My host recently started giving out IPv6 addresses for the masses at their london facility. Because I'm a proper networking nerd, I had to get that shit working.
WTF
Yeah so IPv6 is the new form of addressing on the internets. If you knew that... skip this bit. IPv4 is what everyone uses right now, so the "address" of this website when you type in "alanedwardes.com" is actually 109.74.192.204.
However, because there are only so many combinations of addresses you can get from that format, IPv6 was created, which has addresses that are an absolute mindfuck, this for example is my website's: 2a01:7e00::f03c:91ff:fe96:2d5c.
Cool, But it Doesn't Matter
I set up that, had to update my web server too because it didn't support it properly (that was a bitch), and set it up so when you type in "alanedwardes.com" your computer knows to use the IPv6 address if it can.
But, IPv4 and IPv6 will continue to work in harmony for many years, so what I've done is basically redundant. Probably 20 years premature... but be prepared right?!
Here's a seal photobombing some penguins because it's awesome
Weirdness
Also, for some reason this URL works from my house: http://[2a01:7e00::f03c:91ff:fe96:2d5c]/. It shouldn't, but for some reason it does. Some kind of freaky tunneling shit going on there I think, so if that loads for you, you can access IPv6 stuff too. That made the seal happy.