What Three Words - For the dinosaurs here :)

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

And yet around here post codes can cover many square miles, so worthless.
I know, I regularly have to find remote addresses and have to phone them to find out exactly where they are.

 

AND there are loads of bits of the UK with no postcode attached to them at all. Most of the canal system and motorway system, for example. 

 

On the other hand, for a postcode to be of much use one needs a house number too. 

 

 

[David Mack]

7 hours ago, 1st ade said:

You can type a post code, map reference or lat / long into Bing, Duck Duck Go or almost any other search engine and still work out where to go.

Postcodes are intellectual property belonging to Royal Mail. You can only find a postcode location in search engines because they have paid Royal Mail for a copy of the postcode data file. RM must think it is in their interest to price the data at a level which makes it widely available. But that isn't necessarily always going to be the case.

[1st ade]

7 hours ago, David Mack said:

Postcodes are intellectual property belonging to Royal Mail.

I knew somebody who was charged by Royal Mail with "creating an unauthorised address" (or some similar wording)

 

He'd built a cottage for his parents on his farm, called it Rose Cottage. He got a stiff letter from Royal Mail that he didn't have permission to create a new address like that (fair point as, amongst other things, calling 999 and saying "Rose Cottage is on fire [even with the postcode]" wouldn't necessarily get a fire engine on site)

7 hours ago, David Mack said:

Postcodes are intellectual property belonging to Royal Mail. You can only find a postcode location in search engines because they have paid Royal Mail for a copy of the postcode data file. RM must think it is in their interest to price the data at a level which makes it widely available. But that isn't necessarily always going to be the case.

Fair comment

[Lady M]

I discovered that the electricity network identifies supply addresses by postcode.  If Royal Mail change the postcode for an address, there is no automatic updating of the electricity database.  So the customer has to give the previous postcode when calling about a problem!

[Iain_S]

On 28/04/2023 at 17:50, Richard10002 said:

 

You must spend your time wondering why anybody ever bothered with the postcode system?

That's designed to get mail to the right postman, and help him put it into his/her bag in the right order. (Mainly the former)

[Mike Todd]

On 28/04/2023 at 10:38, Machpoint005 said:

 

It's also easier to visualise 20 metres than 65 ft 7 and a bit inches. 

 

Or 500mm rather than 1ft' 7.68 in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One cricket pitch?

[Alan de Enfield]

40 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

One cricket pitch?

 

Or another way of looking at it, is that  22 yards is 1/10th of a furlong.

[Ewan123]

I called the police and thought I'd try using W3W to communicate the location (a bush with no address).

 

I wished I'd stuck with an OS grid ref. The words were obscure and/or similar to other common words, so I ended up spelling three fairly long words phonetically. It took ages altogether, but at least I know the phonetic alphabet. I'm sure many would struggle.

 

One thing I'll say in favour of the W3W app now though is that you can set it to give you OS grid ref or Latitude/Longitude alongside the 3 words, which makes it function as an easy way to get those at least.

[rusty69]

11 hours ago, Ewan123 said:

I called the police and thought I'd try using W3W to communicate the location (a bush with no address).

 

I wished I'd stuck with an OS grid ref. The words were obscure and/or similar to other common words, so I ended up spelling three fairly long words phonetically. It took ages altogether, but at least I know the phonetic alphabet. I'm sure many would struggle.

 

One thing I'll say in favour of the W3W app now though is that you can set it to give you OS grid ref or Latitude/Longitude alongside the 3 words, which makes it function as an easy way to get those at least.

I tried that once 

All it gave me was the w3w address of the nearest police station:

 

///999. Letsbe. Avenue. 

 

On a more serious note, addition of the lat and long and grid reference is a really good idea. I wasn't aware of that, thanks. 

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I tried that once 

All it gave me was the w3w address of the nearest police station:

 

///999. Letsbe. Avenue. 

 

On a more serious note, addition of the lat and long and grid reference is a really good idea. I wasn't aware of that, thanks. 

 

It probably supports the theory that W3W is not quite as good / useful / universally accepted as some make it out to be.

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It probably supports the theory that W3W is not quite as good / useful / universally accepted as some make it out to be.

It does make you wonder why Lat and Long was added, but its the logical conclusion.

[magnetman]

Google maps on the phone you just do a long tap on required location and the long and lat come up at the top of the screen automatically. 

[rusty69]

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Google maps on the phone you just do a long tap on required location and the long and lat come up at the top of the screen automatically. 

So it does. I never knew that.

[David Mack]

31 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I tried that once 

All it gave me was the w3w address of the nearest police station:

 

///999. Letsbe. Avenue. 

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, David Mack said:

Someone has a sense of humour.

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

It must be very tiny if all of that is in a single 3 metre square.

[David Mack]

11 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Someone has a sense of humour.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/feb/12/martinwainwright

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Google maps on the phone you just do a long tap on required location and the long and lat come up at the top of the screen automatically. 

 

If you don't know where you are it also puts a 'pin' in your current location & (automatically) shows your current lat-long.

 

You can even take a screen shot and send it to the SAR / 999 etc. No problem with 'language'.

 

It can never be as a reliable service as a PLB (as a PLB requires no phone signal), but is a useful alternative in populated areas with phone coverage.

[Ronaldo47]

I remember "Letsby Avenue" being a topic in a Radio 4 programme at the time, but didn't remember where it was, other than being associated with an airfield. From memory, it was said that it was  the planners' practice to give temporary names to new roads on their draft plans for ease of identification rather than "Road No. 1,  Road No. 2 " etc., with the expectation that the client  would give them their proper names later. The "Letsby Avenue" name obviously appealed to people's sense of humour, and the supposedly temporary name was retained. 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Ronaldo47

[enigmatic]

At least sometimes they get the words right:

 

[davem399]

It’s a little ironic that one of the three words is “unsecured”.