Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is the minimal possible UK address?

microblog.vladh.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 406 posts

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#271

Post by SirMonkey »

lsllc wrote: post #222
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…

I recall that Costa Rican addresses are more like directions: https://www.crcdaily.com/p/why-doesnt-costa-rica-use-real-ad...

At least for the neighboring country (Nicaragua) it's like that. Sometimes the reference points are not even there anymore, as in the case of some old buildings destroyed in the Managua earthquake in '72

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#272

Post by twic »

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

My dad's Uncle Bill was a quite well-known rugby player at one time, and received letters addressed just to "Bill $surname, Wales".

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#273

Post by kitd »

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

The Duke of Wellington's address, Apsley House, was famously:

1, London

Funny story: Back in the 1950s, my father went on a rugby tour to the Soviet Union. One of his team mates wrote a postcard back to his mum with an address of:

Mrs Williams,

Clynderwen

"Clynderwen" being the little village he came from. My dad said, "You can't just put that". He, none too bright, said "Why not? There's only one Clynderwen", and posted it.

6 months later, and about 5 1/2 after the end of the tour, it arrived. All over it were notes saying things like "Unknown in Hong Kong. Try Australia".

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#274

Post by polygotdomain »

TravisLS wrote: post #120
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…

A bunch of US zip codes are for PO Boxes only, so this seems to stand a strong chance of working, at least in those places.

Not only are their PO Box only zip codes, but there are also zip codes that are associated with various business and government entities. In those cases the USPS literally doesn't care what you put for the address bc they will hand over all the mail addressed to that zip code to the entity and let them handle it.

The most famous example of this is the zip code 12345, which is actually for GE in Schenectady, NY.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#275

Post by mttch »

was_a_dev wrote: post #265
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.

Possibly ambiguous by a few km, as it could be the geographic South Pole, the magnetic South Pole or even the geomagnetic South Pole.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#276

Post by polygotdomain »

madcaptenor wrote: post #183
Lucent wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was excited to learn PO box numbers are unique in my city and have their own ZIP code so theoretically mail could reach me with an address of only "37939-0002" (ZIP only) or "PO Box 2, Knoxville" (no ZIP) if someone wants to test it out. I'll send something fun in reply.

No state either? Would they know which state to route that to? I think yours is the largest but apparently there are a bunch of cities in the US with that name.

The replies here are close, but not exactly right. Zip codes largely map to individual post offices. Once mail gets to the correct post office, then it will get sorted into routes for delivery.

The reason why the distinction of post offices is important is that zip codes are not required to follow state boundaries (technically, zip codes aren't an area, but a list of delivery points). In fact, there are a lot more than you'd think that span across state lines, so there may actually be a mismatch between the state for your address and the state for the post office your mail is delivered by.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#277

Post by twic »

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.

"Rad Cam" gets you a ~800 square metre circle.

U-995 gets you an ovoid 67.10 metres by 6.20 metres.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#278

Post by jasomill »

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…

As noted above, ZIP+4 uniquely identifies most (all?) US PO Boxes, so theoretically provides everything the post office needs to make the delivery.

For what it's worth, I've personally mailed an envelope addressed only to my PO Box ZIP+4 with no return address, and it worked.

Note, however, that abbreviated "addresses" of this type violate USPS's published guidelines, so they may be rejected by automated mail sorting systems and therefore delayed, or, especially in cases where discounted bulk rates apply, rejected altogether.

In other words, YMMV.

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#279

Post by twic »

hprotagonist wrote: post #36

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-35174646 "ENGLAND" seems sufficient!

> The card, it is believed, may have originally been addressed correctly and so was sent to the right area of England - but with an address label that fell off at some point.

That's a multi-stage letter, not fair!

Re: What is the minimal possible UK address?

#280

Post by joezydeco »

chipsa wrote: post #219
joezydeco wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ZIP+4 describes exactly three houses - we're all on one side of one given block. I'm trying to figure out the minimum amount of info the delivery person would need to find my house among the other two. Is it cheating if I put a photo of the house on the envelope?

Zip+4 + delivery point is for the set of mailboxes. If you each have individual mailboxes (not clustered), the 11 digit code is enough. Or house number plus scrawl plus zip+4.

We're individual units. House number was my choice, and that's 3 digits. Trying to figure out if I get it to one alphanumeric character. First letter of my last name might do it.
Post reply on HN