{"id":4,"date":"2002-05-10T20:03:37-04:00","date_gmt":"2002-05-11T04:03:37+00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/wordpress\/?p=4"},"modified":"2002-05-10T20:03:37-04:00","modified_gmt":"2002-05-11T04:03:37+00:00","slug":"licence-plates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterjanes.ca\/blog\/2002\/05\/10\/licence-plates\/","title":{"rendered":"Licence plates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation introduced seven-character licence plates. Since shortly after this event, they’ve been driving me batty. The new plates started, logically enough, with AAAA-000<\/code>, and proceeded through AAAA-999<\/code> and then AAAB-000<\/code>; my own plate begins with “AC<\/code>”. But then came the most evil occurrence: plates beginning with ADSF<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n

I’m a QWERTY<\/code> touch-typist. Since grade eight the left-hand “home row” characters have been engraved in my brain: ASDF<\/code>. It’s second nature. After alphabetical order, “home row” order is the most recognizable sequence of letters I can think of.<\/p>\n\n

One of these things is not like the other<\/h3>\n

Let me repeat that sequence: A<\/code>, S<\/code>, D<\/code>, F<\/code>. Now compare it to that licence plate prefix: A<\/code>, D<\/code>, S<\/code>, F<\/code>. The middle letters are reversed, and to a left-brained guy like me that is, simply, wrong!<\/p>\n\n

I’ve been waiting for the day when ASDF<\/code> plates appear—in fact, I’m sure they have—but do you think I’ve seen any? No. I’m beginning to think that every<\/em> ADSF<\/code> plate was issued in this city, and the ASDF<\/code> plates were only ever distributed to Moose Factory or Lively. (Not that I have any problem with either town… they’re just the smallest, recognizable, relatively remote places I could think of off the top of my head.)<\/p>\n\n

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”<\/a><\/h3>\n

There’s nothing that can be done, of course, short of the Oedipal solution. Fortunately I don’t know anyone named Jocasta, let alone anyone who might lend me any jewellery.<\/p>\n\n

But the great thing about this teensy little character flaw—and the scariest—is that there are bound to be other people out there who feel exactly the same way<\/em>. So this is my primal scream, and my announcement to the world that I’m a freak of nature who’s obsessed with a logical, innocuous, trivial, aggravating<\/em> chain of alphanumeric characters. The quote from Peter Steiner above is slightly inaccurate: in weblogs on the Internet, everyone<\/em> knows you’re a dog—because you tell them<\/em>!<\/p><\/div>

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