Why would he publish his own address for the whole internet to see?
> To avoid doxxing myself, I’ve carefully changed the address readers see.
What is the minimal possible UK address?
121–130 of 406 posts
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#122Definitely not unique to Japan, but several towers here have their own zip code, and there is at least one building I know where the building has several zip codes (each for various floors of the building). People take this and extrapolate to think that we should just be writing very long zip codes for everything, but the wonderful nature of writing out addresses is that they have a lot of possible error correcting.…
A building in the UK with about 300 apartments will prob have around 8 postal codes
I've been in at least two apartments blocks that had multiple post codes, but that's not hugely unusual as a UK post code is (to a first approximation[0]) a street identifier, so the high street has one, the side street has another, and the rear parking might also be its own.
In one case, this meant my front door and back door had different post codes, even though it was a 35 square metre one bed apartment.
[0] except when it isn't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#123I wonder if there are performance differences/overheads between the address styles? Maybe automated sorting machines use redundant information for OCR error-correction, and omitting it might kick the letter into a fallback "manual processing" queue as the automation has no way of checking the validity of its guess?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxCha4Kez9c might be of interest - it has some of what the machines are trying to read and what accuracy they need.
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#124Olga was a famous doorkeeper at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Students used to send her postcards from their journeys. It became so popular that it was enough to write "Olga, Sweden" for her to get the letters [0] (source in swedish). [0]: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Boberg
I wonder if a sufficiently famous, public, and unique name could get delivered. Would a letter simply addressed “Biden” make it to the White House?
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#125Interesting, I tried something similar here in the US by using an address like this: 1 my street 01234-5678 But the letter was returned to me as "Address Unknown". It needed the City and State to be delivered. Nice to see in the UK the postal codes are more useful then here in the US.
This can be hit or miss, I remember when younger I got a letter to our PO Box with just the ZIP+4 (the ZIP is unique for a post office, and if there are less than 10000 PO Boxes, the +4 is unique for the box).
Part of it can come down to if the postman wants to bother to figure it out.
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#126It looks like it went through the automated letter sorter, too (see the orange barcode that's been added to the envelope). Not surprising as the address is even more unambiguous to a machine than a human. Occasionally there are viral stories here of letters being addressed to places like "The blue house, Termonfeckin, Ireland", which looks like it conveys less information even if it's physically longer. These get man…
That orange barcode could've been added by a human too. The entire sorting process only relies on that barcode, so once a human decodes the address and adds that barcode it'll just work.
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although interestingly, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands have the ISO country code GB, but Gibraltar (GI), the Isle of Man (IM), the Falklands (FK), and many others do not. Some are Crown Dependencies, which I suppose is understandable, but others are part of the UK.
Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands (among a few other places) aren't crown dependencies or part of the UK, they're the vestigial remnants of the British Empire that rejected full independence for various reasons. Until around the time of the Falklands War they were still called crown colonies but they're now called British Overseas Territories. They're not like France's equivalent where many are integral parts of Fra…
Even then, the Channel Island are a Crown Dependency and use the GB ISO code, while the Isle of Man is also a Crown Dependency and has its own ISO code.
The British Indian Ocean Territory and the British Antarctic Territory are both British Overseas Territories, but unlike the Falklands, Bermuda, etc, do not have their own ISO codes.
So the determination is more complex than that.
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#128In the US, someone I know who had a Post Office box liked writing simply `box-number zip-code` as their address. It worked. Eg, if you wrote on an envelope: 1034 21240 It would get there! You might want to add a "Box" before the "1034" to be safe -- and to disambiguate between a house number, as in OP? (I'm not sure just a house number would ever work in the USA?) But it looks cooler with just two numbers. Especially…
In many cases, the PO box number becomes the suffix of ZIP+4 so you could probably write 21240-1084. I have friends use this nine digit number as their return address.
Note: the real barcodes use 11 digits. There are two extra digits beyond the Zip+4 that encode the stop along the route. The Zip+4 gets you to the block but then you need two more digits to specify the house/apartment etc. If you can decide the barcodes sprayed on the front of the envelope by the USPS, you'll find the extra two digits. But the Zip+4 that everyone knows isn't that precise.
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#129It’s interesting to see that the senders of these letters and postcards have not written Gandhi’s postal address. Since Gandhi was always travelling and campaigning all over the country; often people did not know his exact postal address and many letters were addressed to "Gandhiji, jahan ho wahan (meaning wherever he is)". [0]
[0] https://zikredilli.com/delhi-depository/f/to-gandhi-wherever...
Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?
#130There was a guy a few years ago who wrote addresses as puzzles and they got delivered: https://metro.co.uk/2014/07/17/prankster-writes-puzzles-inst...
The difference between different countries postal services is quite amusing. UK postmen delivering based on drawing on envelopes, while here in Czech Republic I have had mail not be delivered despite the address being printed on the envelope perfectly.