Pick a number

A have a little “cage” where all of my stock is stored. Latex gloves, plastic aprons, rolls of paper towels, blah blah.
The existing number was to change (for reasons). My boss was rattling through various numbers that were important dates in French history ¹. I didn’t think I’d remember any such arbitrary thing as the year of birth of the billionth Louis.

So I offered a number.
A four digit number.

Now I’m a geek, partial to RISC OS (why I’m here) having been a part of the Acorn ecology since school back in the mid eighties. I’m also security conscious enough not to do anything dumb like offer my date of birth ².

So what four digit number did I suggest?

¹ Without looking, can you say what year was Queen Elizabeth’s coronation? How about Queen Victoria? Or what year parliament relieved the royalty from having any power? And did Queen Vic ever say “we are not amused”?

² The “heyrick1973” in my Yahoo! and Gmail addresses is a screw-you to those who seen to think dates of birth are private privileged information. They’re not and they should not be treated as such.

6502

I’m wondering whether you’re trying to get us to guess a number you know, or help you to remember a number you’ve forgotten…

Since this is Aldershot…

They’re not and they should not be treated as such.

We no longer fill in forms when we want time off. We have to log into a service called Horoquartz (which runs a package called eTemptation – I spat my tea clear across the table when I read that, it just sounds like a porn site!).

We recently had an election at work. The members of the worker’s committee. It is apparently required that the company post a list of eligible voters containing their names, a tick (or word “oui”) that they’re permitted to vote, the date of when they started working for the company, and their date of birth. I mentioned on my blog (last time, maybe five or so years ago?) that having the date of birth was a ridiculous and unnecessary information leak. If they can vote, that can vote, their age ought to be irrelevant.
Anyway, I mentioned to Big Boss that it might not be wise to put that list up.
He asked me why.
I told him that it contained people’s dates of birth.
He said that it was normal, it’s how it’s done.

I reminded him that the default Horoquartz password on everybody’s account was their date of birth.

Cue blood draining from face and a sudden need to talk to HR… ;-)

I don’t blame the company. I blame the outsourced Horoquartz for thinking that a date of birth is a suitable default password given that most people have not changed it.

6502

Massive flashing neon Brownie Point to Clive. Well done! :-)

I remember that number quite well, and the very useful liberal application of byte &EA.

it just sounds like a porn site

One of my favourite websites for many years was deviantart…which also is not a porn site, or not supposed to be.

There is a large amount of soft porn on there these days, masquerading as art, but that’s not its main raison d’être. (I don’t use it much these days because they’ve messed up the user interface and it’s no longer user friendly to my way of thinking.)

I blame the outsourced Horoquartz for thinking that a date of birth is a suitable default password given that most people have not changed it.

I have an RFID card (with a not so pretty picture on it) which opens lots of doors. It also opens three doors (Data Centre Server Hall 1, Bunker Data Centre Server Hall 2 and PBX) where a PIN is also required.
The PIN is assigned and I can’t change it. It’s four digits with one repeated – so three decimals – I have a bank debit card, it has a four digit PIN containing a repeated digit.

Wanna guess the level of congruency of the two sets of three decimals and how often I punch in my debit card number into the door and vice versa?

Without giving too much away, a 4 digit number lends itself to a time which can be expressed in words to remember more easily.

For example: Quarter-to-four – 1545

OK – this technique limits the options somewhat – but it does have an easy memorability!

Observations?

Ten to six… 1026?

I’m not sure I’d remember nineteen minutes to eleven any more easily than I remember 1041…

But then I always was an occard cuss. And fortunately have a head for digits; it’s remembering which set go with which card that’s the problem.

A few years back we went to look at some flooring in a sale. We found something we liked to go in the bathroom, but when I got to the till, after ringing it up I realised I hadn’t got my wallet with me, so no cards. I gave them the full set of card details from memory and checked out without any problems. I could still do that now for my main debit card.

I can do that for our current account, and my main credit card. But not for any of the others, although I do remember all the pins.

I’m not sure I’d remember nineteen minutes to eleven any more easily than I remember 1041…

My primary debit card has a nice pattern to the digits. I remember the pattern, I’d need to think to tell you the digits.
My other debit card has a number not unlike a brand of beer. Guess which I tend to enter when asked. Wish I could change that one, but French banks tell you what you PIN is, and that’s that.

I gave them the full set of card details from memory and checked out without any problems

Jeez. I can’t even manage to remember my mobile number (it’s printed on a dymo sticker affixed to the back).
I can remember the phone number of where I grew up, which I’ve not been for something like a quarter century…

And boarding school out in the country, so back then it only had three digits (or ten if you direct dialed via trunk as was BT back in the eighties).

Milnsbridge 2175; Barkway 375; Bradford 494490…my first four telephone numbers, but after that I don’t remember any more until the current ones.

880LMU; UYU366; XKX487; KVH376; FUB172…likewise – I remember the first few registrations, and the latest two, but none in between. Oh, and FUM56D – my first motorbike.

I still remember the first classes I taught, faces, names, characters, the lot – but only the odd few more recent ones (I’ve not taught for 27 years).

Phone numbers going back over 55 years and car registrations going back over 40+ years – all no problem. Sometimes, when watching a quiz on TV, I can come up with an answer instantly that I don’t know where it came from – something I must have last known in my youth!

Names and faces – no chance. I can forget someone’s name minutes after being told it, especially so if there’s a number of people introduced that the same time.

“You know, that guy who was in the film about the woman who was played by the actress who used to be in the detective series set in Manchester…”

The gaps ain’t Alzheimer’s or anything like that, I’m sure – it’s just the system knowing that there’s no need to recall that stuff. I stopped knowing what day of the week it is quite abruptly as soon as I retired – I don’t need that information any longer. Except when I’m using public transport, and then it’s easy to find out.

I’ve had the name forgetting problem for a long time, at least 20 years now. It’s those strange facts that suddenly come to the surface in an instant – as if I’d forgotten that I knew it – that surprise me sometimes. One particular question was “What did Sir Frances Drake’s crew call their ship?”. I expect the last time I was aware of the answer was at least 50 years ago, but I said straight away without even thinking about it. Memory is a weird and wonderful thing. I was told my NI number the day I signed on to look for work the first time and I remembered it from that day onwards, same with my Service number. Other times I forget something that I thought about a few seconds ago!

The gaps ain’t Alzheimer’s or anything like that, I’m sure

Apparently people with dyscalculia have problems with name/face retrieval. It’s specifically mentioned.

Leads me to wonder if there are numberous other ‘issues’ with the brain where a person can be okay with numbers, but forget names? I mean, what do esoteric “numbers” have to do with names applied to people referenced by faces?

…or maybe I should say face/name instead of name/face, because recalling faces is a doddle. It’s just the damned names. Amy? Anna? Ariana? It starts with an ‘A’ right?

it’s just the system knowing that there’s no need to recall that stuff.

Except when it’s a cow-orker who makes a point of saying “I’ve already told you half a dozen times!” and it is not hyperbole. She really has.

I stopped knowing what day of the week it is quite abruptly as soon as I retired – I don’t need that information any longer.

Oh, the joy of living in a place where the supermarkets are open all the time. ;-)

Memory is a weird and wonderful thing.

Indeed it is. I was driving into town on Saturday and had my phone Eagle 80s (streaming radio). One song that caught me was “Leave A Light On” by Belinda Carlisle. I was singing along to it (badly, of course) and I suddenly stopped and was like “I don’t even like this song much, how come I know all the words?!”.

And if I can remember the words to 50-100 songs from the ‘80s, and loads of quotes from movies of that time ("This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn’t come true. So I’m taking it back. I’m taking them all back."), why is it that I can never seem to find the words to say something that needs to be said. Or anything at all, usually.

Och, aye, here in Greenock the supermarkets really are open (pretty much) all the time. Not quite so much in Ely (where we live the other half of the time, until that house is sold). You do have to remember that shops aren’t open quite so long on Sundays even in Greenock though, but I’m actually generally pretty good at knowing when it’s Saturday or Sunday anyway. But midweek? Who knows – or cares?

As for songs – I know the words to a few hundred songs, many of them things my mother used to sing when I was a child, stuff dating from before I was born. At one time I could recite the Pied Piper of Hamelyn from beginning to end – I can still do the first few hundred words. Likewise the Lorax. But could I remember my lines for a play? Not a chance, and it was only a couple of dozen words. No music or rhythm to them, hopeless.

I was driving into town on Saturday and had my phone Eagle 80s (streaming radio). One song that caught me was “Leave A Light On” by Belinda Carlisle. I was singing along to it (badly, of course) and I suddenly stopped and was like “I don’t even like this song much, how come I know all the words?!”.

I recently picked up the Blu-ray of a movie originally released in 1993. I noticed small print on the back of the box, stating that some music has been changed. After looking it up on Google, I tracked down which scene it was (for licensing reasons, surprise, surprise) and was able to confirm that the music was the same as a 1996 TV broadcast here in NZ. How do I know it’s the same? Because I remember the music, 23.5 years later. How do I know it was 1996? Because I was watching it while waiting for Internet Explorer 3 to download.

What movie?

It happens a lot. I believe the reason it took forever to get a DVD release of “My So-Called Life” is because licences sorted out for television broadcast are irrelevant when it comes to other distribution (DVD, streaming, etc). MSCL was lucky. Sometimes the rights holders of the series don’t bother sorting out those issues, especially when there are songs that they need to change, which means…no release.

I’m currently watching “Neon Genesis Evangelion” on Netflix, and am aware that the rather bland ending music was because they couldn’t get the rights to use “Fly Me To The Moon” (wasn’t that Sinatra?).

I wonder if, these days, people making programmes or movies with “iconic” music sort out all the licenses up front, or if things like DVD and streaming are afterthoughts?

It’s also worth noting that not only is it format specific, it’s also often region specific too. In a related vein, some of the Prime Video suggestions made a while back (VinceH?) don’t apply to me. The content just isn’t there.
I’m guessing somebody else (Canal+ perhaps?) has the rights in this country. Not a lot of good when you want to watch it in English, but there you go…

But could I remember my lines for a play?

Mom was great at that, and songs (well, Dylan and the like, but extra points because Dylan was weird). Not to mention being able to quote an appropriate line of poetry in four languages (English, Spanish, French, German) for pretty much any occasion.

I suppose it helped that her school was big on extemporaneous speech – she’d get a topic, fifteen minutes to research in the library, and then have to provide a presentation on the topic and take a point of view and attempt to successfully argue her chosen point of view.
And it wasn’t simple stuff either, one that she told me about was the effects of Roosevelt’s New Deal on immigrant Latino workers in the southern states. She argued it from the point of view of the Mexican worker…in Spanish.

Hmm, makes my education seem kind of rubbish in comparison.

I can’t even manage to remember my mobile number

Ah, now I’ve mastered that one. It’s a work mobile and I’ve had it for about 15 years now.

Apparently people with dyscalculia have problems with name/face retrieval.

Faces OK, remembered for years (if I took notice of them in the first place) but names matching the face go before before they stop speaking 9 times out of 10 (or 10 of 9 if I’m treating things like a phone number. IP addresses for various equipment on a reserved IP – no problem.

There must be many hundreds of songs I know word for word – although in many cases, if you asked me to quote some of them at random I would struggle. But the moment a song starts I can sing along and get the lyrics 95% or better. It can be something I haven’t heard in 30 or more years, but when it plays I know it. That includes dozens of hymns and carols (I was in the church choir as a pre-teen), as well as most pop & rock songs from the late 50’s onwards – although not so many of the last couple of decades unless I really like the artist(s). There are songs that I can recognise from the very first note being played.

Music and smell must be the two most important memory triggers, drilling deep into the core to access stuff you didn’t know that you knew.

What movie?

Addams Family Values. Specifically, the “harmony hut” scene. I always thought it was strange that a character says “but… it’s Disney!” and then it launches into the main theme from The Sound of Music, which was Fox. Presumably the original 1993 release did indeed have a Disney song there.

There are songs that I can recognise from the very first note being played.

A fan of Name that Tune, no doubt.

It’s not the note itself, but the way it sounds on the instrument it is played on in the original recording – certain recordings are recognisable from that first note/chord – it wouldn’t work outside of that context, obviously.