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I worked on software that sent letters to Indian addresses some years ago. We saw things like: Mr. So-and-so Third house on the right, past the old tree Nea

I worked on software that sent letters to Indian addresses some years ago. We saw things like: Mr. So-and-so Third house on the right, past the old tree Near government building #5 Smalltown, Kerala And then we’d do cash-on-delivery payments to these addresses. And it worked! I always imagined working for the Indian postal service would be interesting every day.

chrismorgan 2y ago
That “third house on the right, past the old tree” is far better than you often get. Often you just get a house number, where the house numbers sometimes don’t mean anything and are scattered all over the place indiscriminately (e.g. assigned in order of building), and maybe a “near landmark”… but the landmark is half a kilometre away, and there are thousands of people living in the area. Because it made more sense twenty years ago when it was bean fields, the landmark, and only twenty houses. If you’re the Post Office, maybe you have access to actual data (not sure), but if you’re some other kind of deliverer, you definitely don’t (there isn’t any publicly available—and even the best commercial ones are completely useless in many places), and only local knowledge will help you.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  That "local knowledge" tidbit reminded me : Looks like India is currently undergoing a similar transformation that Paris went through in the 19th century : when Statism becomes a social fact : https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/ https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/ (There are some arguments that Statism is actually a positive development, however it at least also has very nasty failure modes like Police State, and/or the situation where a few companies, shielded from democratic control, own everything.) P.S.: HN discussion of the above : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20400656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20400656 P.P.S.: https://www.dw.com/en/german-town-votes-no-to-street-names/a-47345093 https://www.dw.com/en/german-town-votes-no-to-street-names/a...

chrismorgan 2y ago

That “third house on the right, past the old tree” is far better than you often get. Often you just get a house number, where the house numbers sometimes don’t mean anything and are scattered all over the place indiscriminately (e.g. assigned in order of building), and maybe a “near landmark”… but the landmark is half a kilometre away, and there are thousands of people living in the area. Because it made more sense twenty years ago when it was bean fields, the landmark, and only twenty houses. If you’re the Post Office, maybe you have access to actual data (not sure), but if you’re some other kind of deliverer, you definitely don’t (there isn’t any publicly available—and even the best commercial ones are completely useless in many places), and only local knowledge will help you.

BlueTemplar 2y ago
That "local knowledge" tidbit reminded me : Looks like India is currently undergoing a similar transformation that Paris went through in the 19th century : when Statism becomes a social fact : https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/ https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/ (There are some arguments that Statism is actually a positive development, however it at least also has very nasty failure modes like Police State, and/or the situation where a few companies, shielded from democratic control, own everything.) P.S.: HN discussion of the above : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20400656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20400656 P.P.S.: https://www.dw.com/en/german-town-votes-no-to-street-names/a-47345093 https://www.dw.com/en/german-town-votes-no-to-street-names/a...