3 ms·

It's worth reminding any readers that what3words is a horrible coordinate system for human usage due to its unreliability. The key flaw is the choice of words t

It's worth reminding any readers that what3words is a horrible coordinate system for human usage due to its unreliability. The key flaw is the choice of words that are easily confused by humans such as including both the singular and plural of the same word (e.g. likely.stage.sock and likely.stages.sock are on the opposite sides of a river) which are easily mixed up both when spoken/heard and when remembered/repeated, and also many words which sound similar e.g. 'innocence' and 'innocents', 'wants' and 'once', etc. Of course, it's not an issue when copy-pasting, but then you might as well copy Lat/Lon or URLs, the spoken usage is the main benefit for this concept; so if your use case does need a system like what3words, it has to be something other than the 'original' what3words.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
We have this in the real world, too, where Knoxville developers name everything on their Tanasi property Tanasi Ln and Ct and Rd, with Tanasi Ave on the other side of the lake from Tanasi Dr. (Or Phoenix, where mixing up 70th St and Ave is a bad day.)
- vidanay 4y ago
  In the southwest suburbs of Chicago, it's possible to live at the corner of 85th and 85th. https://goo.gl/maps/bghkvYUNyLWP1rfV7 https://goo.gl/maps/bghkvYUNyLWP1rfV7
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > In the southwest suburbs of Chicago, it's possible to live at the corner of 85th and 85th. What's so weird about that? Isn't that super common in any city with a grid of numbered streets?
    - vidanay 4y ago
      Typically grids use numbers in one direction and names in the other direction.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > Typically grids use numbers in one direction and names in the other direction. Some might, but that's far from universal. It's also pretty common to have one axis be numbered "avenues" and the other be numbered "streets." E.g. New York 2nd St and 2nd Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/uyGSvTh9CAyG7Sf27 https://goo.gl/maps/uyGSvTh9CAyG7Sf27 3rd St and 3rd Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/j8AG9yWJFULWrS3z6 https://goo.gl/maps/j8AG9yWJFULWrS3z6 5th St and 5th Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/puBaXRHJNMQVfUSZA https://goo.gl/maps/puBaXRHJNMQVfUSZA Also true of my not-so-famous hometown.
        retzkek 4y ago
        And then there's Minneapolis, which has four 2nd Sts and four 2nd Aves: N, S, NE, and SE. Although once you figure out it's a tilted quadrant system it's not too bad. While there's (up to) four "2nd and 2nd" intersections, both streets at the intersection have the same direction, telling you what quadrant it's in.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        Oh god, I forgot about that system. D.C. does it too. For New Yorkers, who typically identify corners by their cardinals, “I’m on the NW corner of X and Y” in D.C. gets parsed as X and Y NW, which regularly prompts hilarity.
        HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        Don't forget the streets in Northeast (Nordeast?) named after Presidents, arranged in order of their presidency.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - watwut 4y ago
      I would find it more logical to use different numbers for the two directions. Odd vs even, names vs numbers, whatever number was free.
  - smelendez 4y ago
    That’s not unusual in places with numbered streets. Seinfeld had a joke about 1st and 1st. Queens, New York, has a whole system for how roads are numbered as a result of merging dozens of onetime towns into one boroughwide system, with lots of exceptions and weird cases like the “Beach (nth) Streets” in the Rockaways. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/nyregion/meet-me-at-60th-and-60th-many-drivers-find-streets-of-queens-a-confusing-maze.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/nyregion/meet-me-at-60th-...
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    In Hyde Park, Chicago, you can live on the corner of Hyde Park Blvd and Hyde Park Blvd. https://maps.app.goo.gl/3jCGRN1HtB1JEPvE7?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/3jCGRN1HtB1JEPvE7?g_st=ic
  - ortusdux 4y ago
    I had trouble getting mail at one house as 4200 NE/NW/SE/SW 15th were all valid addresses.
- munificent 4y ago
  My first time driving in Atlanta, I got lost. I went into a convenience store and asked the woman working there where "Peachtree" was and she just laughed and laughed and laughed. https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-somewhat-definitive-ranking-of-atlantas-peachtree-streets/ https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-so...
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Atlanta was actually the third example I was thinking of.
x-complexity 4y ago
> It's worth reminding any readers that what3words is a horrible coordinate system for human usage due to its unreliability. The key flaw is the choice of words that are easily confused by humans such as including both the singular and plural of the same word (e.g. likely.stage.sock and likely.stages.sock are on the opposite sides of a river) which are easily mixed up both when spoken/heard and when remembered/repeated, and also many words which sound similar e.g. 'innocence' and 'innocents', 'wants' and 'once', etc. This is already an issue that is easily resolvable: Instead of 3 words, use 4 or 5 words from BIP 39's far less ambiguous list of 2048 words. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english... Based on what3word's claim of 75 trillion squares, 5 words are needed to cover all of those squares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#:~:text=a%20grid%20of%2057%20trillion%203%2Dby%2D3%2Dmetre%20(10%C2%A0ft%20%C3%97%C2%A010%C2%A0ft)%20squares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#:~:text=a%20grid%20... log(75_000_000_000_000) / log(2048) ~= 4.19 < 5 If i18n is a requirement, the development of translation tables would be needed. BIP39 already has that for 8 other languages, but there's still a lot of other languages that could be added in. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master/bip-0039 https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master/bip-0039 I'm guessing that it can't be resolved due to legacy reasons, but that's just all the more reason for an open service to take over what3words' job. There's also the debate of length-vs-ambiguity, but the scenarios where the addition of 1 or 2 words will make a major difference are few & far between.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

We have this in the real world, too, where Knoxville developers name everything on their Tanasi property Tanasi Ln and Ct and Rd, with Tanasi Ave on the other side of the lake from Tanasi Dr. (Or Phoenix, where mixing up 70th St and Ave is a bad day.)

vidanay 4y ago
In the southwest suburbs of Chicago, it's possible to live at the corner of 85th and 85th. https://goo.gl/maps/bghkvYUNyLWP1rfV7 https://goo.gl/maps/bghkvYUNyLWP1rfV7
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > In the southwest suburbs of Chicago, it's possible to live at the corner of 85th and 85th. What's so weird about that? Isn't that super common in any city with a grid of numbered streets?
  - vidanay 4y ago
    Typically grids use numbers in one direction and names in the other direction.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Typically grids use numbers in one direction and names in the other direction. Some might, but that's far from universal. It's also pretty common to have one axis be numbered "avenues" and the other be numbered "streets." E.g. New York 2nd St and 2nd Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/uyGSvTh9CAyG7Sf27 https://goo.gl/maps/uyGSvTh9CAyG7Sf27 3rd St and 3rd Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/j8AG9yWJFULWrS3z6 https://goo.gl/maps/j8AG9yWJFULWrS3z6 5th St and 5th Ave: https://goo.gl/maps/puBaXRHJNMQVfUSZA https://goo.gl/maps/puBaXRHJNMQVfUSZA Also true of my not-so-famous hometown.
      - retzkek 4y ago
        And then there's Minneapolis, which has four 2nd Sts and four 2nd Aves: N, S, NE, and SE. Although once you figure out it's a tilted quadrant system it's not too bad. While there's (up to) four "2nd and 2nd" intersections, both streets at the intersection have the same direction, telling you what quadrant it's in.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        Oh god, I forgot about that system. D.C. does it too. For New Yorkers, who typically identify corners by their cardinals, “I’m on the NW corner of X and Y” in D.C. gets parsed as X and Y NW, which regularly prompts hilarity.
        HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        Don't forget the streets in Northeast (Nordeast?) named after Presidents, arranged in order of their presidency.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - watwut 4y ago
    I would find it more logical to use different numbers for the two directions. Odd vs even, names vs numbers, whatever number was free.
- smelendez 4y ago
  That’s not unusual in places with numbered streets. Seinfeld had a joke about 1st and 1st. Queens, New York, has a whole system for how roads are numbered as a result of merging dozens of onetime towns into one boroughwide system, with lots of exceptions and weird cases like the “Beach (nth) Streets” in the Rockaways. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/nyregion/meet-me-at-60th-and-60th-many-drivers-find-streets-of-queens-a-confusing-maze.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/nyregion/meet-me-at-60th-...
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  In Hyde Park, Chicago, you can live on the corner of Hyde Park Blvd and Hyde Park Blvd. https://maps.app.goo.gl/3jCGRN1HtB1JEPvE7?g_st=ic https://maps.app.goo.gl/3jCGRN1HtB1JEPvE7?g_st=ic
- ortusdux 4y ago
  I had trouble getting mail at one house as 4200 NE/NW/SE/SW 15th were all valid addresses.
munificent 4y ago
My first time driving in Atlanta, I got lost. I went into a convenience store and asked the woman working there where "Peachtree" was and she just laughed and laughed and laughed. https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-somewhat-definitive-ranking-of-atlantas-peachtree-streets/ https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-so...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Atlanta was actually the third example I was thinking of.

x-complexity 4y ago

> It's worth reminding any readers that what3words is a horrible coordinate system for human usage due to its unreliability. The key flaw is the choice of words that are easily confused by humans such as including both the singular and plural of the same word (e.g. likely.stage.sock and likely.stages.sock are on the opposite sides of a river) which are easily mixed up both when spoken/heard and when remembered/repeated, and also many words which sound similar e.g. 'innocence' and 'innocents', 'wants' and 'once', etc. This is already an issue that is easily resolvable: Instead of 3 words, use 4 or 5 words from BIP 39's far less ambiguous list of 2048 words. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english... Based on what3word's claim of 75 trillion squares, 5 words are needed to cover all of those squares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#:~:text=a%20grid%20of%2057%20trillion%203%2Dby%2D3%2Dmetre%20(10%C2%A0ft%20%C3%97%C2%A010%C2%A0ft)%20squares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#:~:text=a%20grid%20... log(75_000_000_000_000) / log(2048) ~= 4.19 < 5 If i18n is a requirement, the development of translation tables would be needed. BIP39 already has that for 8 other languages, but there's still a lot of other languages that could be added in. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master/bip-0039 https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master/bip-0039 I'm guessing that it can't be resolved due to legacy reasons, but that's just all the more reason for an open service to take over what3words' job. There's also the debate of length-vs-ambiguity, but the scenarios where the addition of 1 or 2 words will make a major difference are few & far between.