Slashdot Mirror
Describe Any Location On Earth In 3 Words
First time accepted submitter jameshumphreys writes "London startup what3words has successfully launched a new website which has carved the world map into almost 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares, assigning each square a simple, unique 3 word address. For instance, the 'what3words' for the famous Peter Pan statue in London's Hyde Park is 'union.prop.enjoy'. This means you can easily describe even remote locations with great precision. CEO Chris Sheldrick says, 'We see our service being most useful where current methods of describing location (e.g. postcodes or ZIP codes) don't do the job well enough or don't do the job at all — but of course it has applications as a preferred alternative even where the existing solutions do a decent job, but perhaps less precise/customised than w3w.' An API is planned 'in the coming weeks.'" The heart of Disneyworld could be "Radioactive Humanoid Mice"; what would you call your neck of the woods?
Hot Frickin' Desert
@Valentinial
... "putrid.dung.heap"?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Without being able to look up the mapping from the database, the three words don't seem to be useful.
Perhaps it be paired with Longitude and Latitude; making a really useful yet *boring* system all of a sudden more *fun*, yet still accessible without access to the database.
Seriously, what the fuck. Why would you ever need to use this? I'm trying to figure out how the hell they would monetize this as well? Is this an article from The Onion?
It's a TinyUrl for map coordinates, but more human memorable?
embrace.extend.extinguish anyone?
Ezekiel 23:20
So, I am confused how this is better than longitude and latitude? I can use L&L offline, and it can have almost an infinite precision. Also, with my memory I am no more likely to remember the 3 words here than a long string of numbers.
So they give everywhere 3x3 meter square a random three words name to make it easier to tell some one the exact place you are refering to beacause it may or may not have postal code, have they not heard of gps coordinates it?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
why.not.another
cheese.ball.central
i.hate.periods
t.l.a
Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words. It is the same reason people don't carry around 128-bit AES keys in their head, even though it would make for much better security.
And people will immediately start injecting their beliefs into it, and it will devolve into competing sides trying to "define" a specific thing.
So if I say "fetid.corrupt.assholes" for Washington DC, and someone says "freedom.defenders.awesome", those two aren't reconcilable.
This is just a chance for everyone to try to shout loudest to assign their own description of something.
It's a "big.pointless.exercise".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Corrupt Incompetent Assclowns
Or CIA.
sudo make me a sandwich
load.of.bollocks
Search
We couldn't find any results for load.of.bollocks
like 1 million pixels but with earth?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
TFA fails to mention you have to pay to assign words to a location.
no, "most" would imply more than 3.5 billion people had that ability. most humans would not have such for english, but maybe in their native tongue.
our computers and cell phones remember such things as GPS very well, let's stick with that.
Sometimes, plain coordinates or a normal address would be better. Our house is on just over a hectare of land. That's about 1000 of those damn word triplets; even a fast talker would go blue in the face saying them. Our cottage is on 6½ hectares - a whole chorus would be left breathless.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I'll describe the entire Earth in only 2:
Mostly Harmless
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
why.choose.english
Is it safe to assume that is it universally acceptable to use three random English words?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
English is in decline, better choose a language used by a greater percentage of the earth's population. Mandarin and Spanish have more native speakers, perhaps we should use one of those.
See also: Category:Geographic coordinate systems.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"massing.ensemble.alters"
Latin characters? Really?
Have gnu, will travel.
Of course the whole thing is, you won't be able to find anything without their APP! Only for those that can not wrap their heads around the concept of Latitude and Longitude, which by the way, can get you a lot closer than a 3x3 meter square!
Yes, but unfortunately we don't have a super great interoperable way to exchange those GPS coordinates right now. We do have lots of ways to exchange words. This bridges that gap.
Horse, battery, staple.
They also seem to have an uncanny sense of telepathy. I thought about a place, and then I saw the "for example" link, and the link led to the place I was thinking of. That thing is creepy!
Ezekiel 23:20
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch, oh wait that's only one word.
No volcanos here
middle.of.nowhere
Three words seems a bit excessive when it can be easily done with two words.
Earth's A$$hole = New Jersey
Thanks! I'll be here all week...
Lattitude, longitude, altitude above ground level.
33.755, -84.39, 0 in my case.
Slashdot
nobody.reads.TFA
See, but the thing is, it provides no unique utility. Semantic, searchable map: already done better by Google maps. Highly specific location identifier: already done better by geocoordinates. Human memorable name for location, already done better with street names and city. There's no unique role to fill here.
No Such Agency. @ 39.109, -76.746
___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
While every square on the grid can be identified by three words, wouldn't it make sense to use a single word to describe coordinates of a few thousand key high traffic locations? After all, being able to geolocate to part of a field in Wyoming has considerably less value than a identifying the entrance of an art gallery, restaurant or popular landmark in a major city. Heck, make them meaningful, too. "Trafalgar" could geolocate the centre of the fountain in Trafalgar square (an admittedly stupid place) while "Trafalgar.north" could place you X meters north of the coordinates.
but most of those people would have no use for english words. someone is being obtuse all right....
Yes, that is my point exactly. Unless both people share the same app for sending and interpreting the GPS coordinates, then you can't do it. But you can always send words in SMS and have the person type those words into a website. Yes, you could also send latitude/longitude, but it is harder and doesn't have the other good uses i.e. voice over a telephone.
itsa.smallworld.afterall...
Why crowded? Because it's Summer and temperatures are in 3 digits (F) inland.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
No, you are being obtuse if you don't think they can implement this in more than one language. That is just fucking retarded to think there is some special significance to English here. The point of it is that you can succinctly communicate locations to people that you are already communicating in, presumably in a language that you share.
Considering mailing addresses in some places are essentially landmark references rather than proper street addresses, this might actually be a useful tool if there weren't any GPS.
My address in South Korea, for example, was "pumpkin patch" and the town I lived in, with the house number. My street name was never once listed on my mail. For anyone other than the mailman, finding my house based upon my mailing address was a nightmare. I had to give specific directions from known locations. (Obviously the house I lived in was no longer a pumpkin patch.)
With the proliferation of GPS enabled devices, though, probably not particularly helpful.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
It's like a generalization of street addresses. Lots of places (anywhere that's not a building) don't have street addresses, but you might want to communicate their location to someone. Now you just find it on the map and you have a succinct, easily rememberable label for that place, which others can look up on the website to find. Imagine you want to meet someone in central park somewhere but they don't know the area. You find it on the map, give them the three words, and they know right where you are talking about. You could use latitude/longitude, but that is harder to remember and communicate over a phone/sms/email.
insert.meme.here
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I'm sitting at beach.country.pineapple and my co-worker is at closing.rheumatoid.begin. How does that help someone find out if he's 6 feet away or 6000 miles away?
And how do you spell "rheumatoid" again?
Nonsense, no "shared app" is necessary other than basic email or messaging
N 25 18.340 W 22 28.100
...could provide a few special moments.
Stockholm Central
Route 4, near Rutland VT, USA
In the South Atlantic, about 250 km off the coast of Argentina
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Rednecks, fruitcakes, rattlesnakes
Fresno.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They could've made quite a bit of money by announcing this concept first, using placeholder names, then auctioning off various word combinations, or allowing people to pay to assign certain word combinations to coordinates.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Who said a yellow cat with a pink ribbon would sell millions? Social but only 140 characters and one sentence.....
Portland, OR
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Location, location, location.
Now what does my mom do with that message? If I give her three words and tell her to type them into this website, it will be much more successful that telling her to do the same with a bunch of numbers she will easily fuck up.
What does my mom do with latitude/longitude numbers I text her? It is much easier to tell her to type three words into a web site than have her copy a long string of number which she will definitely fuck up.
Without meaning, it's hard to ever find a place. The obvious way to use it is to find a memorable 3x3 spot near where you want to record. However, similar names are a long way apart. For example, fired.hotel.resident is in Papua, New Guinea; however, the semantically similar fired.hotel.dweller is in Germany.
Without similar names referring to similar places, like country.region.city.street.house does naturally, the service is not that helpful. Even if you had more words to remember, it would be better to have a hierarchical representation of places so that nearby names referred to nearby places.
Darmok.Jalad.Tanagra
That said, I live at:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.Antidisestablishmentarianism
which also proves that the concept has no merit.
*** Don't be dull.***
They already have Spanish words (click the flag).
Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words.
/ob "Correct Horse Battery Staple"
If you can remember just eight digits - Two groups of four, less than a complete long distance telephone number - That will put you within half a mile of your target location. Add two more digits (the length of an LD phone number including the "1"), and it puts you to less than a football field away.
Then again, we have DNS in the first place because non-geeks couldn't manage four groups of three, so, I don't seriously expect them to do much better with lat&long.
stupid.fucking.idea
or more accurately:
google.please.buyus
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This is a pretty good commercial.
There's one drawback: It would be quite easy for this service to give you a list of identifiers in a close vicinity of the marked spot, not just the marked spot itself. I've just checked about twenty identifiers for my house. Some are more memorable than others. Why not make it easier to find them?
Ezekiel 23:20
"NSA spies on it"
That is true. My bad.
house.star.magnet.
Ignorant, Fearful, White.
Mostly Harmless
thats only two words howevere
Star Trek Into Darkness did it better.
In that movie, a set of four 2-digit transporter coordinates has enough resolution to distinguish a location on a planet in another solar system from a moon of Jupiter.
(Also, using a transporter the size of a duffel bag (including power source), you can transport someone from Earth to Kronos. Never mind that the planet is light years away, Earth and Kronos are spinning on their axis, both planets are going around their respective suns, both systems are traveling through space in different directions, and you're doing this from a seated position in a damaged ship whirling out of control. Also, the transport is instantaneous - it goes at warp speed without a ship!)
(Oh, and let's hide the ship underwater, even though the indigenous population wouldn't be able to see us if we stayed in orbit.)
I suspect other aspects of that service would be charging for access (especially mobile apps) and, assuming it proves popular, selling word combinations to companies that would prefer their own vanity word combinations and are more than willing to pay for it.
I do think the idea is neat, but between either specifying the location where it can easily be found in the first place, and just sending the location data in a text / IM / whatever (somebody else suggested GPS coordinates, a reply there was that those are difficult to remember/convey.. but most location websites/apps simply allow you to copy a link / share the location without having to worry about the GPS coordinates at all), I'm not sure it's a service that's filling an actual need.
I looked up the exact location of my office within the building I work in every day. "unlucky.sublet.deciding"
planet texture maps and more
email her a link to a google map of that precise location, then. Create a list of locations you like - your favorite knitting, candle, and cat supplies stores - and then share that location list with your mom. Everything she needs to access those locations is already on her smartphone, most likely. The vast majority of humans don't speak english well - fark, we can't even get half the people here in the US to do it. Numbers though - those are a certainty. Telling someone to write down a series of numbers works easily, asking them to write down words they may not know is not. Those words only being useful at a specific website, which then does nothing more than give you the location... Yeah, I get it, they're trying to be for latitude/longitude what DNS is for IP space. But silly "flying.monkey.dung" names isn't the way to do that.
So now, instead, you've got to give her the three words, plus the URL of the website, which she will easily fuck up.
3words.....what?
What three words?
Oh...type into my browser....
ok...
www.what.three.words.com
I don't get anything.
Oh..ok.
www.what.3.words.com
It's still not working.
Grrrr.
www.what3.words.com
This stupid thing!
Just give me your damned latitude and longitude!!!
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
This will be as popular as the "internet ticks" crap that Swatch tried to sell to everyone.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words. It is the same reason people don't carry around 128-bit AES keys in their head, even though it would make for much better security.
So you're saying it's easier to try and memorize 3 words for each of the 57 trillion locations?
There isn't any kind of cohesive system for this. There's no way to look at one "address" and then infer neighboring addresses, for example. It simply has nothing which allows for easy reference, without access to this company's service you can't look them up on a map.
Basically what they're selling is a marketing tool. They want businesses to pay them to name a location, so people can search for the name of that location and see it on a map. Which begs the question, why not just search for the name of the business in the first place?
The only problem this seems to solve is the problem of these guys not having enough of your money in their wallets.
If you wanted a grid system that didn't rely on a single index, you could use MGRS. Of course, 'union.prop.enjoy' for Hyde park sounds cooler than MGRS coordinate 30UXC9656810039
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I'm guessing they don't include any words that are NSFW, but I find it amusing that united.states.america isn't a location in this service.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
To describe 57 trillion locations with three words requires a fairly large lexicon; the cube root of 57 trillion is about 38500. Yet it seems that "likely" places (i.e., in urban areas) have descriptions with relatively short words. For example, a spot in Times Square is "hats.jumpy.ruins". But a point in the middle of the Pacific is "toneless.dialectically.worksite". Trying it in reverse, "fish.fish.fish" is in Philadelphia, but "dialectically.dialectically.dialectically" is in the Indian Ocean, although not very far from the southern tip of India.
Wonderful, we'll only need 4,500 systems for each of the langauges in the world with more than 1,000 speakers.
or we could use an international standard system that exists already and is readily usable by the world's more than 6 billion mobile devices.
At this level, wouldn't we just be sending a street address that can be typed into Google maps anyways? I imagine if you are telling someone about a location that doesn't have a street address, that someone better be smart enough to handle lat/long points if they are going to actually visit the location.
I can see this service being especially valuable when you're trying to meet someone at a crowded public venue. Share your OneWord with them in advance and set your phone to update your location every 5 minutes.
I think it would also be nice to use at "+PIN" operation to temporary disable a OneWord unless you specify additional information. Simply typing the *OneWord without the +PIN could display a permanent location or an error message indicating that the user is protecting their location.
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
How about 1m x 1m resolution in 14 characters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_grid_reference_system
America, Fuck Yeah ? Shattered expectations.
The reserved geographic based addresses have a resolution of 1 meter.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
There are lots of places that don't have a street address but would be interesting to regular people, i.e. a certain location in a large park, a place on the beach, a place on a big college campus, etc.
Okay, to get through the post filter: Too many humans
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Lat/long is like an IP address. Does the job but very unmemorable for humans.
This idea is like a domain name. With all possible locations on earth pre-seeded with 3 random words, and the possibility to buy a single word version of your choice.
If you don't like it don't use it. But if it caught on it might be quite useful. And it's a clever business model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_grid_reference_system
But, you know, we will use random combinations of three words instead of a structured id because that's better. Innovation at it's finest.
DNS was created as an international standard to solve a problem that was well established, and for which less elegant solutions were already in place. Where's the equiv in this situation, for RFC805?
Words are harder to remember than they'd like. Say I tell my friend to meet me at "award.tricks.fish" (an example from their page, somewhere in NYC) but he remembers "award.trick.fish". Suddenly he's buying a plane ticket to Chicago, which is all just the same, because I accidentally travelled to "awards.trick.fish" and ended up just outside London. Plurals, gerunds, past tense and other word forms that have different endings make this a really unwieldy system for conveying precise information verbally. It's easy enough electronically, but then why not just make a google maps short url link and stick it in an SMS? Problem solved...
email her a link to a google map of that precise location, then.
On that basis we don't need domain names either. Just email people IP addresses.
The vast majority of humans don't speak english well
And there's nothing special about English in this system. If someone is conversing to you in French they'll go to the French version of the website and use 3 French words. The addresses are only as portable as the language used to express them, but in practice that's not much of a drawback. Even less so than with domain names.
You obviously haven't been out in the country anywhere around where I live.
Every house has a street address. Some barns have street addresses. Heck, I've even seen empty fields with street addresses.
Now, you're right, that it doesn't narrow it down anywhere near as much as this, because the lot at 1748 Hillbilly Road might be somewhere around 100 acres, rather than 9 square meters. Get in the center of that lot, though, and you'll probably be within shouting distance of whoever you're trying to find in it, unless it's planting or harvesting season.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
No, he meant all the people are going to be lining up to complain. Hence, queue.
(Yes, I'm kidding.)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Yeah, I get it, they're trying to be for latitude/longitude what DNS is for IP space. But silly "flying.monkey.dung" names isn't the way to do that.
So you purchase a "OneWord" of your choice. Just as you'd purchase a domain name of your choice.
The 3 word system is the marketing system. Their business model is selling location domain names that people chose.
nice.finish.last == 404
Not A Sig
There's an app for that.
That's probably pretty accurate, wouldn't you say? :)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
That should fit a good billion spots
http://what3words.com/useless.proprietary.solution
I could have sworn this would have been at the company's head office, rather than the shores of Greenland.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
your.mom's.hideaway
I typically find most spots on Earth
really.fucking.awesome
Standing at 14,110 feet in Colorado: Really.fucking.awesome
Sitting in a kayak watching littlenecks squirt water 5 feet into the air at sunset: Really.fucking.awesome
Snorkeling in Cairns: Really.fucking.awesome
Watching tornado clouds form: Really.fucking.awesome
Looking from the top down or bottom up of the Sears Tower: Really.fucking awesome
Mountain Biking Moab: Really.fucking.awesome
Name any location with three words, I can do it with two numbers: Latitude and Longitude. So for the Peter Pan stature in Kensington Gardens, it is lat/lng:55.9494,-3.2000. The other advantage of using lat/lng is that if you aren't quite there, you know what direction you need to go, whereas if you are at hippo.jumbo.pimple and are trying to get to union.prop.enjoy, which way would you go?
Sometimes newer isn't better.
For instance, the 'what3words' for the famous Peter Pan statue in London's Hyde Park is 'union.prop.enjoy'
What's wrong with "peter.pan.statue.hyde.park.london"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Laughing.Cow.Potholes http://www.montrealmemes.com/tag/tendrement-pauline
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein
Yes, but the three words are completely useless without the database of locations. Latitude and longitude are useful without much context.
https://www.google.com/maps?q=N+25+18.340+W+22+28.100
Should do it.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Using upper case, lower case, and numbers - separate them into three sections with dots if needed - gives just about 57 trillion combinations.
Xx.6y.18 is a valid location identifier, and it's shorter than the old 8 chr random password generator I used to use when I had the password crazed sysadmin back in the 90s.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I searched for Houston, TX and got drums.spark.rarely, which brings up the problem of ambiguous pronunciation -- is it drum.spark.rarely, drums.park.rarely, or drums.spark.rarely? They might need to add some more filters. Maybe check for homonyms too.
I like the idea of a shorthand for global coordinates. There are places where this could be really useful. Aren't there streets in Tokyo (and London?) with no names? Now everybody in the world has an easy-to-write* address. It would also be useful for meet-ups. A three meter square is a lot less ambiguous than a street address. And while there's no simple distance/direction calculation, there is some built-in error checking -- if you get the wrong word you'll probably get a location a long way off (c.f. lat/long typos, which can give any size error in any direction).
It would be neat if there were a way to algorithmically generate place names from GPS coordinates and get a similar scheme, but that seems unlikely.
Visit the
You could do latitude and longitude in four words and there would be a pattern to it. You would instantly know (assuming there was some sort of order in the words) approximately the location.
Approximately 1300000 minutes in a circle by as a rough guess. Two words out of 2000 common words would give the longitude and two more give the latitude.
what.the.fuck
Table-ized A.I.
Approximately 1300000 seconds in a circle
solution.needing.problem
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words. It is the same reason people don't carry around 128-bit AES keys in their head, even though it would make for much better security.
And that's why phone numbers never made it in to common use.
Oh wait, they did. Because while most people have trouble with a long series of unrelated digits, such as with an AES key, they generally can remember short strings of related digits.
So remembering your location to a reasonable level of precision involves at most 10 digits: a group of 3 + group of 2 for latitude and a group of 3 + group of 2 for longitude, such as 41.43,-75.67.
And then you not only know where you are, you can divine details such as 41 is between 42 and 44. Latitude and longitude gives you an idea of the distance between two points and what things are nearby. A sustem of 3 random words tells you nothing. "Purple Monkey Dishwasher"--is that where you are? is it next door? is it the other side of the world? There's no (systematic) way to know!
I see no use for this 3 word system.
Except DNS lets us use things that make sense. If I'm looking for Cisco, Cisco.com is a logical place to start. 72.163.4.161 holds no significance to me, and I probably won't look there by default. This is not like DNS. blackberry.zeta.pnder would be just as random and unmemorable to the average person as 72.163.4.161 and eliminate what makes DNS useful. stupid.fucking.standard
...to find "dark under belly" just outside of Cleveland, or "arrogant indifferent leader" in Russia...
Current location systems try in some way to relate to things geographically. I know that if I see house number 5, house number 7 is close by.
How do I get from complete.nonsense.garbage to this.really.sucks ? How would I even know to use those terms to describe where I'm going? From looking at those words, how do I know the relationship between the two points? Do I need to drive, fly, walk?
A rational system has a progressive level of detail. The state tells the postal carrier what state to get something to. Once in the state, the zip code tells them what post office to get to. Once at the post office, the street tells them what carrier to give it to. And finally the number tells the carrier was house to give it to.
A completely arbitrary naming system is of no value to anyone. Why would you assume that me and everyone else would use the same three words to describe a 3x3 plot of land?
But, then we need a lot of stupid things in this world because not everyone can make useful things but everyone needs a job.
Work Safe Porn
There were 333 comments when I came into this discussion. I know, "Cool story, bro".
I'm in to sadism, bestiality and necrophilia. Am I flogging a dead horse?
All these responses and nobody mentions the Maidenhead System. You all disappoint me.
The UN didn't commission this. The devs have no obligation to conform to your bullshit objections that English sucks. If you want to make a version in Tagalog that's going to be even more totally useless, feel free to make one.
I can describe anywhere on earth in only 2 words: mostly harmless.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
It's even more disappointing when you find that there is no here.be.dragons . I'll never find a dragon. ;_;
I agree with you, especially since you can't assign the words yourself and they are too arbitrary to associate with a physical place. As a marketing tool its of extremely limited value. Can you see a business wanting to be known as hot.banana.rug? Seriously, going to the example of "'union.prop.enjoy" and then look over to the London Paddington rail station, there are several dozen names for the station because of the size of the area used to define a location. One location gives you "civic.food.walks" and a short distance from that you get "years.bits.oasis". There are probably dozens of "names" in their database all pointing to London Paddington station. I can't see how this is going to be anything but mass confusion...
My yard has about a dozen random combos, which is awfully precise. Unfortunately for their business plan, f you want to describe the world in location, you need to have a system adequate to handle muli-floor buildings.
Oh well, cute and worth the 30s I spent clicking around.
That's where I am from.
Hope I remembered to bring Data Drain...
What three words?
Oh...type into my browser....
ok...
www.what.three.words.com
I don't get anything.
Oh..ok.
My Dad's 68, has a Phd. in Metallurgy and a masters in Physics. He's been using PCs for 30 years (and mainframes before that). I have yet to watch him follow the instructions "type into the address bar" successfully on the first try.
My step-mother actually programmed mainframes in the 70's, to get to any website she starts at google... When I visited them last month I had to remove three different search-toolbar addon/trojans ...
What surprises me is that they both understand the difference between IE, Firefox and Chrome. They figured out by themselves that they could share a single windows login most of the time if they used different browsers.
I don't know how ordinary mortals manage to be productive with computers without techie angel following them around.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Will there be a version for non-English speakers?
One of the nice bits about using latitude & longitude is that the numbers are still sensible no matter what language is used.
And this is another prime example. Cheers.
Three 64 bit DWORD values should be enough for anyone
Don't we already have a system for this?
It's called latitude and longitude.
The service has a point, but it is not locating stuff with three word combos. The point is to provide a global geek challenge to reverse engineer the location -> words algorithm, determine the word list, and write a decent haiku/world tour mashup.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Some people may have a problem with this one.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
This has to be the single most pointless thing I've seen in a good many years.
Universal.Transverse.Mercator I'm an archaeologist and I use UTM coordinates every day, which breaks down the surface of the earth into 1x1 m squares so it's more accurate than w3w. Pointless
+1
I'd like to see the grid overlaid on the map, with the labels in each box. Then I could easily pick the most memorable of the phrases.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Believe it or not, that is what they come up with for my street.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
complete.s**t.hole
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
cats catch mice in Minnesota, dogs chase cats in Jamaica, and people catch colds in Australia?
Phones first came about without numbers, you asked the operator for the person and they looked them up. Phone numbers came in because it was a technically simple solution, if a user interface that let people phone for example or some such then numbers wouldn't have reached common usage. There are plenty of things that were in common use that have died off today because we have better alternatives.
Phone numbers pretty much have died off these days. I know perhaps 15 but can instantly call ~1,000 people between work and home from my phone contacts without even needing to see the number itself. With things like Hangouts/Skype becoming more widely used phone numbers are rapidly becoming more and more like IP addresses.
Why would you want to memorize each location? It's all about memory efficiency and maximizing the mutual information. Predictability will inevitably suffer, but that's a fair trade off for some applications.
Which can you remember or communicate better, both of which have about the same precision:
1) Shot Mental Sunbeam
2) All of the following characters decimal characters: 61.5299 -144.4334
Of course it's not very useful for businesses, it works against their branding. It's mostly useful for remote locations or stuff not on Google Maps (fairly common in some countries).
(Memorable passwords and geohashing.)
dragons.caves.hidden This exists....
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
This will take playing D&D to a whole new level!
It seems to me this is a bit of a solution looking for a problem as there are already 2 very good ways of telling someone else your location:
1) "Meet me at starbucks on whereever street."
2) Click your GPS location in google maps etc. and select the share option.
Ahhhhh, more tourists!
Actuals: large.fleshy.melons big.donkey.member sticky.middle.finger
[This sig space for sale. Cheap]
See, its already been done with just two words.
>A OneWord is a personalised word of letters and numbers for a location of your choice. Read more...
>All OneWords start with *
And then the prices to have that word from 1 year to 10 - all prices in GBP
I bet that if you click on that link from a google owned IP-adress the text will be different.
Did they get this from the dungeon addressing system in .hack series - where the right combination of 3 words teleports you to the corresponding dungeon. I'd like to know if they at least use some of those names for the studios or game companies related to hack :-)
you send Mom a link, obviously. she has email and a browser and everything
no so, we all have cell phones (and other mobile devices) and the infrastructure to send messages by SMTP or SMS. there are billions of mobile devices, in fact in 2014 the number of total mobile devices will exceed the number of humans.
It's really too bad that smartphones and apps generally don't recognise "-?([0-8]\d|90|\d)\.\d{1,}, ?-?([0-8]\d|90|\d)\.\d{1,}" as a gps location. Why it isn't a universal copy/paste option in all map and location applications is beyond me. The closest street address is completely useless when you're in the middle of a forest, or even in a park.
I agree that being able to write (or even understand it) is not important, as you'll need a map application on a device which probably has the capability of receiving text. It's easier for everyone involved to do it in a couple of clicks, rather than for the sender to read some words and for the receiver to type those words in. The three-words thing is neat, but it's a solution in search of a problem.
On a side note: what I'm missing in my country, and it really irks me, is an unambiguous way to specify a street address. There is a "Church Street 4" every few tens of kilometers. The UK solved that problem brilliantly with short codes consisting of letters and numbers, kind of a zip code for every single address. It's a problem which most people encounter *every single day*, carrying a very real cost in time and money, and no-one seems to care.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
True, but how is giving "mom" three words to type into an app any easier than lat/long numbers? My point is more that someone bold enough to seek out a random location based on an app and just a couple words, is probably smart enough to use lat/long for more accurate location anyways. I'm thinking about something like geocaching here.
Nominating the Himalayas as Stone Cold Sober
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE