That's a reasonable analogy. Both cases are driven by external factors (mathematics for IPv4, atmospheric chemistry for gas-powered cars), and the authorities are doing a fairly poor job of solving the collective action problem.

Everybody *wants* to stuff a trillion numbers into 32 bits, and stuff infinite carbon into the air, but reality doesn't care what we want.

Suppose you have a PC on an internal IPv4 network, connected to an IPv6 edge router. You type "ipv6.google.com" into your browser. What address should it connect to?

Yes, that's the real news here. Chrome has been butchering URLs for several years, and the problem is finally solved.

Having a choice between "real URLs" and "kindergarten mode" is a massive improvement.

AT&T has more IPv6 users than any other ISP in the world:
http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements/

Granted, it's all based on 6rd, but you can't say they're not trying.

I'll rent you a solar system for only $1,000/day, but you'll need to find your own transportation.

Weld the cables? Are you insane? Those things must cost thousands of dollars.

Brilliant, then you need to deal with half hours every time you convert to/from UTC.

I think App Engine is the only one in the list that currently supports IPv6 hosting:

http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177065

If all you need is a backup set of optics, just make the pilots wear an eyepatch.

You forgot "mother". Incidentally, I'm telling her you said a bad word.

So, when everything's on IPv6, and you want to play an IPv4-only game, you'll first have to establish an IPv4 VPN between the players? I suppose that sounds feasible, but someone will have to write the software to make it easy.

You do realize that the ISPs would be the ones doing the prioritizing, right?

Which browsers would those be? I thought Chrome was the only one with both WebM and H.264.

Every hex digit represents exactly 4 binary digits. If you flip a bit in a hexadecimal number, then exactly one hex digit will change. To know how it will change, you only need to remember the binary values of 0-F.

With decimal, you could flip a bit and change every digit in the number.

You listed 17 /8 blocks in your post. If you managed to reclaim every single one of those, you'd almost make up for IANA's 19 allocations in 2010.

And let us know how it goes when you try to take those addresses from the US military.