On 2016-07-13 11:35, Colin Smale wrote:
On 2016-07-13 10:23, Lester Caine wrote:
W3W and OLC both have the same problem. They are trying to fix
something
which is not really broken.
I disagree with this... They are not trying to replace / fix up
lat/lon, they are providing a lingua franca for people to use when
communicating. It's an alternate form of address, not an alternate
form of location. They are intended for use by humans - so being
short, memorable and reliable is an advantage. This is where W3W wins
it from OLC as accurately remembering three words is easier than
remembering a "random" sequence of symbols, and when you read it out
over the phone the chances of a misunderstanding producing an existing
but wrong result are minimal.
It can not be used by humans without aid because using it means you need
electronic equipment to a) translate w3w to a location and b) find the
location.
As opposed to regular addresses that can be found very easily by locals.
If you give me a streetname in my hometown, I can find it.
Certainly much easier than having to learn the about 500.000 unique W3W
combinations that are in my (not so big) hometown.
Us westerners are spoilt with our wonderful postal addressing
systems... There are many, many areas in the world which don't have
street names or even house numbers. Telling someone where you live
means a whole chunk of descriptive text like "second red building on
the left".
But to get there, to translate the W3W address to a location, you need a
GPS and a translation from W3W to coordinates anyway. I mean, how would
you otherwise find casino.premiums.scream?
GPS'es are usually sophisticated enough to store waypoints. So the only
fix W#W gives is that during communicating the location you do not have
a pen and paper to write down the location.
It is useless for locals because they need a computer and a GPS, it is
unnecessary for deliverypeople because they have a GPS and can use
lat/lon that is written on letters or packages.
And in this example: is it casino.premiums.scream? Or
casino.premium.scream? Or casino.premiums.cream?
And how does that sound when a non-english speaker pronounces it? And is
transliteration to and from cyrillic (in the case of Mongolia)
straightforward?
I am still not convinced that it solves anything.
Maarten
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