https://map.what3words.com/single.track.forum
somewhere just outside Baltimore.

https://what3words.com/

v clever.

Interesting, but my modest terraced house has at least 10 addresses under this system.

Conversely, what about people in flats/apartments/skyscrapers/etc?

How,****,pointless

There’s almost minutes of fun to be had with that, isn’t there.

Disappointed that it can’t find dragon **** buddy, or cartoon mince didgeridoo. Useless.

Why do they need 3 words?

The theory is that 3 words give you a unique geo-referenced location anywhere in the world.
It has all sorts of applications such as insurance and risk management. It’s not the finished article yet but pretty soon it’ll work better and it’ll be part of some “big data” “data lake” or some such crap.
Believe it or not location data/business intelligence is a huge problem at the moment in many industry sectors so anything that adds clarity is useful especially when large companies have worldwide assets but they have crap data

The 3 words are the output of the process

Imagine giving a courier a 1m sqaure to deliver to. No more ‘couldn’t find the address’. You can even specify your front or back door, or ‘safe place’.

Trying to describe the start of a trail? 100 vauge words of poor description, or 3 random words to pinpoint it.

Or trying to let someone where you are? Defines a nice small grid.

I think it’s got potential and is pretty cool.

wtaf

I ride my bike to committed psycho gingers at the weekend

waste.of.time

Addresses are fine

The theory is that 3 words give you a unique geo-referenced location anywhere in the world.
It has all sorts of applications such as insurance and risk management.

But geo-codes do that already, very accurately.

Has anyone tried, does the word order matter?

Addresses are fine

Tell.Yodel.That

Actually, they might find that. It’s in Turkey…

https://map.what3words.com/tell.yodel.that

I think the long term usage will be for incomplete data, or countries with poor geo-spatial or geo-political boundary data e.g. Desert Hotel, Yemen

Re couriers: most developed countries have parcel or address point datasets where each building or letter box has a unique ID so there’s no excuse for them to dump your new XTR chainset in a neighbours wheelie bin

That is really bloody clever.

I once went looking for grasshoppers at starfish.hammer.chicken
😀

It is a clever way of making money. Its a proprietary system, so to figure out where a location is you have to use the official website, or a licensed app. They could start charging in the future, or restrict access, or what if the company goes bust?

If you really want to help poor people in Africa without addresses, then it has to be a free and open system.

Why not just use longitude and latitude?

10 digits gives an accuracy of around 1 metre, works worldwide, is non proprietary and can be read from a standard map.

Why not just use longitude and latitude?

Because it’s a lot easier to remember “starfish.hammer.chicken” than 54.985352, -3.772102 or 54° 59′ 7.267″ N 3° 46′ 19.567″ W

“Because it’s a lot easier to remember “starfish.hammer.chicken” than 54.985352, -3.772102 or 54° 59′ 7.267″ N 3° 46′ 19.567″ W”

try telling that to a GPS/GNSS/GLONASS

but it would make chart correction at work more fun… 😀

try telling that to a GPS/GNSS/GLONASS

Okay, it’s a lot easier FOR A PERSON to remember.

If you need the lat/long then you can get it by pressing the big red banner at the bottom then “Share Pin Location” and “GPS”

That banner also lets you create nice linked labels like this:

Personally I think it is quite an interesting idea.
(Though one that is slightly crippled by the proprietary nature of it)

Its a brilliant concept if you live on a dirt road in a country where there is no official street name or mapping for your dirt track.

You might not have the means to access what3words, but once someone has told you your address, even if you are not literate you have a good chance of being able to tell someone exactly where you are.

I just found PushBikeHome near Birmingham 🙂

Edit: Has what3words been updated? I remember finding a fairly relevant address outside my house but they all seem new now…perhaps they’ve had an update and my address has changed?!

Because it’s a lot easier to remember “starfish.hammer.chicken”

It is if you speak english, maybe not if you don’t. Does it translate worldwide or assume the use of english?

What.tyres.for

Brings.trails.alive

What.tyres.for
Brings.trails.alive

Semi-slicks, by the looks of it.

I like a lot of the 3 word tiles on my house.
It has our family name in one of them,is this a coincidence?

Trail.Jump.Crash – Stockton on tees

Fun, but only for about a minute. Can’t say I’d use it (i will probably eat those words at a later date), but I get the idea

Too detailed …..my “estate” has 50ish addresses!

I proposed to my wife at

burst.romance.shame 😳