what3words supersquare problem

Hi Chloe,

Yes, actually this is really helpful and gives me a lot to think about, thank you very much for your time! I now get all the points, and surely the "one-way" nature of assigning an address is a huge one. About the first two I still have some ideas, but they certainly won't help the last one. I wish you and the company all the best and will promote you however possible.

Cheers,
Mike

26.10.2016 13:53, Chloe Day (what3words Support) пишет:
>
> ##- Please type your reply above this line -##
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> Your request (3843) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.
> Chloe Day
>
> Chloe Day (what3words Support)
>
> Oct 26, 11:53 BST
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thank you for your detailed response. We have chosen to label the squares as we have to allow in-built error detection - with the system you have described, it would be possible to make a small change in an address and end up in the wrong place without noticing until you arrived. With the system we have, it is immediately obvious when there has been an error in the address as words with similar addresses are spaced as far apart as possible. Also, we have the use of 40,000 dictionary words in English, but in other languages we sometimes struggle even to get to the 20,000 usable words we need to cover the land mass of the earth (English is the only language which also covers the sea). With a much reduced wordlist, a more complex system like this one wouldn't work.
>
> Labelling districts in this way also opens up issues surrounding borders and where to make cut offs - we already get a number of emails when we describe a 3 word address as being 'in' or 'near' a certain town, from people saying actually it is closer to somewhere else. It's surprisingly complicated to get this right.
>
> Lastly, as we are now used offline in many countries and by many companies around the world, the addresses are all completely fixed and cannot be changed. Once a language is brought out of beta, the addresses stay the same. While languages are in beta the wordlist is undergoing final checks, and there may be changes to a few hundred words when it is made live- even changes to those few hundred words out of 20,000 when German was recently taken out of beta have brought us emails from users asking why the words have changed!
>
> We appreciate the time you have taken to think about this, and I hope my answer is useful to you.
>
> All best wishes,
>
> Chloe
> what3words support
>
> michael@fr
>
> michael@freeze.pro
>
> Oct 26, 11:34 BST
>
> Hi Chloe,
>
> Thank you for your answer, I appreciate you taking time to thoroughly
> address my agitated reaction.
>
> As for your vocabulary point, it becomes invalid when we get to about
> 40k words in vocabulary used in addresses. I can't tell for sure, but it
> seems like you use even a bit more than 40k words. Bear with me a bit.
>
> Taking Earth's area to be 510,1M km^2 and using 40k words as our net's
> cells we arrive at:
>
> 1. Roughly 12.8k km^2 area for our supersupersquare. Say, if we're
> lucky, almost all the West Midlands will be inside one square and
> have something like banana.word.word as address. Looking at the
> address and knowing what cell I live in I can tell if I can visit
> the place in one day. Handy!
> 2. To split the supersupersquare we have again 40k words. Thus
> supersquare covers a ~0.23 km^2 area, which is about a block. Handy
> again, now I know two words describing all the neighbouring houses.
> Banana.gravel is what I can cover in 10 mins on foot. Banana.sticks
> is where the groceries are.
> 3. Finally, splitting the supersquare by 40k cells we arrive at 8m^2
> area for our basic square, which is even smaller than what you have now.
>
> You are not suggesting full replacement of street addressing — but with
> this approach you could. And with right lobby and commercial support —
> you would. Surely, you would lose in terms of sensible borders for they
> are random in your system. But you would gain so much. Right now
> what3words is not more than a marker collection with no depth to it, no
> orientational or navigational opportunities. But they are right here,
> just reach for them and grab them.
>
> I am ready to explain it to whoever interested just to push the idea
> through and to see the world with something much better than coordinates
> in it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael Freeze,
> UX designer and cognitive psychologist
>
> 26.10.2016 11:53, Chloe Day (what3words Support) пишет:
> Chloe Day
>
> Chloe Day (what3words Support)
>
> Oct 26, 09:53 BST
> Hi Michael,
>
> Thank you for your email and apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I understand the idea here, but unfortunately it would not be feasible to roll out for the entire globe. We need all the squares to have unique 3 word addresses, and would run out of words if we used a system such as you are suggesting. Also, at what point does "home" stop being used, when you are out of the neighbourhood? And where is the edge of the district? You would then be back to having totally different 3 word addresses. You can still have 3 word addresses on streets and maps (and we have, for some events) but you will need the app to be able to look them up. We are suggesting using what3words as an addition to normal street addressing, not as a full replacement- so you can still use 'Acklam Road' to get to the right area, and then what3words to get to the exact meeting place.
>
> I hope that helps - let me know if you have any other queries, and many thanks again for getting in touch.
>
> All best wishes,
>
> Chloe
> what3words support
>
> michael@fr
>
> michael@freeze.pro
>
> Oct 22, 14:39 BST
>
> Name: Michael Freeze
> E-Mail: michael@freeze.pro
> Subject: What about supersquares?
>
> Message: what3words, I've just found out about you, and I have to tell you I'm amazed by the idea and all the consequences and applications it may have. In so many ways your address is so much better than raw coordinates or cultural references i.e. streets+buildings.
> But in one way you still lose, and that abashes me, because it seems so easy for you to win here, too. I am talking about scaling. "Acklam road" means a specific area, and if I've been to it, I'd know when you're talking about when you say it. Whereas "index" doesn't help me a bit, because every square adjacent to your office has three new words in adress. Why not have "home" be a surepsquare for your heighbourhood, and "index" be a supersupersquare for the whole district? That way you can even put your addresses on regular maps and streets, and I can't wait to see it.