6 ms·

neither this nor w3w are as useful as googles already open source https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/ https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/ in my opinion. With plu

by toolz 4y ago

neither this nor w3w are as useful as googles already open source https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/ https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/ in my opinion. With plus codes you can both have a short, memorable address and gauge relative distance with other nearby addresses. I'm not sure I can think of a reason to ever use fixphrase or w3w as an alternative to this already existing open standard.

pkulak 4y ago
w3w considers the disambiguity an asset. Almost like a check sum. If you enter an address, and it's in the middle of the Pacific, you know you wrote it down wrong.
- toolz 4y ago
  that's an interesting point, but in practice I don't see how it's meaningful. If you write down a plus code and end up in a similar area, you contact the person with the address and figure it out without much issue. If you can't contact that person again, well you're at least most likely to be in the area and can ask around for directions. with w3w if you can't contact the person with the address again, you've no idea where on the planet this place might be.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- regularfry 4y ago
  They claim disambiguity as an asset. It turns out it's not that hard to find ambiguous pairs close enough to be problematic.
  - pkulak 4y ago
    Well, you can find CRC collisions too without much work. Doesn't mean they are useless though. As long as they are guarding against error and not malice.
kybernetikos 4y ago
The point of using words is that it should be more reliable when roundtripping via voice or memory. I think it's much easier for people to remember 'reader giraffe suppose advance' than WF24+VMR
- pornel 4y ago
  w3w fails at this, because it uses words that sound similar (recede reseed, innocence innocents, and many others: https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...). Good luck playing spelling bee of "clairvoyants" in emergency. Some words may also be difficult to pronounce/hear/spell by non-native speakers. Unlike regular sentences, there's no context to disambiguate.
  - kybernetikos 4y ago
    Yeah, I agree. I think that what3words hasn't spent enough effort on this, or perhaps is suffering from trying to cram everywhere into 3 words, which means the wordlist needs to be unmanageably large. Even for my attempt at the problem, I did various experiments on the word list, but an ideal attempt would check for similarity across common accents, etc and I certainly wasn't able to do that. Having said that, I think it's a valid and realistic goal for good word encoder systems to aim for good roundtripability via voice or memory.
    - regularfry 4y ago
      The problem with any system like this is that for it to be useful you can't change it after its launched. Any problems with the word list or location allocation are permanently baked in.
      - kybernetikos 4y ago
        That's not necessarily true. You can make sure your decoding system understands both the new wordlist and the old wordlist but only gives you new encodings based on the new wordlist.
heffer 4y ago
I had to do a double take on the "Powered by Plus Codes" section of that website as one of the pictures they used there shows a girl holding some kind of document in front of a plus code labelled house. Her shirt reads "It's a all a big lie". I thought that was hilarious.
- tyingq 4y ago
  A large version of that image: https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/images/Addressing_the_Unaddressed_XFMtR3q.max-2000x2000.png https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/ima... The document appears to be a savings account "passbook" from a post office.
dubswithus 4y ago
I use this for Uber in the third world. Really helpful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Rounin 4y ago
The problem with plus codes it they're neither open nor codes. Try taking the alleged decoding algorithm and decode this one straight from Google Maps: "7W87+RRX Odesan, Sør-Sudan" Did you notice how you can't "decode" the code without looking it up on Google Maps? That's not a location code, that's just using Google Maps.

by toolz 4y ago

pkulak 4y ago

w3w considers the disambiguity an asset. Almost like a check sum. If you enter an address, and it's in the middle of the Pacific, you know you wrote it down wrong.

toolz 4y ago
that's an interesting point, but in practice I don't see how it's meaningful. If you write down a plus code and end up in a similar area, you contact the person with the address and figure it out without much issue. If you can't contact that person again, well you're at least most likely to be in the area and can ask around for directions. with w3w if you can't contact the person with the address again, you've no idea where on the planet this place might be.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
regularfry 4y ago
They claim disambiguity as an asset. It turns out it's not that hard to find ambiguous pairs close enough to be problematic.
- pkulak 4y ago
  Well, you can find CRC collisions too without much work. Doesn't mean they are useless though. As long as they are guarding against error and not malice.

kybernetikos 4y ago

The point of using words is that it should be more reliable when roundtripping via voice or memory. I think it's much easier for people to remember 'reader giraffe suppose advance' than WF24+VMR

pornel 4y ago
w3w fails at this, because it uses words that sound similar (recede reseed, innocence innocents, and many others: https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/ https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-su...). Good luck playing spelling bee of "clairvoyants" in emergency. Some words may also be difficult to pronounce/hear/spell by non-native speakers. Unlike regular sentences, there's no context to disambiguate.
- kybernetikos 4y ago
  Yeah, I agree. I think that what3words hasn't spent enough effort on this, or perhaps is suffering from trying to cram everywhere into 3 words, which means the wordlist needs to be unmanageably large. Even for my attempt at the problem, I did various experiments on the word list, but an ideal attempt would check for similarity across common accents, etc and I certainly wasn't able to do that. Having said that, I think it's a valid and realistic goal for good word encoder systems to aim for good roundtripability via voice or memory.
  - regularfry 4y ago
    The problem with any system like this is that for it to be useful you can't change it after its launched. Any problems with the word list or location allocation are permanently baked in.
    - kybernetikos 4y ago
      That's not necessarily true. You can make sure your decoding system understands both the new wordlist and the old wordlist but only gives you new encodings based on the new wordlist.

heffer 4y ago

I had to do a double take on the "Powered by Plus Codes" section of that website as one of the pictures they used there shows a girl holding some kind of document in front of a plus code labelled house. Her shirt reads "It's a all a big lie". I thought that was hilarious.

tyingq 4y ago
A large version of that image: https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/images/Addressing_the_Unaddressed_XFMtR3q.max-2000x2000.png https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/ima... The document appears to be a savings account "passbook" from a post office.

dubswithus 4y ago

I use this for Uber in the third world. Really helpful.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Rounin 4y ago

The problem with plus codes it they're neither open nor codes. Try taking the alleged decoding algorithm and decode this one straight from Google Maps: "7W87+RRX Odesan, Sør-Sudan" Did you notice how you can't "decode" the code without looking it up on Google Maps? That's not a location code, that's just using Google Maps.