Live data from Hacker News

A Geocode Is Not an Address

wired.com

31–36 of 36 posts

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#31
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puerto Rico is a territory owned by the United States, not a state. The Democratic Party officially wants to make it a state; the Republican Party does not. PR has voted for statehood in two referenda, but voter turnout was low. It is certainly true that FEMA is terrible at its job.

It seems pretty clear that the OP used "state" in a generic sense despite the admittedly confusing capitalization, not referring to a US state or a sovereign state but a general political organization that controls some land [1]. It's more than unnecessary to transition this into a remark on the mainstream US political parties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)

Discussing Puerto Rico without reference to the established policies of the main political parties is like recommending that poor people who can't get bread should eat cake instead.

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#32
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty clear that the OP used "state" in a generic sense despite the admittedly confusing capitalization, not referring to a US state or a sovereign state but a general political organization that controls some land [1]. It's more than unnecessary to transition this into a remark on the mainstream US political parties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)

Discussing Puerto Rico without reference to the established policies of the main political parties is like recommending that poor people who can't get bread should eat cake instead.

Oh, addressing is a local problem for which they have had quite some DECADES. Whatever the National interests. It is complicated but not SO much.

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#33
post #18

Those new locating systems are solving problems which most of the people don't have. They make it even worse. We have street addresses in the most of the cities. In case someone call me if I can come to e.g. "Delnicka 43, Prague, Czech Republic" I know immediately where it is and I can say I can be there in 20 minutes. In case she tell me "mission back envy" I must connect to the Internet and check where exactly is i…

> In case she tell me "mission back envy" I must connect to the Internet and check where exactly is it. So I must have some device and connection

The app works offline, so assume you already have it installed, you don't need a connection.

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a good reason to flag this submission.

The article seems to be against What3Words, so why would it be flag-worthy? I mean, he doesn't disclose the conflict of interest, but this doesn't seem an attempt to peddle a narrative that benefits the company in any way.

It's pretty mild criticism though, and even oddly mild criticism is a positive for a relatively small startup given that it's getting them attention.

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#35
post #9
post #4

Among other flaws of geo codes already discussed were: they are non continuous so you cannot know who is neighbor with whom, they cannot be used for navigation (follow that street, turn into another one) and they are not permanent, because earth moves.

What do you mean by "earth moves" do you mean tectonic plates ? Wouldn't that apply to any of the other global location descriptions (GPS coordinates) as well? And is this really less permanent than street names/numbers that may be changed several times over the course of a few hundred years? If you are going to describe a path to an ancient tomb, Indiana Jones style, than the movement might matter but over the times…

Tectonic plates is one thing. More short term reasons are earth quakes. And indeed, it is a problem with gps coordinates as well.

Re: A Geocode Is Not an Address

#36
One option that seems underdiscussed in this article is, you know, adapting "mainland" systems to more readily handle Puerto Rican addresses. Maybe have the Zip code be the first thing entered, and then whatever system in question uses that to pull up the appropriate entry form. Then just add the relevant missing database columns/fields.

There's surely more to it than that, but it seems like the issue is less "Puerto Ricans don't have addresses" and more "Puerto Ricans have addresses different from the American norm", and it therefore seems like adapting systems to account for those differences would be easier than trying to change Puerto Rican society.

Post reply on HN