What Three Words - For the dinosaurs here :)

[Jerra]

5 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Have you never sent a text or post without an error then? I do all the time

 

I try very hard not to.  With regard to posts I only use the laptop which doesn't autocorrect, for texts I send probably considerably less than you.  If I were sending a text which my life depended on (possibly quite literally) I would make absolutely certain I had checked it was correct.

[magnetman]

Is there a facility to send a text message to 999? 

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Modern smartphones apparently send the location automatically when doing an emergency call. 

 

W3W seems clever but in most situations it is probably going to be rather pointless over time as smartphones become more and more advanced.

 

 

 

When I last made a 999 call I was outside the car but the (Android) phone was still connected to the car via. Bluetooth so I didnt get to speak to anyone.

 

After a couple of attempted call backs by the 999 bods I recieved a text saying 'if your 999 call was about the RTC at the Avenue Guisborough the police are aware and will attend, if not please ring 999 again.'

 

It was, and they did.

 

So without giving my location verbally they knew exactly were I was. My location was also displayed on the screen while I was making the emergency call.

Edited April 25, 2023 by M_JG

[magnetman]

Of course my earlier comment about automatic transmission of location ignores the fact the phone may be indoors and not getting gps positioning. 

 

If the idea was that you know your usual location "at home" as a w3w it would make more sense but if out and about it just seems to add an extra layer of confusion..

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Is there a facility to send a text message to 999? 

 

Yes, but it appears you have to register to be able to do it.

 

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/contact/british-sign-language-bsl/emergency-sms-service-for-deaf-deafened-hard-of-hearing-and-speech-impaired-people/

[Graham Davis]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Modern smartphones apparently send the location automatically when doing an emergency call. 

 

W3W seems clever but in most situations it is probably going to be rather pointless over time as smartphones become more and more advanced.

 

 

Not all, plus it depends on whether "location" is turned on, plus the accuracy depends on the number of masts received. Around here for example you may only be working off one mast so triangulation is impossible.

32 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Is there a facility to send a text message to 999? 

Yes, and here's a nice simple guide
https://www.scottishambulance.com/media/kauleql2/about-sending-a-text-to-999-tracked-changes-031013.pdf
but as Martin says, you need to register first.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Graham Davis

[David Mack]

29 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Not all, plus it depends on whether "location" is turned on, plus the accuracy depends on the number of masts received. Around here for example you may only be working off one mast so triangulation is impossible.

If "location" is turned on and working your position will be determined by GPS and phone mast triangulation isn't necessary. If "location" is off or not working then triangulation will be used - even one mast will give the police the general area which may be enough if they can coordinte it with other information.

Edited April 25, 2023 by David Mack

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is that the antennas at mobile phone masts are generally not omnidirectional, at least, in areas where masts are densely-spaced, but have contiguous beams akin to the numbered sections of a dart board, and arranged so that adjacent beams never use the same frequency simultaneously. The mast knows which beam of the metaphorical dartboard a phone is in, and can estimate its radial distance by the time taken to get a reply to an interrogating signal sent from the mast.   This provides a rough position without the need for triangulation.  I think a different arrangement is used in less populated areas, where triangulation would be required to get a positional fix.

 

Some years ago, in the early days of mobiles, there was a report on the radio about someone in a remote part of the UK who had rung 999 for help for a companion who had had an accident, and was asked for the postcode they were in. Difficult as there was no human habitation in sight to ask. Although the caller knew from his map the longitude and latitude, that was no good, their system would only accept postcodes. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[churchward]

I have used "What three words" a few times to help pinpoint/guide deliveries to our house if the courier can use them.  The issue for us and some parcel deliveries is that living in a remote rural area our postcode covers 6 houses over about 2 miles on a dead-end lane. There is no street name no house number to help guide them to us.   So we can get random deliveries for anyone in the postcode and vice versa.  So something that pinpoints our actual location is a good thing.

 

As an aside the other day we had a courier phone up and say "I am outside your house but no one is in"  I told him he was not outside our house I am in and there is no van outside. I then asked him to describe what he could see so I might have a clue where he was. He then told me he could see a black bin!! which wasn't terribly helpful I did eventually manage to talk him to our house but if he had been able to use "what three words" it could have been a lot easier.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Is there a facility to send a text message to 999? 

 

Yes - virtually all phones will automatically send a text with your (GPS lat/long) position to the operator whilst you are talking to them (unless you have deactivated it). Not a lot of people know that.

[john.k]

Phones  have an accurate position ability........I got an invoice for a shipping container delivery ,and position was quoted in the invoice to some incredible accuracy ,all done on the drivers phone......I was able to check it against a recently surveyed building layout ,that the container was placed inside . 

[ditchcrawler]

Our local council for fly tipping reports, also CRT ask for What3words on their report form

 

 

[magnetman]

1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

Our local council for fly tipping reports, also CRT ask for What3words on their report form

 

 

 

Is this not an invitation to request they go away using choice words?

 

 

The EA use the w3w thing when putting notices on boats. I suppose it is quite good in that it defines the exact spot very accurately.

 

Presumably the people who chose the 40,000 words managed to do so without accidentally including words that could be taken to be offensive by furriners with other religions or those of a woke disposition. It must be quite arduous wading through 40,000 words and having a bored meeting about it all.

 

One wonders if words like ' breast' were specifically removed.

[Tonka]

18 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

I know you weren't, but there is so much ignorant anti-metric invective on here that it needed pointing out. 

 

The metric system is here to stay, thank goodness. A coherent set of units makes so much sense.

 

 

 

I am going metric inch by inch

[magnetman]

I prefer 12 as it is more divisible.

 

Its like 24 hours in a day and 360 degrees in a circle. Its isn't rocket science to work out why this was decided on bearing in mind people were using their brains and not machines to do the calculations.

 

 

You can knock numbers down much faster in your head if they are not based on ten.

12 is the classic example.

 

Divisible by 12,6,4,3 and 2.

 

10 is not so useful.

 

Divisible by 10,5 and 2.

 

I'll give 12 a 2:1 advantage over 10.

 

 

[Tonka]

But surly if you are in a van w3w is useless with out a road map 

[cheesegas]

Just as a warning, don’t call 111 and try to use what 3 words, they don’t accept it and still need a postcode. 
 

Called the useless buggers when moored up about a mile from a road in both directions, tried to give them the w3w and grid reference which utterly confused them as they can’t progress without a postcode. The first lady hung up on me when I didn’t have a postcode, called again and gave the nearest thing with a postcode which happened to be a Screwfix, explaining that I didn’t live there…so they sent the ambulance there.

[IanD]

1 minute ago, cheesegas said:

Just as a warning, don’t call 111 and try to use what 3 words, they don’t accept it and still need a postcode. 
 

Called the useless buggers when moored up about a mile from a road in both directions, tried to give them the w3w and grid reference which utterly confused them as they can’t progress without a postcode. The first lady hung up on me when I didn’t have a postcode, called again and gave the nearest thing with a postcode which happened to be a Screwfix, explaining that I didn’t live there…so they sent the ambulance there.

How long ago was that, and is this still the case? AFAIK the 999 emergency services do use W3W...

16 minutes ago, Tonka said:

But surly if you are in a van w3w is useless with out a road map 

If you have the app on your phone it will tell you exactly where you are. Right now it thinks I'm in my front room at home, and it's right... 😉

[magnetman]

28 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

Just as a warning, don’t call 111 and try to use what 3 words, they don’t accept it and still need a postcode. 
 

Called the useless buggers when moored up about a mile from a road in both directions, tried to give them the w3w and grid reference which utterly confused them as they can’t progress without a postcode. The first lady hung up on me when I didn’t have a postcode, called again and gave the nearest thing with a postcode which happened to be a Screwfix, explaining that I didn’t live there…so they sent the ambulance there.

 

Why did you get an ambulance using 111?

 

The last time I got an ambulance was about 2 yars ago after my temorary paralysis from back problems. I called 999 and used w3w as there was no land address there. The call handler was happy with this but may well have got my location from the phone anyway.

 

I was being a bit of a girl at the time and they knew it was not an emergency but did send someone to come and check I was moving and give me some drugs. Christ on a bike that was painful !

 

Previous ambulance call was made by me for the woman in 2010 when she was engaged in having the first baby before the expected time. This involved a call to a land address and the infant being born in a bathroom with ambulance crew assistance. Which was nice.

[1st ade]

I don't really like W3W (with one exception - see below) because of their business model. Free of charge is the bit to convert a location to W3W - potentially chargable is the conversion of W3W to a position. At a moments notice they could say to Amazon, Emergency Services, DPD etc "20p a lookup". Also, there are examples above of two locations having similar words - it's OK saying "oh, you know it's wrong because it's in the wrong country" but that doesn't help work out which word is wrong.

 

For emergency calls - if the phone knows where it is (and if it doesn't, W3W won't work either) the handset sends a silent text to 999 with Lat, Long, Altitude and precision. It's part of the phone operating system whether Google, Android or iOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location. All Blue light services in the UK have access to the callers location in this way - but some prefer to stick with W3W, Postcodes or whatever

 

If you want to share your location with a friend, most messaging Apps have a single keypress to share either current location or a continuously updated location. WhatsApp and Signal certainly do.

 

The exception is where you can't (for whatever reason) call from the location you want to give - for example someone slips on the towpath but there is no mobile signal. Someone could note the W3W, walk to where there was a signal, call for help and make it clear "not where I'm phoning from but What.Three.Words"

[cheesegas]

38 minutes ago, IanD said:

How long ago was that, and is this still the case? AFAIK the 999 emergency services do use W3W...

It was about a year ago, and yep I'd heard of the emergency services using W3W but clearly 111 doesn't... May have changed since then though, it was an all round frustrating process.

 

 

8 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Why did you get an ambulance using 111?

I didn't - I called 111 for severe stomach pains, not enough to warrant an ambulance though. They decided to send an ambulance about 3hrs later without informing me; the first I knew of it was a phone call from the ambulance crew asking if they were in the right place as he was parked by Screwfix... All round pretty inept and wasteful of their own resources too.

[IanD]

11 minutes ago, 1st ade said:

I don't really like W3W (with one exception - see below) because of their business model. Free of charge is the bit to convert a location to W3W - potentially chargable is the conversion of W3W to a position. At a moments notice they could say to Amazon, Emergency Services, DPD etc "20p a lookup". Also, there are examples above of two locations having similar words - it's OK saying "oh, you know it's wrong because it's in the wrong country" but that doesn't help work out which word is wrong.

 

For emergency calls - if the phone knows where it is (and if it doesn't, W3W won't work either) the handset sends a silent text to 999 with Lat, Long, Altitude and precision. It's part of the phone operating system whether Google, Android or iOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location. All Blue light services in the UK have access to the callers location in this way - but some prefer to stick with W3W, Postcodes or whatever

 

If you want to share your location with a friend, most messaging Apps have a single keypress to share either current location or a continuously updated location. WhatsApp and Signal certainly do.

 

The exception is where you can't (for whatever reason) call from the location you want to give - for example someone slips on the towpath but there is no mobile signal. Someone could note the W3W, walk to where there was a signal, call for help and make it clear "not where I'm phoning from but What.Three.Words"

 

Objecting to w3w because they might at some point in the future try and charge for some aspect of the service makes no more sense than objecting to Google or Facebook or Gmail or WhatsApp or Signal any other "free" internet service or smartphone app -- if you worked on that basis you wouldn't find the internet very useful at all... 😉

[Iain_S]

22 hours ago, IanD said:

(snip)

IIRC the words are chosen so that errors like this give a location so far away that it's obviously wrong.

Doesn't always work

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Tonka said:

But surly if you are in a van w3w is useless with out a road map 

I have never seen a map with app the names on it, if there was one I dont know how you would find the right square 

[magnetman]

I'm wondering if one has to have been to a really expensive private school in order to do Ted talks.

 

I went to a really expensive private school.

 

The w3w geyser is out of Eton and someone I met a while ago who has a reasonable sized estate in Sussex and a large terraced house in a nice part of Hackney did a Ted talk about the horrors of food waste and raiding the Marks and Spencer food bins to feed the kids.

 

Just wondering if anyone else is allowed to join in or is it a networking thing.