I read this for the first time probably 15 years ago, and to this day I can't think about IPv6 without thinking about this passage from the guide:
What does this suggest to you?
That we need a lot more addresses. That we need not just twice as many addresses,
not a billion times as many, not a thousand trillion times as many, but 79 MILLION
BILLION TRILLION times as many possible addresses! That’ll show ’em!
You’re saying, “Beej, is that true? I have every reason to disbelieve large numbers.”
Well, the difference between 32 bits and 128 bits might not sound like a lot; it’s
only 96 more bits, right? But remember, we’re talking powers here: 32 bits represents
some 4 billion numbers (232), while 128 bits represents about 340 trillion trillion
trillion numbers (for real, 2128). That’s like a million IPv4 Internets for every
single star in the Universe.