using a scheme encoding location of a device in its name. That of course let to horrible long, unpronounceable names and people remembering and using rather its IP address (that danger of course is greatly reduced with IPv6 ;-}
    - Dagger2 6y ago
      You haven't seen the full depths of it then. I originally wrote "a giant headache that never goes away", but changed it because it is possible to renumber the networks. But... that doesn't properly fix the problem. You'll hit the exact same issue the next time you go through a merger. Worse, RFC1918 isn't actually that big. There are plenty of companies out there that have either exhausted it or have to be very very careful with their use of it to avoid running out. At some point you run out of space to renumber into. You're also going to have issues with e.g. VPNs to people's home networks, where renumbering isn't viable.

tomalpha 6y ago

> ...everything measured in grams... > Ideas and tech that are unlikely to catch on in the home kitchen Given the posting time I’d guess you were likely not US based so I found this surprising. Even if that is so, then I continue to be surprised every time I rediscover the fact that the US hasn’t moved towards metrification. Edit: rereading this the wording is harsher than intended. So to add: Either way the wording tickled me for some reason. Whether intentional or not, thank you (genuinely) for the smile this morning.

nikanj 6y ago
Metric units are a mouthful. Centiliter <-> ounce. Kilometer <-> mile. Centimeter <-> inch. I think having easy-to-pronounce names for the metric units would help. Kliks are much better than kilometers.
- tomalpha 6y ago
  Completely agreed. And being in the UK, and of a certain age, I still use inches, miles, pounds and stone but I think that’s due to familiarity during childhood. I don’t use Fahrenheit like my parents did though when describing the weather. Oddly, I also tend to use metres instead of feet/miles for distances that aren’t drivable, or human-height related. It’s also interesting that in speech I often hear (and find myself), contracting to the SI prefix itself when the unit can be derived from context. For example: “It’s 25 millis” [long]
  - wahern 6y ago
    The argument for Fahrenheit over Celsius is actually relatively strong: http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html I also have a soft spot for fractional units and different bases (e.g. 12, 60, etc) over decimal, but I can admit the practical case is comparatively weak and inconsequential.
    - stormdennis 6y ago
      The author states that the best system is the one you're used to, in his conclusion. Earlier he says that he doesn't like the other system because it uses negative numbers for temperatures that aren't that cold and that also it's good to be able to avoid using negative numbers. Those seem like very subjective reasons to me.
      - em-bee 6y ago
        very subjective indeed. i find that knowing whether water will feeeze or snow will melt without having to memorize a number for that rather useful.
        em-bee 6y ago
        well, actually memorizing a number is probably not a problem. i realized that the real advantage is to be able to look whether the number is positive or negative without taking a close look at the actual value.
      - buran77 6y ago
        > aren't that cold Something very relative to where the author lived and developed the preference. This changes from person to person, and region to region. "Not that cold" could be -25C in Siberia (well... not with the recent heatwave) or +25C in Quatar. It makes sense for the whole world to use a common measuring system (and not just for temperature), perhaps even one where 1 degree is equal to 1 degree Kelvin since this would fit better with the science crowd. But whatever point of reference is chosen it will definitely fall short of expectation in different parts of the world. The freezing point of water as the 0 is as good as any. Body temperature (~37C) could also be a universal 0 with plenty of advantages and disadvantages that I never considered.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  In my experience kilometre is pronounced “k”, centimetre is pronounced “ten mil”, and centilitre is “hundred mil”.
  - martyvis 6y ago
    Yup, I'm an Aussie, born when inches and miles ruled and I live ninety two "k" from my office and I drink beer from three seventy "mil" stubbies (glass bottles). Not hard at all
  - Steltek 6y ago
    In more worldly/sciencey/engineering parts of the US, I tried shortening metric like that and then I ran into this fucking abomination of a measurement, which is also abbreviated to "mil" in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch I'm 100% American and I despise the imperial system so much. Maybe our plummeting stature in world politics and power will force us to convert. Not exactly the way I wanted it to go but a silver lining is still a silver lining.
- dx034 6y ago
  I've never heard anyone say Centiliter. It's milliliters or liters. You find cl or dl on bottles but I've never encountered it in spoken language. Which is nice because having fewer units make it easier to compare, even if converting in metric system is easy.
  - andrewshadura 6y ago
    In some countries like Slovakia, they say deci for decilitre.
  - ralls_ebfe 6y ago
    Shot glasses are 2cl around here.
    - dx034 6y ago
      I believe they're 2cl in all of Europe, never heard anyone use it outside of refering to it.
  - BrandoElFollito 6y ago
    This is rather common in France. We use centiliters quite often when speaking.
aequitas 6y ago
Aren't all imperial units standardized on metric values nowadays? So technically Americans are using metric, they just use a different notation?
- why_only_15 6y ago
  I mean in theory a foot is defined as xyz centimeters but i don't think that matters for any practical purpose.
  - p1mrx 6y ago
    1 foot is exactly 30.48 cm, thanks to Carl Edvard Johansson.
- m463 6y ago
  Yes, I think you're right. Product specs are often in inches like 3.9 inches (which is ~ 100mm) Although sometimes it's the opposite - computer pins are commonly 2.54 mm apart (0.1 inches)
rascul 6y ago
> the US hasn’t moved towards metrification. I couldn't care less about which system is used, i just want there to be only one. I'm not a fan of owning two sets of tools, and I'm not a fan of working on a car and coming across something I need my second tool set for because people can't figure out what system to use.

guenthert 6y ago

> IPv6 is great if you control lots of components that need to talk to one another. And that's the fallacy. Those things don't need to talk to each other (my toaster doesn't need to talk to your fridge), they do talk to a well defined peer (gateway, server, whatever). There might be someday more than a few billion networked things out there, but there won't be even remotely a billion gateways on the Internet in the foreseeable future. Enterprises generally don't like outside elements access elements within their network at will. That's not going to change, it will always be through some form of gateway.

Dagger2 6y ago
There are still benefits to using unique address space on all networks though. The fact that my fridge doesn't need to talk to your toaster isn't a reason for us to not do v6. If you've never had to deal with clashing RFC1918 blocks when doing a VPN or network merger, consider yourself lucky. It's a giant headache that can never be properly fixed, yet v6 completely avoids it.
- guenthert 6y ago
  I've only witnessed it on the sidelines (while the internationally distributed company I worked for was acquired). > It's a giant headache that can never be properly fixed, yet v6 completely avoids it. It's a headache, sure. But that it can't be fixed is hyperbole. All it takes is reassignment of IP addresses, there are plenty after all. The headache comes only from IP addresses stored in places they don't belong. If they were only stored in the DHCP and DNS servers, a script could fix this in no time. Part of the problem I witnessed was, that people are hesitant to use DHCP for static IP addresses (servers) and some devices (switches) are incapable of using DHCP. I also observed (much earlier) misguided sysadmins using a scheme encoding location of a device in its name. That of course let to horrible long, unpronounceable names and people remembering and using rather its IP address (that danger of course is greatly reduced with IPv6 ;-}
  - Dagger2 6y ago
    You haven't seen the full depths of it then. I originally wrote "a giant headache that never goes away", but changed it because it is possible to renumber the networks. But... that doesn't properly fix the problem. You'll hit the exact same issue the next time you go through a merger. Worse, RFC1918 isn't actually that big. There are plenty of companies out there that have either exhausted it or have to be very very careful with their use of it to avoid running out. At some point you run out of space to renumber into. You're also going to have issues with e.g. VPNs to people's home networks, where renumbering isn't viable.