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Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

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Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#101

Post by ISL »

nradov wrote: post #78
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have long maintained that an extension of the postal service should provide a one-stop-shop for your addresses. I have moved nearly every year since I left for college and I hate having to reset every address on every service I have. I'm sick of it.

Right the USPS should provide a layer of indirection. Give everyone a virtual mailing address, and then they could automatically route your mail to wherever you actually happen to live at the moment.

Not the USPS, but companies like this one: https://www.earthclassmail.com/

do pretty much what you're looking for.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#102

Post by knz »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #70
sly010 wrote: post #67

This is probably a first world problem, but I wouldn't mind something similar for the western world. Some sort of extended zip code that I can just enter on any device in a second and it represents my entire fully and correctly defined location including door number, floor, gps coordinates and crossing streets and if it's left or right side of a one way street, etc. Just a ~12 digit number for every single door (and…

I have long maintained that an extension of the postal service should provide a one-stop-shop for your addresses. I have moved nearly every year since I left for college and I hate having to reset every address on every service I have. I'm sick of it.

The USPS have a hard enough time maintaining a conventional address database.

My understanding is that addresses in the US are usually derived from the municipal authority and by the time those trickle out to the various consumers (counties, states, feds, USPS, Census, and commercial consumers) it's a mess. There are many initiatives underway to clean this up (usually in the context of E-911 and putting a single point on every discrete unit in a building) but it's a massive task.

Every City has it's own standard (often the whim of whoever has the authority) and there are situations that will make you tear your hair out - the official address being 1000 Some Road but it's a multi family place so the building address is 1020 Some Road, or confusion over whether its 1000 W Some Road or 1000 Some Road W. My personal favourite was the guy who convinced USPS that his address was 1 Unicorn Road (changed for privacy) rather than XXXX Long Avenue. The City ended up making an exception for him. Then there are address like 10 1/2 12 1/2 Avenue.

And don't even get me started on how USPS often use a different City (my understanding is that this dates back to when the US was surveyed and the postal system was established. If your City didn't exist at this time then there is a good chance your USPS address is really the nearest large city).

Geocoding solves the issue if you don't care about spatial accuracy but even that has issues.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#103

Post by tener »

T-A wrote: post #99
tener wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are sending or telling someone the adress you can't expect them to check the avatar. How would it work e.g. over the phone?

From the README: If you want to transmit your Xaddress by phone you will say "7150 MAGICAL PEARL - Maluku ,Indonesia" my avatar is a boot

So to check whether the address is valid I need to use a smartphone app. If I cannot do it online and only after someone gives me the address I will know it is broken, but will not know what is the correct address.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#104

Post by athenot »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #70
sly010 wrote: post #67

This is probably a first world problem, but I wouldn't mind something similar for the western world. Some sort of extended zip code that I can just enter on any device in a second and it represents my entire fully and correctly defined location including door number, floor, gps coordinates and crossing streets and if it's left or right side of a one way street, etc. Just a ~12 digit number for every single door (and…

I have long maintained that an extension of the postal service should provide a one-stop-shop for your addresses. I have moved nearly every year since I left for college and I hate having to reset every address on every service I have. I'm sick of it.

That's what PO boxes are for. Some friends I know even managed to get the PO box on their driver's license (using suit 1234 instead of PO BOX 1234).

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#107

Post by aw3c2 »

tener wrote: post #98
sly010 wrote: post #75

As a sidenote, Australia moves about 7cm north annually [1], so any encoding of GPS location is not flexible enough in the long term. Also only encoding lat/long makes it so you would not be able to address a single floor in a large building. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36912700

Perhaps the address can be made relative to some landmark which moves in the same direction. This could add an additional word in front of it (for the landmark) but will resolve such issues.

That's a great idea, maybe something like "church street" and a number that denotes a length on that street?

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#108

Post by aw3c2 »

sp332 wrote: post #39
wscott wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note you can click on many of the words and cycle over alternatives.

If you look at the word list, there are many options for each set of numbers. "Anus" could equivalently be any of: ANUS CUFFLINK GRETNA EMPT WAIFS UNAS FUMOTO GUIDOS ASUN GOOFER GANTER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS YOCHEVED OVERCOMETH WIFIE USAN EDICIONES UNDERPOWERED CALIFIORNIA DESPRES

> CALIFIORNIA

grin

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#109

Post by robalfonso »

clarkmoody wrote: post #89
sly010 wrote: post #75

As a sidenote, Australia moves about 7cm north annually [1], so any encoding of GPS location is not flexible enough in the long term. Also only encoding lat/long makes it so you would not be able to address a single floor in a large building. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36912700

Given the spatial resolution of this project (10m) and the lifetime of humans (80 years), it should be alright :-) Floor / apartment number / suite number could just be tacked onto the end.

Any position can be determined from x,y,z, you could just tack on the z coordinate - though you'd need to match that locally, accounting for sea level. If you are using latitude and longitude you should stick with the paradigm for height, since floors can be different heights.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#110

Post by jpalomaki »

I see the point especially with foreign addresses. It can be bit of a challenge to communicate addresses like "Nándorfejérvári út 4" or "Kısıklı Büyük Çamlıca Cd. No:9" over the phone. Coordinates are of course alternative, but for most of us, few words and number are easier to keep in mind for few minutes.

The given notation is hard to decode inside the head, but if you can memorize it for 30 seconds then you can fire up an app to do the decoding.

Pictogram is clever idea for the checksum. Probably something that sticks to your head. Reminds me of the Lotus Notes login dialog [1], [2]

[1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-dramatic-password-reveal/ [2] http://www.tenable.com/pvs-plugins/1305

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