Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 January 19

= January 19 =

Random vehicle registration plates
In my country, vehicle registration plates are issued sequentially in ascending order, and I imagine this applies pretty much everywhere. But has any jurisdiction ever issued them in random order? For example, after CRX-385 comes VGQ-109, then BVW-687, then TES-984 .... --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In Britain there is a 7-character plate.  1 and 2 are two letters identifying the issuing office.   3 and 4 are the last two digits of the year (if registered between 1 March and 31 August).   Registrations in the next six months  have this number augmented by 50.   5, 6, and 7 are three letters allocated randomly. 81.139.249.156 (talk) 08:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * How about we provide a reference? [] is Wikipedia's article about this topic, which explains the British system in detail with plenty of citations. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:45, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I linked that article in my question. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:35, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I always assumed that plates were pretty much issued in order. When I registered both my cars in South Carolina, at the same time, on the same day, I expected to have plates that were similar. One car got "598-4FU" and the other got "227-3JA". They weren't similar at all, but they were taken as the top two plates off the stack of new plates at the DMV. So, since then, I figured that plates aren't necessarily in order. 71.85.51.150 (talk) 12:51, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * There's likely a distinction here between "issued" and "manufactured". Think of it this way, the plates could be made by a series of machines. One machine is doing ABC followed by three numbers, the next is doing DEF and three numbers, and so on. As each plate is stamped, it rolls down a conveyor into a box for delivery to the DMV. The box is filled by multiple machines and the order isn't necessarily in any strict order. Then when you were issued the plate, the worker at the DMV just grabbed the first two plates off the stack and you got them. So, they were issued in order but never manufactured, or rather boxed, in order.
 * That said, whenever I've received new plates, I always had them mailed to me. I've never received them from the DMV in person. Also, when I was a kid, my parents has sequential plates. UG 4417 and UG 4418. So, (pun intended) your mileage may vary. † dismas †|(talk) 22:42, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand about plates getting out of sequence at the DMV and you get whatever you're given. But I'm talking about production and issue of plates in random order as an explicit government policy.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:56, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This is an illustration of a license plate assembly line. Or this. Or this. Bus stop (talk) 16:56, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That tells me a human is needed to change a die for each new plate, and that's just for one different letter or number.  Having 6 or more characters changed each time would be a nightmare.  So, I guess the answer to my question is No, at least not using current technology.  Thanks, all. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Well that specific issue would only seem to apply if number plates are centrally manufactured using that manufacturing system. This may be common but I don't think it's universal. While I can't find any sources specifically discussing the production of new plates in Malaysia, my impression is it's not the case in Malaysia. See these sources [//paultan.org/2016/01/13/no-more-custom-number-plates-standardised-vehicle-licence-plate-production-coming-later-this-year/] [//www.thestar.com.my/business/sme/2013/10/22/the-business-of-number-plates-lucrative-market-in-vehicle-registrations/] [//vulcanpost.com/305641/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-malaysias-car-number-plates/] [//www.carama.com/tips-and-advice/the-story-behind-our-number-plates] Vehicle registration plates of Malaysia.  Notably our article mentions borderless vehicle registration, which would seem difficult if the office also has to issue the plates. I mean it's possible that each office keep a stack of plates for all 16 states and territories but this still seems very complicated. My understanding is the registration numbers (which include letters) are issued by the JPJ offices, these plates themselves are normally produced by the vehicle supplier or sometimes buyer, or someone contracted by them. My impression is that the plates tend to be issued before the car is sold, I'm not sure if the supplier is listed as the owner or the registration is only part completely or I'm simply wrong. (One reason many jurisdictions use centralised production of standard plates is to make it more difficult to produce fake plates & also ensure consistency which as the sources attest is an issue in Malaysia. That said, you could imagine a place with a good rule of law system where the production is not centralised but well regulated.)  Plates there were and I think still generally have their letters either printed on, or premolded letters stuck on. Using most modern computer printing systems, I don't believe there will be that much difference between printing consecutive plates or completely different ones. For premolded letters, it would likely be significantly easier to produce consecutive plates. (For a human, you could simple remember what you are producing and then get a whole bunch of the right letters and numbers.)  But if I'm right and the production system is largely decentralised, I'm not sure whether this is really the big issue. (How many are normally produced at a time? 100?). Especially since Malaysia is still a fairly low wage economy when you considered the exploitative use of migrant labour. A bigger problem is in the pre-computerised world ensuring uniqueness is a lot more complicated. I guess the simplest is filing the registration details alphanumerically and so when you file the details for the newly issued registration, you'll come across it if that number has already been issued. But this is a lot more complicated than simply issuing consecutive numbers, and also what do you do with multiple independent offices issuing registrations? The alternative is not worrying about duplicates being issued, but given the purpose of number plates that doesn't generally work. (You could issue very long number plates so the chance it would happen by chance is very low, but that would mean remembering it becomes difficult.) Plus you'll probably still want to file the registration details alphanumerically, otherwise how are you going to find it if needed? In modern times, if you're willing to rely on your computer system, you can trivial issue unique numbers, but that would mean changing your existing system.  Nil Einne (talk) 05:31, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * As I said above, "the answer to my question is No, at least not using current technology". -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * But that's highly questionable. As I said in my reply, it seems definitely possible in a system like Malaysia's if you add and are willing to rely on computerised database and the a system to generate random numbers something definitely surely possible with current tech. The primary issue in modern times is not technological, but simply that's there's no reason to change from any system that works into something else. Or to put it a different way the closest to a correct answer is "not reasonable using technology in the 1970 and that or earlier was when most systems are designed; so even if it's possible using technology now, no one is likely to do it". (As the sources note, there is a plan to change the Malaysian system but this seems to be more about the greater ease to prevent fraud by centralising production rather than the cost savings thereof. Also even with centralised production, as I noted with computer printed plates it's not likely there will be much difference between consecutive vs random although these may pose some security concerns compared to pressed metal.) The borderless registration suggests a computerised database is already used in Malaysia. The nature of Malaysian bureaucracy makes me think there's probably still a fair amount of inefficient paperwork (although there are reasons why you'd want a paperwork backend even in an efficient bureaucracy), but that's not a technology requirement. And in any case, it's likely you could make a system using current technology which would make the paperwork-load acceptable.  The real problem is if you ever need to back to your paperwork because your computer system fails, but that's not a purely technological problem per se, and it's questionable if it's ever solvable. (At most, improved technology may give us increased confidence the system will not fail catastrophically.) Plus increasingly systems are designed around not having such a fail-safe, or using the failsafe only for real emergencies in the real short term so it's questionable if it's really a barrier.  Incidentally if you really want to use pressed metal I still question whether it's purely a technological barrier per se. I'm fairly sure you could come up with modern entirely computerised production which would not be that expensive once in place to produce random plates although it would still be a fair investment for questionable reasons. Whether it's ever not going be more significantly efficient to press consecutive plates vs random I'm not sure. (Perhaps some sort of dot-matrix used to press metal? Although I still wonder if the movement of the other dots when you wouldn't normally have to would increase wear and tear. I mean you could talk about wacky ideas like nanites or some other randomness albeit why you'd want plates in such a world I'm not sure. If you can't find a system, then the problem isn't technological but physical.)  Nil Einne (talk) 07:18, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking into this a bit more trying to find under places which don't use pressed metal plates, I ironically out found the UK appears to be another. This isn't well discussed in our article, although it does mention mention most are flat plastic but some use pressed metal. Flat plastic probably means printed, although this isn't explicitly stated. One thing our articles does discuss in some details is who produces them. It sounds like the system in the UK is similar to that in Malaysia. The numbers are issued and then it's up to the car supplier or whoever to have them made. This is one company which sells production equipment . While the mode of operation isn't well described, I don't see anything to suggest it will make any real difference whether you're producing consecutive or random plates. You can see other machines in operation here [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3cUMZtJij8] [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtqLF6h_sk] [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXbjUqWk74] [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN4LgIZpARc] [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGtiRZNRGYU], ditto. Maybe I didn't explain this well but even for pressed metal plates, while it's significantly easier to produce consecutive plates even with most entirely computerised systems that you can imagine (as it is for adhesive premolded letters), if you're not mass producing them but only producing e.g. 100 a day it's not likely to be such a big deal [//www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUIuxPf8AgY]. And it remains unclear to me if it's particularly common to produce more than 100 consecutive plates a day in the UK or Malaysia even for major suppliers of cars.  In the particular case of the UK, various sources including [//www.nationalnumbers.co.uk/blog/2015/12/legal-pressed-plates.html] which claim they're illegal for cars since 2001 suggest to me that pressed number plates are rarely coming from car suppliers anyway. Most of them seem to be using the printed variety. So it's fairly like most suppliers are using equipment where there's actually little advantage to producing consecutive plates. </p Note that while mass production has advantages, the earlier system described for plates means these need to then be transported around and supplied by the government department responsible. The system used in Malaysia and the UK where it seems numbers are issued and the supplier then produces the plate eliminates this. (Of course as much as anything it gets back to my main point. Places are doing what they choose for whatever reasons at the time this started and you'll need good reasons or government corruption to change the current system regardless of whether it's possible, or could even be more cost effective in the long run.)  P.S. To be clear, the legality is hotly disputed  & there are sellers claiming road legal but the fact this is so much of an issue would seem to imply car suppliers are probably not dealing with it. P.P.S. Also I didn't really make this clear, but there are obvious advantages to the system used in Malaysia, or the UK that will be lost with a random system that go beyond the ease of issuing the numbers. These advantages are a lot less when most numbers will just be checked on a computer database anyway; still they add to the question, why would you want to change just because you can? P.P.P.S. I noticed this question before a lot of the earlier discussion but purposely avoided it since I thought the problem of avoiding duplicates when issuing random numbers without a centralised computerised database was obvious, although not something easy to source and you were just wondering if anyone did it anyway. And I also know you often don't find my responses that helpful. But my dislike for questionable information means I couldn't help myself once it was suggested that the production difficulties for mass produced pressed plates are the primary issue. When at best, this would only apply in places that use such a system.  Nil Einne (talk) 10:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The "whoever" mentioned in Nil Einne's comment may be a dealer, as was explained here:

Confirming Nil Einne's observation, here in Britain I have seen dealers providing number plates while the customer waits by sticking numbers and letters on blank plates drawn from stock. The standard (which I believe is EU wide) is black on white for the front and black on yellow for the rear. - 82.13.208.70 15:21, 22 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Nil Einne, please hear this. I acknowledge and respect the effort you put into your replies here.  But, as I have said to you previously, both here and privately, I simply cannot bring myself to read the huge blocks of text you habitually post.  Hence, whatever you have written above after my previous post has been lost to me.  It's an assault, an insult, and a waste of your time, because it goes straight to my TL:DR basket.  Maybe I'm easily daunted; but I suspect not.
 * Please seek professional help in learning how to come to your point quickly, and to express that point in a way that doesn't require 20 words where 1 would suffice. Thank you.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:27, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Rainfall in Israel
“Israel should have been a water basket case,” says Siegel, listing its problems: 60% of the land is desert and the rest is arid. Rainfall has fallen to half its 1948 average, apparently thanks to climate change, and as global warming progresses, Israel and the whole Levant are expected to become even drier – and from 1948, Israel’s population has grown 10-fold.

https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/how-israel-can-help-a-thirsty-world-1.5392651

The claim in bold seems too extraordinary to believe. Is there anywhere in the world that has undergone such dramatic change in climate in that period? Muzzleflash (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Responding on the unanswered question ("too extraordinary to believe" -> is it true?) Data for rainfall in Israel is here. I'm not skilled enough to interrogate if the premise is accurate. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:34, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I've made a graph of the data from that website here, extending the full date range of the website data, and with y-axis starting at zero, so no cherry picking and no sensationalist graphs. The fall is not 50%, but the downward trend is certainly visible (my PC estimated it at -0.5mm/yr). That being said, it's not impossible that some places (perhaps even larger cities) have indeed seen a 50% fall. And naturally, being that Israel is fairly close to the equator, the effects of global warming there will have been relatively low. At the moment, locations closer to the poles are having much bigger problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.142.70.141 (talk) 02:02, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your graph. This "And naturally, being that Israel is fairly close to the equator, the effects of global warming there will have been relatively low. " --, and frankly I don't think it's true. At best, it's a worrisome oversimplification. For example, many impacts of global warming have been shown in tropical forests, and many more are predicted by experts. See e.g. here for a Nature paper or here  for a Science paper detailing some of the effects. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:44, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant in terms of temperature deviations and such -- unlike Alaska, Israel will probably have not yet seen a 4.4°C warming, for example; sorry for not clarifying that. Of course, it takes far less than that to wreak havoc to ecosystems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.142.65.22 (talk) 15:10, 20 January 2018 (UTC)


 * See also these research papers Here (Fig. 3), and here (summary), and here, which says "The large-scale oscillations and the global temperature explain 83 % of the variance on the inter-decadal time-scale, half of it explained by the global temperature alone." In short, the claim does not seem unreasonable based on my quick skim of the evidence.
 * As for where else in the world has undergone dramatic shifts, this paper has lots to say about that. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:16, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes. September 1 Arctic sea ice volume. Last 8 years average half of last 38 years average (technically 1979-2016 vs 2010-17) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Israel is arid. That means that agricultural irrigation relies on pumped water, not direct rainfall. So control of the aquifers is crucial. The six-day war of 1967 gave Israel four times the land area, but more importantly, twice the water supply. Control of these aquifers is a keystone of Israeli politics and conflict with the Palestinians.   Andy Dingley (talk) 00:02, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Its likely a political Alarmism attempt, in hope that a government ramps up support for the water biz, which is already big in Israel and its neighbor states. But in fact the whole continental area has been desert and arid land for as long as human history exists and its even exceptionally well known. Remember Jesus walk into the desert or Moses walk tru it? --Kharon (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The whole of human history bit is way overstated. Lebanon was famed for its forests, many river courses in the area are now covered in sand.  The desertification of North Africa and the Middle East has been attributed to the rise of animal husbandry, and overgrazing by goats, which destroyed the plant cover which held in place soil that retained water.  This topic has been discussed here several times, I suggest searching the archives for it, as I don't have time right now to find the links. μηδείς (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * To add to this, Asian elephants used to roam current-day Syria and Iraq in the 1st millenium BCE. This is a little hard to imagine in the current climate. 93.136.126.95 (talk) 19:23, 21 January 2018 (UTC)