> How come 10 digits are enough to tag all the cows in the civilized > world ? That would be far fewer than 10 billion (10^10 - is it base > 10 ?) cows. I thought they outnumbered humans AFAICT, cow numbers are far less than humans. eg France has human pop of 60m, cows are 20m, US has 300m vs 160m. I think most countries would have cows but some, eg Iceland, will have bugger all Besides, you could use non-numeric characters. A-Z, a-z, Smiley Face, Batman sign. Get you a good 100^10 easy. Handy if you want to tag fish, rabbits, beetles, ants......... -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist