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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."
Try remembering that one. I'm happy with five numbers. Atleast I can make some sort of memory device of that.
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?
Is there something wrong with the current system? Why not let individual countries decide how they want to have their addresses represented?
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...").
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).
...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.
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.
Why not just use one of the GPS systems. The problem with oversimplifying like this (as idealists tend to do) is they rarely reflect the reality of actual routing, like, "Gee, it's only 12 miles 'as the crow flies'", yet the route in question winds all over the place.
The real answer is that GPS wouldn't make any money for NAC Geographic Products, whereas this proprietary system would, through licensing to various governments around the world.
But, the fact of the matter is that the U.S. Postal Service likes its system just fine and will not change it to someone elses liking. Kinda like the metric system. Even if the new system is better. The same is true for the Royal Mail. We already saw how quick England was to jump on the EC bandwagon and adopt the Euro. Indeed far too many countries will be unwilling to change for this system to go global.
I'd have to sayto NAC Geographic Products; nice try but, no money for you.
What are they going to do, use smart bombs to deliver your packages? Otherwise, you're going to have to provide a lot of digits of precision on your coordinates. I think the delivery man would prefer a street name.
It gets better!
Let's say that you wanted to narrow things down to approximately 1-mile. 1-mile is approx 1 minute (1/60 of one degree) of longitude.
360 degrees * 60 minutes = 21600 different minutes on the face of the earth.
26 letters plus 10 numbers = 36! Subtract "confusables" (I, O, S, Z) -- 32 possible characters! 32^3 = 32768! The number of character combinations is greater than the number of minutes in one direction. It is a simple math exercise to create a base-32 numbering system and to enumerate all possible minute/second combinations.
Therefore, three characters can represent your latitude to the nearest mile (give or take), and another three characters for your longitude! A new universal six-digit zip code!
And all of this in 5 minutes with a simple calculator! What is the big deal? Devising a system such as this is trivial. Getting people to use it is the hard part.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."