An interesting test of what3Words, the location addressing system for the planet that I have blogged before. It’s not exactly an RCT to say the least but should motivate further testing.
what3words would be very useful in India where street addresses are less common and rigidly adhered to than in the US.
Hat tip: Samir Varma.
Do I have to review the video before I can comment? Why not use GPS and a GPS coordinate? Why even memorize three words?
OK I saw the video. It’s B.S., an advert for What3Words. Basically, the non-what3words guy did not have an exact address for their GPS map router, they had a ‘general address’ whereas the What3Words guy had a more precise address. For example, the non-what3words guy delivering to BBC’s headquarters had to drive around the huge complex until they found the right person by calling them, whereas the other guy would go to the exact spot the customer was standing (or within a few feet). Again, using GPS-latitude/longitude coordinates accurate to a few meters would solve this problem, just have your app send this information automagically.
While you are at it, get rid of DNS too.
You should be in favor, Ray. It takes a generic concept and patents it.
http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20160310ptan20160073225.php
To me this is a generic math and naming transformation, no big. But it does seem a strange thing for libertarian Alex to back. He should prefer that Indians do their own math and naming transformation, in the public domain.
Oh! Thanks Anonymous. I change my opinion (I was half-trolling anyway). What3Words (registered patent) is a good idea after all, as a stepping stone to the ‘automagical’ way of doing it by tapping on your smartphone that I describe elsewhere here.
lol
That is a publication, not a patent.
It is bad enough for me that it is a patent application. You are saying that it is in the filed and published state? That may also be bad enough for me.
https://www.google.com/patents/US20160073225
You can literally file and have published a patent application on anything
I was going to say the same thing, and of course Honda would win.
It’s preposterous to me that there is no regularity to the word choice – “cat bat zip” could be 5,000km away from “car bat zip” which could be another 5,000km away from “cap bat zip”. Why not have them go roughly alphabetically according to latitude or longitude?
I believe their thinking is that this is a feature, that local uniqueness in names is a higher value than relatedness.
Good point. Given how frewuently people mistype things, I can see potential for mistakes being made when transmitting an address using What3Words. All the more reason to have your smartphone app send your address automagically, after you click on a button to record (using GPS) your address using GPS coordinates. Nearly everybody in the Third Word has a smart phone these days (my cute 20-something gf in the Philippines has nearly the latest Samsung model; she wants to upgrade to this year’s model, she’s way more up to date with phones than I am, I’m currently using a $20 tap-three-times on the keypad flip top phone), so such an app would be trivial to design and to adopt.
I was all ready to welcome you back but you’ve already started with the trolling about your hooker, so now I have to resume countertrolling you. Dammit Ray.
I just read their rationale, which is to minimize confusion of adjacent and similar sounding names, but that means that this system will be meaningless without the digital interface, non-intuitive, and inflexible. The current system is arranged by proximity to high-density areas. Great, but what about in 10 years? What about a 3m^2 area that happens to be divided by walls meaning the half you want to get to can’t be accessed from the half you’re in? Street addresses compensate for that. This system does not.
If only computer databases were changeable, this system could later update itself to account for changing circumstances and user needs!
/sarcasm
Indeed, but in the event of a natural disaster or similar situation with no reception, there is no way for travelers or rescuers to find the place they are looking for. If your battery dies while on delivery? SOL.
or if there was an earthquake that split the ground under your feet just as you were about to step into the correct 3 word address!? What then?
The three word combinations always seem very compelling, but I find them hard to remember in practice. Particularly since pluralization, tense, and other minor variations are significant, and will land you somewhere totally different if you get them wrong.
But they will be obviously wrong and provide you instant feedback of their wrongness. I.e., you probably weren’t intending to drive to the middle of the Indian ocean for lunch.
Speak for yourself!
(too soon?)
Sure, you know your’e obviously wrong, but my experience is that even through trial and error I can’t recall a three-word address more than a few days. I’ve tried!
avram Chomsky
don’t denude noam, don’t do it, blow up the coral and the fool will be service to the wind
Get wet.
What3words is probably the least useful of the competing location encodings. This is a good overview of the pros and cons of the various systems (mildly biased by the fact that it’s part of the FAQ for Google’s system, which I found quite sensible):
https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems
Quote: for example, on What3Words, “banana rabbit monkey” is a location in Argentina, “banana monkey rabbit” is in Russia.
-j
Nice reference
Great, 1 parcel per location.
Now put them to deliver electricity bills in 1 single street. How finishes faster?
It may work for DHL, it’s useless for regular postal service that delivers volume.
Ps. The problem with undeveloped countries is not that their address system is not optimal. The problem is that said system does not exist.
I am in favor.
One triple for the Putrid Pumpkin’s office is: surely.trial.upset
19/12 1853, 3765, Pittsburgh saves the world, 21 30, 73 76 26 911
Cheers smiles and laughs are necessary enough as the declaration of independence.
I’m no stranger here but I might as well wait around for a tipping point, that such a frog could speak such cleary eyed is stary eyed bangle hammer. With my hammer I slam down on the chunks of tree yards and so forth will dissipate my gleeful independence that us amphibious creatures are free from water once and for all and declare with such independence that independence shall say hallejuah.
-Mark Twain, letters of Hawaii.
Hey fellow kids, Thaler’s Misbehaving is $1.99 on kindle!
https://ebookdaily.com/bargain-kindle-books/2017-06-02/B00NUB4GFQ
As an aside, Thaler isn’t as much of a comedian as he thinks he is, but he is a better economist than he admits.
even if Saturn is the pattern office, Jupiter would win in a fight and is lighter on its feet for the footrace. Going to the moon you see it was a good idea. And roger maris and joey D were friendly. But the asterisk remains better than the dash and so if you give your mailman some chicklets you’ll will see on his face that Jupiter is the planet of the future. Radio on. Clown’s on mars.
10 day of October, 1861, look Neptune, no give’s a whirling darvish about the dash, do the math Neptune, do the math, the lost is found on Jupiter, period.
-Mark Twain, letters fro Hawaii ( The facts in the case of the great beef contract).
Chitlin Trail. Trail of tears.
Signging off now, farethewell mcsworley’s.
Sheeple never learn. A home made device can hack the system. https://www.fastcompany.com/3015066/university-of-texas-researchers-hack-a-yacht-via-gps Free pizza delivery anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctw9ECgJ8L0
It is alledged that a US drone was high jacked via spoofing by Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident
“A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer’s assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV, followed up by a GPS spoofing attack that fed the UAV false GPS data to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its home base in Afghanistan”
UTexas system said nothing about jamming. Now military GPS signal is usually encrypted. Looked like it wasnt at that time.