4 ms·

So this is based on GPS, right? How does this system deal with tectonic plate shift? A house may move by a couple meters over years, which will exceed the accur

So this is based on GPS, right? How does this system deal with tectonic plate shift? A house may move by a couple meters over years, which will exceed the accuracy of the 12 digit code. At the very least the code should include a timestamp (year is probably precise enough).

Tomte 7y ago
Why should it handle that? If you move a house (say, a trailer home) from Nebraska to Oregon, you wouldn't expect the location to stay the same. OLC encodes position on the globe (basically angles), not points on the crust or other territorial features.
- yoz-y 7y ago
  In a previous discussion about the topic it was mentioned that an earthquake can move a road a few meters to a side. Tectonic shift might be less important but physical relocation could be. A road could be moved du to a large urban work in the area for example.
  - Tomte 7y ago
    I know that. But why do you insist that a location code stays the same? The location has really changed. Plus codes are not street addresses.
    - rkangel 7y ago
      > Plus codes are not street addresses. One of the main use cases for plus codes is to be a street address in places for which street addresses are challenging. To put it another way - we almost always use co-ordinates to help us find a particular physical object (peak of mountain, end of runway, house on street). Co-ordinates that shift with tectonic movement are most useful for that.
      - Tomte 7y ago
        When an earthquake has shifted a house a meter to the right, the plus code is (a) still good enough and (b) doesn't matter because there is not much of a house left to "locate". I'd even argue that especially in those catastrophic scenarios, location (as in GPS coordinates) is still more important than addresses that depend on physical features (like a street) that may simply be gone.
drinckes 7y ago
Hi, plus codes founder here. We did think about this but we think there are two things that reduce the impact of this kind of movement. First, most plates move a couple of centimeters per year, and the fastest plates (those in Australia) move around 7-10 cm. The default precision plus code is 13x13 meters, so it should take a long time to be wrong. Secondly, one aim is for this to be an addressing solution in places without street names. If the point doesn't exactly align with the house, if they have a sign, it's still going to be easy to get the right place. Nice question though! [edit: move corrected to most]

Tomte 7y ago

Why should it handle that? If you move a house (say, a trailer home) from Nebraska to Oregon, you wouldn't expect the location to stay the same. OLC encodes position on the globe (basically angles), not points on the crust or other territorial features.

yoz-y 7y ago
In a previous discussion about the topic it was mentioned that an earthquake can move a road a few meters to a side. Tectonic shift might be less important but physical relocation could be. A road could be moved du to a large urban work in the area for example.
- Tomte 7y ago
  I know that. But why do you insist that a location code stays the same? The location has really changed. Plus codes are not street addresses.
  - rkangel 7y ago
    > Plus codes are not street addresses. One of the main use cases for plus codes is to be a street address in places for which street addresses are challenging. To put it another way - we almost always use co-ordinates to help us find a particular physical object (peak of mountain, end of runway, house on street). Co-ordinates that shift with tectonic movement are most useful for that.
    - Tomte 7y ago
      When an earthquake has shifted a house a meter to the right, the plus code is (a) still good enough and (b) doesn't matter because there is not much of a house left to "locate". I'd even argue that especially in those catastrophic scenarios, location (as in GPS coordinates) is still more important than addresses that depend on physical features (like a street) that may simply be gone.

drinckes 7y ago

Hi, plus codes founder here. We did think about this but we think there are two things that reduce the impact of this kind of movement. First, most plates move a couple of centimeters per year, and the fastest plates (those in Australia) move around 7-10 cm. The default precision plus code is 13x13 meters, so it should take a long time to be wrong. Secondly, one aim is for this to be an addressing solution in places without street names. If the point doesn't exactly align with the house, if they have a sign, it's still going to be easy to get the right place. Nice question though! [edit: move corrected to most]