Author Topic: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?  (Read 14604 times)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #75 on: 10 May, 2017, 08:14:54 pm »
Going back to addresses, in my part of rural Pennsylvania the house numbering is, well, interesting. It's far from rare for two adjacent houses to have house numbers 6-8 apart and sometimes you get a road with old and new numbering schemes. A friend of mine used to live at number 3807 (street) which was, as expected, just a few houses from another friend at 3847 (street). But half a dozen houses further up was number 168.

I'm sure there must be some kind of logic behind USAnian house numbering but I cannot for the life of me work out what.  I know of a dead-end street with one building in it, numbered 825 ???
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Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #76 on: 10 May, 2017, 10:21:50 pm »
Is it an office?
It is simpler than it looks.

fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #77 on: 10 May, 2017, 11:13:32 pm »
I think some of the American systems are based on distance. Either distance from the end of the road, or from the official zero point, which may be on the other side of town.
eg number 825 is 825 feet along that road, or 8.25 miles from the zero point.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #78 on: 10 May, 2017, 11:20:53 pm »
That's quite a good system, allowing for new building in gaps without disrupting the number ordering and giving an indication as to where on a road you will find a particular building.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #79 on: 11 May, 2017, 12:47:26 am »
I lived in a (fairly rural) county in California that used a county wide 6 digit house numbering system. Every privately owned parcel of land had a six digit number, starting with 000001 at the northern end of the county. Made lots of sense for emergency services, delivery services and others who needed to find an address quickly and on a regular basis, but it was a little bizarre to see a six digit house number on a street with two or three houses on it.

cameronp

  • upside down
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #80 on: 11 May, 2017, 09:07:53 am »
I think some of the American systems are based on distance. Either distance from the end of the road, or from the official zero point, which may be on the other side of town.
eg number 825 is 825 feet along that road, or 8.25 miles from the zero point.
They do that in rural parts of Australia too, so e.g. number 123 would be 1230m from the start of the road. Makes life easy for emergency services. On long roads the numbering restarts at major landmarks to prevent ridiculous addresses.

I think some of the American oddities also come from some places requiring that (<number>, <street name>) pairs are unique at some administrative level (county perhaps?). So if you have two different John Streets in town, one of them will be numbered beginning with some large number. Another convention is that each block (in a grid system) adds e.g. 100 to the house number.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #81 on: 11 May, 2017, 09:10:24 am »
Is it an office?

A motel.

I think some of the American systems are based on distance. Either distance from the end of the road, or from the official zero point, which may be on the other side of town.
eg number 825 is 825 feet along that road, or 8.25 miles from the zero point.

Aha!  The "825 feet from the junction" thing sounds plausible.  8.25 miles from any point in town is known as "the middle of nowhere" so that one is less likely.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #82 on: 13 May, 2017, 03:16:24 pm »
I lived in a (fairly rural) county in California that used a county wide 6 digit house numbering system. Every privately owned parcel of land had a six digit number, starting with 000001 at the northern end of the county. Made lots of sense for emergency services, delivery services and others who needed to find an address quickly and on a regular basis, but it was a little bizarre to see a six digit house number on a street with two or three houses on it.

We've just come back from visiting my wife's brother in Texas, in a formerly-rural-but-now-increasingly-heavily-developed county that's basically a suburb of the Greater Dallas conurbation. I struggled a bit with the fact that they are - at #9865 - the second house you come to in a road with half a dozen houses on it, but on exploring their estate (sorry, neighbourhood) a bit more realised that every house seemed to have an 8-10xxx number. I'd assumed it was plot numbering and probably from the developer, but stemming from the local land registry would make more sense.

over here in the US of A, at least my northwest corner of it, there seems to be a relentless urge to get everything on a grid from some imaginary 0,0 origin point in the county (subdivision of a state). 

So, one's address is #### - ##th Street SW, or whatever; even in a rural area where the "street" or "avenue" is really a road without sidewalks (pavements), and ditches instead of gutters.

Normal road names, thobut, and not laid out on a grid (at least, not within the greater one-mile grid) - though when you look on a map it's a *much* more logical layout than it feels on the ground. Disappointingly, no obvious theme to the names (3 British Prime Ministers doesn't really count, and I'm not quite sure how Mordor Lane fitted in).

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #83 on: 07 June, 2017, 01:11:50 pm »
You can't think of three British prime ministers who would fit into Mordor? Really?!!!  :o :D
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #84 on: 07 June, 2017, 10:09:08 pm »
Most bizarre one yet yesterday. An LGV, looked like on of those "walking floor" trailers stopped outside the house. 

Looking for "Top Farm", had the Road Name.  We have a nameplate 17 Road Name.  Do I look like a farmer, or a farmhouse? No yard, no tractors, closest thing being an old LR Disco. 

The place he wanted was two doors up.  With a name plate "Top Farm"
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #85 on: 07 June, 2017, 10:12:36 pm »
The main problem with non-standard addresses is not so much the courier or postie being able to find it;
it's getting the retailer's crappy badly-translated-from-US-zipcodes web-form to accept it in the first place.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #86 on: 08 June, 2017, 02:39:41 pm »
Apparently 2679 Stratford Road, Solihull, is the highest street number in the UK.  I used to work at no.141.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

slope

  • Inclined to distraction
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Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #87 on: 08 June, 2017, 03:19:29 pm »
A bit of a weird one, but hey, its me...

If you live in a home with an address which doesn't really tell anyone very much, how do you cope with deliveries?  I am in the process of buying a home in Wales, and its address has the house name, the village, and the postcode.  That's it

Welcome to baradwys :)

I live in such a place, at the end of a private track - no signs, not even my place (apart from a sticker on a blue plastic council recycling crate). The postcode covers a huge area of similar out of the way properties. The postie knows and all the 'relief' posties do too - they are also cognisant of my personal safe hiding places if I'm not in.

Most of the regular couriers are ofay too. Helps if one is always (addictively) ordering bicycle bits from companies who use different outfits. They all learn quickly as their time and drop count and non drop is money!

There was the case of buying some extra memory mudules for an Apple laptop from Apple in Ireland, which was delivered in a 7.5 ton TNT truck - and it couldn't get up the narrow and tree covered track! If they'd popped the thing in a 'jiffy' bag and posted it, all would have been well.

BUT when things go infrequently wrong - it doesn't help that we don't have mobile phone coverage in the Nantgwyant valley - which means the approaching roads for 3 miles southwest, 8 miles northeast and 10 miles northwest are no go phone areas.

I wouldn't swap this ever so mild inconvenience for the world :)




contango

  • NB have not grown beard since photo was taken
  • The Fat And The Furious
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #88 on: 15 June, 2017, 10:30:14 pm »
It's really fun when there's someone with a similar name to you nearby.
<stuff>
For good measure my mysterious namesake also appeared to be the same age as me, give or take a couple of months.

I faced severe embarrassment as a student when I examined a patient and discovered I had the wrong case notes.
The surname was a popular one, the age was similar but the medical notes suggested previous surgery from which no scars were evident.

Easily done, very dangerous.

This is not a lesson you might expect to learn as a medical student but the sooner the better in many ways, I suppose.

But 'Never Events' do occur.

Sometimes a simple administrative slip can have that sort of consequence. A few years back I needed a vaccination as part of a visa application so duly trotted along to my GP to get the vaccination. When I turned up a couple of days later to get my medical records there was no sign of the vaccine, and the computer showed no sign of me having had it. Of course the vaccine stocks showed that it had been administered. I think the final conclusion was that someone immediately above or below me had been tagged with the vaccine I had received.

I can't help thinking of that situation when I hear of proposals to give politicians (of whatever party and at whatever level) more sweeping powers over our lives based on computer records.
Always carry a small flask of whisky in case of snakebite. And, furthermore, always carry a small snake.

contango

  • NB have not grown beard since photo was taken
  • The Fat And The Furious
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #89 on: 15 June, 2017, 10:33:30 pm »
I think some of the American systems are based on distance. Either distance from the end of the road, or from the official zero point, which may be on the other side of town.
eg number 825 is 825 feet along that road, or 8.25 miles from the zero point.

Maybe some of them are. My neighbour on one side has a house number 8 below mine and the other side is 6 above. Their next door neighbour is 10 above, although the space between (x+10) and (x) is much smaller than the space between (x) and (x-6).

Leaving a few gaps in case another house is built in the middle makes sense (it seems so much more forward-thinking than having a street sequence that goes 11,13,15,15A,17,19 etc) but only makes sense if there is actually enough space in the middle to build new houses.
Always carry a small flask of whisky in case of snakebite. And, furthermore, always carry a small snake.

Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #90 on: 15 June, 2017, 10:43:27 pm »
It's really fun when there's someone with a similar name to you nearby.
<stuff>
For good measure my mysterious namesake also appeared to be the same age as me, give or take a couple of months.

I faced severe embarrassment as a student when I examined a patient and discovered I had the wrong case notes.
The surname was a popular one, the age was similar but the medical notes suggested previous surgery from which no scars were evident.

Easily done, very dangerous.

This is not a lesson you might expect to learn as a medical student but the sooner the better in many ways, I suppose.

But 'Never Events' do occur.
When I had a temporary NHS job as an orderly, back in my penniless student days, I was shown a short film. Some poor bugger had had the wrong leg amputated because of such a mix-up. And they still had to cut off the other one. He was rather depressed.

A few years later, when I had to have an abdominal operation, I was very pleased when a surgeon turned up in my ward before the op, checked with me that I was the person expecting X operation, looked at the visible signs that it was needed, then wrote on me what was to be done & drew lines with arrows pointing to them & "CUT HERE".   :thumbsup:
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #91 on: 15 June, 2017, 10:50:43 pm »
I don't think I ever saw an amputation occur without the patient getting a HUGE BLACK ARROW painted on the previous day, even if there was gangrene, with our without resident maggots...

contango

  • NB have not grown beard since photo was taken
  • The Fat And The Furious
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #92 on: 17 June, 2017, 03:54:04 am »
I don't think I ever saw an amputation occur without the patient getting a HUGE BLACK ARROW painted on the previous day, even if there was gangrene, with our without resident maggots...

One would hope not. Some years ago a friend of mine was in a motor accident and was taken to hospital. Apparently the staff there insisted they knew which foot needed attention. One was ripped open and dripping blood, the other one was perfectly fine. Sadly they were unable to spot the fairly obvious clue as to what was required.

I read a case (I think on BBC News) a few years back about a guy who went to hospital to have his tonsils removed. Due to a mix-up he was given a different procedure and, despite what one might have thought were obvious clues to him that what was about to be done to him was nothing to do with his tonsils, he apparently had the vasectomy planned for someone else. (This wasn't in the UK, I think it was in South America somewhere)
Always carry a small flask of whisky in case of snakebite. And, furthermore, always carry a small snake.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #93 on: 17 June, 2017, 10:21:03 am »
Leaving a few gaps in case another house is built in the middle makes sense (it seems so much more forward-thinking than having a street sequence that goes 11,13,15,15A,17,19 etc) but only makes sense if there is actually enough space in the middle to build new houses.

Larrington Towers is numbered n and the neighbours to the north are, as one might expect of a street in Missis Kwin's BRITAIN, n+2.  The southerly neighbour when I first moved here in 1996 was n-8, but n-6 was built not long after.  I believe the architect of this curiosity to have been one Reichsmarschall Herman Göring.

Neither n-4 nor n-2 are likely to make a return as that would turn Larrington Gardens Road into a cul-de-sac
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #94 on: 17 June, 2017, 10:36:48 am »
A few years back there were two patients with my name at my doctors' surgery. I didn't know this until I saw my on-screen notes at one appointment and said 'Err, those aren't my notes, I'm not 5 ft 1 and 8 stone." Once the doctor had found my notes we had to go back through them checking everything was correct.

Bizarrely there was no note made of this problem and every time I went to the surgery I had to check they had the correct notes at the start of the consultation, for a sizeable percentage of the time they didn't.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #95 on: 17 June, 2017, 01:01:49 pm »
I think my street goes from #146 to #250 with no buildings intervening on the even side.

Salvatore

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Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #96 on: 17 June, 2017, 01:59:06 pm »


from the NLS map collection's twitter
Quote
et avec John, excellent lecteur de road-book, on s'en est sortis sans erreur

Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #97 on: 18 June, 2017, 09:09:43 am »
There are a few instances in the UK of 1/2 in house numbers - this for one of the more central. Are there any 1/4? I don't think so but....

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: Unhelpful addresses, how do folk cope?
« Reply #98 on: 18 June, 2017, 09:36:10 am »
There are a few instances in the UK of 1/2 in house numbers - this for one of the more central. Are there any 1/4? I don't think so but....

I used to work in there!
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime