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Universal Alphanumeric Postal Code Proposed
Meshach writes "An article in the Globe and Mail is discussing a possible change to the way postal codes are assigned over the world. NAC Geographic Products will be using Microsoft's MapPoint to power their Mobile Location-Based Services Network, which could change all postal codes in the world to a simpler, more universal format."
It will now be possible to have your snail mail crash on you. Imagine opening up your mailbox and getting a BSOD. And naturally Microsoft will sell your snail address to the spammers, so you'll get about 50 junk mails per day. And a robotic Spam Assassin is a lot more expensive than its free software counterpart. Who thought this was a good idea anyway - Bill Gates, or maybe some of the other spammers?
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
If they really wanted to simplify postal coding/addressing they'd do something first about these damn addresses for people in South Korea, and a few other countries, which are like a whole paragraph long! Ever have to fill out those little customs forms? Yeah, you know how fun that can be.
Idealists are more trouble to logistics than would be required to just take them out back and drown them it a bucket of water.
"Hey, isn't that a quarter in that bucket?"
Besides, strong initial resistance to this plan, there's probably some disingenuous patent and royalty speculation riding on this.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Try remembering that one. I'm happy with five numbers. Atleast I can make some sort of memory device of that.
Global Denomination?
KARMA TAG! You're it.
With Microsoft in control of the system, Finland will mysteriously disappear from all the routing systems...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
This should help nicely in controlling the masses.
Why new postal codes at all? With cheap GPS, why not just start using longitude and latitude?
Which means that as a New Jersey resident, my postal code would be:
5h1+h0l3
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Considering the problems they've had with IPv4 and the space, I hope they go right to Postal v6 for assigning their codes.
Trolling is a art,
Nice thought... but its like the metric system. Who will want to change what they have known for many a lifetime.
I know my 60 year old dad who does carpentry will never learn the metric system, even though it would be easier, why would he, or the millions like him want to learn a new addressing scheme?
Microsoft announces that there are now 4.5 billion MSN PassPort accounts, making it the worlds chosen identity provider!
It's the war of the l33t-5cript kidd13s, and I fear they may be winning.
The only complaints I've seen about alphanumeric codes have been about the difficulty remembering them: I can't say they're much worse than US zip codes.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
From the poster:
From the article:
Um, is that encrypted? Simpler than what? An IPv6 address?
Oh, simpler for everyone except us those who aren't in the postal and geographic industries.
I suppose that will mean Santa Claus' Postal Code will change from the current form:
:(
H0H 0H0
And thats too bad
Is there something wrong with the current system? Why not let individual countries decide how they want to have their addresses represented?
sweet, with any luck they can add the information to my VeriChip(TM)!
Mike
We know that this won't be a universal standard unless we get the center of the universe to change too [the USA].
If they didn't have their wonky 5 OR 9 digit Zip code system and joined the rest of the Commonwealth, and who knows what other countries then we would have a nice system.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
For example, NAC Geographic Products' address in Toronto would be 8CNB5 Q8Z4R.
Granted, this is only one more digit than a "zip+4" here in the USA, but mixing letters in there is going to be a disaster for the postal service. Their OCR has a hard enough time with decoding zip codes. Now they have to figure out the difference between a Q and a zero. I hope this system is smart enough NOT to implement "O," "S," and "Z" as letters.
Besides, most mail is local. It's like dialing the country code and area code just to order a pizza.
Simplification: Trinity College moves from Dublin 2 to Dublin 1BF45S8I0A.
Precision: Swap two digits and your letter to Grandma ends up Beyond Rangoon.
Availability: MS owns the postal system. Can't wait to see the EULA ("By licking this stamp...").
It'd be far easier to pay MS for a program to look up the address of people as opposed to writing the address yourself. Easier for MS's bank account, that is.
thank god.... from a developer standpoint having to have 'n' different database table entries for all the countries you support is a pain in the ass...
I can't wait for Universal Location Codes v6.
With 1.8e4806 possible locations, it will be worth everyone memorizing a simple 2Meg file.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Some of the software we have now is too stubborn to let you enter anything else than a 5-digit zip code.
Somebody will have to convert all these fields to normal strings...
(though I do hope whatever system is chosen won't make use of both "0" and "O", or both "1" and "l" - let's 1earn something from 0ur mistakes).
With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre. The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses.
I don't even like people knowing what side of a street I'm on from my current postal code.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
mappoint.com?
I just tried it with my address and got this:
- Maps & Directions
You have reached a page that is experiencing problems or a location where a page does not exist.
Try again later or visit our home page at maps.msn.com or maps.msn.co.uk
Great choice in location service providers.
Microsoft rules.
Stop at #9 IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_EQUAL Lane. Look for the blue mailbox.
Los Gatos NM 30221 USA
Isn't that alphanumeric?
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Let's not forget to use an "E" prefix, so that when we move to Mars or the Moon, then we can start using "M" and... oh... wait a second.
Lookee! Another slam dunk government licencee for a Microsoft product ("With Microsoft's data engine behind it"). This could even translate into private sector sales so the masses will know to put "8CNB5 Q8Z4R" on an envelope instead of Address/Street/City. We should know better than to let MS have a hand in a "standard". We will all pay throught the nose for this someday.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Funny yes, informative...no way.
Read the post.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
..it didn't effect during the early 90's.
Beverly Hills 8BHB5 D8Z4R (90210) doesn't have the same ring to it.
Based on latitude and longitude, the NAC system can represent an area the size of a province using two alphanumeric characters. A "universal address" with six characters will narrow down a search to an area measuring one square kilometre. With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre.
Wow, they want to reinvent latitude/longitude (sp?).
I have an idea, lets make this round thing and poke another round hole in the center. Then take this stick and put it through the hole. We'll call it a wheel.
Anyone with a globe can understand lat/long, why not fly with that if you think country codes and addresses don't work well enough. No sense in reinventing the wheel here.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Having Microsoft power an address system that would let the BSA, RIAA, MPAA (or others) pinpoint the computer with the "unauthorized" copies of software, MP3s or DVDs on it does not make me feel comfortable.
...., and is located at coordinates 7XCD5 3RE66."
...., and is located at coordinates 7XCD5 3RE66."
Can you imagine the chip that has a GPS receiver and that can translate into this adressing system?
CHIP: "Dear BSA - Computer Serial Number 123456789 has the following software
"Dear Ms. Rosen - Computer Serial Number 123456789 has the following MP3s
Etc.
John
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
...if this was implemented on a large scale before IPv6 had universal acceptance ;-)
...its called a 10 figure grid reference, and is accurate down to square meter.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
The purpose of a postal code is to provide an encoding system that allows the postal distribution network to route mail first between hubs, then down to a local sorting office, and finally into a postman's walk number.
The purpose is not to locate point X on a sphere, we already have a perfectly adequate global coordinate system for that.
Expect Microsoft to add hooks into your Address Book (so you can easily print envelopes with the correct zip code, of course). Then the next Outlook Macro virus with send junk paper mail to everyone in your address book. Once it is also integrated with eStamp, all hell will break loose. Your postal carrier will shoot you when he/she finds 1.3 million outgoing letters in your mailbox.
When anybody ever proposes a radical new approach to something, you have to wonder what the underlying problem is. In this case, a uniform postal code means that forms can be standardized to have 10 characters for entering the code. This is clearly a huge win for software providers.
Does it solve any other problems? That is not clear -- consider what the current US postal zip code can do: zip codes are allocated by the amount of mail received (some large buildings have their own 5-digit zip). Some zip codes are used by the DoD for routing mail to overseas forces (i.e. the zip does not correspond to a geographical area, but a functional grouping).
Ah -- there is another problem it solves (if adopted) -- some dot-com gets to !!PROFIT!!
Are a tool of surveillance and domination. They make you feel like a number. I'm not a number. I'm a man.
the numbers will correspond to your own memory address within the matrix.
1 - Will the zipcode format change every odd years each time M$ feels like doing an upgrade ? with the current "non-universal" postal system, there are people who get mails and postcards delivered sometimes decades after they've been sent. Will posters senders get "can't resolve address" return mails if their postcards isn't delivered in time ?
2 - How much dya bet you'd have to use those longish cryptic zipcodes as registration keys in future Microsoft products ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm thinking there is going to need to be a verification digit in there as well.
It'd be quite easy for me to accidentally get an invalid character in there, and without a quick way to verify the authenticity of the string, it's likely there will be a lot of misrouted shipments.
And removing any letters that have similar sounds to other letters would be a good idea. And o, so it's not confused with 0.
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
Geeez. M$ just reinvented maiden head grids.
http://www.stu-offroad.com/gps/maiden.htm
What will they think of next!?!
What with something like 70% of the surface of the planet being covered with water, won't this make for a lot of wasted address space?.
And how many packages will end up being delivered to watery oblivion because someone missed 1 character in a 10 character universal address code?
And what happens when the USPS, UPS, and FedEx all BSOD?
as funny and insightful
~dp
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
This will never get adopted, since it is both unworkable and unnecessary.
It's unworkable, because, in the case of U.S. Zip Codes, the current codes are tied to post offices and carrier routes, which don't necessarily subdivide neatly into equally-sized geographic areas. Tying postal codes to arbitrary geographic regions would be a step backwards.
But it's also unnecessary. Why force each postal system to adopt a uniform coding scheme? Why not let them keep their coding schemes and append a country code to the front.
This works for phone numbers: Each national phone system need not have the same number of digits in their phone numbers. They simply need a unique country code.
. . . or global? Are we sending letters to Alpha Centauri now?
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
...why not use latitude and longitude then?
and why are they so arrogant as to think that people would get rid of an address and just use this code!!
and they reckon going from a 6 letter code to 1 10 letter code is only a small increase? pffff
SURELY NOT!!!!!
The DMV? Sounds pretty silly to me. With electronic bill paying and e-mail, I figure in another year or two I'm going to rip my mailbox out of the ground and be done with it. When they change zip codes in relatively small areas to add a post office, it's a nightmare for all the businesses and individuals that have to inform all their contacts, re-print stationery, new signage... imaging the cost involved in doing it on a global scale. You could probably feed a small third-world country for a year on what it would cost UPS alone. If you're going to go to that trouble and expense, replace the system with something more efficient that will have a good ROI, instead of just tweaking what already works. Or better yet, just wait for technology to make it irrelevant - someone mentioned just using longitude and latitude - if you're going to use mapping software anyhow, why not do that and then you wouldn't even need the address anymore.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
I would think a system like this would best be implemented by the European Union. Unless something like this already exist in EU nations?
Great!! Now my mail to my friends on Jupiter won't get lost!!
This Island Earth by Universal-International's 1955, MST3K - "Doesn't the fact that it's Universal make it International?"
Wasn't IPV6 supposed to solve this problem?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
...could change all postal codes in the world to a simpler, more universal format.
What's that sound?
It's the sound of millions of database application programmers screaming in agony.
The Normalization Monkey says, "Who's laughing now! Bwahahaha!"
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
UN1MA TRX01?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"This letter can only be opened in Microsoft Windows-enabled homes"
If I understand it correctly, it would completely replace the entire address, not just the zip code. So instead of:
JoeCo.
12345 Main St. Bldg 5 Suite 101
Indianapolis, Indiana 55555-5555
it would be:
JoeCo.
aoz10-334al
And for the people that just need an zip code for an area, just give them the first 5 characters. I think that would be cool.
Whenever I am forced to fill out any online questionaire, I ALWAYS use 90210, for some reason I can usually match that up with a Netherlands address. I love it.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
<satire>This is obviously a step in the wrong direction. Postal mail and package delivery won't be an efficient, user-friendly system until addresses, like phone-numbers, become portable. We need to get beyond the paradigm of delivering mail to a place and start delivering mail to a person. That's the future of mail, man.</satire>
Based on latitude and longitude, the NAC system can represent an area the size of a province using two alphanumeric characters.
That's a bummer for gypsies. Maybe there should be a service equivalent to dyndns for them, so they can upgrade their own postcodes themselves on the move ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
TROGDOR SAYS SO!
Hehehehehe,
Strong Bad
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
More to the point, with M$ workin it, you'll have to block EVERYONE except who you want to get mail from, and you'd better hope they don't have any typos in the return address, cuz then it won't get through.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
I've got like 10 because I'm ripping them for email.
BTW: I think hotCOWmail.com is much better than plain old hotmail.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
GoNumber.net/Business
And some actual early customers here...
GoNumber.net/Hot
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Before we get completely bogged down by the ever-increasing number of often conflicting "standards", we need to adopt a "Standard Standard". That is to say, a standard which standardizes the standardization of standards. The first self-referential standard in this meta standard must say, of course, that "Standard Standard" is the standard standard standard. Anyone who implements this standard standard will immediately realize huge profits corresponding to the savings accrued by eliminating the standard duplication of standards which has become the standard.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Mine happens to be HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{dee35061-506b-11cf-b1aa-0 0aa00b8de95} if anyone happens to want to send me a letter.
Powered by onion juice.
Not to be picky, but who is going to choose where the "origin" or the "root" of this system lies? Do we really want to give Microsoft the honour of 0000AAAA or whatever? I could really do without being referenced with respect to their location.
Imagine the fun if someone could get into that system and readjust the root so the origin is at, oh I don't know, Calcutta. The world's whole mail would end up in the wrong place.
Also, what happens for blocks of flats (or, more generally, seperate entities which happen to overlap the same 1m^2 resolution of the addressing-space)?
Last but not least: when I go to the post-office to send a package, the cashier looks at the bottom line of the address and automatically knows which country I'm sending it to. Isn't that something worth preserving rather than making the poor fellow type in the relevant co-ordinates to an Internet-enabled Windows XP Geographic Edition PC, skirting his way past a couple of BSODs, and figuring out I'm sending the damned thing to all of 12 miles to the centre of town?
And don't forget that if your PC isn't Palladium-compatible, it won't be able to print addresses on envelopes!
"Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
So right now the system works as follows
Country
Region
Town
Street
Number
The postcode for the UK represents the address when combined with the number, so the only additional piece of information is the Country to send a letter.
And who the hell sends a letter to another country without knowing the country they are sending to ?
On the other hand if every address gets an IPv6 address then it needs something else as a name. But I'd prefer a hierachical system like
UK/EC1 2OO to indicate something in the city of London.... oh wait.
That is what we have today.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Think of the cost this would incur to everyone that ever created a paper form and now would have to change that. What about the entire web and al the backed systems that have this hard coded. Y2k all over again. Something as embedded at addressing information is just too hard to change.
Did you read the article? It's not a new idea and the only way MS is involved is for the simple geocoding b/c.
The Magazine for MapPoint - http://www.mp2kmag.com
This problem is so obvious I hardly need to point it out. If I decide to create my own rogue "Sealand"-esque state somewhere and decide to use this new system without licensing... Imagine the lawsuits, the outrage and subsequent horror this would create.
And besides, using a proprietary system for yuor ZIP code? Has the world gone mad?
Forget to take your pills this morning?
One issue that I haven't seen raised is the issue of a persons working memory, which is basically their short term memory.
A Harvard psycologist called George Miller wrote a paper in the 1950's called 'The Magic number seven plus or minus two'. Basically his research showed that most people can handle seven memory chunks at a time in their short term memory, with an error +/- 2.
So if you asked a random person to remember 3-4-2-7-8-1-9 most people could for a few minutes. Because we're dealing with memory chunks most people would also be able to remember 333-444-222-777-888-111 (with the last bit of memory to remember that each is repeated three times.
This is why phone numbers are seven digits long. So as most postcodes/zip codes are less than seven digits it allows people to remember addresses. If you had a ten digit code it would be very hard for people to remember the address of someone you were talking to on the phone for example and didn't have a pen and paper handy. It is an important social factor to consider that impacts everyone, regardless of your nationality.
Since 70% of the postal codes will be in the middle of the ocean, I can't wait to send out snail mail to random addresses. "Return to sender: no creature with opposable thumbs was available to sign for delivery. Try back in 3 billion years."
Actually, zip codes are still kinda new. They started when your dad was 20: July 1st, 1963, and not mandatory for 2nd & 3rd class mailers until 4 years later. So, it's been in use for only 40 of the post office's 228 years of existence.
Not to nitpick, but how could someone know something for "many a lifetime"? It's a cool idea, and I'd love to be able to implement it!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
..why should I need something at the end of my address which says exactly where my house is, isn't that what the address is for?
Postal codes are not an alternative to addresses, they're codes for the postal service. I always forget my postcode anyway, guess thats because I never post myself home.
"Linux is a serious competitor"
- Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Microsoft Corp.
MS666
People don't like codes. We like logical names. Few surf the net using IP numbers, most use litteral urls. If I write a letter, I want to be able to figure out the adress from what I know of the recipient.
The postal office on the other hand, would probably go for this as it would reduce the time and cost to handle a letter or a package. Even if it is by a second/letter, it will make a big difference. However, unless they seriously reduce the postage, I'm never gona spend time looking up weird codes, they'll have to do that themselves.
Now, all this is very interesting, but personally, I do hope that snailmail will go away and be (for most things) replaced by electronic mail, which is faster, cheaper, healthier for the environment and, used correctly, more secure too.
Between the 70% of water and the 15% uninhabitable part of the earth, they could probably have separate addresses for your left and right hand (or left and right side of your bed) with addresses to spare...
;^)
However, tall apartment buildings, large businesses, and even the NBU (neighborhood box unit for mail) outside my house needs some vertical dimensionality for unique addressing and they aren't likely to do vertical addressing for beds... or will they
There are even tall buildings that have multiple zip+4 "addresses".
As was said in the eminently quotable Star Trek II... "He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking."
If a system like this were implemented, how would they deal with apartment buildings? Is there a field for exact height ASL (above sea)?
What I don't understand is why don't they don't propose using the traditional Lattitude/Longitude with minutes and seconds. Assuming three digits for Lattitude/Longitude and two each for minutes and seconds, you need 14 digits.
This translates to 7 bytes using BCD and should get comparable accuracy to what is being proposed. AND, it would be immediately compatible with GPS systems already available.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
if you stop taking your medication. Stop listening to the dancing monkeyboy in your head and take your medication. For your sake and ours.
Boy, you sure seem to have a lot of time on your hands, and this is how you spend it?
After all the crap Microsoft has taken from people over the years (and probably rightfully so),this is their opportunity to get back at those naysayers and say:
Lick me!
The last paragraph alludes to this scheme, with its 1 meter resolution, completely replacing a mailing address. But how would it handle PO Boxes, which can have a density of > 1 per sq. meter? Or how about a suite in an office building (where you might want the address to be a mail room, not your office's front door)?
Otherwise, sounds like a clever idea that I'm pretty sure will never take off, for reasons of varying 'legitimacy' (perhaps too hard to remember/resistance to change/the mark of the beast crowd).
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
+1 Insightful :)
That is a good point. However, more than 7 digits is unavoidable now. With alphanumerics (10 numerals + 26 roman letters - 4 confusable letters = 32):
32^7=3.4e10, aka 34 billion codes. And there are already 6 billion PEOPLE on the globe, and growing. Never mind locations. It just won't cut it.
10^10= 1e10, aka 10 billion, aka phone w/area code. Also won't cut it.
32^10=1.1e15. Plenty.
The trick is that the digits at the front will be easy to remember because they are more likely to be be repeated amongst the addresses you want to know, since you'll be conducting business locally for the most part.
Also, having more numerals than the regular 10 is unlikely to cause problems. Humans are much better at pattern matching and remembering than with sequences.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
...would make all postal codes obsolete. Plus they're inevitable. "When I was a kid we had to write the whole address on the envelope!"
So these interim "universal alphanumeric postal codes" are just a waste of money. If we're going to spend the money anyway, let's do it right.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
How about the same for phone numbers also?
Anyone else like the idea of permanent (more or less) phone numbers that follow you no matter where you live? Some talk of doing that in the US to cut down on the quantity of phone numbers that are kept out of rotation everytime somebody moves and gets a replacement phone number.
Not a troll, but there is no fscking chance of the French^H^H^Hedom adopting this.
You might persuade our lovely Phoney Tony to change our codes, but the French have their own system, and would never allow this sort of disruption to their highly tuned bureaucracy.
OTOH, how about F0UT3 58U5H for the Elysee?
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
I guess it we fail to go through the product activation within 30 days we stop getting mail service :(
The article claims that the address system can also be used for satellites:
Moreover, the system is flexible. By adding characters, NACs can also represent a point in, around or above the earth, using the centre of the earth as a reference point. This is handy for pinpointing areas underground for mining companies, or in space for orbiting satellites.
However, this would only work for geostationary satellites... satellites which move over the surface would have continually changing addresses.
The whole system seems kinda moronic to me... It would be better to just be able to latitude and longitude down for addresses.... at least that code is human readable... all this system does is obfuscate lat and lon into some propriatary address format so they can make royalties.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Ummm, the parent is right. BSOD jokes are so lame and outdated. Why not makes some jokes about non-journaling file systems in Linux or some HyperCard jokes while you're at it. Perhaps the joke is the fact that the original post actually got modded up as +5 Funny?
I think i know a really simple way of locating almost anything within a given radius of a certain point on earth. Degrees minutes seconds degrees minutes seconds. And Guess what it only has 2 more digits then the proposed code, and is already universally understood. SOOO I don't see how this other system would be any simpler. I mean if the issue is grid squares vs circles just define your square as being the grid square south west of the co-ordinate given and all is done. More granularity use more numbers. That's why the system was designed in the first place. besides the only way it would become really global would be if every government in the world decided to use it isn't it? Oh well another day another MicoDollar i guess.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
How would you feel becoming obsolete?
Achille Talon
Hop!
What we need is not a postal system that reduces our mailing address from three human-decipherable lines to one line of machinespeak (how many people know their zip+4 extension?), but a postal address that follows you wherever you go.
Using such codes as forwarding addresses would be great. You could update your address at a central database controlled by the postoffice, and all mail going to "FWD: NiceGuy101, USA" could be routed to the appropriate person, whether they just left for college, moved down the street, left for their summer home, or what have you. Perhaps the service would cost 5 dollars per month, which would recoup the costs of the printer ink required to mark the letters with appropriate routing barcodes. A simple but effective service.
80BFH 2X2KZ? That doesn't sound like an improvement to me...
The ______ Agenda
At least you post under your own id and with + karma bonus. And yeah, I thought the original post was as lame as it gets.
I dont think this is flamebait. It's actually funny, unlike the parent post.
I move around a lot. My dream would be to have a unique post code for each person. The post office could keep this number in a database and, if anybody wanted to reach you, they would just have to write your name and number and it would be sent to your current address. I would even pay to have this happen. I'm just tired of filling out forms and having people send me stuff at addresses that I haven't lived in for years...
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Getting a 1-square-meter area marked is somewhat useful, but not all that great for mail delivery. What happens to people whose apartment is directly above another apartment? What about people with a common front door? If you decide to have your mail delivered to the garage door in the winter, you you need a change of address? What if you move your mailbox?
Even worse, what about situations where you have dozens of mailboxes for unrelated people in the same square meter? I doubt any postal service would adopt a system which didn't work for post office boxes.
Postal addresses aren't really for locating places; they're for specifying routing. Given a postal address, each office involved has to be able to determine how to get an item to the next office along the way. For all those weird Japanese addresses, all anyone outside of the Japanese postal system has to know is to send stuff to Japan. Aside from that, all that matters is that people who want to send items by able to copy addresses.
This system, on the other hand, may be useful for specifying addresses for travel; it would probably actually be quite helpful to have a standard way to specify where you live, as opposed to how you get a package delivered to you.
Could you imagine the confusion of someone say substituted a T for a 7 because of bad handwriting? Your package could end up half way around the world! This scheme should only suplement the address, not replace it.
The check is in the mail...
I wonder if my mortgage company will accept the excuse, "I mailed you the payment but the Microsoft mail system was down"
Oh, that's right, I pay everything online, nevermind !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
As a stupid European, I've always wondered what units do Americans use for electric and magnetic quantities. What are the imperial equivalents of the of the electromagnetic metric units, Coulomb, Ampere, Henry, Weber, Volt, etc. It seems to me that the imperial system is incomplete, it only has native units for mass and length and their derivatives and for time and electric units use the metric units. You dont have your native equivalents for metric units such as second, amp, volt, joule.
ACTUALLY YOU USE A COMBINATION BETWEEN AN ARCHAIC, INCOMPLETE SYSTEM, supplemented by some units borrowed from the metric system. TOTALLY INCONSISTENT AND ILLOGICAL! If you persist in using the imperial system at least try to come up with your own units for electricity and time, something like the USsecond, USvolt, etc. I think US physicists from the 19th Century, Gibbs, Michelson, etc should have done it. They were clever and used the metric units instead.
According to the article, each zip code will cover about 1 square km. This is almost useless
in the world's densest cities. 30,000 - 80,000 people/km^2 is quite common - New york's lower east side had 170k/km^2 in 1905; Cairo peak at 109k/km^2, and Hong Kong had almost 2 million people per square kilometer*!!
Hopefully, the system will be divisional based on local population density -- like zip codes are now . But if it is, then it will be neither simple (no GPS/zip translation), or it will be of variable length, and/or it will change over time as areas get denser and need redivision (like phone area codes)
* ok, that was a special case of 50k people living in a 0.03km^2 walled city.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Typical M$ BSOD karma whore joke. It gets old esp. since KDE just crashed on me half hour ago and I had to do a hard boot.
Sounds just the thing for a global empire.
h.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
This is old news... to check compatibility between Outlook and the USPS, Microsoft started beta testing sending virii through snail mail a short while back.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Not Microsoft. They will have to convince 160+ countries/organisations entitled to send and receive mail around the world. And if those organisations feel like loosing a bit of their monopoly because the scheme is overtly favouring the competitors' system, then the state monopoly will kick in and suspend/suppress the system. Didn't they the lesson from an OS called Linux ???
Simply put, I do not want a microsoft product ruling my snail mail. Cool idea, but getting it past the postmaster general would be a neat trick. I do not know too much about the post in other countries, but in the US, the zip code works just fine. I do not forsee the time or budget of many coutries laboring to put into effect a whole new sorting system. There would be no more 90210!
We already have a universal system. Goes like this
Country ID + Country Zip. Problem solved
Every country has a two alphanumerice code and every country has a zip system. If the latter is not the case a new system is sure not going to solve that problem.
Help fight continental drift.
You can simply input the personal identification number of the person you're sending the physical mail to. The authorities will be able to track them to wherever they've hidden themselves and deliver the message promptly. Of course, since messages from non-governmental agencies might be inaccurate, the actual contents of the mail will have to confiscated. And the sender and recipient will have to be reeducated so that they understand the importance of right thinking. Have a good day.
Unless it's patented, in which case it cannot be called "Universal". Well, maybe not for the next 15 years.
That way you don't even need an address... just a set of numbers..
That could be encoded by many things, like encrypted 2D barcodes, etc..
C is for cookie... C++ means I get 2... right? Steve "TheWebMan"
Wouldn't it be expensive to re-make all the street signs? Instead of 123 Anywhere Drive there'd be 12AR13 coded blocks and that only really makes sense if everything is layed out in a grid... who wants to have a GPS map *required* just to find out how to get from point A to point B?
I can't believe no one has thought why this is doomed to fail. Not invented here? Won't be used here. Same for that silly French metric system.
If we always adopted new ways of doing things we wouldn't be typing at QWERTY-style keyboards anymore. Afterall, QWERTY was designed to slow down too-fast typists on a typewriter, none of us have to worry about hammers jamming on our computers. But the costs and annoyance of having to disrupt QWERTY's installed base is enough to justify not replacing the existing standard. Just because they built this doesn't mean anybody's gonna come.
What they have completely forgotten is that the current ZIP code system does not represent the actual lattitude/logitude position of the city or town, but instead the main routing office that the letter needs to get to, and then the sub-office it should be routed to from there to reach the route that this letter needs to be on. The +4 extention tells in which route it needs to be placed, and where the postman encounters the address within that route... Any relationship between ZIP Codes and GPS coordinates are purely coinsidental, and the numbers might seem completely random to an outsider, but it makes perfect since to the people who run the postal system. They've got no reason to break their already set up system to go to this... the ZIP code is more useful to them.
Come on... all NAC has really invented here is a base-36 expression of the same latitude and longitude numbers that we've been measuring in degrees, hours, minutes, and seconds, and they've come to the stunning conclusion that their system specifies the same location in fewer characters... duh. No stunning breakthrough here, just marketing hype.
1. Propose new addressing scheme.
2. ??????
3. Profit!
While the post office routinely misdelivers or loses properly addressed mail, and can take a week to get a letter from one side of town to the other, I once had the experience that a letter sent from my in-laws in Ireland to my house in California, with no city listed and the wrong zip code (two digits transposed) arrived in two days.
:)
My theory, ever since then, has been that they like a challenge. So maybe this system will be an improvement.
Surely you jest.
The original article says that the system is based on lattitude and longitude.
So, should you live in L.A. your code might be "xxxxx xxxxx", but AFTER the next earth quake, your code would change to "xyxxx xxxxx".
Not very practical if you ask me ;-)
So, uh, how do addresses stack vertically, as in an apartment building? Or would this just point to the building itself?
What I don't understand is why don't they don't propose using the traditional Lattitude/Longitude
Probably because landmasses tend to move over time, meaning it's not a fixed position.
The system also offers an economy of effort, Mr. Shen said. It can reduce 80 per cent of the input keywork when setting up a shipment, because a universal address has only eight or 10 characters, and a Natural Area Code needs only two, four or six characters. In contrast, a typical traditional address needs 50 characters for the street name, country, zip code, and so on.
Sure this system may seem simpler but how long will it take to tell a service person vvbbbrr222... No I didn't say vbbvrr22... 2v's then 3b's. No, You don't understand!!!
Plainsboro residents always were a bit off. I think it's the WSJ plant.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre.
The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses
And I thought my apartment was small!
Sorry. I couldn't resist.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Hopefully, the universal format for postal codes is not derived from the file format of MS Word. But I'd guess it will be.
I thought the purpose of their project was to deal with the fact every country has a different postal code system?
Basing it on GPS co-ords is no better, because most every country also has it's own system(s) for lat/long co-ords
I know where I am already give or take a square metre - what do I need 10 more digits for?
Have you ever tried to write a website that takes people's zipcodes, etc and finds the direct distance between them. It's fairly easy when it comes to the US considering that you can get Lat. and Long. of every zip code fairly easily online.
But try doing it on a worldwide basis. Not only are the listings only available by country, it also uses the *country's* zipcode. UGH! Plus, a list of information on a global scale costs around a thousand dollars to purchase (unless you feel like getting the information for a couple million locations by yourself.
It's about time we started thinking globally. Now if only we could get the U.S. to switch to the metric system...
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
M$ just wants a reason to come out with a new version of Windows..
Windows XP3! Now with the nwe postal code requirements! Only $569!
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
And they just got done going to the 5+4 zip code format in the U.S. Now, where did I put that book on COBOL?
<font size="0.1pt"> /.
If you want investment advice, consult with an investment advisor qualified and authorised to practice in the same jurisdiction that obtains where you reside and/ or do business. Not
</font>
... for telling a monopolist where you want to go tomorrow. Now they have it all mapped and are ready to charge admission when you get there.
Coming next: Microsoft Postage 6.0. Only a little more expensive, and a lot more profitable.
It does not bring enough money and control to Redmond, and it works too well. We must have all mail as easy to abuse as Outlook, as reliable as Windoze and as constant as Word formats. We also need to charge every user $250/year for what used to be free services. In the end, we can call it Microsoft Mail and not allow anyone else to use the term Mail to describe a messaging system.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
By projecting the area that is one square meter on the surface of the Earth, or what?
I can just imagine. "Excuse me, your company had a package with technical looking stuff delivered to my lawn, what's that about please?" "Give me your universal address? -- Whoops, that was supposed to be delivered to a sattelite that was passing over your home. Mind if we send someone to pick it up this evening?
So, it's obviously a genius idea to incorporate the two!
Do I smell an all new, sub-par pseudo monopoly?
Yay!
*A Life Without Compromise*
""The idea is not unique by any means, but this system is interesting and it builds on other things that have been proposed for more than a decade," he told Globe and Mail Update in a previous interview about NAC's addressing system."
You can damn well be sure ms is gonna try to patent it, roll it into windows, and try to charge a fee for every item delivered.
Could someone please explain Utah's postal address system? I see addresses like "288 N 1460 W" all the time.
IANAUR, but my sister lives in Salt Lake City.
Apparently the place is a perfect grid (subject to geography), with 0,0 as the Temple in the center. So addresses are Cartesian. This just applies to Salt Lake City, not the whole state (unless other cities were designed in the same way).
I'll let an actual Utah resident fill in the proper details.
ASA
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
There's a slight problem with this. The numbers have nothing to do with how mail is routed and delivered. The zip code and street address get mail delivered to your door. A system that does not take in to consideration how the mail system in various areas work will have a hard time to get accepted. If it cuts a current zip code in half, or merges parts of two zip codes handled by different post offices then what do you do?
The reality is, despite our best efforts to cut the world up in to nice tiny squares and declare them "property" these systems have nothing to do with the way people live.
For an example when area codes are created they are often created along county lines. When 813 was split to create 727 it was split along a county line, however some homes in one county were served by a switch in the other. While we wanted to split the phone system up along neat lines, the reality of the situation was, it didn't happen.
In this case, they can split the world up all they want, but it doesn't mean my address will become
238b-6 or some such.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
It's called Job security.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ignoring all the other potential problems that have been pointed out, how does this system address P.O. Boxes, or high rise appartment buildings, both of which have multiple (Possibly hundreds) of distinct addresses in single 2-d square meter locations? It mentioned the potential for a z-axis indicator, but that would still not answer the problem of P.O. Boxes, especially if the post office was at the bottom of a high rise...
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
One day, a contented M$ exec was looking at his warm, humming data server. After a reboot, he called up a few random addresses of registered M$ users so that he could feel the reach and power of his company. An intern looking over his shoulder asked, "Where's Dublin 2?" and the exec was unable to answer. Realizing the embarassment he caused, the intern wished he could dissapear and later he was fired.
This scheme is a result of that awareness of ignorance - other people knew things the exec did not. The situation must be remedied. It's too bad the intern did not ask his next question, "Who is Sherlock Holmes?" Now we have the proposed M$ address system.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Some small storefronts in big cities can be barely bigger than a few meters. In big earthquakes, addresses might change. Also, over many years, addresses of small places would change due to plate tectonics. Due to chaotic gradual movement, mapping historical addresses to modern addresses could pose difficulties.
"Geographic Products' address in Toronto would be 8CNB5 Q8Z4R"
This is perhaps easy for canadians...
It's amazing how pathetic closed source development is. In the free software world change is not a problem. Putting M$ into the mix is an invitation to global headaches.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
What about multi-story buildings, and god forbid, skyscrapers? This system has an obvious flaw, since all addresses with the same longitude and latitude (above and below) will collide.
This would be like the addresses used in Utah ... most of them are like 1245N 1799W. This is basically a grid coord based on the Temple in Salt Lake being 0,0.
1. Their addresses are VERY hard to remember
... "
I can remmeber 10 addresses of my relatives
and friends - with the new system - I will
have problem with remembering mine
2. Mistakes require data redundancy - people
are not perfect - you need at least
3 bits for every encoded data bit - otherwise
it will be just a lot of trouble
3. Basing this on geographical location is not
the optimal way - people are not equally
distributed on earth + their distribution
is dynamic. Current system is flexible.
with new one I can imagine something like
codes shortages - just like IP shortages.
"Sorry man, we thought nobody would
ever need 640k of addresses here
thus locking the USPS into microsoft software... and equivelent mail services worldwide??? You don't consider this an issue? All microsoft is critical to is postal code assignment worldwide, only the single most critical thing in the postal system.. that's all.
Sounds kind of like UTM coordinates...
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
I guess it's time to move. I was thinking about 51 degrees (pretty much, in fact exactly) right on the equator, south of Grenwich, London. Maybe then I'll be able to remember my own damn address.
You know, if they're going to impose such a completely non-memorable system on people, why not make everyone learn to sketch a barcode representation of their addresses? Then it'd be even easier for the post office to automatically sort mail.
"No mum, it's thick bar, thick bar, thin bar, double bar."
KDE shouldn't be able to take down your entire system. Sounds like you've got other problems.
10 Digits is two #'s for each person on the planet.
Why would we have to build any "intelligence" into the system. That is what computers are for.
Help fight continental drift.
so we got this really much new ip6 adresses... and wheren't they supposed to have som kind of geographic information codet? why not make everyone register an ip adress for their home? you could send electronic mail there too :)
KDE itself shouldn't, but if you are doing anything with DRI, a driver or hardware issufreezinge can bring the whole system down quite easily.
Like the other posters, I'm thinking, why use some proprietary system instead of universally-recognized latitude and longitude coordinates (with maybe an elevation, too)?
But I'm thinking that latitude and longitude might not be the most efficient way to tesselate the surface of a sphere. Think of all the useless precision you'll waste near the poles where nobody lives - the lattitude coordinates kept to within one second of arc or better will, near the poles, come down to microns of accuracy just to compensate for the need for azimuthal location precision of a meter or so near the Earth's equator.
Isn't there some way to divide the surface up like the patches on a football/soccerball/volleyball that would enable less waste of precision?
[Think of descending a graph where the assumed root node is the whole earth's surface and the major patches might be the pentagonal regions that form a dodecahedron, the next node some way of subdividing each pentagon further, etc.]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If memory serves correct, IPV6 has an address range reserved that maps to every square meter of the planet. Wouldn't that be good enough? ;->
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Not sure WTF I was typing...I meant to say a driver or hardware issue can bring the whole system down quite easily.
We can expect that NAC Geo will retain the sole rights to geocoding. Considering the need for this service they stand to make a lot of money.
You can, for free, geocode addresses in small quantities at Travelgis.
That way, each country can keep whatever codes they are using and that work for their local setup, but postal sorting equipment can be standardized.
GPS-based ZIP-codes, on the other hand, seem pretty pointless. If you really want to get a ZIP code from a location, a web site can translate GPS addresses into zip codes if you like.
Not a troll, many countries like to feel that they are at least in control of their own particular patch.
the GO4TSE postcode?
Read the article -- they mostly talk about geographic rather than postal applications.
As numerous posters have already pointed out, postal codes are routing, not geography. They specify how to carry a package through the postal service to the destination, not where the destination is located on the Earth's surface.
Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
Ya'all are aware that postal codes are different then addresses right?
For example, 99216 is a postal code. An address might be "6159 SW Valley Ave. Beaverton, OR 97008".
Anyone see the difference? So, do ya'all have a problem with changing the 99216 to a "universal code"?
Nice thought... but its like the metric system. Who will want to change what they have known for many a lifetime.
I know my 60 year old dad who does carpentry will never learn the metric system, even though it would be easier, why would he, or the millions like him want to learn a new addressing scheme?
It's not a matter of age, or even a matter of necessity to learn something new.
It's refusal to give up the knowledge you have allready acquired and leaned upon.
I'm not that old, but I for one like the addressing scheme we use here in our little european country, though I know full well that it's full of bizar things, and inefficient like hell. Still, it is something that also defines the identity of 'home'. No doubt using the newer system would eventually get familiar too, but I guess my address can never have the specific identity it has today.
For me it's culture thing, and I want to keep it as is.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Make a right on 3HG6T and travel for about half a mile, then left at the Texaco station, a right onto 9Y7FG and then a quick left onto H7RWW, we're the yellow house on the left. Just look for the 6 ft sign on the house that says H7RWW BP9YT...
Although considering all the letters, most people might be talking with the military-like phonetic alphabet
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
It's important to know that DPIDs are not meant to be used for consumer-to-consumer mail, ie there is no need for you to remember your 8 digit code when writing a letter to your grandma. Instead, the target are business-to-consumer or business-to-business mailing and only where the number of envelopes per mailing are large, say over 300. DPIDs are printed as barcodes (not alphanumerics) which are much easier for the sorting machines to scan. All mailing houses and many organisations in the country have invested in the necessary AMAS infrastructure.
Australia Post grants discounts for the use of DPID barcodes on such B2B/B2C mail which constitutes, IIRC, the bulk of all snailmail delivered these days. I can't remember the exact figures but think it's something like 2/3 of all snailmail these days is business originated.
There are also benefits to the business using the PAF - eg it's easier to affiliate customers with correct addresses.
The universal postal code proposed in the article could have a similarly restricted, but none-the-less useful, application.
a world in progress...
This article is such bunk...Some random corporation that does GPS-related products puts out a press release and /. posts it verbatum, falling for the press release "hook, line, and s[t]inker."
Boo to Simoniker -- learn to editorialize! (Or was this a paid placement?)
Once Wegener is proven correct, we'll all get ZIP drift.
Yes, yes... tell me about your childhood.
Damn ! I was born in the tropics, and therefore, I hates cold ! I *hates* it !
Oh well, at least Russian wodka is easier to get, there. Won't be all bad. The only problem is, with that much cold, most of it gets metabolized before it reaches the brain. No relief for the carpies, then.
A good system would have the following criteria:
a) It would avoid OCR errors and verbal transcription errors by not using any two alphanums that look or sound alike. So yes, B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V all mean the same thing (sound-alike), as do 0 and O, 1 and L, 5 and S and so on. Yes, that makes the strings a lot longer
b) Instead of trying to code GPS into this space, sell aliases. Let me pick any alias that maps to my address, and have companies escrow the mapping from them to GPS or street address. My address should be "Brad's House Here" or something like that.
c) When doing the above, each name must have characters added to it which perform an ECC function, so you can detect and correct any transposition or character totally wrong. For some that will mean they pick a nice string and add something random to it. Clever people will find words that meet the ECC test.
d) This way, if I move, my postal address stays the same. And I can register for a global do not mail list.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Frankly, I've always been in favor of each individual receiving their own postal code. Put on your Big Brother Blinders though, because said code would be updated in a federally operated database that would map your postal code to a mailing address. That way, all mail sent to you goes to your postal code. Need to move? Tell USPS and the update takes place within a day or so and no need to notify anyone who sends you anything.
In addition, rather than having to worry about someone being able to "find you" because you have to put your physical address in circulation, unless they have access to the USPSDB, they won't be able to map your postal code to your physical location.
Not as a challenge or anything, but I've yet to see a reason why such a system would be bad.
"NAC Geographic Products will be using Microsoft's MapPoint to power their Mobile Location-Based Services Network, which could change all postal codes in the world to a simpler, more universal format."
Uh. Last I checked, Microsoft formats are only good if you use Microsoft products. When was the last time you saw universal formatting being used for Outlook mail files? They aren't in mbox format that's for sure!!
Just because you are proud of your ignorance that absolutely everyone else is as well.
That little rock proved very useful to your president in backing up his illegal invasion of Iraq recently.
FYI - Ulster is the part of Ireland where the (present) majority of the population have chosen to stay part of the UK, for now anyway.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
John Doe
15 Schlotzky Blvd
Mudville, AZ 12345
USA
Earth, Sol, Milky Way
Now THIS is universal. :) This shoud work for a while, until we have to start specifying which of the universes we really mean. Then, I guess, we'd have to add another line:
The-One-With-The-Evil-Spock
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
To have all countries agree on something is already almost impossible. But having Microsoft support is the kiss of death for this idea.
Uhm, would that be the default codepage 437 or the "Latin1" 850, or the "new and improved" 1252?
No matter what, I predict that the US is going to be the last country on Earth to implement something like this. Remeber that the US adopted the metric system in the 1860's and made metric the official system (even based the old imperial units on the metric) in the 1960's. Or that you can hardly find a bank in the US that can handle a SWIFT transfer -- another international standard that only has very limited availability in the US. Oh, and did I mention which country torpedoed the attempt to make the whole world use the same traffic sign system?
As for the person who suggested GPS codes, he probably didn't think it through. How do you send mail to a boat then? Wait until it hits a certain port? And what about people who live near fault lines, where the location changes every so slowly. Should your neighbor get your mail three years from now?
What this system seems to lack is the relationship to nearby houses.
For example, many post code systems are created so that every house on the same street has the same post code. This is useful in itself since it provides information about the region (with a purely location-based postcode, the adjacent post code could be a house on a street parallel!)
In addition, in many countries you don't actually have to enter the full address. The country code, post code and house number is all that is actually necessary (for example, 10 Downing Street in London could be addressed simply with GB SW1A 2AA 10). All the rest provides an excellent error check for when you mess up!
DS
Think about all of the software everywhere that would have to change (even just in the U.S.) to support that. It would likely have a greater impact (in terms of applications effected) than Y2K did.
Of course, changing all of that software would help the economy for programmers and other techincal folks. Hmm, perhaps this isn't so bad after all!
Australia Post can already deliver to ALL addresses in Australia by reading a DPID (Delivery Point ID) in the form of a barcode.
The DPID corresponds to an address in a database, and CHANGES regularly. AP releases new versions of it's database to ensure that information is up to date, fleece (deliberate sheep reference) users of more money, and make sure that any pirates using old numbers are charged the non-discounted postal rate.
No the number is not easy to remember. But you don't have to. Mail is OCRd at the mail centre and the DPID printed on the envelope for routing and sorting within AP. When it pops out and the delivery location's PO, the postie can then read a normal address to deliver the mail. Just a pity they can't read. 8-)
Call me nuts, but I seem to recall this exact idea being proposed on the Usenet newsgroup misc.entrepreneurs, maybe 1995 to1997. The Oriental name rings a bell, too. (Disclaimer: I haven't searched Google Groups for it.)
On the newsgroup, there were extensive critques of the idea, and after all of that yakity-yak, the proposal seemed to sink beneath the waves. I agreed with the "it's unworkable" and "it's unnecessary" critiques. I found it particularly compelling that postal delivery tends to be a regional and a local affair and as such, worldwide coding is an unnecessary change to a perfectly functional system. To wit: your postman knows perfectly well where your house is, so changing your address to 3EP8Q R43VB isn't going to help him find you; and letters go between regions that know perfectly well how to get to their destinations.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
I would like to be able to create an image, say 2" x 3", and have the image be accepted as a substitute for my post office address. My image would be registered with the USPS such that mail bearing the image would be scanned and delivered to the nine digit zip code address corresponding to that image in the USPS database. Even a low-resolution scan of such images would consist of a large number of bits, enough so that few images submitted to the USPS would be duplicates. The USPS would make money selling image registrations.
I would rather have a universal address code. perhaps something as simple as:
:)
0000000:1111111111
where the first part is the identifier for the postoffice to route to. and the second part is a unqiue hash and encoded form of your longitude/latitude. Of course it would all need checksums or better yet, some error correcting codes.
The post office number would be simple and assigned through some sort of international hierarchal distribution. Simular to how IPs are distributed. The longitude and latitude numbers are obvious. (You could possibly use Long/Lat of the post office, but sometimes post offices move physical locations and still serve the same area).
This method would be most compatible with current postal methods. I think it's a lot less intrustive to the design of the postal system than the method indicated in the article above. (which is more of a "lets change it all around so we can get them to use our special software" sort of thing).
Lets use BASE64 too:
John Doe
4lkK+x1:Lk134MM040e4
perhaps not
I mean, in countries like Japan (where I am atm) or China, that don't have street names or coherent organization of the codes, this could make life easier. At least maybe then the post guys will finally deliver my mail in my mail box, and not in some random foreigner resident's box that lives 3 blocks away...
now, on the matter of having miscrosoft managing all this... HELLLLOOOO ?! what about a postal code that can help tracing what software I bought and what computer I am using and other Big Brother kinda things while they are at it ?
I am all for a more standard way of labelling addresses, but it has to be done by an independant organization, not an omni-present company that would bombard me with spam about their new Windows XTreme.
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Do you also bridle at the Post Office's gall in forcing us to remember an arcane five-digit NUMBER? Why can't the just read the address, right?
Integrated IP Address / GPS Coordinant / Universal Post Code
:)
How cool would that be?
If(SpamassisanHit >= SPAM_POINT)
deployNuclearArsenal()
Any false positives can be considered collateral damage.
That's just beautiful, man. *sniff*
[sarcasm]Awesome idea.[/sarcasm]
As if y2k wasn't fun enough, just imagine the software updates needed if we get universal zip codes. Oh the joy! The thought of pouring over hundreds of thousands of lines of VBDOS/Quickbasic code just made me much happier. Thanks.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Pity the areas that get assigned the lousy addresses. "My address is ISUCK ROCKS." This could lead to instant craziness in real estate.
"LINUX SUCKS" -- Small plot of land in western Oklahoma purchased by an unknown company in Redmond.
"LINUX RULEZ" -- Nearby plot of land purchased by a short guy in a tuxedo.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One.
Ah yes, can't wait. A universal alphanumeric addressing system is exactly what this imperfect world needs. Have that embedded in our RFID tags just under the skin and taxi's could just drive you straight home on the holidays.
I'll be damnned if MicroShaft is going to assign me a Zip code. However if a international body came up with a royalty free standard then I'll listen. Otherwise MS can kiss my arse.
:(
Shamelessly writing this from Outlook XP via WinXp still trying to convert off the MS platform. Trapped by my games
Once Microsoft decides to do it were doomed. The next "Windows Update" will automatigically convert all of your old archaic address to the new format. When you try to fix them Clippy will come up and teach you the new address system. In a month or so millions of american will have assimilated the new system.
There already IS a universal addressing scheme, it is called - AN ADDRESS!!!
It goes like this:
Name
Address
Post code
Country
It has no license fees, is understood by every mail system in the world, and doesn't need MicroStuffed to slap an EULA on it.
Each part is specific to those who need the information in order to process it. I don't need to be able to understand Biddelonian street addresses when I send mail to Biddelonia, but the postie in Biddelonia does understand.
It is extendable as well. Just add further information as neccessary. Possibly in the future, 'Planet'. e.g Sol 3.
And even after that, 'Galaxy' no forget it - I mean really - 'Milky Way'? What idiot came up with that crappy name? Someone from Mars?
Hmmmmph!
It is interesting to note that some zip codes duplicate and are only unique depending what contry you are in.
It's not even simple for the postal industry, really. Imagine if you have to deliver mail with these addresses.... You can't just look at the address numbers on buildings anymore, you'd have to walk and adjust using a GPS system.
If the postal system wanted any efficiency at all, they'd need stupidity-to-street-address converting computers to print and stick normal address labels on all the packages. Or handheld scanners, but that would be a bit awkward having to drive and scan at the same time...and forget about being able to quickly sort mail before a delivery in the order that you'll come to it so you don't have to go back and forth over the same street twenty times.
This isn't a solution created to address something mail deliverers or postal organizations were complaining about. This is a "solution" (problem) created by some moron in marketing or management who sees dollar signs from all those large, worldwide mail deliverers who aren't going to want this piece of crap.
P.S. The geographers of the world can use latitude and longitude or some other non-crappy system. They've been doing well so far.
why not use the combination of longitude and lattitude information for the postal code? In this way we can uniqely identify any place in the world. But it might be cumbersome for the people to use.
While they're fixing the postal code system, why not "tack on":
- globalized metric system usage
- Star Trek time code (star dates)
- global environmental standards
- IPV6!
... for example, China, it's all the other way around: least-specific to most-specific; as opposed to your most-specific to least-specific system :)
;)
Hey, maybe you could think of it as little-endian and big-endian?
Back in 1997, within a year of each other, first we had our area code changed, then our zip code. There was hari-kari going on in the streets. Heh.
- mobster75!
Every(most) streets have their own postal code so even if you ONLY write the postal code and the name of the recipient, the letter should reach it's destination. The rest of the address is basically redundent.
Unlike the USA where a ZIP code is usually used for a city(or part of a city), a postal code is often different on the other side of the street. It's that precise.
On another note, I always thought that having a postal ID that is registered through the postal office would prevent lost mail during moves. It would be much faster to write the ID on the letter and it would be the office's jobto print the right address on file back on the enveloppe. Probably not 100% efficient but it would prevent a lot of lost mail as you would keep 1 ID forever. You wouldn't have to notice anyone of your move but the post office... Sorta like hotmail, you can read your email anywhere.
-- Leeeter than leet
I absolutely refuse to have an address that is somehow patented or subject to copyright or some such bullshit.
Well, the only MS involvement would be with MapPoint - a geographical plotting program... have you ever used it? Its VERY useful, and stable, unlike most MS products. :-)
10 characters is just enough to encode the lat/long of any location on earth (including oceans) with 1 meter of resolution.
(36^10 codes / 510x10^6 sq. km. = 7 codes/sq. meter)
However, only 30% of the earth is land. I really don't think (At least i hope) that post being sent to ocean going vessels will be addressed this way.
(Yes i suppose stationary things such as oil drilling rigs could be, but hey...)
So couldn't they reduce the code by 70%?
That one looks familiar.
There is a Hudson Street and Hudson Place and Hudson Street Extension all meeting in zipcode 14850.
Although it would be interesting to make it easier to send mail to another country, this isn't something that's very likely to be adopted, especially as it's being put together by some company wanting to sell a product as opposed to a standards organization.
Even if several countries were to adopt this, it's still doubtful that the USPS would. Aside from the fact that the US isn't exactly big on coforming to other sorts of international methods of reckoning, the fact that the Post Office doesn't even realize the address they assigned to my house is imaginary (since the road changes names and numberings due to a short jaunt into another county) isn't very encouraging.
GPS Coord's would be the ultimate solution... Would make map drawing alot simpler when you don't have to do a postal code to GPS conversion... Then there wouldn't be a need to write addresses on mail as well.. Just name and a GPS Coord to send to.. no city/state nuttin! Just Name and GPS... Would make it alot handier to get a Pizza Dilivered to a soccer game :)
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
that worked for me. We wanted to get to Sony also, but the locals pointed us down the wrong way. we finally found it, and the receptionist there had no idea where the conference room was we were looking for....
;) So we hop on a subway in the other direction.
;) , and head back into the subway. So many people crammed in there, I got knocked into the pole. My friend says to hold my bag to my chest. I ask him why, he said otherwise I won't be leaving with it. When the door opens, I find myself shoved out of the car, and my arm is stuck in the car. After some hard tugging, and a bunch of "so sorry", I got my stuff. Next stop, gotta run to catch the other subway. The doors are open, and I'm running. Ding Ding, the doors close, on my chest. I force the door open, then my leg gets stuck. One tug, and ahhh, I'm in, but OH NO! My shoe didn't make it!
But I had LOTS of fun while I was there. I wanted to see the samurai sword museum.
We hop on the subway, to find out it DOESN'T STOP at the station we needed to get to. (darn express lines
We spent like 2 hours walking around looking for the place, and we couldn't find it. We asked police officers, local passer-bys,etc, but those numbers did not increment in any particular pattern! grumble grumble. When we did finally find it, THEY WERE CLOSED!
So we decide to go shopping. We head to Shinjuku. I buy a big bag for the wife
Oh and, looking at the maps did wonders for you when you can't read kanji very well. At least I knew the kanji for the subway station I needed to get to.
The only question I had when I was in Tokyo, was why the hell were the food portions so damn small? Am I just a fscking sloth or something?
It would make more sense to set a standard that would let people use DNS to deliver physical mail. That way mail routing could be altered on-the-fly depending on what where the destination was.
And don't get me started on Map Point. Thre's a perfectly good set of *extensible* standards for storing, querying and retrieving spatial attribute data. Map Point looks like a half-arsed set of proprietary spatial datatypes that they acquired a couple of years back in order to duplicate these services (start by looking at www.opengis.org)
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
The point here is this would provide a fix to the issue of standardized postal codes in the long term. Just because it's not status-quo doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.
Okay . . . so what is this "issue of standardized postal codes"? Why is it necessary for every country in the world to use the same system of postal codes (or addresses, for that matter--I've already seen several comments on the Japanese addressing system, but if you get out of your Western hole in the wall it actually makes sense)?
This sounds to me a lot like a solution looking for a problem.
Interesting concept. Except for a few things.
1. It's not practical, mail routes must be easier to identify with spacial orientation wise. Can you imaging being a mailmain figuring out a delivery route for addresses comprising nothing but alphanumeric codes such as B3G45WE JU2D35P and 1JP2C7Q QB43ON0??
2. MapPoint doesn't show my place, it shows a building about four buildings down my street.
3. Resolution, the system in use can identify down to 1 meter in size. The system doesn't seem to allow for Mail Box clusters found in apartment complexes. Frequently these mail box clusters are smaller than 1 meter in size and yet holds mail for dozens of people.
3. Unless the new system can overcome these issues and proves superior, yet is at least as easy to use as the current hodgepodge of systems in use, nobody will go along with it.
How can a 10 numeric grid reference be accurate to 1m, if you are dealing with anything bigger than a 62 mile square? 62 miles= 100 km (approx)=10^5 metres. Admittedly I'm assuming denary notation but even so.
He writes half a sentence, that is WRONG, and gets mod'ed to 5 insightful
Sheesh
In the UK, pretty much any post you send arrives the next morning.
I currently live in Switzerland, and the post takes a couple of days to get back home, but it always arrives.
I'm not sure why the US thinks it needs to suggest a new scheme. Perhaps the US needs a new scheme internally, but is that to say that the rest of the world does ?
Remember Americans ÜSA!=World
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
So what emotions does 'Goetse' evoke?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Quick!! A customer of Frank's Fudge Emporium just ordered some fudge and wanted it packed immediately. What city does the postal code G03T53 represent?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
According to this page both Washington DC and Toronto have the same 4-digit code: '8C Q8'
Seriously though, a huge benefit of the Zip5 code is that it's human comprehensible. Near numbers are near, and numbers are distributed by population density, not physical distance. It makes it much easier for all items in the '914xx' zip to go to the same routing center than AB AL-AK, AD AW-C4, etc going to one place.
The proposed system ignores the human checksum, and ignoring the fact that humans ultimately correct the course of most computer systems is a path filled with hubris and big flamy death.
Kevin Fox
Whilst postcodes will be used for the post office to get the letter to the local delivery office, it's still a postie on foot that actually has to locate the physical address and put the letter through the letter box. Now, I'm sure that any postie whose been working on the same route for a few weeks/months gets to know which postcodes are on their route and which addresses they correspond to, but anyone starting out on a particular route is still going to need streetnames and building numbers to find addresses.
/.ers 8-) "18 Istanbul Road". But round the back of our road was a block of flats called "Hillside", which was *also* postally in "Istanbul Road" but had it's own number sequence, but different postcodes. Even so we could always tell when a new postie had started on our route as we'd start getting mail for "18 Hillside, Istanbul Road", so clearly the difference in postcodes wasn't enough to stop us getting the wrong mail.
Where we used to live, our address was (slightly obfuscated, 'cos the actual street we lived in is uniquely named in the UK and I wouldn't want the people living there now to get mail from random
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
Beloved of little statesmen, philosophers and divines.
The postcode doesn't describe a geographic location so much as a route. The bits of the postcode variously describe the main sorting office, the postal area the mail should go to - which is effectively a mail van route - and then the final part of the postcode sorts in the order that a postman would walk it (piecewise, anyway). Individual postcodes here describe only a handful of premises, unlike in the states where I understand its more like 50 on average.
By doing it this way it becomes possible to sort mail efficiently for delivery using just the postcode.
Ignoring for the moment that UK GIS systems also use other references (UPRN, TOID, PAF ref, grid ref) it would seem that retooling for this new system is all cost and no benefit - except to the company selling that data.
Trust me, mistakes like that will not win you a lot of friends when you step off the plane in Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland, step into the nearest pub and declare loudly "hey it's great to be here in England" (grin).
That's why they have a police station on every corner of every street, with two guys in it and a very big map on the desk. I think japan has one of the highest cop ratios around (and strangely enough, one of the lowest casual crime rates), and this might be part of the reason why they need it.
As someone who worked for several years for the British Post Office, I have a few comments on this story that should hopefully inject a healthy dose of reality to the situation.
Firstly, this is a fishing expedition by a small developer hoping to latch on to a bigger company's database in the hope of gaining credibility. There is nothing official in this development whatsoever. Postal services around the world are notoriously idiosyncratic in their methods (as they porobably have to be in order to take account of the wildy varying conditions within which they work), and are hugely protective to boot - also for good reasons in that most of them make a loss/little money / are govt owned and have enormous embedded investments that they absolutely will not change unless threatened with WMDs. Big ones.
Secondly, as a previous poster pointed out, postcodes/zip codes/whatever are NOT intended as a geographical location system - they are routing instructions for postal services to help their logistical planning - replacing this with a purely geo-oriented system would entail adding extra layers of interpretation by POs to derive their routes. More cost, more complexity, more WMDs required.
Thirdly, what is the problem that is being solved here? The only mail that would be affected would be international mail, as domestic mail is already well served. However, international mail is only a tiny percentage of total volumes and falling. For the UK (a heavy trading nation) it accounts for about 10% of mail - the industrialised world average is closer to 5%. For the USA, the percantage is an extraordinary 0.5% of total volumes.
I wish NAC the best of luck in trying to convince POs and governments worldwide to change the addressing habits of billions of people and to invest in an overly complex technical solution for which there is no real problem for it to solve. Oh wait, Microsoft is involved!
THe current system works fine. Why do they even want to change it. You can look for someones address/location with databases. Leave it alone. Why does the US have to change everything. And Microsoft they shouldn't go anywhere near this. My mail will start ending up in china or soemthing. Here in england the post code sort of helps describe where you live. For Glasgow its starts G birmingham is B etc. In london its split in to a number of areas. NW N E SE SW W, which correspond with the areas. then they are divided by numbers further. its a quite good system. about the only thing that works in the UK
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
QL=Queensland
VI=Victoria
TS=Tasmania
SA=South Australia
WA=Western Australia
AC=Australian Capital Territory
NS=New South Wales
NT=Northern Territory.
NL=Northland
AL=Auckland
GI=Gisborne
TR=Taranaki
HB=Hawkes Bay
WN=Wellington
NE=Nelson
WL=Westland
MA=Marlborough
CA=Canterbury
OT=Otago
SL=Southland
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Explaining the basis of any of my dislikes/fears will make me sound nuts. But since you asked (slightly tongue-in-cheek)...
I think some companies collect stats on local income/consumption by postal code, and use this for mass mailings. I don't want precisely targeted by "smart junk mail" the new way.
At least with addresses, a company must go through a process to find out where you are, and they need to store a whole messy address. This new way would make it too easy. They're starting with a compact end result.
With the increased precision of keyhole satellite imaging and GPS, plus all the movies using these technologies, it just plain gives me the willies when some new thing can "track me down" better and quicker.
It hurts my "run home and hide" sensibility.
Okay so now you _know_ I'm nuts. Just wanted to clear things up.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
I think that clears that one up.
Previous posters are right, this is unnecessary and confusing. The idea is elegant, but it's not suited to the real world. Remember, kiddies: in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Maidenhead Grid Squares are used by the amateur radio community to give location. They can range from four to 8 characters in length, depending on the level of precision required. At four characters, you are looking at around a 110km by 160km square in the continental U.S. (gets squarer as you approach the equator). Add two more characters, and it gets down to a 5km by 6km square. Add two more and it gets even closer. As an example, my grid square to six characters (sufficient for my ham radio activities) is LN32at. Not long, not difficult to remember.
www.wavefront-av.com
Make that FN32at
www.wavefront-av.com
It's been asked before why we don't go to a number-only system for addressing. The problem is that, for instance, in the US, ZIP codes are wrong a significant portion of the time. So, while I think it's great that a new standard of postal codes might be used (10 digits is not harder than 5 digits to memorize when you never bother to memorize them), we shouldn't get rid of the street address and other information.
Oh, and another thing is that adding a few extra digits for "error correction" would be good. It would allow for identification of invalid codes and correction of errors.
I don't read leet that well and I read that as "hellhole."
No offense, you NJians have the hottest (read: easiest) girls in the tri-state area.
If this is the case, then it is bad software, since "ZIP codes" are a "US centric" thing (most other contries call them Postal/Post Codes), we all have a good idea where the problem lies.
Ignorance is not a valid excuse, do a little research:
- Belgium & Switzerland: 9999
- France, Italy, Spain, & Mexico: 99999
- Japan: 999-9999
- USA: 99999 or 99999-9999")
- Canada: A9A 9A9
- GB: A99 9AA, AA9 9AA, A9A 9AA, AA99 9AA, AA9A 9AA, or A9 9AA
- Netherlands: 9999-AA
In Canada, from a 6 character postal code I can determine what side of the street you live on (if they added 1 more letter it would be specific to a house). The fist letter in a Canadian postal code is specific to a province/territory/Region, the next two identify the forward sorting area (FSA) within the first see here for specific details.The NAC (Natural Area Coding) system that they are proposing is a mathamatical short-hand for the actual latitude and longitude (see here, good for systems, not easy for humans.
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
In the UK we have alphanumeric postcodes which look something like NE12 3AB. The 1 or 2 letters at the beginning are loosely mnemonic (NE is the area around Newcastle), the 1 or 2 digits complete the code for a region, then the last digit and two more letters identify the street (a postcode in a residential area usually covers about 10 houses, so to uniquely identify an address, you need a postcode and a house number).
Or do we? That's not actually the Royal Mail's preferred format any more; they give discounts on bulk mail (by which I mean things like phone bills which are sent out in huge batches, not just junk mail) if it's marked with a "mailsort" code and received in the correct order. The mailsort code is a US-style purely numeric identifier, because it's easier to do OCR on something you know has to be a number - numbers are much less ambiguous than letters.
In a way we have Internet-like hierarchical distributed routing, I suppose (and I'm sure this is something that inspired early Internet development): if (outside the UK) you write
123 High Street
Somewhere
Some City
NE12 3AB
United Kingdom
on a letter, your local post office just needs to understand the last line in order to route it correctly. I'm sure other countries' conventions work similarly (although I seem to remember Russians write the address in "big-endian" order, with the country and city at the top, and the street and number at the bottom).
Some zip+4 codes actually refer to the floor and suite. I know of two buildings on different college campuses where the first digit is the building, the second the floor and the last two the room. They can do all sorts of weird things with them.
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
That's getting pretty accurate. And given that humans are, on average, reasonably well-wired for remembering numbers, I'd bet regulars can find their way around the building by ZIP+4, too!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Some yankee is going to believe you and get themselves into a right pagger...