Examples of a short URL in print

Examples of shortened URLs (AKA shortlinks, short URLs) in print is shown as real world evidence for the basis of the principle of Unambiguous Readability in the methodology for the creation of a NewBase60 numbering system.

SF Newspaper

1. The San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper on 2009-10-13 printed an article with a tr.im shortlink:

Note the "tr.im/BAa2" at the bottom of the photo, which a user is presumably expected to unambiguously type into a browser to view the simulation mentioned in the article.

Archeology Magazine

In the May-June 2009 issue of British Archeology section "on the web" there is a list of "Historic landscapes on the web":

Excerpted for demonstration only:

...

• Historic Liverpool – www.historic-liverpool.co.uk
• Such urban archaeology on the web as this is rare, and when you look at the attitude to sharing information and software you will like it even more
• Paleo Indian Archaeology on DoD installations –www.cemml.colostate.edu/paleo
• An academic site, but I could not resist the link between prehistory, shorelines and the US Department of Defense
• The Battlefields of the Somme – www.somme-battlefields.com
• Driven by visitor logistics, maybe, but there is a wealth of detail from landscape reconstruction after the battles to the sites (and poets)

...

Note that in this online version of the article, all the URLs (http:// implied) refer directly to sites.

However, in the print version, note the difference:

Photo by Tom Gaskar, from his blog post "Why I'm creating my own URL shortening service".

The print entry for Paleo Indian Archaeology on DoD installations uses tinyurl.com (a 3rd party URL shortening service) instead of a direct URL, with the implication that the shortened tinyurl's cryptic sequence of numbers and letters can be unambiguously read and retyped by a human browsing the magazine (or perhaps scanned in by OCR).

Conclusion

Only unambiguously human readable characters should be used in a shortened URL, both in general, and especially in a shortened URL consisting of a series of numbers and letters.