Earlier quoted context omitted.
the pretty landing-page version of Open Location Codes (marketed as Plus Codes): https://plus.codes/
I just noticed these on Google maps for a business location. Is Plus Codes a Google project or just a partnership?
Why Bother with What Three Words?
41–50 of 336 posts
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#42There are plenty of alternatives to W3W, most notably Open Location Codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code Alternatively, try a W3W parody: https://what3emojis.com/ http://www.what3fucks.com (NSFW text)
I know a few hams will be thinking of the Maidenhead Locator or IARU grid squares
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#43There is another big problem with W3W that Terence doesn’t mention: it isn’t scalar. From another W3W-criticism blog post ( https://mwfrost.com/space-is-scalar.html ): “An addressing system is successful insofar as it enables us to execute the suite of cognitive tasks that constitute navigation. Associating a destination with its location on the earth is only one of these chores. “If you have a powerful computer in y…
I don't see the relevance of that complaint. People don't memorize their current lat long to 16 sig figs either. You'd still need a gps device or a paper map without w3w.
I think the point is that ringleader.kilt.comedians and since.duplicated.backswing have no relation at all to each other, and don't communicate to the user their spatial relationship. On the other hand, you could infer that 1234 W Something Rd is nearby 1238 W Something Rd.
EDIT: Also, given a set of lat/long coordinates, regardless of the precision, you could infer their spatial relationship as well.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#44There is another big problem with W3W that Terence doesn’t mention: it isn’t scalar. From another W3W-criticism blog post ( https://mwfrost.com/space-is-scalar.html ): “An addressing system is successful insofar as it enables us to execute the suite of cognitive tasks that constitute navigation. Associating a destination with its location on the earth is only one of these chores. “If you have a powerful computer in y…
I don't see the relevance of that complaint. People don't memorize their current lat long to 16 sig figs either. You'd still need a gps device or a paper map without w3w.
I believe the point is that W3W have no relationship between each other - which is probably inherent, as I assume it's a hash of some kind. You can't do anything meaningful with two W3W addresses, even though they may be literally adjacent to each other.
A common feature of most addressing systems is being able to infer relative distance - this is usually true of even street address. (Yes, I am aware this is not always true, and yes, I am aware there are hilarious counter-examples. I don't think that changes the point.)
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#45I inherited a property management system where previous developers used what3words for storing location of homes (since reverse geocoding based on address is not reliable in some countries we support).
However, after an internal review we realised that a lot of our UK properties have locations in Asia or the US... It turned out that typos in what3words often result in a valid location on the other side of the world. The most common mistakes we found were plural words instead of singular ones (e.g. "cats" not "cat") or the other way around.
Of course we could have improved the user interface or added some extra validations, but at this point we realised that what3words is more trouble than it's worth, and decided to migrate to storing lat/long directly. That allowed us to avoid a third-party dependency and simplify the code, since we had to cache lat/long anyway in order to plot properties on a map or calculate distances between them.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#46On top of those reasons.... It's already a long-ago solved problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System
To be fair, W3W and similar projects have a lot more friendly and memorable addresses than this.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#47W3w was a pretty nice idea and I know some people that have been involved with the company. However, it is indeed not open. It's also VC funded which means that openness is incompatible with making money for them. Which means that most of its potential is lost or off limits unless you are a paying customer. They have a few of those and have had some success doing deals with postal services in countries that lack form…
>(though more efficient ways of doing that are available)
Would you mind expanding on that? This topic piqued my interest because I've recently found myself using Geohashes to lookup nearby objects and I'm wondering if there's something better that I should be doing.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#48Idea: phones could have a feature to send your location as a series of DTMF tones. If standardized, that would be great for any service that needs your location.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#49There are plenty of alternatives to W3W, most notably Open Location Codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code Alternatively, try a W3W parody: https://what3emojis.com/ http://www.what3fucks.com (NSFW text)
That "ship to" emoji address photo is hilarious.
Re: Why Bother with What Three Words?
#50There are plenty of alternatives to W3W, most notably Open Location Codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code Alternatively, try a W3W parody: https://what3emojis.com/ http://www.what3fucks.com (NSFW text)
what3emojis seems a better idea in the way that at least you are not bound by language. You can describe and remember the emojis as you want. As long as you can convey them precisely.