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What is the minimal possible UK address?

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Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#261

Post by kotaKat »

cauthon wrote: post #124
rax0m wrote: post #88

Olga 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?

Fun fact: depending on your local postal unit, God/Santa letters can be slung around to local volunteers: https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-does-USPS-do-with-letter...

""Dear God" letters are sent to Mail Recovery offices or local churches."

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#262

Post by Oxidation »

knodi123 wrote: post #259

As a conversation topic in our engineering team recently, we discussed what the shortest possible message you could send to pinpoint as specific a position on earth, unambiguously, in as few possible characters, in plain readable non-coded language. Like "top of the great pyramid", for example, looks like it is a 200 sq ft area, in 25 characters of message.

0N0E, maybe (Null Island)? Depending on if latitude and longitude count as coded or not.

Otherwise "Burj tip" could be quite good (centimetres).

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#263

Post by knodi123 »

xoxxala wrote: post #203
mastax wrote: post #106

I remember CGP Grey talked about staying with his wife's family in rural Hawaii, on his Cortex podcast. His address included something like "take a left at the big tree". The additional complication was that the USPS wouldn't deliver to the house, so they got a PO box, which is common in rural areas. But the USPS won't allow private carriers to deliver to PO boxes. So you need to use a different address depending on…

When we moved into our newly built house, the USPS wasn't quite ready for us and it took a couple months for them to recognize and validate our address. Fedex and UPS had no such problem. We had to order a bunch of stuff off of Amazon, and a couple of those packages were sent back by USPS. I contacted Amazon and they set it so all packages were sent via UPS and Fedex for a while.

Meanwhile, google maps already added all the streets for a new subdivision near me that hasn't even finished grading the terrain yet. It's funny to watch a doordash driver pull down a dead-end street that LOOKS like it ought to connect to mine, and then back out, take a massive detour, and enter my neighborhood from the exact opposite side.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#264

Post by indigomm »

pasc1878 wrote: post #202
tetris11 wrote: post #17

At risk of sounding like a sourpuss, I can't help but think that this is something that most people who live in the UK work out simply by using web forms which autocomplete your address based on simply postcode and number.

And that reasoning of writing the form to just be postcode and flat number is why I can't get my address into forms. There are two flat 1s in my postcode. One place that would not work was the local council and so I could not get anything done, it took over a year of phoning up for this to be fixed. (of course the council tax database got it correct)

I wish companies would fix their addressing. My address has the form:

1 Example Close Somewhere Drive

But often when entering your postcode and selecting a house number, the address ends up as "1 Somewhere Drive" - which is a different place. The forms don't seem to realise that some locations should have multiple address lines. Fortunately in the UK, the postcode helps ensure our mail (mostly) arrives.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#265

Post by was_a_dev »

knodi123 wrote: post #259

As a conversation topic in our engineering team recently, we discussed what the shortest possible message you could send to pinpoint as specific a position on earth, unambiguously, in as few possible characters, in plain readable non-coded language. Like "top of the great pyramid", for example, looks like it is a 200 sq ft area, in 25 characters of message.

"S Pole"?

Six characters for an exact point on Earth.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#266

Post by knodi123 »

Oxidation wrote: post #262
knodi123 wrote: post #259

As a conversation topic in our engineering team recently, we discussed what the shortest possible message you could send to pinpoint as specific a position on earth, unambiguously, in as few possible characters, in plain readable non-coded language. Like "top of the great pyramid", for example, looks like it is a 200 sq ft area, in 25 characters of message.

0N0E, maybe (Null Island)? Depending on if latitude and longitude count as coded or not. Otherwise "Burj tip" could be quite good (centimetres).

I don't think 0n0e would count- too coded.

But "Burj Tip" is great, it might have won the contest (judging involved lots of arguing)! Alas, we already ate the prize though, so you're out of luck.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#267

Post by sixothree »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #80

In 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…

I worked with someone who painted and mailed a bunch of bagels. As in the bagels you toast and eat. As in a stamp stuck onto a painted bagel with the address written with marker. They all got to their destinations.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#268

Post by jjeaff »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #253
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm that " New York New York, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109" doesn't work. They wanted the actual street address of the hotel. Which surprised me, as I'm used to big hotels being well-known enough that you can just write a room number, hotel name and city and have it arrive in the right place.

I wonder if it would have worked at a hotel that does not share the name of a place.

No, it almost certainly has to do with the local postal workers not wanting to put out the effort. If the zip code is there, it will usually be sent to that particular post office first.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#269

Post by polygotdomain »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #80

In 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…

This is true. As others have pointed out, all PO Boxes can be appended to a 5 digit zip to get to the box (e.g. ZIP-BOX#) No city or state should be needed (zip covers that), nor name (not needed for mail in general, but might cause other issues).

The US Postal System actually uses a full 11 digit number to identify a "Delivery Point". The "+4" after a zip code is basically a subroute within that zip code, but there are two numbers after that you don't really see that will identify the full delivery point, which is basically a mailbox. The USPS tracks a number of things at this delivery point level, including whether a secondary address is needed, if they are currently delivering to that address, or if service is temporarily suspended (potentially due to a natural disaster or road outage in the case of a more remote rural address).

I'd really love to see if just a full 11 digit number is enough to get mail delivered to my house. I guess I could try, as it's easier than you'd think to find out your code

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#270

Post by dfxm12 »

Symbiote wrote: post #258
dfxm12 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet "Rishi Sunak" would get to 10 Downing Street. I wonder if random mail sent to top level politicians actually gets to them. The intention is clear, yes, but there's probably layers of security that will prevent it from getting to its intended address...

If it's a reasonable letter, I doubt the way it's addressed makes any difference. Members of Parliament have a duty to listen and respond to their constituents, which in Sunak's case is the people of Richmond, North Yorkshire. I don't live there, but I have lived in a senior government minister's constituency in the past. I wrote one letter, and I did get a reply — I doubt my letter was directly read by the minister,…

I also doubt the way it is addressed makes a difference.

I doubt my letter was directly read by the minister,

We seem to be in agreement.

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