4 ms·

Geohash can give an accuracy of 0.019 KM at 8 characters, with each additional character reducing error by nearly 1 or half an order of magnitude and uses just

Geohash can give an accuracy of 0.019 KM at 8 characters, with each additional character reducing error by nearly 1 or half an order of magnitude and uses just 32 characters. Why not just map geohash to words? 32^9 << 40000^3, or if you want higher accuracy, 32^12 << 40000^4. The mapping is very simple, 32^3 < 40000, map 32^3 to words and back, then split geohash to 3 character long chunks, look them up and combine them. Going back is equally trivial.

maxerickson 5y ago
The "words for location" thing is kind of a non goal anyway. They aren't good addresses, which benefit from following patterns and being predictable, so the use case is for communicating a location. It really only makes sense if you have an electronic device that implements the algorithm and a communications channel that only works for voice. Otherwise a beacon sent as data makes more sense, and that can be the coordinates directly.
- carstenhag 5y ago
  In some places (even in "first-world" countries like Spain, my own experience) postal services, the police and visitors don't have a clue where your house is located at. I'd pay 0,50€ per delivery if amazon.es would allow me to specify a what3word-address and have UPS/DHL/etc use it. For years the drivers have been calling us, asking where the address ist at... Also really fun when there were burglars in your house and the police doesn't know where to drive to.
  - detaro 5y ago
    But as parent says, for that use case, the word-ness isn't relevant - picking coordinates of a map or any of the other position encodings would work just as well. And not require paying W3W license fees for no good reason.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    In the US we bit the bullet and regularized addresses (to the county level, which is typically the biggest entity providing urgent emergency services). A rural place I used to live formerly had a named road, that got switched to a number that roughly locates it east to west in the county, and then the house number was set to roughly give the distance north from the nearest crossroad to the south. So anyone that understands the addressing system in the county can basically drive directly to any address without any further information (with perhaps a few short detours where roads don't continue or the like). Of course this works much better in a place that has relatively new properly lines that were drawn based on a regular survey, but I'd think there would be some momentum to at least make things simpler over time.
  - pinum 5y ago
    It might be worth a try even if Amazon doesn't have an official field for it. Amazon UK has an "add delivery instructions" button in the address book, intended for building codes and suchlike. Failing that, you could try writing "what3words: foo.bar.baz" as your name.

maxerickson 5y ago

The "words for location" thing is kind of a non goal anyway. They aren't good addresses, which benefit from following patterns and being predictable, so the use case is for communicating a location. It really only makes sense if you have an electronic device that implements the algorithm and a communications channel that only works for voice. Otherwise a beacon sent as data makes more sense, and that can be the coordinates directly.

carstenhag 5y ago
In some places (even in "first-world" countries like Spain, my own experience) postal services, the police and visitors don't have a clue where your house is located at. I'd pay 0,50€ per delivery if amazon.es would allow me to specify a what3word-address and have UPS/DHL/etc use it. For years the drivers have been calling us, asking where the address ist at... Also really fun when there were burglars in your house and the police doesn't know where to drive to.
- detaro 5y ago
  But as parent says, for that use case, the word-ness isn't relevant - picking coordinates of a map or any of the other position encodings would work just as well. And not require paying W3W license fees for no good reason.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  In the US we bit the bullet and regularized addresses (to the county level, which is typically the biggest entity providing urgent emergency services). A rural place I used to live formerly had a named road, that got switched to a number that roughly locates it east to west in the county, and then the house number was set to roughly give the distance north from the nearest crossroad to the south. So anyone that understands the addressing system in the county can basically drive directly to any address without any further information (with perhaps a few short detours where roads don't continue or the like). Of course this works much better in a place that has relatively new properly lines that were drawn based on a regular survey, but I'd think there would be some momentum to at least make things simpler over time.
- pinum 5y ago
  It might be worth a try even if Amazon doesn't have an official field for it. Amazon UK has an "add delivery instructions" button in the address book, intended for building codes and suchlike. Failing that, you could try writing "what3words: foo.bar.baz" as your name.