Registration Plates

You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request that
it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be registered.
Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable complexity.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that it's
going to kill them.

On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request that
it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be registered.
Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable complexity.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that it's
going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request
that it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be
registered. Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable
complexity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
it's going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

an increase to 4 digits would be trivial and give over 1.5 million combos

On Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:41:18 +0100, "Mrcheerful"
wrote:

GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request
that it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be
registered. Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable
complexity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
it's going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

an increase to 4 digits would be trivial and give over 1.5 million combos

Wrong. 4 digits would give it up to 10,000 combinations, depending on
whether you call a preceding '0' a digit.

Using four alpha-numeric lower case only (or upper case only) symbols
0-9 and a-z would give 36^4 combinations, as you say, about
1.5million, or, more precisely, 1,679,616.

Using mixed upper and lower case letters and digits would give just
shy of 15m combinations.

However, for one unique registration combination for the entire
population of the Unitied Kingdom, I would suggest a mixture of 5
upper case letters or digits.

ARSE1 might be appropriate for you.

On 11/08/2012 13:41, Mrcheerful wrote:
GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request
that it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be
registered. Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable
complexity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
it's going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

an increase to 4 digits would be trivial and give over 1.5 million combos

26 letters and 10 numbers? You'd have to reduce that because of
ambiguousness, eg 1 and I, O and 0, but you'd get a few hundred thousand
combos. How many bikes are there?

Bertie Wooster wrote:
On Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:41:18 +0100, "Mrcheerful"
wrote:

GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people
loudly shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration
plate to a bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even
to request that it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles
to be registered. Apparently it is a technical problem of
unsurmountable complexity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
it's going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

an increase to 4 digits would be trivial and give over 1.5 million
combos

Wrong. 4 digits would give it up to 10,000 combinations, depending on
whether you call a preceding '0' a digit.

Using four alpha-numeric lower case only (or upper case only) symbols
0-9 and a-z would give 36^4 combinations, as you say, about
1.5million, or, more precisely, 1,679,616.

Using mixed upper and lower case letters and digits would give just
shy of 15m combinations.

However, for one unique registration combination for the entire
population of the Unitied Kingdom, I would suggest a mixture of 5
upper case letters or digits.

ARSE1 might be appropriate for you.

sorry, I should have said characters (rather than digits), however, you
managed to work it out.

and PRAT suits you.

GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:41, Mrcheerful wrote:
GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people
loudly shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration
plate to a bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even
to request that it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles
to be registered. Apparently it is a technical problem of
unsurmountable complexity.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
it's going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.

an increase to 4 digits would be trivial and give over 1.5 million
combos

26 letters and 10 numbers? You'd have to reduce that because of
ambiguousness, eg 1 and I, O and 0, but you'd get a few hundred
thousand combos. How many bikes are there?

Nobody knows, which would be another advantage of compulsory registration.
Getting sufficient digits on a plate is not the problem however. A narrow
vertically mounted plate could easily have seven characters on, which would
be enough for any country.

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..

You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request that
it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be registered.
Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable complexity.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that it's
going to kill them.
================================

I've been told that it is totally impossible to fit a registration plate to
a bicycle. A physical impossibility.

On 11/08/2012 13:37, GB wrote:
On 11/08/2012 13:28, Steve Firth wrote:
You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request that
it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be registered.
Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable complexity.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg

Or is it?

I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that it's
going to kill them.

That only has 2 digits on it.


But it is big enough to show six!

--
Moving things in still pictures

John Benn wrote:
|| "Steve Firth" wrote in message
|| . ..
||
|| You know, it's odd but I have a vague memory of several people loudly
|| shouting that it is impossible to affix a registration plate to a
|| bicycle and that no one should attempt to do so or even to request
|| that
|| it should be made a legal requirement for bicycles to be registered.
|| Apparently it is a technical problem of unsurmountable complexity.
||
|| http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...n_1825451b.jpg
||
|| Or is it?
||
|| I don't see the Olympians complaining about it, or suggesting that
|| it's going to kill them.
|| ================================
||
|| I've been told that it is totally impossible to fit a registration
|| plate to a bicycle. A physical impossibility.

Nonesense, simply make the tax and insurance disk holder bigger, with room
to include a reg number. Sorted.

--
Rob