Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#61

Post by jsjohnst » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

acangiano wrote: post #51

Great idea / initiative but I must ask, are you new to Ruby? I've rarely come across code that was so not idiomatic.

At first I thought you might be being overly critical as can sometimes be the case here, but glad I checked the code. Your comment is spot-on.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#62

Post by yladiz » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

trekking101 wrote: post #56

But why? Forget about the tech. What does this accomplish? What3words is nonsensical for the same reasons- Amazon Prime is not coming to Mongolia anytime soon and it has a lot more to do with little disposable income/economics than logistics.

So the people in Mongolia, for example, that don't have a physical address in the postal service's database don't deserve mail, or being able to more easily communicate with their government where they're located? Just because Amazon Prime isn't come somewhere doesn't mean that logistics problems don't exist and don't need to be solved.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#63

Post by yladiz » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

dantudor wrote: post #59

Ocha wrote: post #24

reminds me of http://what3words.com/

I don't see anything new here that isn't already part of w3w.

It's the same, barring some differences like dictionary (this list isn't curated very well, see other comments in this submission), but the big difference is that it's open source unlike w3w.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#64

Post by jwn » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

roberdam wrote: post #52

acangiano wrote: post #51

Great idea / initiative but I must ask, are you new to Ruby? I've rarely come across code that was so not idiomatic.

Thanks, yes, I'm ashamed of my code, this is my first project in ruby , my last programming work was 15 years ago, (Foxpro for DOS) so this is my comeback to programming. I hope that being opensource will help it to improve.

I applaud you for putting it out there! Fear of negative feedback often keeps me from releasing code in situations like this.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#65

Post by losteverything » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

Remember, addresses are very personal. They are reflective; they are metallic and have a magnetic quality; they are outwardly expressive; they have a perceived value; they are understandable; they are historic (having a history)

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#66

Post by jasode » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #50

What makes this better than actual coordinates? I can easily find numeric coordinates on a map, without any special tables or computations. I can immediately see if two numeric coordinates are close just by looking at the numbers. Very many people understand how to use standard numeric coordinates.

>What makes this better than actual coordinates? I can easily find numeric coordinates on a map, ...

It may be "better" and more optimized for a particular purpose: human memorization

It has a similar mnemonic strategy to other memorization techniques for numbers.[1] Apparently, there's something special about the language processing of the brain that makes it easier to remember words than numeric sequences. Phone-number-to-words (vanity phone #) is another example.[2][3]

For other tasks you mentioned such as mathematical calculation/comparison, or computer lookup in db indexes, the encoding is definitely not optimized for that. However, that's not its purpose.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system

[2]http://lifehacker.com/201752/spell-your-phone-number

[3]http://hello-operator.softwareadvice.com/want-memorable-toll...

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#67

Post by sly010 » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

This is probably a first world problem, but I wouldn't mind something similar for the western world. Some sort of extended zip code that I can just enter on any device in a second and it represents my entire fully and correctly defined location including door number, floor, gps coordinates and crossing streets and if it's left or right side of a one way street, etc. Just a ~12 digit number for every single door (and maybe window - for drone delivery) in the world. It would probably have a positive impact on the economy.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#68

Post by echeese » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

codev wrote: post #23

My current location is 5308 AFRAID ANUS. Might be best to exclude ANUS from the word list.

I'm at "ETERNAL SHITTIN" No thanks.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#69

Post by jeeeeefff » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #50

What makes this better than actual coordinates? I can easily find numeric coordinates on a map, without any special tables or computations. I can immediately see if two numeric coordinates are close just by looking at the numbers. Very many people understand how to use standard numeric coordinates.

Same reason we have DNS instead of remembering IP addresses.

Re: Show HN: Give 7B people an instant physical address

#70

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Wed, Aug 10, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

sly010 wrote: post #67

This is probably a first world problem, but I wouldn't mind something similar for the western world. Some sort of extended zip code that I can just enter on any device in a second and it represents my entire fully and correctly defined location including door number, floor, gps coordinates and crossing streets and if it's left or right side of a one way street, etc. Just a ~12 digit number for every single door (and…

I have long maintained that an extension of the postal service should provide a one-stop-shop for your addresses.

I have moved nearly every year since I left for college and I hate having to reset every address on every service I have. I'm sick of it.