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phone-number
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phone-number
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there has been a time when cell phones (in tunisia) used to be rare and lines costly
that even carrying phone as big as your boots became a symbol of status
The national telephone company used 8 digit numbers with a distinct 2 digit prefix and it all started with the 98 series.
at that time I was in high school, and in high school kids love to show off
some people even used to feign talking in the phone to attract attention (and memorably caught doing so)
then cell phones proliferated fast, and then came the 97, 96 and 95 series. A 98 prefix became itself a symbol of status.
it occured to me however, that the glamor is gone because 98 prefixed numbers started being recycled or issued on demand.
it made me think about email addresses
there used to be a time when every email address I saw contained its year of creation, like foo2000 and lee2003 (this one sounds good)
this might seem strange, but in those times, people used to connect once or twice a year and they tended to forget their emails' passwords
I even spent one night setting up account after account because I kept coming up with perfect passwords even I couldn't guess
and I wasn't even about security, but due to voila's password verification, "You need capital letters" "you need a digit" "you need a symbol"
then I turn to my friend "we nailed the damn password this time" "ok, do you rember it?" awkward silence "we probably need to create another one"
then it occured to me that analogously to the phone prefixes, the same happened with emails
at a certain point it became trendy to use those old email addresses sprinkled with numbers all over them and tainted with their years of creation
I supposed it had also gone out of fashion when people born those years started coming of age and instead of your email signifying that you're in this
since a long time, you no longer want that address because you're afraid you're gonna be mistaking for someone of the most abhorrent tranche of age to you
at that point of the thought process, had I been with you in the same room, I would have defended this hipothesis vehemently
but sitting to my pc it occured to me that maybe, i could verify that
I started making search requests, about email trends, but all i got was trash about email marketing trash (of all the plagues afflicting cyber space)
so I didn't give up, if i can't find the information, why not discover it for yourself
after all i'm equipped with one of the most powerful data analysis tool in the world, R
my zeal soon faded away, anyone who has an email database will protect it with his life
and i really didn't want to spend much of my money to prove that
and i really didn't want to get into data breaches
i still hold the opinion
email addresses with years inside were the norm, then they were no longer trendy, then they became trendy again, then they became untrendy
but i'm ready to be open minded and fair with opposite opinions
why not be humble about our opinions when we cannot verify them
Everything I tell in this blog, I tell with a straight face, except when I don't