
Why we don’t need phone numbers - fogus
http://hackaday.com/2009/09/04/why-we-dont-need-phone-numbers/
======
tc
The correct syntax is: sip:yourname@yourdomain.com

This is already a solved problem.

SIP and DNS SRV/NAPTR records are the relevant (IETF) standards. The "sip:"
part above is actually optional. Using NAPTR records, I can simply request
yourname@yourdomain.com, and your DNS will tell me how I can contact you (via
email, via Jabber/XMPP, via SIP, /dev/null, etc.) in order of preference.

~~~
ynniv
Indeed, the article shows a complete ignorance of the real world. Who is going
to type "phone://www.your_company’s_domain.com/customer_service" into a phone?
How could you even remember that? SIP does this correctly by using email
addresses, but traditional phone numbers are still preferable since all
existing phones have numerical keypads. What the author really wants is for
his phone to use NAPTR, and for the people he is calling to include SIP or
POTS entries for their email addresses.

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mseebach
The benefit of the current system is the network effect: Any phone, no matter
if it's 50 years old or an iPhone 3GS, can dial _any_ other such phone. In the
entire _world_. Of course new technology can make that work in a smarter way
(not that I'll take advice on "smart" from someone who thinks not capitalising
sentences serves a purpose), but not without breaking backwards compatibility,
which would severely limit the utility of such a switch.

Anyway, it's done. It's in SIP, it's in Skype, any cellphone has a phonebook
build in, and most smartphones can dial directly from a Facebook friend-
listing. I can dial 411 and be connected to anyone by name in a matter of
seconds.

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baseonmars
i'm not convinced... i kind of like the anonymity a telephone number affords.

~~~
throw_away
Moreover, people who want to change how phone addressing works rarely consider
the fact that the people who can email me are not the same people who I want
to call me on voice. Or the fact that sometimes I change my number with the
intent of denying that ability to people who knew the old number. Or the fact
that the region-locality of numbers often yields useful information about the
person on the other end.

~~~
SwellJoe
These are social problems with simple technical solutions. Making it default
to going to voicemail, with only a whitelist of callers ringing through, is
one possible solution. Having it respond with a message that suggests using
email instead is probably the one I would use, since I hate phone calls from
just about everybody, except family.

~~~
anamax
> These are social problems with simple technical solutions.

that don't work.

I'd much rather change phone numbers than screw around with a whitelist and
the other solution is worse than whitelists because it connects my phone
number to my e-mail, which I don't give out. (Thanks to various directory
services, phone numbers provide location information. Why would I want my
e-mail to get geo-targetted spam?)

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nathanb
Heck, this is just replacing a numeric unique-identifier with a textual
unique-identifier. Many companies have already gone this route by getting
phone numbers that spell clever things according to the letters on the phone
keypad.

Technology has completely obviated the need to remember phone numbers anyway,
so overhauling the whole system at this point would be a complete waste.

------
adrinavarro
Wouldn't it be much better to keep phone numbers, but leave them in the
"backstage"?

In a few years (let's say, 10 years) most (not to say, ALL) phones will have
internet access, and also access to DNS servers.

Why don't create a DNS entry that points to our real number? We can give
people an unique entry in our domain that they can remember, old-skool people
will be able to still use numbers (even if we have to add a few more digits if
we run out of number ranges). And change provider without worrying about our
numbers (I always take a new number when switching provider, but having some
kind of DNS entry wouldn't be a bad idea).

And, technically, implementing a DNS entry type for numbers should be dead
easy.

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dustmop
I've heard from a few family members that ever since they've started using
their cell phones, they can't remember anyone's numbers, and they felt this
was making them stupider. As if memorizing sequences of 7 digits is desirable
and conducive to being intelligent. I tried explaining that they shouldn't
have to memorize phone numbers - they don't represent anything real, they
aren't convenient, and there's no advantage to using them. It's much easier to
put a number in your Contacts list and reach someone using their name instead,
at which point the technology is strictly empowering, and like TFA says, the
number is just for backwards compatibility.

~~~
pradocchia
Remembering numbers is a form of mental exercise that we used to engage in
regularly, and as exercise it was good for the brain, just like stretching.

You seem to have the implicit model where the less we burden the brain with
mundane tasks, the better, as if we had a fixed daily capacity for thought, or
that mundane tasks are somehow wasteful.

I'm not sure this is the case--neither that mundane applications of brainpower
is burdensome, nor that capacity is fixed.

I suspect that someday, after more and more mundane mental tasks are replaced
by more automation and better design, a market will emerge for mental fitness
clubs to help thin the "fog" that will come to characterize our mental lives..

~~~
Novash
The brain does have a fixed daily capacity, but it is far higher than what we
use in average. My prick with phone numbers is not that remembering them on
itself is wasteful, but simply that people seem to change phone numbers so
often (due to lost, broken, change of company, etc) that I stopped bothering
to remember them. Also, I play Sudoku and Dual N-Back in a daily basis to keep
my mind sharp.

~~~
pradocchia
[Unfortunate double post there...]

Point taken, though I do suspect there is a qualitative difference between
solving Sudoku puzzles and practicing one's capacity for direct recall. Sudoku
is algorithmic--you're focused on _how_ to solve, rather than building up an
index of solutions which you would then access by key.

eg, 6x7 is a key, the lookup yields 42, and you _could_ work it out
algorithmically, and that might include methods like "type expression into
Google", but imagine if that was _all_ you knew. No index of multiplication
tables in your head. When you skimmed a text, your eyes would gloss "6x7" as
"multiplication product--undetermined". There might be a pointer to a method
to get the answer, but the _answer_ itself wouldn't be directly available. It
could be quite crippling.

Similarly with language: our facility of direct recall, our capacity for
internalization, makes communication possible. If you are consciously working
through the grammar that gives meaning to a phase, you have lost the
discussion.

In programming, we get so much mileage out of the "how" that the "what"
becomes incidental. Our mental map is a map of methods, where return values
only persist long enough to call the next method. We know how we got there,
but hardly remember any landmarks along the way.

So with phone numbers, we have lost one more opportunity to train and practice
our capacity to create mental indexes to actual data. Why remember _one_
number when you can remember _how_ to get _all_ numbers with less effort? Why
store multiple keys when a single function will do?

People once developed algorithms to _create_ vast mental indexes, eg. method
of loci. One could commit incredible volumes of information to memory with
such techniques.

Now compare that to the modern person w/ lazy evaluation in place of
memorization. In memorization, lookup costs are zero. Consciousness stays
focused on the matter at hand. Supporting data is pulled up as needed. Without
memorization, consciousness must make repeated detours to supply the
supporting data, or gloss over it all together.

I'd suggest that mastery of a subject occurs when consciousness can stop
making these detours. When you know the behavior of various programming
constructs by heart, you can stop checking the reference documentation at
every turn.

So in aggregate, if you no longer know any phone numbers by heart, you may
indeed be getting dumber.

~~~
Novash
That's why I play Dual-N Back as well. It is an exercise meant to train direct
recall, very short-time and short-time memory.

~~~
pradocchia
Ah, I missed that. Cheers.

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anigbrowl
I would be happy to see the end of (human-readable) URLs too. I think they're
holding the net back the same way telephone numbers are becoming a drag on,
er, telephony.

~~~
blasdel
I fully agree, and it's already happening!

Average users have long-since stopped telling each other their phone numbers
or keying them in more than once -- you search for the person on Facebook and
their number is in their profile -- then you put it in your cell phone's
contacts and never think about it again. With Facebook apps on some phones,
you never have to see the number at all!

URLs are headed the same direction -- users don't type in domain names much
less URLs, and DNS is not trustworthy, _but Google is_. Chrome's OmniBar
already makes interpretation as a URL not the default when it is confident
enough in its search results.

As an added bonus, the disappearance of meaningful domain names and URLs will
hasten the death of "False REST" -- Hypermedia will finally be The Engine Of
Application State!

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dcurtis
These URLs are hilariously and unnecessarily geeky.

I'd prefer picking up a phone and dialing "dcurtis" or "edw519." That should
ring all associated phones until the person is reached. If I want to only ring
a certain phone, I'd dial "dcurtis.mobile" or "dcurtis.work".

There's no reason the device should be attached to the dialing system. When I
pick up a phone, I intend to speak to someone. The network should facilitate
that.

------
edw519
I dunno, I prefer

867-5309

over

phone://saw.your.name.and.number.of.the.wall.voice/jenny_jenny_who_can_i_turn_to

~~~
tc
Maybe you would like phone://j.mp/jenae better.

~~~
ynniv
Man, _thats_ going to scale well. More like (p:)j.mp/jen38js09

