For some reason I remember useless numbers/information that I’ll most likely never/rarely need to know. For example:
The temporary plate to the new car I got was M513771
My Locker number during Senior Year was 236 and the combo was 1-31-21
My first cell phone number
The plate number to my first car was K77-AVC
My 6th grade locker number was 203 and my homeroom was 109.
Anyone else know a bunch of useless numbers?
Oh God yes.
My parents’ car license plate in 1955: CYB624
Many, many phone numbers from back when there were still numerical exchanges, CApital 3-9471, DIamond 2-2414, PErshing 7-1326…
As an Air Force brat, I had many addresses, but I still remember house numbers from when I was 5-ish to about 12 years old: 1568, 7505, 5616D…
My father’s service number from the early 1950s (not his SSN)…I won’t quote it here, but I could.
My head is crammed with this stuff.
I remember every phone number I’ve ever had.
Except for the one I currently have.
Don’t post them here! You can use them for passwords. (That is a good way to wipe them out of your memory.)
I can remember the birthdays of most of my friends from High School - May 31, October 3, August 18, etc.
I can recall the license plate of my Mother’s old beater car - DK8586.
Nearly all the phone numbers through the years.
When I was 7 years old, a school friend and I started counting how many skips we could do through recess/playtime break for a week. We got up to 622.
I remember the first phone number I ever had in my own name.
I also remember the license plate of the first car I ever bought in my own name.
And for some strange reason, I remember my first girlfriend’s drivers license number.
The license number on my dad’s car in 1946 was 628-907. Our phone number then was easier – 7W.
A lot of those were potentially useful at the time, I remember the make and plate number of my history teacher’s car …
It sometimes was right ahead of the school bus on the way to school and me and a friend made a game of it.
That’s what I use them for (but they are indelibly in my memory).
Most numbers that I remember, be they license plate, phone numbers, addresses, etc., are at least forty years old.
The passwords that I use are usually based on old phone numbers. You can keep a printed list and put the password clue right next to the site name in your bookmarks/favorites list in your browser if the clues are cryptic. A typical (but fake) clue for my list would be:
old10-X3uncJo4
That means I used Uncle Joe’s phone number. Uncle Joe died over thirty years ago and lived a thousand miles away. The “old” refers to the area code back then before a geographical split this century, and I know by the "X’ to put in the alpha-numeric exchange followed by a lower case letter for his first name and a capital for his last name, which go in place of the dash in the seven digit phone number.
987-PE6uJ3210 easy as pie
Thanks to the wonders of “The IT Crowd” both myself, my wife and my kids are able to recite the number of the new emergency services.
0 1 1 8 9 9 9 8 8 1 9 9 9 1 1 9 7 2 5 …3
pointless but amusing.
I remember Avogadro’s number, but when I call it I find it’s no longer a working number.
And PINs. When some entity wants a four-digit PIN, the last four #s of an old phone number can be useful. No one is going to guess my former allergist’s phone number from 1985.
I remember my undergraduate student ID number, from 25+ years ago; I also remember the 14-digit calling card number I used to make long-distance phone calls back then. Haven’t had a use for either of those numbers since the early 1990s.
When I used to work for Cub Foods, we had a small list of numbers for all the produce items that we had to ring up at the register. The one I still remember is 42 for cucumbers.
I have Pi memorized to 100 decimals. It makes for a nice thing to mention at ice-breaker activities.
Talk about useless… I still remember my locker combination from 7th grade: 0-19-37
I remember numbers from before I got a smartphone. Since then, I don’t memorize anything. I can’t even tell you my kid’s cellphone numbers at this point.
I remember my phone number from when I was growing up, but no subsequent one. I know the squares of all 2 digit numbers up to 32. But the most curious is my HS locks, one for gym and other for coats. I don’t recall now which was which but one was 9-41-36 and the other was 7-43-36 and either one could be opened with 8-42-36. Although I know my home phone number, I cannot recall either my or my wife’s cell phone. I know pi to 12 places but only with the help of a mnemonic rhyme. I know e to 16 because the first 16 places just happen to be easy: 2.718281828459045.
I’m the same way, I even recall the phone # we had when I was about 5 years old.
It usually takes me 2 or 3 years to remember my new phone number.
But, I remember the phone number and address of the house I grew up in… and left both behind in 1981.
I remember the PIN for my first ATM card, which I had with Barclay’s Bank in the UK in 1985-87.
I remember my password for my first work computer when I was at IBM in 1989.
I remember the license plate for the car I got rid of 2 years ago, but can never remember the one for the car I have now that replaces it.
Since the advent of smartphones and the internet, we hardly have to remember anything… Hell, I often check my phone to see what the day/date is. :rolleyes:
I know my current credit card number by heart and have for years (but that’s not really a *useless *number to know). I only have one card. Yeah, I do a LOT of internet shopping. My CC# has been stolen a few times and the company sends me a new card quickly. I spend about an hour going around to sites where the number is saved for automatic payments (utilities, mostly) and entering the new number. That activity overlays the old number in my memory with the new number.
I’ve got lots of old numbers and now-useless factoids rattling around in my brain. But interestingly, nearly none from after about age 35. Which means the last 25-ish years have been largely free of pointless memory barnacles.
I honestly can’t say whether the difference is that post-35 I learn less well, or forget more easily, or does the change in available tech mean I’m called on to remember a lot less trivia in the first place? Damn good question.
Maybe factoid storage capacity is fixed and finite for any given individual. By age 35 I’d filled up 80% of my capacity with stuff that became somehow mostly indelible and since then I’ve had to make do by recycling the last 20% of my available slots over and over? If so, thank Og for smartphone/PDA devices.