Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => GPS => Topic started by: woollypigs on 27 March, 2019, 08:13:15 am

Title: what 3 words
Post by: woollypigs on 27 March, 2019, 08:13:15 am
I looked at this some years ago, quite neat.

https://what3words.com

Making your location easier to find/say to others and sometimes makes a funny sentence too. See you here - steadfast.marketplaces.ironworkers ? https://w3w.co/steadfast.marketplaces.ironworkers


Now some of the UK emergency services have started to use it, so it is catching on.

https://what3words.com/2019/03/uk-emergency-services-rollout-what3words-in-control-rooms-to-save-resources-time-and-lives/

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 27 March, 2019, 10:26:43 am
It's basically a rehash of the national grid thats been in use in various forms since the 1930s...
Except unlike the grid it won't work if you don't have a working GPS locater handy...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: orienteer on 27 March, 2019, 12:39:10 pm
Being 2D, it doesn't identify individual premises in multi-storey buildings.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 27 March, 2019, 12:52:59 pm
Is there an algorithm for determining the 3 words, given your location?
Or is it purely a hooting great rainbow table?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 01:01:33 pm
It's basically a rehash of the national grid thats been in use in various forms since the 1930s...
Except unlike the grid it won't work if you don't have a working GPS locater handy...

No. Not really.

National grid only really covers the UK, and it's complex and hard for many people to communicate. Small errors in transcription can cause massive errors in where you end up. Especially if read over a poor phone line.

"Where are you?"
"TEE ARE 123456"
"Ok, See you at PEE ARE 123456"
"No, TEE ARE"
"Eh"
"TANGO ROMEO"
"AAAH"

Where as with What3Words, it's just "Purple.Monkey.Dishwasher" And because of the algorithm, Purple.Monkey.Pirate, is going to be thousands of kilometers away so you can easily check you're in the right ball park.

But the real development of what3words comes from the fact that the whole data structure fits in 10MB of disk/memory. And it works world wide.

When you consider how few countries have functional post codes (NL, UK, Eire, are a minority), and how many countries don't have actual addresses. What3words is actually an amazing invention. Sure it's not that much use to Brits, or the Dutch. But to someone in Mongolia, or the Ivory Coast, it's revolutionary. Having a postal address makes it a lot easier for people to participate in the process of government. The bureaucracy of a modern functioning society requires the ability of the government to send you information, be it a poling card, or an agricultural subsidy form. For that you need an address.

Yes what3words is a private enterprise, it's not an open standard. *BUT*, it's a beginning, and it really is revolutionary.

If you don't believe me, meet me at thinker.managed.groom, we can discuss it over a pint. It really is a great project.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 01:03:02 pm
Is there an algorithm for determining the 3 words, given your location?
Or is it purely a hooting great rainbow table?

Yes, and No.

It's a proprietary algorithm that sits in just 10MB of memory. If it was a rainbow table, it would require thousands of MB of storage. It's this fitting it into 10MB that is what is revolutionary about this approach.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 01:07:39 pm
They said when it was launched that one of the main uses they foresaw was for deliveries and service provision (electricity etc) in non-addressed places, such as slums, informal constructions and new developments. I'm not sure it necessarily ties in with government uses.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Riggers on 27 March, 2019, 01:14:48 pm
I hope I'm not the only one, but I just don't understand it. Looked at my own address, and it said: 'bollocks, knob, cheese'.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 27 March, 2019, 01:15:10 pm
Yes, it is a proprietary system. So you have to use their website or their app. Seems like a bad idea to rely on it for any business or government use.
But it seems they are doing a good job of marketing and getting publicity anyway.

This is more fun. http://www.what3fucks.com/
Or a more polite option. http://what3ducks.com/
Or https://what3emojis.com/
Or http://www.what3ikea.com/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 01:25:10 pm
They said when it was launched that one of the main uses they foresaw was for deliveries and service provision (electricity etc) in non-addressed places, such as slums, informal constructions and new developments. I'm not sure it necessarily ties in with government uses.

Yes, that too. I remember reading an article about how it was used to get more nomads to vote.

Having an address opens up all sorts of things for people. Having an efficient address even more so. Here in .NL, you could write my name on an envelope, with "1066EA 1, Netherlands" and it will get to me (that's not my home address). In the UK "Name, 10 CT2 7NT, UK"  Is enough for an address. All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft. The postcode + house number is all you need. Unfortunately this isn't the case of all countries. In Belgium 1200 is the postcode of all of Antwerp. Germany and France's post code system is similarly stupid.

Being able to use liability.ramming.chips or influence.eyeliner.nozzles as an address is amazingly efficient. Having a system for 57 TRILLION locations that fits in just 10MB, is a real achievement.

We've had other systems for global location, but they are all clunky as hell. WGS84 Lat/Long is in theory useful, but you then have 3 ways of writing it dd.dddddE, dd.dddddN, dd°mm'ssE dd°mm'ss'N dd°mm.mmmm E, dd°mm.mmmmm, and when it comes to route planning between them, it's kinda clunky as you're doing base 60 maths, and it's a pain due to circles. This is why UTM was invented. With UTM, the base unit is a meter, and you can use basic Pythagoras and trig to calculate the location between two points. But it's a compromise, and esp at the edge of each zone, things can get blurry. I had a custom printed map of an area of Norway made, and they printed a valid UTM grid over it, but it wasn't the ideal UTM grid, meaning that had I used that map to read off coordinates, I would have got a position upto 3-4km away. In an emergency that would be enough to send the SAR team to the wrong place. Positioning systems are hard. *REALLY* hard.

What3words is something that can be used and understood by average people who just want to be able to say their Yurt is at impartially.lists.scrambled.

It's also been used by things like the superbowl, and festivals. You've got some drunks in a stadium, how do you radio the location in? "Um, bottom end of corridor C, by the hotdog stand" or smoke.energetic.harmony.

Yes it relies on an app, I can't easily look at my paper map and give you a what3words address. But with the right tooling (there is an API), you can have things like your standard security grunt's radio just show on the screen the current location as a what3words address.

It's a 10MB data set, plus an algorithm It fits in all but the most basic of phones. You could even implement it on an Arduino if you manage your memory well...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 01:28:24 pm
I hope I'm not the only one, but I just don't understand it. Looked at my own address, and it said: 'bollocks, knob, cheese'.

Well the word list is filtered to remove profanity, so that seems unlikely. That said, you're probably not the target market for this sort of system. You probably have a valid address, with a postcode.

Yes, it is a proprietary system. So you have to use their website or their app. Seems like a bad idea to rely on it for any business or government use.
But it seems they are doing a good job of marketing and getting publicity anyway.

This is more fun. http://www.what3fucks.com/
Or a more polite option. http://what3ducks.com/
Or https://what3emojis.com/
Or http://www.what3ikea.com/

Yes, there are various spoof versions, and the proprietary nature of it is perhaps a concern. Maybe one day someone with a fuckton of money will buy the project and open source it...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 27 March, 2019, 01:34:09 pm
Yes, that too. I remember reading an article about how it was used to get more nomads to vote.
They are experts of marketing. Probably another round of venture capital due soon.

What3words is not an address, it is just a way of encoding coordinates. Yes, they have an API, but you have to sign up and agree with their terms and conditions to use. And what if they decide to stop providing it in the future. Or start charging loads of money for it (see Google Maps).

Plus codes are a much better option. https://plus.codes/
It is all free and open source, and already integrated into Google Maps, and OsmAnd.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 27 March, 2019, 01:41:43 pm
Having an address opens up all sorts of things for people. Having an efficient address even more so. Here in .NL, you could write my name on an envelope, with "1066EA 1, Netherlands" and it will get to me (that's not my home address). In the UK "Name, 10 CT2 7NT, UK"  Is enough for an address. All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft. The postcode + house number is all you need. Unfortunately this isn't the case of all countries. In Belgium 1200 is the postcode of all of Antwerp. Germany and France's post code system is similarly stupid.

Is there an optional (and less well known) extra set of numbers that can be added to the "Belgium 1200" to get some greater resolution than just Antwerp?

I wonder because the US has rather broad 5 digit zip codes but then it has an optional 4 digits that often brings it down to an individual street. Much like the UK system where "CT2" is a reasonably sized area but "CT2 7NT" should be enough that an additional building number/name and/or flat/appt nos should make it unique.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 27 March, 2019, 01:42:30 pm
It's basically a rehash of the national grid thats been in use in various forms since the 1930s...
Except unlike the grid it won't work if you don't have a working GPS locater handy...

No. Not really.

National grid only really covers the UK, and it's complex and hard for many people to communicate. Small errors in transcription can cause massive errors in where you end up. Especially if read over a poor phone line.

"Where are you?"
"TEE ARE 123456"
"Ok, See you at PEE ARE 123456"
"No, TEE ARE"
"Eh"
"TANGO ROMEO"
"AAAH"

That can be worked around, as you demonstrate, but the main problem with coordinate-based systems (which at this point includes what3words) is that there are so many to chose from, and nobody (even people who really ought to know better, like emergency services operators covering rural areas[1]) seems to understand any of them.


Quote
Where as with What3Words, it's just "Purple.Monkey.Dishwasher" And because of the algorithm, Purple.Monkey.Pirate, is going to be thousands of kilometers away so you can easily check you're in the right ball park.

But the real development of what3words comes from the fact that the whole data structure fits in 10MB of disk/memory. And it works world wide.

Yes, this is brilliant.  I baulk at it being proprietary, but that hasn't stopped the widespread adoption of far less useful technologies before.  Postcodes are also proprietary and only really suitable for sorting mail, but that hasn't stopped them becoming the de-facto standard for quoting physical locations.

I'm not sure if it's actually less prone to transcription errors (I'm thinking particularly in terms of speech-to-text interfaces, but also applies to humans):  While postcodes or coordinates can be spoken phonetically, arbitrary words are more hassle to spell out if they aren't recognised.  Being thousands of miles away is a useful check, if the person or device on the receiving end has enough context to make use of that information.  Your car might have the sense to query a destination that's across a body of water or several days drive away, but do ParcelFarce?

On the other hand, it's pretty much immune to dyslexia-style human errors (character substitution etc).  Though I suppose you might get stuck if you don't know how to spell 'monkey' (perhaps because it's called something else in your roman-alphabet-using language).



[1] I had a fraught conversation with a 999 operator from the scene of a bike-vs-bike accident requiring an ambulance on a rural road.  They couldn't cope with "On $B-road, about half a k east of the junction with $A-road", or map coordinates in either OS grid or WGS84.  No, what they really wanted was a postcode.  What I ended up doing was walking down the road and discovering the name of the nearby farm.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Riggers on 27 March, 2019, 01:43:53 pm
I hope I'm not the only one, but I just don't understand it. Looked at my own address, and it said: 'bollocks, knob, cheese'.

Well the word list is filtered to remove profanity, so that seems unlikely. That said, you're probably not the target market for this sort of system. You probably have a valid address, with a postcode.

Yes, it is a proprietary system. So you have to use their website or their app. Seems like a bad idea to rely on it for any business or government use.
But it seems they are doing a good job of marketing and getting publicity anyway.

This is more fun. http://www.what3fucks.com/
Or a more polite option. http://what3ducks.com/
Or https://what3emojis.com/
Or http://www.what3ikea.com/

Yes, there are various spoof versions, and the proprietary nature of it is perhaps a concern. Maybe one day someone with a fuckton of money will buy the project and open source it...

J

I'm joshing with you Quixers. No worries. It was really like I suggested.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 27 March, 2019, 01:50:37 pm
If you don't believe me, meet me at thinker.managed.groom, we can discuss it over a pint. It really is a great project.

I was keen on the idea up until this point, but then I misheard you and wrote down thinker.manage.groom (https://map.what3words.com/thinker.manage.groom), which is also a valid address. The site doesn't offer any assistance in figuring out what you meant. This seems quite a massive flaw.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 27 March, 2019, 01:52:16 pm
It's basically a rehash of the national grid thats been in use in various forms since the 1930s...
Except unlike the grid it won't work if you don't have a working GPS locater handy...

No. Not really.


So it's not drawing a grid over a representation of the world and allocating an identifier to each line of that grid?
Of course it is.
It's the same concept, scaled up and with a number of the issues (that you highlighted) tidied up, however I'd like to see a usable version of what.three.words in a non-computer based representation that can fit in your pocket and still be readable.

The ROI invented a postal grid system due to their lack of postcodes outwith Dublin but critically as with the UKs post code system it's not a geolocator it's designed for sorting mail.
DD says Dundee, so any mail for that is automatcally bagged for Edinburgh or kept locally if it's a dundee office; the number is then used to identify where in that area it's to go and thereofre which delivery office; the last bit cuts it down to the area (not necessarily at road level); in more remote areas there could be 4 or 5 house 1's although they tend to be named instead.

What.Three.Words lands my office in 3 different squares, and each one it shares with other offices.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 02:06:35 pm
They said when it was launched that one of the main uses they foresaw was for deliveries and service provision (electricity etc) in non-addressed places, such as slums, informal constructions and new developments. I'm not sure it necessarily ties in with government uses.

Yes, that too. I remember reading an article about how it was used to get more nomads to vote.

In what way?

I can envisage it being used to produce temporary voting cards along the lines of:
Name: Naomi Nomad
DOB: 9/8/76
Address: grassy.green.plains

Or to tell the nomads to go to government.paper.centre next Sunday, but that would require them to have the app.

Or simply to find the nomads in the first place, perhaps to take a mobile voting booth to their last known location. The obvious problem with this being that by their nature, the nomads might no longer be there.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 27 March, 2019, 02:09:37 pm
If you don't believe me, meet me at thinker.managed.groom, we can discuss it over a pint. It really is a great project.

I was keen on the idea up until this point, but then I misheard you and wrote down thinker.manage.groom (https://map.what3words.com/thinker.manage.groom), which is also a valid address. The site doesn't offer any assistance in figuring out what you meant. This seems quite a massive flaw.

I thought that too, but the two 'addresses' that are similar to mine occur elsewhere in the world.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 02:12:56 pm
If you don't believe me, meet me at thinker.managed.groom, we can discuss it over a pint. It really is a great project.

I was keen on the idea up until this point, but then I misheard you and wrote down thinker.manage.groom (https://map.what3words.com/thinker.manage.groom), which is also a valid address. The site doesn't offer any assistance in figuring out what you meant. This seems quite a massive flaw.

Well this nicely illustrates the way it provides some error checking.

I type thinker.manage.groom into the app, and it comes up with three results:

thinker.manage.groom
9223km away , near Santa Tomas Atzingo, Mexico
thinker.managed.groom
4km away, near Amsterdam, North Holland
thinkers.manage.groom
10414km away near Port Area, Metro Manilla.

So I'm either inviting you for a pint 4km down the road, or in Mexico, or Manilla. Which seems more likely?

See it works...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 02:16:04 pm
Having an address opens up all sorts of things for people. Having an efficient address even more so. Here in .NL, you could write my name on an envelope, with "1066EA 1, Netherlands" and it will get to me (that's not my home address).
Of course it's not. We all know you live at "The flat opposite the stupidly placed lamppost", remember?  ;)

Quote
In the UK "Name, 10 CT2 7NT, UK"  Is enough for an address. All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft. The postcode + house number is all you need. Unfortunately this isn't the case of all countries. In Belgium 1200 is the postcode of all of Antwerp. Germany and France's post code system is similarly stupid.
It's said that if you're the right sort of Englishman, your address will be three lines:
Quixote,
Geek House,
Bikeshire.

No need for a post code. But only for the right sort of Englishman.

And in some places it varies from city to country. ISTR that in Poland, in the city we had a full post code identifying us down to individual street level or closer, whereas in the village the post code simply identified the post town. And there weren't even street names; there are house numbers but they relate to the whole village, so Pigtrough 123 (that's a genuine village name  :D, although not one I lived in) could be on any street in that village. And most people don't bother to put up numbers anyway. Nevertheless, the post service works fine. Van-type deliveries less so.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 27 March, 2019, 02:22:09 pm
thinker.manage.groom
9223km away , near Santa Tomas Atzingo, Mexico
thinker.managed.groom
4km away, near Amsterdam, North Holland
thinkers.manage.groom
10414km away near Port Area, Metro Manilla.

The website offers me the first and third plus "manager" in Brazil, but nothing in Holland and no way to view more suggestions.

(although it is nice that they offer suggestions at all, which I'd missed)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: postrestant on 27 March, 2019, 02:24:53 pm
They said when it was launched that one of the main uses they foresaw was for deliveries and service provision (electricity etc) in non-addressed places, such as slums, informal constructions and new developments. I'm not sure it necessarily ties in with government uses.

Yes, that too. I remember reading an article about how it was used to get more nomads to vote.

Having an address opens up all sorts of things for people. Having an efficient address even more so. Here in .NL, you could write my name on an envelope, with "1066EA 1, Netherlands" and it will get to me (that's not my home address). In the UK "Name, 10 CT2 7NT, UK"  Is enough for an address. All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft. The postcode + house number is all you need. Unfortunately this isn't the case of all countries. In Belgium 1200 is the postcode of all of Antwerp. Germany and France's post code system is similarly stupid.

Being able to use liability.ramming.chips or influence.eyeliner.nozzles as an address is amazingly efficient. Having a system for 57 TRILLION locations that fits in just 10MB, is a real achievement.

We've had other systems for global location, but they are all clunky as hell. WGS84 Lat/Long is in theory useful, but you then have 3 ways of writing it dd.dddddE, dd.dddddN, dd°mm'ssE dd°mm'ss'N dd°mm.mmmm E, dd°mm.mmmmm, and when it comes to route planning between them, it's kinda clunky as you're doing base 60 maths, and it's a pain due to circles. This is why UTM was invented. With UTM, the base unit is a meter, and you can use basic Pythagoras and trig to calculate the location between two points. But it's a compromise, and esp at the edge of each zone, things can get blurry. I had a custom printed map of an area of Norway made, and they printed a valid UTM grid over it, but it wasn't the ideal UTM grid, meaning that had I used that map to read off coordinates, I would have got a position upto 3-4km away. In an emergency that would be enough to send the SAR team to the wrong place. Positioning systems are hard. *REALLY* hard.

What3words is something that can be used and understood by average people who just want to be able to say their Yurt is at impartially.lists.scrambled.

It's also been used by things like the superbowl, and festivals. You've got some drunks in a stadium, how do you radio the location in? "Um, bottom end of corridor C, by the hotdog stand" or smoke.energetic.harmony.

Yes it relies on an app, I can't easily look at my paper map and give you a what3words address. But with the right tooling (there is an API), you can have things like your standard security grunt's radio just show on the screen the current location as a what3words address.

It's a 10MB data set, plus an algorithm It fits in all but the most basic of phones. You could even implement it on an Arduino if you manage your memory well...

J

Really helpful post, thanks. But 'All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft' doesn't seem fair, to me.  All that other stuff builds in redundancy, it's not redundant.  And 'analogue' addresses are themselves more resistant to damage / marking. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 27 March, 2019, 02:36:30 pm
I have two objections to what.3.words:

One) it is proprietary, private enterprise
Two) resolving information from an address is utterly reliant on a working app

The second is the more fundamental flaw. Given a postcode and local knowledge, you can get close to a location. Given lat/long, you can work out (in your head) roughly where that is. With a bit of knowledge, you can probably work out the distance from current location. The same applies to multiple other grid systems.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 27 March, 2019, 02:40:45 pm

Really helpful post, thanks. But 'All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft' doesn't seem fair, to me.  All that other stuff builds in redundancy, it's not redundant.  And 'analogue' addresses are themselves more resistant to damage / marking.

Your very statement reinforces that it's redundant. Yes it helps to have it, but you don't need it, if the address label isn't damaged, then it is enough to deliver a letter. Sure it's helpful to also have the road name and the borough and the city and the county, but it's not necessary. Redundancy isn't bad,

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: frankly frankie on 27 March, 2019, 04:30:37 pm
I think it would make more sense (to me) if one of the three words was replaced by a 4-char country/county code.  That would give some indication of global location that is human-readable without really compromising the concept very much.

I don't have as much faith as some in the present UK postcode system - it probably seems a very decent locator in metropolitan areas but there are one or two remoter areas, even in England, where a single postcode covers several (linear) miles.  As a geographical locator, it's not good enough.  And I'm someone who thinks that people who don't use a house number, preferring "Bide-a-wee" or "Crow's Nest", deserve all the mis-directed Amazon parcels they never get.

But really a Gpoint (latitude and longitude in degrees and decimals), seems the best format to me.  You can use whatever degree of resolution seems best for purpose - 3 decimals for example is approximately similar to a postcode - 2 decimals gives an approximately 1km grid that could be painted as boundaries on road surfaces, etc, for people like me that drive around without satnav - 5 decimals will locate a house entrance.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 04:57:06 pm
I agree on postcodes. They are good for delivering post to permanent buildings, they are not geographical locators. I'm not sure about lat and long in degrees and decimals. To locate a house you'd need, according to what you say, 14 digits, and most human's brains aren't good at remembering such long strings. We're far better at remembering words, even without context. Though of course we first have to recognize them as words, meaning a system like What3Words needs to translated in thousands of languages to have truly global application. For some purposes, lat and long will be better.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 27 March, 2019, 05:06:49 pm
  As a geographical locator, it's not good enough.  And I'm someone who thinks that people who don't use a house number, preferring "Bide-a-wee" or "Crow's Nest", deserve all the mis-directed Amazon parcels they never get.


House numbers in many places aren't really suitable
A mate's old house was along the lines of "The old thing", "New Farm", "That village", "Nearest big village", "Nearest Post Town"
The post code covered all of "That village" but the village was spread out along a main road and mostly just a collection of farms branched off of it, house numbering looses it's advantages when you've not got a linear line of houses along a road but sets of the splatted all over the place.

But then the post office (who produced the system for their purposes) would have sorted all of the mail for That Village into a bag and given it to the postie that drove the route that goes there every day.

The building my office is in is off the road it's addressed on, on a "private" road, the post office and other delivery companies have no problem working out where we are and even differentiating between the two buildings operated by the health service on it from the sports center, but it's quite amusing to watch food delivery riders/drivers fail to find us because far too much trust has been put into Postcodes by their "employers".

Part of the problem is the Post Office have decided we should have a different post code from the houses on the road, and therefore we have the same post code as the old sweet factory slightly further north. It's particularly bad with Deliveroo as it means we have to wait for the rider to cross a main road before we can contact them tell them they've gone wrong... oh and we're at the top of a climb that goes up over 100.

This is where what.three.words and/or the national grid come in handy because they designed as geographical locator's rather than mail sorters.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 27 March, 2019, 05:26:24 pm
In the UK "Name, 10 CT2 7NT, UK"  Is enough for an address. All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft. The postcode + house number is all you need. Unfortunately this isn't the case of all countries. In Belgium 1200 is the postcode of all of Antwerp. Germany and France's post code system is similarly stupid.

It's said that if you're the right sort of Englishman, your address will be three lines:
Quixote,
Geek House,
Bikeshire.

No need for a post code. But only for the right sort of Englishman.

Also works for the wrong sort of Englishman:  I once sent a postcard to "$person_name, Shite Bunker, Bristol".  Took a little longer than normal, but it got there just fine.


All that other stuff we put on an envelope is redundant cruft.

Nahh, it's the Victorian equivalent of a checksum; clues for the moderately intelligent postie, or the dead letter office.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 27 March, 2019, 05:36:45 pm
I have two objections to what.3.words:

One) it is proprietary, private enterprise
Two) resolving information from an address is utterly reliant on a working app

The second is the more fundamental flaw. Given a postcode and local knowledge, you can get close to a location.

For values of "local knowledge" that are suspiciously similar to a GIS lookup.

Sure, locals come to memorise codes that are familiar to them.  I know where an NW1 postcode's going to be, in the same way that I know where an +44121471xxxx telephone number, or a 137.222.0.0/16 IPv4 address is going to be.  But that doesn't make any of those codes particularly suited to meaning things to locals.

Of course, the what3words approach deliberately throws adjacency away in the interests of error-checking.  That's a double-edged sword, and whether it's a good idea depends on whether you value accuracy at the mindless data entry stage over failing gracefully the wandering-around-looking-for-things-on-the-ground stage.  There's no right answer.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 06:31:56 pm
Also works for the wrong sort of Englishman:  I once sent a postcard to "$person_name, Shite Bunker, Bristol".  Took a little longer than normal, but it got there just fine.
:D :D :D
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 06:39:52 pm
The posts above, Fifeing Eejit and Kim, do show that a post code system designed for sorting and then delivery by people who are detailedly familiar with a limited area (our postman told me he's supposed to know the surnames of people on his round, for instance), has different needs than one for delivery or location with less or no sorting over a wider area by people who are not necessarily familiar with the area. A post code is pretty useless for finding a nomad's yurt in Mongolia but what3words or lat/long would both be pretty bad for urban posties. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 28 March, 2019, 02:18:36 pm
What's wrong with what 3 words:-

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-what-three-words/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 28 March, 2019, 02:25:32 pm
I hadn't considered the tectonics problem.  That's a pretty strong argument for not using hashed coordinates (in any form) as an address.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 March, 2019, 02:47:29 pm
It's more a one-off location for an ambulance, deliveroo, drug deal, etc than an address.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 28 March, 2019, 03:37:02 pm
But is it a useful one?

If I witness something and need to report it to the emergency services, how do I determine 3 words using the tools at my disposal: my eyes, perhaps a small amount of local knowledge, and a GPS?

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 March, 2019, 04:19:17 pm
If you have a GPS clearly you can use that. Hopefully the emergency services would understand whatever format your GPS gave. Deliveroo might be stretching it a bit.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 28 March, 2019, 04:21:08 pm
For sharing your location for an ambulance or Deliveroo etc, why do you need to manually speak or send the coordinates? Why can't you do this all in an app?
The app can use the GPS in your phone to get the location, and send the coordinates automatically. The app will probably use latitude/longitude, but this doesn't matter, as it isn't visible to the user anyway.

Mountain rescue teams are already doing this - look up SARLOC. Basically they text a link to a webpage, then your phone browser will share the location. And it can automatically convert it to a grid reference, or display your location in the mountain rescue teams mapping software.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/skills/using_sarloc_for_rescue_on_your_smartphone-10917
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 28 March, 2019, 05:15:17 pm
Indeed, from the link above:-

Quote
Here's the thing... If the person's phone has a data connection - the web page can just send the geolocation directly back to the emergency services! No need to get a human to read it out, then another human to listen and type it in to a different system.

There is literally no need for W3W in this scenario. If you have a data connection, you can send your precise location without an intermediary.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 28 March, 2019, 05:15:28 pm
If you have a GPS clearly you can use that. Hopefully the emergency services would understand whatever format your GPS gave.

I refer you to my footnote above, where I was happy to read them precise coordinates in any of the formats my Garmin could generate, but no luck:

I had a fraught conversation with a 999 operator from the scene of a bike-vs-bike accident requiring an ambulance on a rural road.  They couldn't cope with "On $B-road, about half a k east of the junction with $A-road", or map coordinates in either OS grid or WGS84.  No, what they really wanted was a postcode.  What I ended up doing was walking down the road and discovering the name of the nearby farm.

The law of sod suggests that the emergency services will at some point be sold a what3words resolving tool, and want GPS locations in that.  Which is as bad as requiring an app.  They should really be able to cope with coordinates provided in standard formats (yes, I know there are so many to choose from, but Ordnance Survey and WGS84 punctuated in the common forms covers most users) using nothing more advanced than a Nokia 3310 and a map.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 28 March, 2019, 09:26:01 pm
Why can't you do this all in an app?

That sums up the issue pretty well for me!

That's just all wrong for me.
It has a view of the world where everyone has a smartphone, and a data connection wherever they are.
And a buy-in to a proprietary system.

No thanks.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 28 March, 2019, 09:36:23 pm
My wife's car engine died a fortnight ago. Call with RAC and they want a postcode.  Who the hell knows the postcode of where they are unless they are at home?  Even if you have a sat nav do they allow you to bring up the postcode of where you currently are?   They could not cope with near Tesco xxx, just up road Byyy second exit of the roundabout towards town zzz.  Despite the fact typing that into osm or google maps would bring it up in seconds their end.  Which idiot sold them a system they depends on the person needing help knowing a postcode or have a data connected smart phone on them?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rafletcher on 28 March, 2019, 09:48:22 pm
My wife's car engine died a fortnight ago. Call with RAC and they want a postcode.  Who the hell knows the postcode of where they are unless they are at home?  Even if you have a sat nav do they allow you to bring up the postcode of where you currently are?   They could not cope with near Tesco xxx, just up road Byyy second exit of the roundabout towards town zzz.  Despite the fact typing that into osm or google maps would bring it up in seconds their end.  Which idiot sold them a system they depends on the person needing help knowing a postcode or have a data connected smart phone on them?
.

Some 25 years ago I broke down. I knew the road I was on, and could see a road name on a side road opposite. The AA system couldn’t find me. Thankfully the local patrolman could.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 28 March, 2019, 09:53:00 pm
My wife's car engine died a fortnight ago. Call with RAC and they want a postcode.  Who the hell knows the postcode of where they are unless they are at home?  Even if you have a sat nav do they allow you to bring up the postcode of where you currently are?   They could not cope with near Tesco xxx, just up road Byyy second exit of the roundabout towards town zzz.  Despite the fact typing that into osm or google maps would bring it up in seconds their end.  Which idiot sold them a system they depends on the person needing help knowing a postcode or have a data connected smart phone on them?

You'd think they'd encounter this problem frequently enough that they'd do something about it.  Probably more so than the emergency services operators do, as you pretty much always phone the RAC when away from home, and often from the roadside with no obvious address.

Now I think about it, I recall the last time I called 999, to report a crime in progress in one of the pedestrian areas near the Bullring centre.  They understood "Bullring Centre" and didn't get too hung up on postcodes.  I suspect they passed my description of "the walkway from the main plaza towards Moor Street station, next to $shop" on verbatim to the security bods with Local Knowledge™.  I can imagine that conversation would have been complicated if I'd been somewhere more nondescript.


Anyway, it seems to be that the main problem isn't that people find coordinates awkward to deal with (and tbh I don't think they're really any worse[1] than telephone numbers), it's that they aren't equipped to make use of them in the first place.  On that basis, what3words isn't a solution, it's just an additional layer of the problem.



[1] Apart from lat/long having a semantically important sign bit that's commonly expressed in two different ways.  "Is that -0.5634 degrees east or -0.5634 degrees west?" "I don't know, it just says -0.5634 degrees"
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: woollypigs on 28 March, 2019, 10:24:46 pm
Every time I have called a road side assistance, I have given the road name or the nearest road name plus a description of where, like : X metres from Y and I can see Z if you come from the south. Sometimes I have been lucky to be next to a shop/company/etc others I have been rather in the middle of nowhere.

And surprisingly shortly thereafter a nice person with tools in the back of a van have rocked up next to me and mended the vehicle I'm in.

I'm sure the person who covers the area I broke down in, have a very good knowledge of said area.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: woollypigs on 28 March, 2019, 10:53:25 pm
If in a perfect world with great signal for data and GPS that you could send easy to the emergency services, that would be great.

I like w3w because I know many that would struggle with just reading Lon/Lat digits or the OS map grid even if it was written down.

Where words they could get across easy to someone even if they were in pain because a broken leg for example. Yes a stroke is a different matter.

I have been at both ends of giving directions, from person at the location which is talking someone in or the person who is getting the direction to get to said location.

Classic (many a joke too) you go past the old church that burned down and is now the fire station across from where Bob used to live etc. I don't need to know that there once where a church, all I need to know is where in turn left.

As a person who take note of, if I'm coming from the south, when the last hill was or right turn was. It is a bit easier to give directions to others. But many a people don't pay attention so they cant tell - go left at the red barn, 2 miles later you see some trees to the right etc

Heck my big brother can get lost in a phone box with a map in his hands. Getting direction from him is a nightmare.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: perpetual dan on 29 March, 2019, 08:38:47 am
This reminded me of a proposal i once saw to use IP6 multicast as a scalable granularity 3D addressing system. (Late 90s mobicom i expect.) Indeed, assuming a working device and data connection makes machine to machine sensible for coordinates, as noted above.

Though GPS on my phone is broken at the moment (crappy antenna connections) and I've spent half of the last 10 minutes without a data connection. Personally i think relative location, reliability and openness are too useful in too many cases to ignore.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 29 March, 2019, 10:10:46 am
If you have a GPS clearly you can use that. Hopefully the emergency services would understand whatever format your GPS gave.

I refer you to my footnote above, where I was happy to read them precise coordinates in any of the formats my Garmin could generate, but no luck:

I had a fraught conversation with a 999 operator from the scene of a bike-vs-bike accident requiring an ambulance on a rural road.  They couldn't cope with "On $B-road, about half a k east of the junction with $A-road", or map coordinates in either OS grid or WGS84.  No, what they really wanted was a postcode.  What I ended up doing was walking down the road and discovering the name of the nearby farm.

The law of sod suggests that the emergency services will at some point be sold a what3words resolving tool, and want GPS locations in that.  Which is as bad as requiring an app.  They should really be able to cope with coordinates provided in standard formats (yes, I know there are so many to choose from, but Ordnance Survey and WGS84 punctuated in the common forms covers most users) using nothing more advanced than a Nokia 3310 and a map.

Like most things, it depends on the person you end up speaking to.

If they don't know how to interpret OS or WGS84 references then IMHO that shows a massive gap in their training. Even without an hours worth of training of "if it sounds like this, plug it in here and look at the map" it really shouldn't be hard to come up with a simple internal tool that can help interpret whatever is being thrown at them.

No need to end up paying w3w any money (which is what all this PR fluff is building up to) which unnecessarily shifts the burden on to the caller.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 29 March, 2019, 12:43:28 pm
If in a perfect world with great signal for data and GPS that you could send easy to the emergency services, that would be great.

If you call the emergency services from a GPS-enabled mobile phone, their system can send your location direct to the ambulance. I discovered this a couple of years ago when a fellow rider calling for assistance for an injured rider in the middle of nowhere on an audax asked if they wanted him to send them the GPS location and they said no need.

It took a while for the ambulance to turn up but that's not because they couldn't find us.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 29 March, 2019, 01:29:02 pm
If in a perfect world with great signal for data and GPS that you could send easy to the emergency services, that would be great.

If you call the emergency services from a GPS-enabled mobile phone, their system can send your location direct to the ambulance. I discovered this a couple of years ago when a fellow rider calling for assistance for an injured rider in the middle of nowhere on an audax asked if they wanted him to send them the GPS location and they said no need.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

Before that the network used to use trilateration based on the relative signal strengths of the nearby cell antennas. Which is why it rarely gave a good fix when out in the sticks as you were rarely in range of more than one antenna.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 02:27:11 pm
Talk of emergency operator training is missing the point. It's got to be simple for the caller to use in an emergency. Systems that locate mobile phones sound excellent, but I note the Advanced Mobile Location wikipage only talks about Europe. Is there anything comparable in, say, Kenya? Not that that makes a proprietary system necessarily suitable (and anyway, you first need emergency ambulances).

All of which is concentrating on emergency applications to the exclusion of the commercial ones.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 29 March, 2019, 03:11:15 pm
Don't know how much more there is to say that Terence Eden (and others) haven't already said.

w3w is a nice toy idea poorly implemented as a closed shop solution. It has a bunch of positives but these are more than outweighed by the significant negatives.

If technology is available (which it would need to be in order to use w3w) then there are a number of better solutions.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 29 March, 2019, 03:11:52 pm
Talk of emergency operator training is missing the point. It's got to be simple for the caller to use in an emergency.

Well, in the (first-world) outdoors emergency use-case, the caller wanting to specify a map reference would seem to have a better working knowledge of such things than the operators, which points to a tangentially relevant training issue[1].  There's certainly a strong argument for an end-to-end technological solution for muggles getting into trouble outdoors (I recall a news article recently where someone was trapped in a car in a ditch, and was able determine their location by sending a geotagged InstaTwitFace post, which was converted into something the emergency services could understand by a tech-savvy friend).

Commercial applications are about de-facto standards.  If $shite_courier, UberRoo or the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia heavily buy into what3words (or any other coordinate format), it will gain momentum.  Note the way Google Maps has made WGS84 in decimal degrees the de-facto standard for coordinates on the Web (even if end-users rarely interact with them directly).

The people who really benefit from coordinates rather than addresses (ie. anyone surveying things, directing helicopters, maintaining infrastructure in remote places or whatever) are surely already using them, and all what3words really gives them is a system that fails in different ways when you read things out over the phone.  The real advantage is for the intersection of people who need coordinate precision for something, but aren't happy dealing with coordinates - eg. telling couriers that your postal address is on $some_road, but they need to go to the service road at hopscotch.aardvark.umbrella instead.



[1] Either of emergency operators, or of people going hiking naively assuming their map and compass will help them summon help without the aid of a postcode database.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 29 March, 2019, 03:23:16 pm
If in a perfect world with great signal for data and GPS that you could send easy to the emergency services, that would be great.

This is why I have an Inreach Explorer+ device. I press the magic button, and hold it for 5 seconds, and a helicopter or other suitable rescue team comes and gets me. Global coverage.

For those talking about RAC et al, there are Hectometer posts every 100m on most big roads, You can then call in and say "M25, near post 12345" Obviously this doesn't work on the B3149 under a tree...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 29 March, 2019, 03:36:12 pm
This is why I have an Inreach Explorer+ device. I press the magic button, and hold it for 5 seconds, and a helicopter or other suitable rescue team comes and gets me. Global coverage.

Presumably there's an operator in a callcentre in USAnia or somewhere who deals with the "have you got a postcode?" rubbish for you.  From a warm office with a decent internet connection.


Quote
For those talking about RAC et al, there are Hectometer posts every 100m on most big roads, You can then call in and say "M25, near post 12345"

I'v always assumed that was the case, in exactly the same way I assumed that 999 operators were able to use OS grid references.  Never tested that theory...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 29 March, 2019, 04:23:17 pm
If in a perfect world with great signal for data and GPS that you could send easy to the emergency services, that would be great.

This is why I have an Inreach Explorer+ device. I press the magic button, and hold it for 5 seconds, and a helicopter or other suitable rescue team comes and gets me. Global coverage.

For those talking about RAC et al, there are Hectometer posts every 100m on most big roads, You can then call in and say "M25, near post 12345" Obviously this doesn't work on the B3149 under a tree...

J
More likely a  paramedic on a chopper bike.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: yorkie on 29 March, 2019, 05:57:39 pm
I'v always assumed that was the case, in exactly the same way I assumed that 999 operators were able to use OS grid references.  Never tested that theory...

I can't speak for the (former) British Telecom emergency operators, but the former British Rail - now Network Rail - Telecoms network switchboard operators directory system could be searched by OS grid reference - either 10 or 12 digit from memory - as well as by station name, bridge number, overhead electrification gantry number, (quarter) milepost and track-side plug-point number (A box about every 100m with sockets to plug a basic phone in for track-side workers before the days of mobile phones). I'm not sure if it ever included Lat & Long, as this was pre-GPS.

The information returned by the search included a 12 digit OS grid reference for the location, postal address (where appropriate), authorised access route from public roads (for track-side locations), Electrical Control Room in electrified areas (to turn the juice off, if not already done!) and the direct phone numbers for the emergency switchboard for the relevant local police, fire and ambulance services for that exact location, as well as Coastguard and Mountain Rescue if appropriate.

From that, I would *assume* that the emergency services at least are geared up for location information by OS grid reference, even if BT don't have a clue what to do with it, but that is only an assumption and is based on what was happening on the railway 20 years ago, when I was responsible for the staff entering this information for what used to be the Eastern Region of British Rail. This information was worked out manually from OS maps and BR track diagrams, a **very** time consuming activity, although it did have the advantage that I had access to 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 OS maps of the eastern half of the UK north of London. Not that I ever borrowed them for cycle tours and Audaxes, ooh no never!! Ahem!!  ;) ;) :-D :-D
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 06:07:34 pm
I wonder what the global spread of w3w use is? How much is in N. America, W. Europe and other places with well-developed cartographic grids, etc, and how much is like the examples they gave when launched, in barrios, favelas, slums (but not banlieues ;)) and other mapless, address-less places?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: SteveC on 29 March, 2019, 06:35:05 pm
W3W was featured on QI recently. They said that some countries have adopted it instead of trying to institute their own post-code system.
To test this out, the programme sent a post card to the British Embassy somewhere like Uzbekistan and it hadn't arrived by the time they recorded the show, although it did arrive in time for the final edit.
I can see why some countries might be persuaded to adopt it, not withstanding all the criticisms up-thread.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 06:42:08 pm
I can't see it working very well as a post code system, because it identifies 3 meter squares of land (or water) rather than buildings or streets, so any one building can have several w3w identifiers. Unless it's really small.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 29 March, 2019, 11:44:40 pm

Presumably there's an operator in a callcentre in USAnia or somewhere who deals with the "have you got a postcode?" rubbish for you.  From a warm office with a decent internet connection.

The message it sends is geotagged with lat/long of the device. I'd hope that SAR services would know how to use a lat/long...

Quote
I'v always assumed that was the case, in exactly the same way I assumed that 999 operators were able to use OS grid references.  Never tested that theory...


Interestingly, I once had an interesting discussion with a couple of pilots from NPAS. They had their air navigation charts, and were drawing on the top the London A to Z pages, as the bobbies on the beat understand the London A to Z, and not much else...

More likely a  paramedic on a chopper bike.

Very UK centric view...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 30 March, 2019, 08:48:12 am
Not at all lots of countries employ paramedics on bikes in big cities. It is the most sensible approach. I think you overestimate how many accidents (outside of the mountains) are attended by helicopter.  Inreach doesn't give you priority access to helicopters. All they do is ring your local emergency services with your location and possibly no further info. They will then decide the best option based on location and what they know.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 30 March, 2019, 05:44:41 pm
Not at all lots of countries employ paramedics on bikes in big cities. It is the most sensible approach.

Wasn't questioning the bike, was questioning the chopper bike. I've seen the bikes LAS and others use, they are impressively setup pieces of kit.

Quote
I think you overestimate how many accidents (outside of the mountains) are attended by helicopter.  Inreach doesn't give you priority access to helicopters. All they do is ring your local emergency services with your location and possibly no further info. They will then decide the best option based on location and what they know.

I must admit I did get the device primarily for hills/mountains. Hence having that mind set.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 30 March, 2019, 06:34:03 pm
Not at all lots of countries employ paramedics on bikes in big cities. It is the most sensible approach.

Wasn't questioning the bike, was questioning the chopper bike. I've seen the bikes LAS and others use, they are impressively setup pieces of kit.

Quote
I think you overestimate how many accidents (outside of the mountains) are attended by helicopter.  Inreach doesn't give you priority access to helicopters. All they do is ring your local emergency services with your location and possibly no further info. They will then decide the best option based on location and what they know.

I must admit I did get the device primarily for hills/mountains. Hence having that mind set.

J

The chopper reference was a play on (another name for) your helicopter.  An Americanism if anything. ;D
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 October, 2019, 08:57:24 pm
It's been cracked. Hooray!

https://whatfreewords.org/about.html
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 11 October, 2019, 10:00:54 pm
I think the algorithm is fairly simple. Its just a question of copyright and patents etc. Will anyone publishing or using that code and word list get sued by What3words?
Someone had previously put a version up on Github, that soon got removed with a DMCA takedown notice.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 28 November, 2019, 07:43:08 am
Poking around on the intarwebs, trying to find a location from a postcode, I stumbled across checkmypostcode.uk which lists various open source location methods. This one caught my eye:

Quote
[What3Birds. This doesn't really exist. It's a parody of the commercial What3Words system, which isn't suitable for this website as it doesn't have a published, open source algorithm. It does, though, work - every postcode on this website has a unique, three bird code. The list of birds was taken (in simplified form) from the British Ornithologists' Union's official list of birds recorded in Britain.
Heh.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 28 November, 2019, 08:37:12 am
Poking around on the intarwebs, trying to find a location from a postcode, I stumbled across checkmypostcode.uk which lists various open source location methods. This one caught my eye:

Quote
[What3Birds. This doesn't really exist. It's a parody of the commercial What3Words system, which isn't suitable for this website as it doesn't have a published, open source algorithm. It does, though, work - every postcode on this website has a unique, three bird code. The list of birds was taken (in simplified form) from the British Ornithologists' Union's official list of birds recorded in Britain.
Heh.
Does that system allow you to tweet your location?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2019, 08:57:51 am
Poking around on the intarwebs, trying to find a location from a postcode, I stumbled across checkmypostcode.uk which lists various open source location methods. This one caught my eye:

Quote
[What3Birds. This doesn't really exist. It's a parody of the commercial What3Words system, which isn't suitable for this website as it doesn't have a published, open source algorithm. It does, though, work - every postcode on this website has a unique, three bird code. The list of birds was taken (in simplified form) from the British Ornithologists' Union's official list of birds recorded in Britain.
Heh.
Does that system allow you to tweet your location?
:hand: ;D :D :D ;D
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Pedal Castro on 28 November, 2019, 09:55:25 am
http://www.what3fucks.com (http://www.what3fucks.com)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 28 November, 2019, 10:41:55 am
I think you overestimate how many accidents (outside of the mountains) are attended by helicopter. 

The SAS's 2 helicopters (Glasgow and Inverness) and the SCAA one (Perth) are pretty much the default ambulance options for a fair whack of the Scottish road network.
They're busy enough that the SCAA are raising funds to get a second helicopter going.

But that's largely down to the economic-geographic constraints of a long tall land mass with long distances between major population centers that can support a fully staffed A&E service and highly dispersed population outwith them.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: StuChina on 29 November, 2019, 08:35:22 pm
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/shop/os-locate/

Use it all the time in Western Highlands long distance walking trails not sure what is difficult about reading lat and long co-ordinates

(https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-tB4NnCL/0/6cd7975a/X2/IMG_2425-X2.png) (https://lunnstuart.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-tB4NnCL/A)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: bludger on 29 November, 2019, 09:09:02 pm
http://www.what3fucks.com (http://www.what3fucks.com)

I'm going to run an audax that incorporates this somehow.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 29 November, 2019, 11:10:41 pm
http://www.what3fucks.com (http://www.what3fucks.com)

I'm going to run an audax that incorporates this somehow.

Well I've just discovered that Den Haag is in "Trollop sodding assbanger"...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 30 November, 2019, 11:28:59 am
I read earlier in the thread that the database takes 10mb. Seems very large. You need a list of about 40,000 English words. Then a method of converting a 3 digit base 40000 number to a lon,lat with 3m resolution in such a way that ‘similar’ numbers map to very differ the coords. I would have though a few tens of kilobytes would be all you would need to store the list of words. I suppose if you want to make the mapping obscure to protect your idea then a bigger database would be needed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 30 November, 2019, 11:42:56 am
Storage is cheap and 10Mb is neither here nor there in the days of 128Gb SD cards. Some things are worth optimising for space, some for speed.  Data of 10Mb isn't worth the time to optimise in this day and age.  Different to the 80's when I first became a professional programmer and had to optimise for programs and their data to fit into 32kB; least you wanted to invoke the joy of dynamic loading and memory swapping

Mind I'm not sure where this DB sits as I believe the translation between Lat, lon and the three words take place on their servers. So the app doesn't really need a copy.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 30 November, 2019, 11:58:30 am
I would have though a few tens of kilobytes would be all you would need to store the list of words.

I went back to look at https://whatfreewords.org/about.html to see how many words were in use and it's gone. Lawyers I presume.

But if we take 40,000 words as a given:-

40,000 words * average 6 letters per word = 240,000 bytes.

Compression of english text (with no words repeated) is going to be hard to get better than 50% so you're going to have 120,000 bytes minimum for storage of the words. That's way more than "a few tens of kilobytes" but still way less than 10MB.

If they ship one database with multiple languages then I can see how they can get to 10MB for the database.

Mind I'm not sure where this DB sits as I believe the translation between Lat, lon and the three words take place on their servers. So the app doesn't really need a copy.

The whole point is that the app works where you have no data connection, so the app must have everything it needs to do the conversion.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Phil W on 30 November, 2019, 12:32:10 pm
Ah, I thought the app didn't have the DB as the company was worried about someone reverse engineering the code to get to what is proprietary data. If it requires a data connection it's a lot less useful in remote areas where you can often get a SMS out but nothing more.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 30 November, 2019, 01:35:46 pm
There are only 26 letters so 1 byte per letter seems a little inefficient, both in terms of storage and search speed. Many letter pairs and triplets are frequent and a sorted listed of words have common stems. I believe it will be a few tens of kB rather than hundreds of kB and not mb. As it is produced as a one off and extra few minutes generating it seems worthwhile.

Storing data efficiently is making a bit of a comeback as datasets are getting huge and also the move to battery powered devices and transmission. Open streetmap for example uses variable bit length integers, so for example you may only use 11 bits to store a particular number and 35 bits for another. Garmin ant+ protocol is very compact because it means the sensor batteries last longer.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 30 November, 2019, 01:50:33 pm
Yeah, but if it's not being transmitted, it makes sense to optimise for CPU cycles required to do the lookup, rather than storage space.  A few more megabytes of storage might be a reasonable tradeoff for higher speed and a bit more battery life.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 30 November, 2019, 03:01:29 pm
If you are looking up a string that is half as many bytes it will be more efficient, even though for 40,000 entries it is only 16 or so comparisons to find an entry so not a lot of saving.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Ham on 12 February, 2020, 06:54:20 am
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/11/ben-nevis-climbers-extremely-lucky-to-be-rescued

Quote
People see it’s called a tourist path so they think it is an easy walk up.”

Harris said there were winds of up to 100mph and windchill was causing temperatures of -20C at the summit. The group was found on steep ice near the summit, and he said going a few metres further would have posed serious risk. “They were lucky in the sense that where they were had phone signal, if it hadn’t, we wouldn’t have known they were there,” he said.

“They certainly wouldn’t have survived the night.”

The group used the what3words app to pinpoint their location.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JonBuoy on 12 February, 2020, 07:16:30 am
Quote
22 members were involved in the search operation

That 3m square must have been getting pretty full.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 February, 2020, 07:28:46 am
The cracked version has been taken down.  Boo.

Google Maps, which nearly all phones will have, will show your ICBM address with a long press (and no need for an Internet connection), so W3W is completely pointless.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 12 February, 2020, 07:34:24 am
It isn’t completely pointless. It’s point is to try and make money for the developers.

Hopefully phone OS manufacturers will develop a system that, with a smile push of a button, or click, (like emergency calling) sends a proper location in a universal format, and puts.the.sword to W3W
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 12 February, 2020, 08:14:10 am
It isn’t completely pointless. It’s point is to try and make money for the developers.

Hopefully phone OS manufacturers will develop a system that, with a smile push of a button, or click, (like emergency calling) sends a proper location in a universal format, and puts.the.sword to W3W
You mean like AML?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 February, 2020, 08:27:30 am
They were foreign students with broken English. It was pure chance that their description of what happened “affair.enter.skid” identified the 3m square in the frozen gully where they were found.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 12 February, 2020, 09:41:19 am
It isn’t completely pointless. It’s point is to try and make money for the developers.

Hopefully phone OS manufacturers will develop a system that, with a smile push of a button, or click, (like emergency calling) sends a proper location in a universal format, and puts.the.sword to W3W
You mean like AML?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location)

If that is available from a lock screen, and can be sent semi automatically with one hand, whatever the OS of the phone, yes.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 February, 2020, 09:54:48 am
It isn’t completely pointless. It’s point is to try and make money for the developers.

Hopefully phone OS manufacturers will develop a system that, with a smile push of a button, or click, (like emergency calling) sends a proper location in a universal format, and puts.the.sword to W3W
You mean like AML?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location)

If that is available from a lock screen, and can be sent semi automatically with one hand, whatever the OS of the phone, yes.
But what if there was no mobile signal as is often the case in the mountains and the one with suitable footwear had to abandon the other three at affair.enter.skid to go in search of rescuers or a mobile signal ?


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 12 February, 2020, 10:03:39 am
How about: read.before.posting

Every time this thread is bumped with a new story (no problem with that) the same things (lack of signal, GPS coordinates can be used anyway, AML, GPS drift due to plate tectonics, everything else brought up by Terence Eden, etc) that have already been discussed get brought up again and again.

But what if there was no mobile signal as is often the case in the mountains and the one with suitable footwear had to abandon the other three at affair.enter.skid to go in search of rescuers or a mobile signal ?

In this scenario remembering three words (assuming you had nothing to write them down on, physically or electronically) might be slightly easier than remembering some GPS co-ordinates to sufficient precision[1] to be useful, but that's a considerable number of 'what ifs' that need to all occur at the same time. Also risky given the possibility of mis-remembering them at the end and the fact that any error results in the co-ordinates being useless.

1. 4 decimal places with ref to https://xkcd.com/2170/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 February, 2020, 10:45:52 am
It worked. The emergency services, mountain rescue in particular seem to like it. It has a lot of redundancy. Just 2 of the words and in the wrong order and the fact you were on Ben Nevis would have worked too. Just one of the words and that you were near the summit. It is annoying that it is proprietary but that does not detract from the idea. It can also be used over radio, a speech interface on the garmin gpsmap64 to save having to take gloves off and it would be even better.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 12 February, 2020, 11:03:42 am
It worked. The emergency services, mountain rescue in particular seem to like it. It has a lot of redundancy.
Some mountain rescue teams like it, others have said it is a terrible idea. Are they being sponsored to promote it?

Quote
Just 2 of the words and in the wrong order and the fact you were on Ben Nevis would have worked too. Just one of the words and that you were near the summit.
How do you figure this out? Do they provide any way of searching for a single part of the code?
There are thousands of possible locations nearby, it will take a while to look up and compare the code for each one. Unless you had access to the API, but What3words might charge for that sort of thing.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 February, 2020, 11:17:18 am
The api is free for use in not for profit, so for example mountain rescue do not have to pay if using it directly themselves. Commercial software being sold to emergency services would indeed have to pay for the use so if mountain rescue was purchasing software with this facility it would be more expensive than if it didn’t.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fuaran on 12 February, 2020, 11:26:40 am
How do they decide what is "not for profit" and what isn't? And what if they start charging a lot more for the API in the future?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 February, 2020, 11:34:05 am
Ah, then mountain rescue might have to start charging, which would be unfortunate or go back to what12digits.


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Greenbank on 12 February, 2020, 11:37:11 am
Quote
Just 2 of the words and in the wrong order and the fact you were on Ben Nevis would have worked too. Just one of the words and that you were near the summit.
How do you figure this out? Do they provide any way of searching for a single part of the code?
There are thousands of possible locations nearby, it will take a while to look up and compare the code for each one. Unless you had access to the API, but What3words might charge for that sort of thing.

On the website you can move the map around to see what individual squares are called. If you know they are in a certain area (based on description) then searching around for suitable words is possible but it would be a manual task prone to error.

Knowing they are within 200m of a certain point would mean you've got a bit more than 400 3x3m squares to check. One every 2 seconds and that's somewhere around 15 minutes work.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 12 February, 2020, 11:56:39 am
What 3 Words isn't a solution to unprepared people getting stuck on mountains because, just like everything else, it requires a level of preparedness.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 12 February, 2020, 12:56:16 pm
I am here (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZHR949NzoSeWKFUr9)

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Legs on 12 February, 2020, 01:03:17 pm
Really?  You must be in one of the nearby offices?  ;)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 12 February, 2020, 01:33:19 pm
I was waiting for a train.   I'm now in Coventry waiting for a train ...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 February, 2020, 07:17:56 am
I'm now in Coventry
Quick! Call the rescue services!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 March, 2020, 02:50:03 pm
This about the importance of addressing slums and informal settlements makes no mention of what 3 words. Which is not surprising as the importances it addresses do not include parcel delivery.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/mar/26/the-unlisted-how-people-without-an-address-are-stripped-of-their-basic-rights
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 26 March, 2020, 03:54:34 pm
Winter Wonderland, held in That London's Hyde Park during December, used W3W to help visitors locate the various different gates. I thought that was a pretty good use of the tech.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 23 September, 2020, 11:59:38 am

Some of you may find this week's episode of "99% invisible" worth listening to
 It's called "the address book" and it talks about addresses and what they mean and their history. It does me too what 3 words too.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-address-book/

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2021, 09:54:21 pm
I remember reading or hearing about the WV example. It wasn't particularly surprising, given what I know of WV (never been there but had a colleague from there).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 May, 2021, 10:22:47 am
W3W can't actually find my address (some satnavs also believe the street stops at no.20, when it really goes up to about 48).

So I denounce it as a Bad System.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 10:35:36 am
It turns out What3Words claim that if you mishear a word the incorrect location will be obviously wrong is bollocks:
https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

They've also threatened legal action against one of the people who was bringing this to light:
https://twitter.com/AaronToponce/status/1388163176261246980

They want to keep the reverse-engineered version of their algorithm off the internet. That went well:
https://twitter.com/Cryptome_org/status/1388101996922744834
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 11 May, 2021, 10:55:59 am
It turns out What3Words claim that if you mishear a word the incorrect location will be obviously wrong is bollocks:
https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

This made me laugh:
https://twitter.com/chrki/status/1383465163399917569?s=20

As did this (already posted elsewhere):
https://twitter.com/what3rudewords?s=20
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 11:18:36 am
A month or so ago I went round a street-based art exhibition (not street art, but sculpture and similar placed in gardens where they were visible to the public). The organisers had given the locations in what3words. That seems like a decent use for the system: no safety implications, probably not even any time pressure, and communicated in written form. Mind you, they'd also given conventional street addresses, which is what I'd used. In fact, w3w is supposedly aimed primarily at street-less or address-less areas, so definitely not urban areas in Europe.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rafletcher on 11 May, 2021, 11:21:19 am
What astounds me is that they only need to use 40,000 words, yet they resort to plurals. Perhaps they wanted to reduce the numer of syllables used.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 11:36:40 am
The core English vocabulary is only a few thousand words before you get into obscure and technical stuff.

If they've gone for 5 words they've only need about 600 for the same size data encoding.

Or 10 letters of the phonetic alphabet.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 11 May, 2021, 11:40:06 am
"Hello, can you down load the w3w app and tell us what it says"

"OK. Hang on"


"It says 'incomprehensibility.floccinaucinihilipilification.antidisestablishmentarianism'"

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: hubner on 11 May, 2021, 11:51:19 am
Solution looking for a problem.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 11 May, 2021, 11:53:40 am
Solution looking for monetisation.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: The French Tandem on 11 May, 2021, 11:58:48 am
This made me laugh:
https://twitter.com/chrki/status/1383465163399917569?s=20

9 miles for skipping an "s" at the end of the last word is not that bad! We live in a place in central France where our third word also ends with an "s" . If you skip that letter, I just checked it out, you end up in Saudi Arabia  :o

A
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Blodwyn Pig on 11 May, 2021, 12:08:21 pm


"It says 'ncomprehensibility.floccinaucinihilipilification.antidisestablishmentarianism'"

That's easy for you to say!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 11 May, 2021, 12:12:27 pm
I missed a letter out at the beginning!!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: hubner on 11 May, 2021, 12:14:18 pm
Is this thing supposed to be used in the non English speaking world, or in places where people tend not to indulge in leisure activities in the middle of nowhere?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rafletcher on 11 May, 2021, 12:18:27 pm
Is this thing supposed to be used in the non English speaking world, or in places where people tend not to indulge in leisure activities in the middle of nowhere?

Yep

https://what3words.com/news/blog/what3words-voice-is-now-available-in-over-20-languages/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Blodwyn Pig on 11 May, 2021, 12:20:16 pm
We were out walking with some chums, down at Battle, on the 1066 trail, couple of weeks ago, been t'pub, and half way back, came across a couple of lads, (twins) , on their MTB's, who were staying at t'campsite.  any how,  one had gone o'er the top, on a speedy descent (tut tut, t'was a footpath) and was in a bad way.  One had called his father,  who was on his way, lad had concusion,broken wrist, and swollen face, and kept trying to fall asleep. Dad called for medics, and to get his location, we gave the call centre a six figure grid ref off the os map.........silence........wasssat????????,  ain't ya got the ''what free words app?'   .  ?????????????????????? 
there were 7 adults, and none of us had ever heard of it. Anyway, duly downloaded, in a crap signal area' and the ambulance was waiting on the road,  after we walked him in a dozy state, about 2 miles.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 12:22:17 pm
9 miles for skipping an "s" at the end of the last word is not that bad! We live in a place in central France where our third word also ends with an "s" . If you skip that letter, I just checked it out, you end up in Saudi Arabia  :o

That's how it's meant to work. A misheard address should be completely implausible. The decoder offers multiple options and only one of them should make sense if you have even a rough idea where the person is.

The problem is the algorithm offers no guarantee and it's not unusual for misheard pairs to be a couple of miles apart.

I can't seem to find the map that demonstrated loads of such pairs in a rural bit of Scotland. Maybe it's been memory-holed by legal threats.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 11 May, 2021, 12:40:41 pm
We were out walking with some chums, down at Battle, on the 1066 trail, couple of weeks ago, been t'pub, and half way back, came across a couple of lads, (twins) , on their MTB's, who were staying at t'campsite.  any how,  one had gone o'er the top, on a speedy descent (tut tut, t'was a footpath) and was in a bad way.  One had called his father,  who was on his way, lad had concusion,broken wrist, and swollen face, and kept trying to fall asleep. Dad called for medics, and to get his location, we gave the call centre a six figure grid ref off the os map.........silence........wasssat????????,  ain't ya got the ''what free words app?'   .  ?????????????????????? 
there were 7 adults, and none of us had ever heard of it. Anyway, duly downloaded, in a crap signal area' and the ambulance was waiting on the road,  after we walked him in a dozy state, about 2 miles.

This worries me.  I don't have a smartphone as I have no need for it.  Therefore have no ability to use this app when out and about.  I have looked at the map and explored the few tiles outside our house and front garden, and found a suitably silly one ready for if a takeaway driver requests it.

Some years ago I was riding through that there London and witnessed a pedestrian fall who needed an ambulance.  The 999 operator asked for my location "I'm in London at the junction of Tooley street, Joiner Street,  and I am just outside The London Bridge Experience as well as London Bridge Station."     I'm sure that anybody with London knowledge, or a map, or google, could pinpoint me - prizes will not be awarded for the closest pin on google maps.

The operator had no idea where I was and I had to walk around all the rubberneckers asking them if they had the postcode.  Nobody did as they all just worked there/couldn't be bothered to answer the question.

In the end two uniformed "paramedics" arrived and started treatment, so I ended the call.  It then turned out that they were private first aiders from a nearby building that somebody with more intelligence than myself had gone and summoned in person.   I cycled off sadly shaking my head.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Canardly on 11 May, 2021, 12:46:38 pm
I will stick to eastings and northings for the meanwhile.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 12:48:52 pm
The problem is the algorithm offers no guarantee and it's not unusual for misheard pairs to be a couple of miles apart.

Having thought about it for five seconds in the shower, this problem is easily solved by having the app display either an adjacent second w3w address or (shock horror) a fourth word that could be used to confirm the main address.

Or they could just send lawyers after people who suggest it's even a problem.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 12:55:16 pm
Of the billions of 3m squares there are a handful with neighbours but a few miles away with similar names.

You would have to be very unlucky to land on one and it be confused with the other.

People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference. That seems more likely to be error prone due to inexperience or poor comms.

The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rafletcher on 11 May, 2021, 01:00:06 pm


People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 11 May, 2021, 01:02:57 pm
I missed a letter out at the beginning!!

And that's why you've ended up in the middle of Outer Mongolia rather than where you wanted to be!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 01:07:30 pm
I think for emergency situations Nutty's hit the main problem. It's not that w3w is crap or that grid references are confusable or that people don't know post codes or can't look at a street name, it's that the emergency operators don't seem to be flexible in what location systems they can take. If you've got any one of those, that should be good. If you've got another for back up, even better.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 11 May, 2021, 01:08:01 pm
The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

Hello coastguard, my location is https://what3words.com/sensual.hissy.semantic but I have no signal.  I am taking on water.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 01:17:38 pm
Of the billions of 3m squares there are a handful with neighbours but a few miles away with similar names.

That's the propaganda.

Quote
The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

This is the real solution. It's scandalous that it doesn't work routinely.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Pingu on 11 May, 2021, 01:23:42 pm
...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 01:32:55 pm
Quote
The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

This is the real solution. It's scandalous that it doesn't work routinely.
The Wikipedia page implies it is activated automatically on making an emergency call.
Quote
AML automatically turns on Wi-Fi and location services on the handset, collects and computes location data, then sends an SMS to the emergency services containing the caller's location, before turning location services and Wi-Fi off again.[13]
assuming the call is made from an appropriately equipped phone, which is probably most of them in Europe by now:
Quote
Google announced in July 2016 that all Android phones running version 2.3.7, Gingerbread (released in December 2010) or later include AML. Google calls their implementation Emergency Location Service (ELS).[5]

Apple devices running iOS 11.3 (released in March 2018) or later also support AML.[6]

Of course that might be wrong. And it doesn't guarantee the emergency operator and/or services will know what to do with it (nor does it say in what form the location is sent).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 11 May, 2021, 01:38:16 pm
I've heard it's the last mile getting the data to the emergency services operator's screen that's the problem. It's easier to have everyone on the planet install the w3w app.
Title: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 01:56:51 pm
...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?
If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 01:58:19 pm
Solution looking for monetisation.

The business model of selling superficially impressive technology to managers with limited technical thinking is a sound one.

But more I think about it, the more shortsighted it seems.  Coordinate systems' usefulness depends on everyone being able to decode them.  Yet W3W's core business hinges on rabidly protecting the intellectual property that's needed to do so, in the face of an internet of extremely competent hackers whose motivation to reverse-engineer it is directly proportional to the proliferation of W3W addresses.  In that environment, the best way to make money is to licence W3W to a small number of high-paying customers, and hope that nobody actually uses it.

Selling it to emergency services would seem ideal in that respect, but they seem to have either done slightly too good a job on the marketing, or emergency services are a lot less competent than we all assumed, and they've leapt on W3W as the end-all solution to pinpointing arbitrary locations on maps as if they didn't have several perfectly good ones already.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 02:03:59 pm


People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.
Just like IP addresses. Easy to transpose digits.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 11 May, 2021, 02:04:44 pm
...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?
If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.

I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 02:07:47 pm
I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".

Then you're probably a luddite who can read a map.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 02:13:27 pm
As Nutty recounted a few posts ago, he can read street names, but that doesn't seem to help the emergency services.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 02:15:06 pm
The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

Hello coastguard, my location is https://what3words.com/sensual.hissy.semantic but I have no signal.  I am taking on water.
In that situation I would press the red emergency button on my handheld dsc vhf marine radio. That would contact the coastguard with my location and mayday whilst I carried on frantically fixing the bilge pump.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 02:22:55 pm
...The best thing is to phone from a smartphone with AML/ELS enabled so the location is transmitted when the emergency call is made.

What smart phone?
If you are asking about what types of smart phone have this enabled, apple for a couple of years. Don’t know about android but I would expect so if it is recent.

I read it more as "what if your phone is just a phone".   I don't have a smartphone, I have no need.  I know many other people who just have "a mobile phone".
If you don’t have a smart phone the what 3 words is not going to help either, unless you have it on your garmin.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mzjo on 11 May, 2021, 02:41:29 pm


People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 11 May, 2021, 02:44:12 pm
If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rafletcher on 11 May, 2021, 02:49:09 pm


People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).

Nah, we'd ask for you credit card number frst  ;D

But GPS / Grid reference as AFAIUI similar ways of plotting position. 

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 May, 2021, 02:56:58 pm
If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.
Ding! Is the right answer.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 11 May, 2021, 03:55:08 pm


People seem to be suggesting using 6 figure grid references as a preference.

Yep, because it's unique.

And unique to the British Isles. If I as a french resident come to the UK and need to contact the rescue services will they accept my Michelin sheet number, fold number, square number as a suitable location (it being wot I'm supposed to know)? Easier to take my paper and pencil, write down the GPS location off my GPS or phone and give them that (assuming that I can speak enough english to know my numbers).

Nah, we'd ask for you credit card number frst  ;D

But GPS / Grid reference as AFAIUI similar ways of plotting position.
Longitude and latitude

Four-three-point-two-seven-eight-six-comma-zero-point-four-seven-one.

You could call it “what 15 words”

Sorry was that four-three or fourteen you said ?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 08:07:02 pm
Longitude and latitude

Four-three-point-two-seven-eight-six-comma-zero-point-four-seven-one.

Unless they want it in degrees minutes and seconds, of course...

(Probably not worth worrying about datums at this point, as the error usually gets you within shouting distance.)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 08:19:37 pm
If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.
Ding! Is the right answer.
It's not just the phone though, it depends on the operator's systems. According to Wikipedia as of March 2021 that's most but not all of Europe, Australia, NZ, USA and the UAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location#Implementations
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 08:28:43 pm
If you have a phone that can get w3w and you have a signal, then

1) your phone knows where it is
2) your phone can tell anyone else where it is

No need for a proprietary new system.
Ding! Is the right answer.
It's not just the phone though, it depends on the operator's systems. According to Wikipedia as of March 2021 that's most but not all of Europe, Australia, NZ, USA and the UAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location#Implementations

Yeah, but you don't need that to use either a) the phone's GPS receiver or  b) some mapping software and map-reading  skills to get some coordinates and read them to the operator over the phone.

You do, however, need an operator who can do something useful with map coordinates, rather than ask for a postcode or tell you to install W3W.  It's shocking that we're arguing about software when it appears that they can't even cope with a WGS84 lat/long or an OSGB grid ref, let alone reasonable verbal descriptions of unique map locations.

That stuff needs sorting out, and more urgently than the shiny software.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: bobb on 11 May, 2021, 08:44:25 pm
I suppose if you want to use a grid reference, call 999 and when asked which service you want, ask for Coastguard. They'll understand what you're talking about. They can then get the info to the actual service you require in a format they understand ie Post code, w3w....

They might be pissed off at you, but seeing as you often hear stories of Britons calling them from all corners of the globe as they have no idea who else to call, they'll probably sort you out.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 08:50:56 pm
If you're in an African shantytown or a Central Asian nomad encampment you probably don't feature on any map, haven never learnt to read one (and quite possibly can't read the w3w words either), don't have access to special software, and don't have emergency services, but you do need a way of getting a delivery of parts for your truck or getting a taxi out to do what we'd get an ambulance for. Which are supposedly the situations w3w was invented for (to the extent that it wasn't developed to make a small bunch of nerds rich).

For emergency services the UK and other shiny nations, we need operators to be able to accept a wide range of location systems, from street addresses with or without postcodes to lat-long to grid refs to w3w to whatever else people have come up with. Attempts at mandating one system or inventing one location to rule them all inevitably come unstuck in the face of people and the n+1th standard.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: woollypigs on 11 May, 2021, 09:11:16 pm
I'm not defending w3wm I just find it fun and unique. I think some might find it easer to use. GPS location, grid refences is def right over some heads, where they can get words out as they use many of them daily. Yes as many here said, remember the correct spelling, does it have an s at the end or not. They can do that but numbers ...

It also depends on the user at both ends, I have had where the person whom you called have no local knowledge, so getting a junction or that there is church right across from the location will not help the person at the other end of the line. Or the person whom is telling you their location are saying that they are outside the yellow door, forgetting that there is X more in town, but if they just had paid attention to where they walked seconds before or is right behind them, they could have told you something that would have pinpointed it right away.

I have talked to many and also over heard many who are passing a location on. But don't use things that clearly would have helped as they don't see that as part of location and/or direction. One might see names of shops, companies  or colour, where the other see hills, bends of the road, lanes etc. Like standing outside the tube station, where there is a name printed above the door, that got a missive artwork, church or some such right next to it, but are explaining to the other person what the shops across the way are selling - you know the cake shop next to the flower shop called Jo's Tulips and Cafe Nero. If only they said Liverpool Street Station or sumsuch.

Along with checking that the Stanstead you entered into your GPS is north of the river Thames, not to the south, and is an airport or rather near. Which a co-worker did and therefore didn't get that flight they were hoping for that day.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 May, 2021, 06:25:05 am
I think it comes down to the human brain coping well with lots of concepts but is not very good at long sequences.

To identify a position to 3m on earth takes a 14 digit decimal number (or two 7 digit numbers if you prefer)

I am not great with 14 digit decimal numbers.

It could be worse, if we went for binary it would be fiftyish digits long, but only a vocabulary of two words “one” and “zero” needed.

The higher the base, the less digits you need. In base 40000ish you would only need a 3 word sequence to cover the trillions of locations.

Dealing with a random 3 word sequence with lots of (40000ish) choices of word seems much easier than a random 14 word sequence with only ten choices and a 50 word sequence of two options seems nigh on impossible.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 12 May, 2021, 07:29:59 am
But if you have a phone thst is capable of running w3w you don’t need a sequence of anything.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 12 May, 2021, 07:33:37 am
Here's a novel idea:  what about an app which can send your location from the smartphone where it resides direct to emergency services using whatever the national or international protocol is for where it finds itself using it's inbuilt GPS capabilities? 

The app should be easy to use:  open app, press big red "emergency" button.  App rings local emergency services and both displays (for reading) and sends (if the local emergency services are equipped for receiving this information) location data at the touch of the big green button which appears when you are connected to the local emergency services depending again upon local capabilities.

I am pretty sure that there are people and organisations who are au fait with the procedures for contacting somebody in an emergency wherever they are on the planet so just build it into a smartphone app.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 12 May, 2021, 07:49:31 am
Ah, but you cannot bigly monetize that!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: bobb on 12 May, 2021, 08:08:55 am
Not to worry, if you've had the Covid vaccine, the microchip now swishing around inside you will constantly emit a signal so your exact location will always be known. All you have to do is tell the emergency services your name and they'll know exactly where you are!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Diver300 on 12 May, 2021, 08:09:45 am
The description of the emergency operators wanting W3W, only and not accepting other systems is appalling, but mirrors my experience some years ago.

I tried to call an ambulance to here:- https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6158,-1.475,17z (https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6158,-1.475,17z)

Apparently, Lat and long wasn't acceptable, nor was the fact that it was where the B585 crosses the A444. They wanted the road names, or the post code. I really don't know postcodes except for anywhere I've lived or worked, and the road signs generally point to road numbers, not names. Bosworth Road and Barton Road are far from unique, and both the A444 and B585 have multiple road names along their length.

If those in charge of the emergency services have side stepped responsibility, and sold out to W3W so that lat and long, or grid references, or Plus Codes aren't acceptable, someone should get sacked.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 12 May, 2021, 08:47:11 am
What really concerns me about this is the increasing reliance upon technology.   In 1998 I broke my leg whilst behaving like a loon in Salcey Forest.  One friend stayed with me, the other, a local who knew the layout of the forest well went to summon emergency assistance.  He was able to meet the ambulance by one of the fire road entrances and direct them straight to me.

AIUI, the emergency services in UK are trained in passing on and using all manner of available resources.  In 1998 my friend used map coordinates taken from an OS 1:50,000 supplemented by a detailed outline of the local area.   When I last had cause to call 999 I was able to give a location as the roundabout at the south end of Murray Road in Rugby and the emergency services duly arrived.   

I have been in the Lakeland Fells and the Scottish highlands and islands where a phone signal is often rare.  If I needed to report an incident I might not be able to get that w3w location* because I may need to travel a quite significant distance before acquiring a signal.  I can then tell the operator from the OS map where the incident is.

* It xoes occur to me that if w3w works using GPS as I suspect that it does then I could perhaps get the w3w location and simply screen shot the phone for use when I find a phone signal.  I could of course do the same with Google Maps or even OS Maps for os coordinates.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Davef on 12 May, 2021, 08:53:29 am
You can ascertain the what 3 words location without phone signal and it is meant to be easy to remember until someone gets to a means of communication. Remembering a 14 digit number is more difficult.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2021, 09:46:19 am
Here's a novel idea:  what about an app which can send your location from the smartphone where it resides direct to emergency services using whatever the national or international protocol is for where it finds itself using it's inbuilt GPS capabilities? 

The app should be easy to use:  open app, press big red "emergency" button.  App rings local emergency services and both displays (for reading) and sends (if the local emergency services are equipped for receiving this information) location data at the touch of the big green button which appears when you are connected to the local emergency services depending again upon local capabilities.

I am pretty sure that there are people and organisations who are au fait with the procedures for contacting somebody in an emergency wherever they are on the planet so just build it into a smartphone app.

It pretty much exists.  It's what happens when you type "112" or the frimware's regional alias into the dialler, or select 'emergency call' from the lockscreen.  Emergency services calls are treated specially at a protocol level; you're not just dialling a number. AML extends that to send location data (using whatever location the device has available, not just GPS).

The handset rollout's of AML is going well, and given the half-life of a smartphone, shouldn't be a long-term problem.  The issue seems to be that most of the emergency services, at least in the UK, don't seem to be equipped to receive the AML data, possibly exacerbated by some of them buying into W3W.  I agree that displaying lat/long to the user in Big Friendly Letters would be an enhancement.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2021, 09:59:42 am
What really concerns me about this is the increasing reliance upon technology.

Yes.  The rot set in with an address database replacing maps.


Quote
AIUI, the emergency services in UK are trained in passing on and using all manner of available resources.  In 1998 my friend used map coordinates taken from an OS 1:50,000 supplemented by a detailed outline of the local area.   When I last had cause to call 999 I was able to give a location as the roundabout at the south end of Murray Road in Rugby and the emergency services duly arrived.   

This was my understanding too, until I had cause to summon an ambulance in the Peak District.  I described the location as "On the A$foo, 100m east of the intersection of the A$foo and the A$bar," and as a competent outdoors-person offered the operator coordinates in the format of their choosing (OSGB grid and WGS84 lat/long in either decimal degrees or DMS).  The operator duly took down the coordinates, but didn't appear to be able to use them to determine a location.  What they really wanted was a postcode.  In the end I had to walk some distance away from the scene of the incident until I saw the name of a farm, which their database was able to locate.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 12 May, 2021, 10:13:15 am
I notice that cycling.forum.visit is quite close to death valley.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 May, 2021, 10:15:42 am
Not to worry, if you've had the Covid vaccine, the microchip now swishing around inside you will constantly emit a signal so your exact location will always be known. All you have to do is tell the emergency services your name and they'll know exactly where you are!
;D Bobb has solved the problem and won an internet!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 21 May, 2021, 01:54:37 pm
Adult version.

"I created a unique 4 swear word identifier for every 3m by 3m (approx) square in the UK & Ireland.”

Definitely not for use at work:

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 01 June, 2021, 06:55:45 am
It would appear that some rescue services are not so keen.

BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: PaulF on 01 June, 2021, 07:40:44 am
It would appear that some rescue services are not so keen.

BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797)

From reading that article it shows that W3W is not perfect but it's still more realistic than expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass and latitude/longitude. Notwithstanding some of the similar local W3W confusions most of the errors could have been trapped when the call was first captured. If someone is calling 999 and giving a location in Vietnam I would have hoped that a few further questions would be asked. And the errors from local accents or mispronunciation are surely less than lat/long plotting errors, misheard numbers or transposed digits.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 June, 2021, 09:00:56 am
Roll on a universal kocation method installed as a part of the OS, that sends the location to the emergency services.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 01 June, 2021, 09:05:16 am
It would appear that some rescue services are not so keen.

BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797)

From reading that article it shows that W3W is not perfect but it's still more realistic than expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass and latitude/longitude. Notwithstanding some of the similar local W3W confusions most of the errors could have been trapped when the call was first captured. If someone is calling 999 and giving a location in Vietnam I would have hoped that a few further questions would be asked. And the errors from local accents or mispronunciation are surely less than lat/long plotting errors, misheard numbers or transposed digits.

The difference is that a slightly wrong lat-long will still be very close to the correct location.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 June, 2021, 09:19:24 am
Roll on a universal kocation method installed as a part of the OS, that sends the location to the emergency services.
Ordnance Survey or operating system?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: PaulF on 01 June, 2021, 09:21:44 am
It would appear that some rescue services are not so keen.

BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797)

From reading that article it shows that W3W is not perfect but it's still more realistic than expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass and latitude/longitude. Notwithstanding some of the similar local W3W confusions most of the errors could have been trapped when the call was first captured. If someone is calling 999 and giving a location in Vietnam I would have hoped that a few further questions would be asked. And the errors from local accents or mispronunciation are surely less than lat/long plotting errors, misheard numbers or transposed digits.

The difference is that a slightly wrong lat-long will still be very close to the correct location.

Depends on how slightly wrong you get it :-) A measurement error should be close but transposition or mishearing of digits could be more significant. But I'd still say that if the victim is inexperienced in map reading techniques and a combination of cold, wet, tired and injured W3W will produce fewer errors.

Don't get me wrong, lat-long is indisputably better but only in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. A more user friendly tool is better for the majority of people. Whether W3W is the best tool is debatable; they've just got better marketing.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 01 June, 2021, 09:47:45 am
Quote
W3W said human error was "a possibility with any type of tool".

Once again, why TF are there any human steps in getting location data from a GPS-enabled smartphone to a satnav in an ambulance?

I feel like I’m going mad.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: woollypigs on 01 June, 2021, 09:51:31 am
yeah, it should be that when you dial 999/112/911 from a smart phone the location is just passed over right away.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 June, 2021, 10:02:10 am
Exactly.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 June, 2021, 11:48:34 am
For the umpteenth time: The phones can already do it.  It's called AML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location) and it's in all the recent Android and IOS builds, and doesn't require the user to do anything other than call the emergency services.  The problem is that for some reason the BRITISH emergency services haven't got the required systems at their end to receive the location.  Furthermore, some of them seem to have bought into W3W as an inferior solution to a solved problem.

(Yes, this doesn't solve the problem of locating dumbphone users.  But neither does W3W.  We still need operators who can understand map coordinates.  Older smartphones that don't have AML but can run W3W are an edge case.)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Diver300 on 01 June, 2021, 11:50:19 am
yeah, it should be that when you dial 999/112/911 from a smart phone the location is just passed over right away.
I agree. I thought that the requirement for that was why phones ended up with GPS receivers, as cell location is only accurate to 10s of metres in towns.

On a marine VHF radio, there is a dedicated button for "Call the coastguard and tell them where I am. Do not expect that I will be able to speak". It tends to be under a cover that has to be flipped up.

Similarly marine GPS navigators have one button for "Add a new favourite position as here, cancel all other navigation and direct me back to that favourite position". It's labelled "Man Overboard".
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 June, 2021, 11:52:05 am
For the umpteenth time: The phones can already do it.  It's called AML and it's in all the recent Android and IOS builds, and doesn't require the user to do anything other than call the emergency services.  The problem is that for some reason the BRITISH emergency services haven't got the required systems at their end to receive the location.  Furthermore, some of them seem to have bought into W3W as an inferior solution to a solved problem.

Yes. But as we have seen with so many things. AML is not invented here. There for it is not suitable. The solution used by the British emergency services needs to be created by British people, using British brains and British ideas. We can't just adopt an international standard without at least making an incompatible version...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 June, 2021, 11:55:56 am
Yes. But as we have seen with so many things. AML is not invented here. There for it is not suitable. The solution used by the British emergency services needs to be created by British people, using British brains and British ideas. We can't just adopt an international standard without at least making an incompatible version...

It was invented by none other than our-favourite-telco!  https://eena.org/knowledge-hub/press-releases/uk-shows-the-way-towards-accurate-caller-location-an-example-for-others-to-replicate/

Maybe it's since been tainted by being adopted as a EUROPEAN standard...


I suspect the problem is at worst political, or at best Dunning-Kruger related.  Anyone with relevant technology experience is bound to think "someone must have worked out a better way to do this" and discover AML with about 5 minutes of googling.  I'll be charitable and assume that emergency services might be run by people who know a lot about emergencies and not very much about telephones.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 June, 2021, 12:02:46 pm
w3w sounds brilliant and is marketed.

AML sounds dull and isn't marketed.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 June, 2021, 12:11:09 pm
w3w sounds brilliant and is marketed.

AML sounds dull and isn't marketed.

That's the realistically tragic explanation.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 June, 2021, 12:21:46 pm
The BBC article on the previous page mentions three other systems, none of which is AML:
Quote
There are alternative systems such as OS Locate, a free app provided by Ordnance Survey, that allows people to locate themselves by GPS latitude and longitude co-ordinates as well as altitude, even without a mobile signal.

Sarloc and Phone Finder are tools that have been developed by mountain rescue team members, and these are used whenever possible to obtain an accurate location.
Googling "phone finder" gets you, surprise surprise, comparison sites for buying phones.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 June, 2021, 12:32:49 pm
Sarloc seems like a good implementation if AML hasn't been invented; it doesn't require anything to be installed on the user's phone, but it does require a data connection.  AML can operate entirely by SMS, which is more robust when the signal is marginal.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Regulator on 01 June, 2021, 12:48:11 pm
For the umpteenth time: The phones can already do it.  It's called AML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location) and it's in all the recent Android and IOS builds, and doesn't require the user to do anything other than call the emergency services.  The problem is that for some reason the BRITISH emergency services haven't got the required systems at their end to receive the location.  Furthermore, some of them seem to have bought into W3W as an inferior solution to a solved problem.

(Yes, this doesn't solve the problem of locating dumbphone users.  But neither does W3W.  We still need operators who can understand map coordinates.  Older smartphones that don't have AML but can run W3W are an edge case.)

w3w sounds brilliant and is marketed.

AML sounds dull and isn't marketed.

I understand that there is an investigation going on into how W3W was adopted by the ambulance services.  It has been suggested that 'inappropriate behaviour' may have occured...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 01 June, 2021, 01:13:05 pm
W3W wasn't created by one of Hancock's mates down the pub was it?'
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 June, 2021, 01:43:35 pm
W3W wasn't created by one of Hancock's mates down the pub was it?'
Created by a BBC employee, and now part owned by Channel 4. They know how to get as much publicity as possible.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Regulator on 01 June, 2021, 01:49:14 pm
W3W wasn't created by one of Hancock's mates down the pub was it?'
Created by a BBC employee, and now part owned by Channel 4. They know how to get as much publicity as possible.


I don't think it was.   None of the three founders appears to have worked for the BBC, although one has appeared on several quiz shows on the BBC.

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 June, 2021, 01:56:17 pm
Jack Waley-Cohen has worked as a question editor for Only Connect.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Regulator on 01 June, 2021, 02:06:48 pm
Jack Waley-Cohen has worked as a question editor for Only Connect.


That doesn't mean he's a BBC employee.  Only Connect is made by an independent production company (as is much of the Beeb's output).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 June, 2021, 02:20:36 pm
If you want to be pedantic. Anyway, it's all about having connections to the top TV presenters and newspaper journalists.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 03 June, 2021, 06:40:41 pm
I noticed today that the new signs being installed by the organisation I volunteer for are (thankfully) eschewing the current w3w fad. (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210603/3fcd53bb2667febcb9aa36bc2e5bef82.jpg)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2021, 07:24:14 pm
So where is AML going wrong in the UK? Why is it not being used? It's in most phones, so that's probably not the problem. Do emergency operators have the facility to use it? And if so, how do they get it to the actual emergency personnel? When you make an emergency call in the UK, you speak to an operator, who then alerts the relevant emergency service(s): I'm not sure if the operator passes your location and problem to the ambulance/fire/police/etc dispatchers who then pass it on to the relevant persons or if the operator contacts the personnel directly, but is this step the problem? The operator's equipment has the location from AML but they need something verbal to give to the cops and rescuers?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: fimm on 07 June, 2021, 04:29:17 pm
... expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass ...

Actually, in my view, if you are going up a hill/fell/mountain you should be able to use a map and compass and be able to give a grid reference for where you are.
Just like if you are going to be put in charge of a ton of dangerous machinery you should be trained to use it.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: hubner on 07 June, 2021, 04:46:25 pm
... expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass ...

Actually, in my view, if you are going up a hill/fell/mountain you should be able to use a map and compass and be able to give a grid reference for where you are.
Just like if you are going to be put in charge of a ton of dangerous machinery you should be trained to use it.

Yep.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 07 June, 2021, 04:47:05 pm
The OS Locate app for smartphones (free) provides a compass and a location in OSGB Grid Ref.

Needs no phone signal, it just does a Co-ordinate Reference System transform from the GPS WGS-84 to OSGB.
It's a handy companion app to a map and compass.
It's also got a view which emulates a classic Silva compass ( including the Silva logo )!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 07 June, 2021, 04:49:10 pm
Yes, it's good.  Very good.  I am impressed with it.  I was able to get map references from Google maps but OS Locate does it without faffage.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 07 June, 2021, 04:50:43 pm
... expecting the average person in the street (or on the fells) to be able to use a map and compass ...

Actually, in my view, if you are going up a hill/fell/mountain you should be able to use a map and compass and be able to give a grid reference for where you are.
Just like if you are going to be put in charge of a ton of dangerous machinery you should be trained to use it.

Yep.

Absolutely.  Although we know how some folk just expect somebody else to do the difficult bits for them.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 June, 2021, 05:15:03 pm
Looks nice, but the compass doesn't work on my phone. Nor does the altitude, but I do get a grid ref.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 07 June, 2021, 05:26:07 pm
Are you moving when you check compass function?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 07 June, 2021, 05:28:56 pm
Those features may depend on the hardware available on the phone.
I dont know if all phones have magnetometers or barometric elevation.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 June, 2021, 05:52:19 pm
Are you moving when you check compass function?
Moving or stopped. I think it's just because the phone itself is old and fairly basic, as smarties go, like Feanor says.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 June, 2021, 06:02:25 pm
The OS Locate app for smartphones (free) provides a compass and a location in OSGB Grid Ref.

Needs no phone signal, it just does a Co-ordinate Reference System transform from the GPS WGS-84 to OSGB.
It's a handy companion app to a map and compass.
It's also got a view which emulates a classic Silva compass ( including the Silva logo )!
The compass emulator looks nifty. It has a rotatable bezel.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 07 June, 2021, 06:37:30 pm
Are you moving when you check compass function?
Moving or stopped. I think it's just because the phone itself is old and fairly basic, as smarties go, like Feanor says.

Might be that the phone has a magnetometer, but also has a magnetic case?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Hot Flatus on 19 June, 2021, 09:29:26 pm
Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 19 June, 2021, 09:36:33 pm
Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

You do not live in downing street.

Nice try tho.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 20 June, 2021, 11:28:20 am
Finally got round to putting in my address into what3words to see what came up. Seems a good idea. Nice and concise and easy to remember: cunt.lives.here

You do not live in downing street.

Nice try tho.

J

I have it on dubious authority that Hot Flatus is in fact called Carrie in real life and has been well and truly screwed by bozo.  🤮  😉
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: L CC on 16 July, 2021, 10:24:58 am
Quote from: a somewhat petulant fboab
To: Rapha London
I might have undertaken your compass challenge, but I cannot condone what 3 words. Really? Here in the UK where the Ordnance Survey provide beautiful, accurate maps, you choose to use some monetising app-based triumph of form over function.
What a load of shite.

Quote from: Rapha
Hi $RealName,

We apologise for disappointing you but like 100 of the UK's emergency services we also find the app extremely useful.

We hope you'll join a challenge in the future.

All the best,
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 10:44:26 am
There are over 100 emergency services in the UK? :boggle:
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 10:50:35 am
So where is AML going wrong in the UK? Why is it not being used? It's in most phones, so that's probably not the problem. Do emergency operators have the facility to use it? And if so, how do they get it to the actual emergency personnel? When you make an emergency call in the UK, you speak to an operator, who then alerts the relevant emergency service(s): I'm not sure if the operator passes your location and problem to the ambulance/fire/police/etc dispatchers who then pass it on to the relevant persons or if the operator contacts the personnel directly, but is this step the problem? The operator's equipment has the location from AML but they need something verbal to give to the cops and rescuers?

The line peddled in the (pro-W3W) media is that it has so far proved difficult to integrate AML into the computer-aided dispatch system. Your phone can send your location to the 999 operator easily via SMS, but then the operator needs to forward that information to eg the ambulance driver.

What I'm struggling to understand is why this is a problem when using AML but apparently not a problem when using W3W.

My best guess is that someone at W3W has recognised the commercial value of making sure it can be done easily, so they have borne the cost of implementing it. Maybe the problem is that there's no commercial incentive for doing the same for AML.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 11:00:22 am
What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

Whatever the reason, it would seem this map is therefore wrong:
(https://ml1czqgskmun.i.optimole.com/osGZExo-JzFjRb1q/w:877/h:493/q:auto/https://eena.org/wp-content/uploads/2021_03_30_Deployment_Map.jpg)
https://eena.org/our-work/eena-special-focus/advanced-mobile-location/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 16 July, 2021, 11:05:22 am
My best guess is that someone at W3W has recognised the commercial value of making sure it can be done easily, so they have borne the cost of implementing it. Maybe the problem is that there's no commercial incentive for doing the same for AML.

My guess would be W3W has been "integrated" via the operator copy and pasting values into their website, whereas AML integrations require teams of developers and project managers and lots of teeth-sucking and chin-scratching meetings and years long development roadmaps.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 16 July, 2021, 11:13:13 am
OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

All smartphones have hardware GPS and will have no problem sending long/lat in some format, even when they're doing cell triangulation. My assumption is the problem is getting it from the phone network to the operator's screen because nothing else makes sense.

(I'm perhaps naively assuming that the operator can send a long/lat to the ambulance crews electronically and they're not using w3w for that part of the chain...)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: L CC on 16 July, 2021, 11:23:38 am
One of the things that irritated me was the route planning part.
Give me a grid reference and I can choose way there on the same map.
Apparently I'd need to ask the app to navigate me to the point using google maps  :sick:
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 11:24:14 am
What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

ETA: to answer your first question: "The services uses either a global navigation satellite system or WiFi depending on which one is better at the given moment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

What is the line of communication between 999 operators and ambulance drivers? How is the information passed along?

In theory, sending a text message is simple enough, but how does the operator know which ambulance driver to send it to, let alone have their mobile phone number?

I assume the CAD system is set up such that the 999 operator doesn't need to know who is driving the ambulance.

My guess would be W3W has been "integrated" via the operator copy and pasting values into their website

Same questions apply as regards how the operator passes on the info.

If they can do it for W3W, there should be no technological barrier to doing the same with AML. All they are doing is passing on a piece of data. If the end user (ambulance driver) has the means to use W3W data (a phone), they also have the means to use AML data.

I assume that like Deliveroo riders, individual ambulance drivers will pick up 'jobs' from the queue via whatever CAD app they use. Why is it that W3W data can be added to the job details but AML data can't? Am I missing something blindingly obvious?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 11:32:08 am
One of the things that irritated me was the route planning part.
Give me a grid reference and I can choose way there on the same map.
Apparently I'd need to ask the app to navigate me to the point using google maps  :sick:

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/16/google-maps-suggests-potentially-fatal-routes-up-ben-nevis-say-mountain-charities
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 16 July, 2021, 11:34:38 am
There are over 100 emergency services in the UK? :boggle:

Kent fire and rescue service, suffolk fire service, london fire brigade, London Ambulance service.

And that's before you get into Kent Search and Rescue, Sussex Search and Rescue, Buxton MRT, Edale MRT, etc...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 11:43:19 am
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 11:45:34 am
What form does AML send your location in? If it's done by triangulation from cellphone towers, presumably it's three strings of digits. That could be texted to the crews but they then need a way of relating that to the ground. Whereas three words can be easily texted or repeated verbally and located via the app. OTOH if AML transmits the location as, say, lat/long, then it really should be usable by the emergency crews.

ETA: to answer your first question: "The services uses either a global navigation satellite system or WiFi depending on which one is better at the given moment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

Yes, the phone works out its own location using whatever means it has available.  Realistically, that's GPS falling back to cellular positioning.  But the OS vendor could, in principle, display a map for the user to click on or whateer.  Using a WiFi SSID location database lookup for this application would seem to be a liability, but ultimately that's up to the phone.


Quote
What is the line of communication between 999 operators and ambulance drivers? How is the information passed along?

In theory, sending a text message is simple enough, but how does the operator know which ambulance driver to send it to, let alone have their mobile phone number?

Presumably the same way they send "heart attack" or "car crash".  You'd hope that there would be some sort of database system whereby the 999 operator receives the CID and AML data, passes it on to the emergency services operator at the time of transferring the call, and their system does some database lookups to provide an address based on phone number, and sends that - along with the AML location and whatever information is given verbally to the operator - to the ambulance computer terminal thingy.

That presumably means several incompatible systems implemented by lowest-bidder providers, glued together by under-trained and overworked human beings.  That's what it means to be BRITISH.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 11:46:18 am
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA!  ;)

But as QG says, for the purposes of this discussion, each regional service operator is counted as a separate entity.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 16 July, 2021, 11:46:44 am
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

RNLI, Mountain rescue, cave rescue, lowland search and rescue.

However, While in concept there are only 8 or so. The reality is KSAR and SUSSAR and Breacon MRT, and KFRS and SFS, and LAS, and LFB are all independent. They have their own funding, their own management structures. They are essentially each a different emergency service.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 11:47:12 am
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA!  ;)

Papa Johns is the fourth emergency service of the apocalypse. (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=117026.0)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 11:55:12 am
I don't think anyone's mentioned the other advantage of AML over systems like SARLOC or W3W: It doesn't require *any* interaction with the user, which means it works if they're unable or unwilling to speak/read/type.  Just starting an emergency call is enough.

Consider people with communication impairments or who are too seriously injured to communicate; phones that are damaged; people who don't speak English; those covertly calling for help at the scene of a crime; toddlers calling 999 cos they learned it on Fireman Sam[1] when their parent collapses, etc.

ETA: It would also be potentially useful for tracking down the perpetrators of hoax calls.


[1] Other emergency-services-themed televisual entertainments for the under-5s are available.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 11:55:54 am
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Don't forget the AA!  ;)

But as QG says, for the purposes of this discussion, each regional service operator is counted as a separate entity.

I guess it is all free market forces.

"Hello, I need the Police please. Could you send me some Northumberland Police, they are much better than the Met."
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 16 July, 2021, 11:56:51 am
OK, having looked at the W3W website I'm even more horrified.
https://what3words.com/business/emergency/

From the screen shot shown it looks like the CAD systems are so shit that they are pasting the W3W address directly into the database free text field and expecting crews on the ground to use it. WTF?

Although there's also a nearby (thought not exactly the same) pre-filled easting/northing on the top right of the same screen, so it's completely redundant.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 11:57:07 am
I don't think anyone's mentioned the other advantage of AML over systems like SARLOC or W3W: It doesn't require *any* interaction with the user, which means it works if they're unable or unwilling to speak/read/type.  Just starting an emergency call is enough.

Consider people with communication impairments or are too seriously injured to communicate; people who don't speak English; those covertly calling for help at the scene of a crime; toddlers calling 999 cos they learned it on Fireman Sam when their parent collapses, etc.

Add people that have difficulty with spelling.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 11:59:16 am
Papa Johns is the fourth emergency service of the apocalypse. (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=117026.0)

Oh, that is wonderful! Shame I missed that thread before.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 12:01:15 pm
From the screen shot shown it looks like the CAD systems are so shit that they are pasting the W3W address directly into the database free text field and expecting crews on the ground to use it. WTF?

 :facepalm:

At least this neatly gives the lie to claims that implementing AML is in any way more "problematic" than W3W for CAD systems.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 12:09:24 pm
That page also shows an iMac running a legacy windows interface, and one screen grab with the three words in ALL.CAPITAL.LETTERS whilst the photo next to it is in.lower.case

(and the two locations are different in their images - so in their example, they haven't sent the policed to the ALL.CAPITALS.ONE)

That attention to detail doesn't fill me with confidence...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 16 July, 2021, 12:25:39 pm
The other week I was climbing Glastonbury Tor.  At the bottom of the climb is a defibrillator in a box.  Instructions say to phone 999 (which obviously must be done by a mobile at that location, so will contain the clever stuff as mentioned above).  Instructions state to quote the unique reference number of the box.

Followed by a WhyThreeWords location....



If the unique reference number is given, why is a WhyThreeWords location also required?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 12:30:01 pm
Marketing?

I suppose it's possible that the defibrillator database just gives the code to unlock the box but not its location, because stupid.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 16 July, 2021, 12:47:07 pm
If the database doesn't work you'd have no defibrillator and no location, so it's reasonable insurance.

One would hope the location is provided in a variety of formats and not one stupid opaque commercial product that also requires a (online?) lookup.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 16 July, 2021, 01:04:31 pm
Fire. Ambulance. Police. Coastguard.

I make 4 - any advance on that?

Mountain rescue
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 01:07:02 pm
I guess it is all free market forces.

"Hello, I need the Police please. Could you send me some Northumberland Police, they are much better than the Met."

You may be joking, but I wouldn't put it past our government. They've already done the same with schools, hospitals and transport.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 04:42:36 pm
I think ambulances, though not fire brigades or police, are mostly private companies contracting to the NHS.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 04:43:36 pm
I don't think anyone's mentioned the other advantage of AML over systems like SARLOC or W3W: It doesn't require *any* interaction with the user, which means it works if they're unable or unwilling to speak/read/type.  Just starting an emergency call is enough.

Consider people with communication impairments or are too seriously injured to communicate; people who don't speak English; those covertly calling for help at the scene of a crime; toddlers calling 999 cos they learned it on Fireman Sam when their parent collapses, etc.

Add people that have difficulty with spelling.
I'm pretty sure it has been mentioned already in this thread, but it bears repeating.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 July, 2021, 04:50:11 pm
autocarrot too - is that a thing in w3w world?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 16 July, 2021, 05:07:13 pm
autocarrot too - is that a thing in w3w world?

I've tried searching, but it autocarroted to autocratic
https://what3words.com/autocratic.test.work
https://what3words.com/autocratic.test.fail
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 17 July, 2021, 10:26:25 am
I think ambulances, though not fire brigades or police, are mostly private companies contracting to the NHS.

Depends. London Ambulance Service (LAS), and South East Coast Ambulance Service (SEACAM) are both still NHS owned. But there is also contracting out of ambulance services to the likes of British Red Cross, St Johns Ambulance etc...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nuttycyclist on 22 July, 2021, 09:55:32 am
and now it seems that "local names" are getting added to the OS maps to help emergency services
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57916520

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 July, 2021, 10:22:03 am
Is W3W run by Tory groupies?  That would explain why the NHS bought into a system that is basically tits on a fish.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 22 July, 2021, 11:36:35 am
and now it seems that "local names" are getting added to the OS maps to help emergency services
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57916520

As someone who spent an unreasonable time searching the internet to work out where Pigeon Park[1] was when I first moved to Birmingham, this seems eminently sensible.


[1] That's the grounds of St Philip's Cathedral, B3 2QB, ///laying.empire.games, for any emergency dispatchers reading.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Salvatore on 22 July, 2021, 11:56:47 am
autocarrot too - is that a thing in w3w world?

I entered my full name and it autocorrected all 3 parts and located me in the Kaliningrad exclave near the Polish border.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2021, 01:16:30 pm
autocarrot too - is that a thing in w3w world?

I entered my full name and it autocorrected all 3 parts and located me in the Kaliningrad exclave near the Polish border.
This seems entirely appropriate.

 ;D
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2021, 01:17:06 pm
and now it seems that "local names" are getting added to the OS maps to help emergency services
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57916520
And this seems very sensible. Hopefully not just for beaches, either.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 22 July, 2021, 04:09:33 pm
and now it seems that "local names" are getting added to the OS maps to help emergency services
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57916520

How do they avoid this being completely Urban Dictionaryed?

“Yes, all of my friends call it that”
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 22 July, 2021, 04:18:00 pm
Ah, lovely.

I see your Stinky Bay and raise you Ug's 'ole.  Punctuation added for clarity.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 28 July, 2021, 11:31:38 pm
Another subtle dig at W3W by MRT

Call out for Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue Team.
Tweed Valley MRT said, “Yesterday we were called to assist with the evacuation of a Mountain Biker in the Innerleithen area who had suffered a head and shoulder injury.
The initial incident location had been established using a popular mobile phone app but this mapped to an area about 1km from the incident site - this anomaly was picked up by our incident manager as the location didn't match the description of where the casualty said they were.  Luckily the casualty party had also been able to ascertain an OS Grid reference which allowed us to deploy to the correct location.   
We would urge users of mobile phone apps to cross check the position generated by any mapping app with what they understand their location to be and not assume the generated position is 100% accurate. 
As an MRT we will always work with the information given to try and get to you as quickly and as safely as possible.  Our preference is an OS Grid reference but we can work with any other location format such as Lat/Lon, What3Words, forest marker post numbers, local mountain bike trail names or even a a physical description of where you are.”
#ScottishMR



Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 28 July, 2021, 11:41:21 pm
No navigation app was however required to locate a heat stress casualty on An Teallach last weekend as TMRT were out there on a training exercise, and were the next group along.

Conveniently for the casualty "Slightly surprised patient to find an mrt on the hill just behind them with a paramedic and doctor. New top tip for keeping fluid cold in the heat. Frozen capri suns. Still half
frozen at 2 in the afternoon."
Friend shared that along with pictures of R151
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 28 July, 2021, 11:43:03 pm
No navigation app was however required to locate a heat stress casualty on An Teallach last weekend as TMRT were out there on a training exercise, and were the next group along.

Conveniently for the casualty "Slightly surprised patient to find an mrt on the hill just behind them with a paramedic and doctor. New top tip for keeping fluid cold in the heat. Frozen capri suns. Still half
frozen at 2 in the afternoon."
Friend shared that along with pictures of R151

My main hiking partner in the UK was a member of the local SAR team. We had an understanding that if we had an accident, we couldn't call out SAR, as he'd never live it down. Fortunately we never had to test this.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2021, 08:55:56 am
Another subtle dig at W3W by MRT

Call out for Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue Team.
Tweed Valley MRT said, “Yesterday we were called to assist with the evacuation of a Mountain Biker in the Innerleithen area who had suffered a head and shoulder injury.
The initial incident location had been established using a popular mobile phone app but this mapped to an area about 1km from the incident site - this anomaly was picked up by our incident manager as the location didn't match the description of where the casualty said they were.  Luckily the casualty party had also been able to ascertain an OS Grid reference which allowed us to deploy to the correct location.   
We would urge users of mobile phone apps to cross check the position generated by any mapping app with what they understand their location to be and not assume the generated position is 100% accurate. 
As an MRT we will always work with the information given to try and get to you as quickly and as safely as possible.  Our preference is an OS Grid reference but we can work with any other location format such as Lat/Lon, What3Words, forest marker post numbers, local mountain bike trail names or even a a physical description of where you are.”
#ScottishMR
From this thread, this is a major difference between mountain rescue and ambulance.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 30 July, 2021, 04:38:38 pm
I'll just leave this here... https://w3w.me.ss/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 31 July, 2021, 11:35:25 am
No navigation app was however required to locate a heat stress casualty on An Teallach last weekend as TMRT were out there on a training exercise, and were the next group along.

Conveniently for the casualty "Slightly surprised patient to find an mrt on the hill just behind them with a paramedic and doctor. New top tip for keeping fluid cold in the heat. Frozen capri suns. Still half
frozen at 2 in the afternoon."
Friend shared that along with pictures of R151

My main hiking partner in the UK was a member of the local SAR team. We had an understanding that if we had an accident, we couldn't call out SAR, as he'd never live it down. Fortunately we never had to test this.

J
Tbh, if I phoned up the SAS and they asked me for a W3W location it sounds like I'd be better hanging up and phoning the Polis
My hiking clubs normal times meeting place is the pub owned by one of the local MRT team leaders, we have team members in the club, and we've had a couple of members rescued by them (new members for our buggered ankle sub-club).

As far as I'm aware those sets do not intersect, maybe they'd beg for one of the neighbouring MRT teams to be sent off patch.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 31 July, 2021, 12:10:37 pm
No navigation app was however required to locate a heat stress casualty on An Teallach last weekend as TMRT were out there on a training exercise, and were the next group along.

Conveniently for the casualty "Slightly surprised patient to find an mrt on the hill just behind them with a paramedic and doctor. New top tip for keeping fluid cold in the heat. Frozen capri suns. Still half
frozen at 2 in the afternoon."
Friend shared that along with pictures of R151

My main hiking partner in the UK was a member of the local SAR team. We had an understanding that if we had an accident, we couldn't call out SAR, as he'd never live it down. Fortunately we never had to test this.

J
Tbh, if I phoned up the SAS and they asked me for a W3W location it sounds like I'd be better hanging up and phoning the Polis
My hiking clubs normal times meeting place is the pub owned by one of the local MRT team leaders, we have team members in the club, and we've had a couple of members rescued by them (new members for our buggered ankle sub-club).

As far as I'm aware those sets do not intersect, maybe they'd beg for one of the neighbouring MRT teams to be sent off patch.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

If you need rescuing by the SAS you’ve got bigger problems to deal with.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 31 July, 2021, 12:11:47 pm
No navigation app was however required to locate a heat stress casualty on An Teallach last weekend as TMRT were out there on a training exercise, and were the next group along.

Conveniently for the casualty "Slightly surprised patient to find an mrt on the hill just behind them with a paramedic and doctor. New top tip for keeping fluid cold in the heat. Frozen capri suns. Still half
frozen at 2 in the afternoon."
Friend shared that along with pictures of R151

My main hiking partner in the UK was a member of the local SAR team. We had an understanding that if we had an accident, we couldn't call out SAR, as he'd never live it down. Fortunately we never had to test this.

J
Tbh, if I phoned up the SAS and they asked me for a W3W location it sounds like I'd be better hanging up and phoning the Polis
My hiking clubs normal times meeting place is the pub owned by one of the local MRT team leaders, we have team members in the club, and we've had a couple of members rescued by them (new members for our buggered ankle sub-club).

As far as I'm aware those sets do not intersect, maybe they'd beg for one of the neighbouring MRT teams to be sent off patch.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

If you need rescuing by the SAS you’ve got bigger problems to deal with.
Scottish Ambulance Service.
Fun with acronyms

I'd be disappointed if the Special Air Service needed anything more than the sound of the wind passing over my phones microphone to find me.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 05 September, 2021, 11:25:49 am
Just discovered a cool widget for my Garmin smartwatch that converts GPS data into OS lat long.  I have installed it and will test it later.

I understand that it will work on numerous Garmin devices that allow the download of widgets.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 05 September, 2021, 12:13:49 pm
OS grid references are a built in feature on most Garmins, don't need to install anything.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Beardy on 05 September, 2021, 12:58:25 pm
Just discovered a cool widget for my Garmin smartwatch that converts GPS data into OS lat long.  I have installed it and will test it later.

I understand that it will work on numerous Garmin devices that allow the download of widgets.
Set Dual Grid as one of the Hot Keys
Settings->System->Hot Keys
Then
Settings->System->Format->Pos. Format->British Grid
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 05 September, 2021, 01:35:33 pm
OS grid references are a built in feature on most Garmins, don't need to install anything.

Yep been available on consumer GPS for over 20 years now. Together with the map datums for most countries. You want coordinates to match French IGN map grids? No problem etc.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 05 September, 2021, 01:54:48 pm
OS grid references are a built in feature on most Garmins, don't need to install anything.

Yep been available on consumer GPS for over 20 years now. Together with the map datums for most countries. You want coordinates to match French IGN map grids? No problem etc.

Possibly not on the PE watches, though?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Beardy on 05 September, 2021, 03:01:10 pm
OS grid references are a built in feature on most Garmins, don't need to install anything.

Yep been available on consumer GPS for over 20 years now. Together with the map datums for most countries. You want coordinates to match French IGN map grids? No problem etc.

Possibly not on the PE watches, though?
PBs PE watch is a Fenix 6 (as is mine) and OS Grid is there along with all the others :)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 05 September, 2021, 05:30:45 pm
Thanks for the knowledge folks.  I'll find it in native garmin PE and then ditch the widget. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 September, 2021, 07:05:59 pm
Saw three partygoers from an event on the Downs wandering homewards. Or to somewhere, I don't know, but judging from appearance and general direction they were probably students trying to get back to the halls. They were very close but were arguing amongst themselves about the direction. I don't know whether any was using w3w but they were all peering at their phones, which were evidently giving them contrary instructions.

Heh, it's not a proper party unless you either get lost on the way home or wake up somewhere, and maybe with someone, unknown!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 05 September, 2021, 07:18:12 pm
Does W3W do directions?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 September, 2021, 07:26:42 pm
Not as far as I know. I don't know if they were getting directions or just heading for a location their own way; quite likely a mixture.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 05 September, 2021, 07:47:40 pm
I expect that [insert name of popular mapping app] makes a confusing mess of the various non-vehicle-access paths that can be used to access University Hall and Shite Bunker from Hollybush Lane.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 September, 2021, 08:14:21 pm
3m x 3m squares, if I've correctly remembered the dimensions, mean you can distinguish not only Shite Bunker from Johnson's Idol Hell, not only different blocks within those, not only individual rooms within each block, but different corners of your own student room. fake.concentration.lolz is your desk, musty.stink.fugg is your bed, etc...

(They hadn't got as far as Hollybush Lane, they were wandering around the multi-million mansions on Julian Road)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 15 September, 2021, 07:49:23 am
Just discovered a cool widget for my Garmin smartwatch that converts GPS data into OS lat long.  I have installed it and will test it later.

I understand that it will work on numerous Garmin devices that allow the download of widgets.
Set Dual Grid as one of the Hot Keys
Settings->System->Hot Keys
Then
Settings->System->Format->Pos. Format->British Grid

Well, that went well. 

After disabling and deleting the widget I noticed that suddenly battery consumption was through the roof.  It's difficult to tell with a smartwatch just what is gobbling up juice but I realised that if I selected an activity satellite lock was instant.  This implied to me that for some reason gps was always on.  I couldn't find a way to turn gps off so I turned the watch off and then on again instead.

That sorted the issue.

Bloody tech.  The very lovely 1:25,000 map we bought is still working perfectly of course ...   :demon:
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2021, 02:30:33 pm
Quote
Iain Campbell, AF&RS Station Manager, said: “The police received a call in the early hours of the morning from someone who was concerned about the safety and welfare of their friend.

"Using WhatsApp and What3Words, the caller gave Police details of the last known location of their friend, a remote area of farmland with rivers and streams nearby. It was dark, there was fog, and the temperature was colder than normal.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/incredible-photo-drone-finds-missing-6180615
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: SteveC on 21 January, 2022, 06:31:33 pm
Latest update to the W3W app on the iPhone allows you to display lat/long or OS National Grid references as well as their own.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: hbunnet on 21 January, 2022, 07:17:31 pm
Android too
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 April, 2022, 11:46:53 am
I went to see sleeper in ditches and eater of strange things, Ray Mears last night (see also Grumble thread). Anyhoo, he was talking about being aware of youir surroundings, using senses ect ect. He played a video clip by Derbyshire Police Wildlife Crime unit, showing what look for in the way of Wildlife Crime (badger baiting, hare coursing etc) and that photos (taken without putting yourself in danger) are a really useful tool. All nicely informative.

At the end of the clip Mears then told us how great what 3 words was in helping to record the locations of such suspected crimes, neatly forgetting/ignoring the fact that any photo taken on a smart phone will have location data added to it automagically.  Presumably he's getting paid for such promotion.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 April, 2022, 11:52:46 am
At the end of the clip Mears then told us how great what 3 words was in helping to record the locations of such suspected crimes, neatly forgetting/ignoring the fact that any photo taken on a smart phone will have location data added to it automagically.  Presumably he's getting paid for such promotion.

Not true. Many people turn that off intentionally for security reasons.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 April, 2022, 11:59:32 am
At the end of the clip Mears then told us how great what 3 words was in helping to record the locations of such suspected crimes, neatly forgetting/ignoring the fact that any photo taken on a smart phone will have location data added to it automagically.  Presumably he's getting paid for such promotion.

Not true. Many people turn that off intentionally for security reasons.

J
Good point. Is "it's trivial to attach location data to a photo taken on a smart phone without resorting to a third party app" more accurate? 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 April, 2022, 12:02:37 pm
Good point. Is "it's trivial to attach location data to a photo taken on a smart phone without resorting to a third party app" more accurate?

Not really.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2022, 05:53:07 pm
Surely on most phones location is differentially configurable by app? So you can allow the camera to record location while denying it to others, if you so want. Though your phone surely knows where it is all the time, as long as it's receiving a signal, so I'm not sure how much security you're getting yourself anyway.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 April, 2022, 05:57:55 pm
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 01 April, 2022, 06:00:30 pm
Surely on most phones location is differentially configurable by app? So you can allow the camera to record location while denying it to others, if you so want. Though your phone surely knows where it is all the time, as long as it's receiving a signal, so I'm not sure how much security you're getting yourself anyway.

You turn location off, the phone doesn’t know where it is.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2022, 06:01:08 pm
I thought it was about google, facebook, apple and similar datamongers rather than the camera.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 April, 2022, 06:19:38 pm
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.

This is why I remove EXIF, or have it turned off.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 April, 2022, 08:26:58 pm
But do you trust the What3words app? Is it selling your location data to Facebook/Google/Apple/Russia?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 April, 2022, 08:56:59 pm
I don't trust it, so I don't have it.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: CrazyEnglishTriathlete on 01 April, 2022, 10:19:06 pm
Am playing a new game with What 3 Words - to see if there are any appropriate locations, for example - wouldn't it be great if "Light" "My" "Fire" gave you the position of Jim Morrison's grave in Paris.

No great ones so far, but there is a Broke Bottom Brackets location in the Copperbelt of Zambia, sadly too far from any road to be navigable.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 April, 2022, 11:10:56 pm
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.

What Kim said.

If I want to tweet a photo from somewhere, I don't want to give away that location.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: nicknack on 01 April, 2022, 11:15:16 pm
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.

What Kim said.

If I want to tweet a photo from somewhere, I don't want to give away that location.

J


Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 01 April, 2022, 11:16:07 pm
Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

"Hey, YACF:  Here's a photo of the widget on my $expensive_new_ebike ..is the metal bit supposed to be loose like that?"

AKA: "Badly locked $expensive_new_ebike at these coordinates"


Or just letting your abusive family / stalker /etc  know where you live now because it's in the EXIF of all the in-progress photos of the art project you've been working on.


Personally, I'd like a geofence option.  If I'm on a cycle tour or collecting evidence of fly-tipping or water leaks or something, the EXIF location data is useful.  But if I'm at home, it probably isn't.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 April, 2022, 11:18:10 pm
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.

What Kim said.

If I want to tweet a photo from somewhere, I don't want to give away that location.

J
Twitter / Facebook strip all of the EXIF data from the photo anyway. So it is not giving away the location (unless you add a location tag to your post).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 April, 2022, 11:26:22 pm
Twitter / Facebook strip all of the EXIF data from the photo anyway. So it is not giving away the location (unless you add a location tag to your post).

Does every system? Telegram? Discord? Signal? Mattermost? Slack?

Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

This is Spook the racoon stealing my cider.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPSFYtFXEAYg8wn?format=jpg&name=large)

You don't need to know the lat and long coordinates of my sofa. Noone does.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 01 April, 2022, 11:43:05 pm
Twitter / Facebook strip all of the EXIF data from the photo anyway. So it is not giving away the location (unless you add a location tag to your post).

Does every system? Telegram? Discord? Signal? Mattermost? Slack?
For most of those, probably yes.
If you are using some obscure system for sharing photos, I'm sure you can figure out how to strip the EXIF data yourself.

Most photos could be improved with a bit of editing/cropping etc, or at least reducing the resolution before sharing. So pretty simple to remove tags as part of that.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 01 April, 2022, 11:52:54 pm
For most of those, probably yes.
If you are using some obscure system for sharing photos, I'm sure you can figure out how to strip the EXIF data yourself.

Most photos could be improved with a bit of editing/cropping etc, or at least reducing the resolution before sharing. So pretty simple to remove tags as part of that.

That's waaaaaay too much effort. I just turn off the geolocation by default.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Pingu on 01 April, 2022, 11:57:56 pm
Twitter / Facebook strip all of the EXIF data from the photo anyway. So it is not giving away the location (unless you add a location tag to your post).

Does every system? Telegram? Discord? Signal? Mattermost? Slack?

Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

This is Spook the racoon stealing my cider.

[redacted]

You don't need to know the lat and long coordinates of my sofa. Noone does.

J

I remove the location data from Mrs P's Flickr postings of our house/garden/cats.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 02 April, 2022, 12:27:51 am
Twitter / Facebook strip all of the EXIF data from the photo anyway. So it is not giving away the location (unless you add a location tag to your post).

Does every system? Telegram? Discord? Signal? Mattermost? Slack?

Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

This is Spook the racoon stealing my cider.

[redacted]

You don't need to know the lat and long coordinates of my sofa. Noone does.

J

I remove the location data from Mrs P's Flickr postings of our house/garden/cats.

Yeah. But we still know that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. So there.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 02 April, 2022, 09:11:35 am
The security isn't so much that you don't trust the camera app, but that you don't want to inadvertently share your location by forgetting to redact the EXIF data from some otherwise non-location-revealing photo before sharing it.

What Kim said.

If I want to tweet a photo from somewhere, I don't want to give away that location.

J


Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

The idea that it’s desirable or even necessary to share your location via a photo on Twitter is just plain weird to me. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 02 April, 2022, 11:27:22 am
The idea that it’s desirable or even necessary to share your location via a photo on Twitter is just plain weird to me.

Well quite. There are times where I might post a photo such as the station name board when I've arrived somewhere interesting. A bit like posting a picture of the Eifel Tower with a comment like "Finally made it here!". But that doesn't need a lat and long. The photo does that.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 02 April, 2022, 12:16:07 pm
I have yet to find a situation where adding location to a photo has been useful to me, even when staring at holiday photos wondering "where the fuck was that" however I'm too lazy to bother turning it off, I just tag ridiculous locations.

#InNairn

No wait I am there.

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 03 April, 2022, 10:49:32 pm
Quote
#InNairn
Not something many people boast about.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 03 April, 2022, 11:19:24 pm
Besides, it is missing two words.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 03 April, 2022, 11:20:26 pm
I once navigated for a chap called Nairn
He was (this was 20 years ago so I'm assuming...) a chain smoker and bloody hilarious.
Owned a tractor dealership so had a few bob, or at least the income to sustain going through 20 packs at the same rate I went through the pages of the roadbook.
The car was the prototype sunbeam alpine Harrington, being British it obviously had a few flaws, like a leaking fuel filler, which was of course on the drivers side.

Anyway that's all irrelevant to what 3 words, it more interesting that nairn has proven to be, just as well I spent most of the time either asleep, cycling or watching Highland league football...

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 03 April, 2022, 11:20:59 pm
Besides, it is missing two words.
Bored.In.Nairn

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 03 April, 2022, 11:24:26 pm
Nairn is great!

It's got a beach.

and a roundabout.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 03 April, 2022, 11:26:01 pm
I have driven, walked and/or cycled every roundabout I can find.
I've even taken the Dundonian approach* to 2 of them, the only food place I could find open after 9pm is McDonald's.

* straight over

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Pingu on 03 April, 2022, 11:38:04 pm
It's the fastest town in the NE.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 03 April, 2022, 11:45:28 pm
When I said it had a roundabout, I may have mispoken.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 April, 2022, 08:08:41 am
Sorry for possibly being dim, but why not? What's the point in sharing a photo without revealing its location?

"Hey, YACF:  Here's a photo of the widget on my $expensive_new_ebike ..is the metal bit supposed to be loose like that?"

AKA: "Badly locked $expensive_new_ebike at these coordinates"


Or just letting your abusive family / stalker /etc  know where you live now because it's in the EXIF of all the in-progress photos of the art project you've been working on.


Personally, I'd like a geofence option.  If I'm on a cycle tour or collecting evidence of fly-tipping or water leaks or something, the EXIF location data is useful.  But if I'm at home, it probably isn't.
But you've got your phone no. and/or email address on the start-up screen of your GPS. I know you have because it was you who alerted me to the possibility of doing this. Which means anyone who finds your Garmin could not only trace routes back to your house but also has your phone no and/or email and could, if they so wish, send you abusive messages and/or hack your ID. But you said, on this very point, that "most people are honest", which I agree with but seems to contradict your first point above.

Obviously no one intends to lose their Garmin. But then no one's intending to stumble across hare coursers and badger baiters either.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 April, 2022, 08:14:16 am
Wouldn't it be more that the chances of a garmin finder being dishonest are relativley low, while persons actively scoping out bikes to nick from GPS coords in publicly published photos are 100% likely to be neer dae weels?

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 April, 2022, 08:34:44 am
That plus the chances of any individual finding the Garmin are random, whereas if you're a scrote looking for bikes to steal, you might be hanging out on cycle-tastic places to find them. There have been cases of people being followed home from trail centres too and later burgled.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 16 August, 2022, 03:36:31 pm
I started reading this thread from the beginning and soon got incredibly frustrated.  As a member of the emergency services, W3W just gives me an EXTRA tool in my toolbox of lifesaving kit.  I couldn’t give a flying duck if it’s proprietary, nobody is saying you have to use it above all other methods of locating yourself if you object to that.  I am happy to use lat and lon if you have them, or 12 figure grid refs, or “1km south of High Roding on the B184” or SarLoc or local knowledge or just about any other method.  All methods have pros and cons.  Control room staff need to dispatch the right resources as fast as possible, they don’t have time to teach someone how to read a map if they don’t already know and if you go with “I am in a field 1km east of the junction of the A12 and A120” then you could be in either of two areas several miles apart.  You would be amazed sometimes how unaware of their location some people are even before the panic of an emergency situation.  I recall one incident we went to where all the caller knew was they were somewhere on the B184, had gone through town 1 but not yet reached town 5 some 20 miles south.  They had absolutely no clue if they had passed various landmarks or gone through Towns 2, 3 or 4 on route so it took the resources of 6 fire engines about 20 minutes to try and locate them.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 August, 2022, 06:10:02 pm
I don't think any of us would object to "Emergency services now accept W3W locations, in addition to grid refs, addresses, postcodes, etc".  That's entirely reasonable, as it seems to be gaining enough popularity to be a thing people might have available (because it's obviously useful for programming satnavs and addressing parcels), and could therefore save lives.

The objection is the emergency services being complicit in promoting it as if it's the only/best way to obtain your location using a smartphone.  That's actively dangerous, because it's not actually a very good way of doing it, for all the reasons discussed.  Which raises the question of why they're doing it.

I'd guess one or more of:
-Emergency services managed by people who don't know anything about map coordinates, smartphones etc. and think it's a genuinely good idea.
-Tactical decision that all publicity is good publicity, especially if it might make people more prepared for emergencies or result in more funding.
-W3W marketing department writing press releases without sufficient emergency services input.
-Bad journalism.
-Financial shenannigans.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Diver300 on 16 August, 2022, 06:48:41 pm
Before W3W, I once tried to report an accident and the emergency operator couldn't accept either lat/long or the A and B numbers of the roads involved. They wanted the road names or the postcode. The roads involved changed names several times along their length, and their names were quite common so were repeated in lots of places, and I didn't know their names at every place, even though I drove them quite often. I found it very stressful.

The problem with W3W is when emergency operators won't accept other methods and demand that someone in crisis downloads an app, and then tells the app the numbers that they could have told the emergency services. It's a non-trivial download, that users may have to pay for the data for, when actually anyone can go to the W3W website and convert any lat/long, postcode, address etc to a W3W code.

There are also systems built into any phone that should allow the emergency services to see where a smartphone call is coming from, but those don't seem to be used.

It's good if W3W can be added to existing methods of location, but it seems to be being added at the expense of other systems.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Polar Bear on 16 August, 2022, 06:58:16 pm
I have just been reminding myself just how good OS Locate is as an app.  The best bit for me is just how large the lat long numbers are and how big the compass is.  A brilliant tool for me.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 16 August, 2022, 07:09:36 pm
If I were an emergency services operator I would mostly be outraged that the system to get the device location to the operator’s screen automatically doesn’t function. Getting excited about a total hack seems perverse.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 16 August, 2022, 07:10:55 pm
If I were an emergency services operator I would mostly be outraged that the system to get the device location to the operator’s screen automatically doesn’t function. Getting excited about a total hack seems perverse.

Agreed.

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 16 August, 2022, 07:57:52 pm



The objection is the emergency services being complicit in promoting it as if it's the only/best way to obtain your location using a smartphone.  That's actively dangerous, because it's not actually a very good way of doing it, for all the reasons discussed.  Which raises the question of why they're doing it.
.
This
A thousand times


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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2022, 08:41:37 pm
If I were an emergency services operator I would mostly be outraged that the system to get the device location to the operator’s screen automatically doesn’t function. Getting excited about a total hack seems perverse.
And for landlines too, I'd hope.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 16 August, 2022, 08:44:08 pm
If I were an emergency services operator I would mostly be outraged that the system to get the device location to the operator’s screen automatically doesn’t function. Getting excited about a total hack seems perverse.
And for landlines too, I'd hope.

For landlines (and now VOIP, if it's registered for the purpose) it should just be a database lookup.  Much less technically involved than getting an arbitrary location from the handset or its user, and AIUI something they've been able to do for yonks.  Historically when I've had to call the emergency services, I've done so from a landline when available for this reason.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2022, 09:03:08 pm
I've never called emergency services from a landline but have known a neighbour call the police about some "rowdy teenagers" on the stairwell and give our address. First we knew was the police knocking on our door (later we saw, and smelt, the evidence).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 17 August, 2022, 12:14:39 am

There are also systems built into any phone that should allow the emergency services to see where a smartphone call is coming from, but those don't seem to be used.

Indeed.

Hooefully Apple and Google are working at making this an emergency thing (as they do with emergency calls already) and the w3w attempted money making machine will attract less noise.

I was passing a Scottish Water establishment thing the other day and was dismayed to see “WTW” on the information board. It was confusing as there weren’t three words following it. Until I realised it was a Water Treatment Works…
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 17 August, 2022, 06:57:04 am
Mountain rescue use SARloc, they regularly rip the piss out of W3W...

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Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: De Sisti on 17 August, 2022, 07:42:47 am
I hope I'm not the only one, but I just don't understand it. Looked at my own address, and it said: 'bollocks, knob, cheese'.
I still don't get it.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 10:48:21 am
To try and answer a few of the above comments

1 Certainly for my service, we are all taught how to read maps, use lat/Lon and grid references.  You want to pass me a national grid reference such as that returned by SarLoc and I will get my firefighters to you. W3W is just an alternative and won’t even be mentioned in a 999 call unless you are unable to locate yourself when it might be suggested as a possible solution.

2 Yes, it’s a closed commercial system and their marketing tries to make a problem where one shouldn’t exist in the UK as we have perfectly good mapping / addressing systems already, if only people knew how to use them.  I dislike that too.

3 There are lots of claims out there about automatic phone location.  Only handsets sold after March 2022 have to offer the capability of sending handset derived location data to the emergency services though many did before this.  It requires an SMS or data connection afaik.  It’s a European directive that we make use of this I think so … brexit….hmmm who knows.

Also it will no doubt require systems upgrades in control centres that will be expensive and probably unfunded so may take time.

4 W3W has its technical failings but they are mostly irrelevant to UK emergency service use.  I don’t care that they can’t locate the South Pole properly, I won’t be going to a fire there.  I don’t care their 3m squares are smaller than the accuracy of most phone GPS systems so the same spot can give multiple addresses.  I will find you from within 25m.  I don’t care that their “unchanging” claim re addresses is crap.  Plate tectonics and earthquakes have little impact on locating an RTC in the UK. The one I do care about is the evidence that in a few cases their closed algorithm has assigned almost identical 3 word addresses to geographically very close locations.

5 I don’t know why my service decided against SarLoc but it was looked at.  Possibly just lost out to a slicker marketing campaign as a quick Google found minimal info on SarLoc.  Possibly just want to use W3W internally for a slightly wider use case than SarLoc supports.

6 The benefit of W3W imho is that it he majority of people who wouldn’t know an Easting from their elbow find it easy to use.  No need to know about grid refs or gps coordinates.  No long string of numbers with decimals, commas and negatives.  Yes, words can be misheard / misread but so can numbers and phonetic alphabet ( even B Bertie A Apple versions) get spellings across without confusion. That’s a failure of our education and a failure of the current methods to make themselves more relevant so that people see the benefit of learning them.  That’s only going to get worse with phone navigation making paper maps a thing of the past for many.

Anyway, having just read the latest update on automatic phone location, hopefully we don’t throw that out with the brexit bath water and it makes W3W a historical irrelevance inside a year or two.  Then all I need to worry about is what Google / FruitCo do with the knowledge that I called 999 from a particular location last Tuesday.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 11:00:42 am
Before W3W, I once tried to report an accident and the emergency operator couldn't accept either lat/long or the A and B numbers of the roads involved. They wanted the road names or the postcode. The roads involved changed names several times along their length, and their names were quite common so were repeated in lots of places, and I didn't know their names at every place, even though I drove them quite often. I found it very stressful.

The problem with W3W is when emergency operators won't accept other methods and demand that someone in crisis downloads an app, and then tells the app the numbers that they could have told the emergency services. It's a non-trivial download, that users may have to pay for the data for, when actually anyone can go to the W3W website and convert any lat/long, postcode, address etc to a W3W code.

There are also systems built into any phone that should allow the emergency services to see where a smartphone call is coming from, but those don't seem to be used.

It's good if W3W can be added to existing methods of location, but it seems to be being added at the expense of other systems.

I often get call sheets saying “RTC A12 J15-16 Southbound” or “Fire beside B1256 1km from Stebbing turn off”.  I can’t see why they wouldn’t accept the road numbers. Same goes for the lat Lon although it would be a rarity to be offered that in a 999 call I suspect.

I would fully agree that nobody should be forced to download an app but I don’t in reality believe that happens either.  Control rooms default to normal addresses and if they can’t locate you using that will despatch a best guess set of resources and then work with you to locate you using a variety of methods from local knowledge to technology, of which W3W is only one option you may be offered.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 17 August, 2022, 12:05:46 pm

I would fully agree that nobody should be forced to download an app but I don’t in reality believe that happens either.  Control rooms default to normal addresses and if they can’t locate you using that will despatch a best guess set of resources and then work with you to locate you using a variety of methods from local knowledge to technology, of which W3W is only one option you may be offered.

I've called in with lay/long. It was for a heath fire near Canterbury a few years back. I used latlong as my etrex at the time was set to that mode. And I couldn't change it and talk to 999 at the same time.

The one I do care about is the evidence that in a few cases their closed algorithm has assigned almost identical 3 word addresses to geographically very close locations.


This was the big thing that changed my view. If you read back you'll see I was a great fan of w3w originally. But I am decidedly less impressed now I'm seeing more of it.

The fact they also have too much similarity on some words just feels like bad design.

I find myself wondering if there.their.they're is valid... Or check.cheque.czech...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 17 August, 2022, 12:12:14 pm
Hononyms vary by dialect, language and accent.

I'm sure for many here doon and dune sound the same, where as for me the Gaelic infusion of dzh into Scots and then SSE means they don't.

This seems to be one of the causes of W3W seemingly putting people in the North sea when actually they are up Ben ledi.

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 01:02:23 pm

I would fully agree that nobody should be forced to download an app but I don’t in reality believe that happens either.  Control rooms default to normal addresses and if they can’t locate you using that will despatch a best guess set of resources and then work with you to locate you using a variety of methods from local knowledge to technology, of which W3W is only one option you may be offered.

I've called in with lay/long. It was for a heath fire near Canterbury a few years back. I used latlong as my etrex at the time was set to that mode. And I couldn't change it and talk to 999 at the same time.

The one I do care about is the evidence that in a few cases their closed algorithm has assigned almost identical 3 word addresses to geographically very close locations.


This was the big thing that changed my view. If you read back you'll see I was a great fan of w3w originally. But I am decidedly less impressed now I'm seeing more of it.

The fact they also have too much similarity on some words just feels like bad design.

I find myself wondering if there.their.they're is valid... Or check.cheque.czech...

J

There had to be one!  ;D  I am going to hazard a guess and say we aren’t your average Joe Public sample.  Most, if not all, of us will be familiar with maps and IT and GPS <checks forum title > so we may be the exception that proves the rule when it comes to giving locations in 999 calls.

I am only a fan of the simplicity of W3W and that Joe Public seems to like it.  Rushing to a fire at 3am, I can deal with a radio message that tells me the exact location is tomb.politics.ushering.  Simple, easy to remember and easy to confirm over the radio “I spell Tango Oscar Mike Bravo new word Papa Oscar Lima…..”. Much nicer than being told 51.860595, 0.352136 or 562067, 220616 No easy way to confirm and not at all memorable.  Scramble for pen and paper while bouncing about in the truck and hope you can read the result when you put the handset down.   And TL62062061 isn’t much better.

The use of homonyms, singular/plural and just awkward combinations isn’t at all good and could / should have been avoided with a better algorithm but it can be worked around in 99% of uses.  I have come across this issue once in use and it was easy to spot.  If it happens again then it would be something I would start to flag internally as a risk.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 17 August, 2022, 01:10:17 pm
3 There are lots of claims out there about automatic phone location.  Only handsets sold after March 2022 have to offer the capability of sending handset derived location data to the emergency services though many did before this.  It requires an SMS or data connection afaik.  It’s a European directive that we make use of this I think so … brexit….hmmm who knows.

Also it will no doubt require systems upgrades in control centres that will be expensive and probably unfunded so may take time.
It was invented by BT in 2014, years before it became an EU standard. Surely that makes it British enough?
And it has been supported since Android version 2, so probably 99% of smartphones in use. I doubt the What 3 words app will work on Android version 2.
The emergency services have had plenty of time to get it implemented and working.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 17 August, 2022, 01:12:08 pm
Thurs a fire gan Doon in Doune by the Dune It's the first o June

It's the speech recognition problem..


Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 02:37:41 pm
Ok, I have been convinced that use of W3W is undesirable having done a bit of research and won’t personally be recommending it to anyone from now on.  AML certainly looks the way forward as it does away with the need for any intervention by the caller so no app, no nothing and standard across all major platforms.  It does appear to be something that we have been very slow to adopt (way above my pay grade as to why) and implementation should be a priority going forward.

I have also learned a few things in the process.  Thanks for all your input.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Paul H on 17 August, 2022, 03:16:41 pm
It's become quite popular with Deliveroo customers, the under 25's anyway, they include it in the delivery notes. I'd never had that a year ago, now it's on about 20% of orders, it's certainly better than the apps own locator. Straight to the door, instead of about the right street and going up and down looking for numbers...  I wouldn't want to rely on it in a life threatening situation, though it can slightly improve the chances of your burger still being lukewarm and your drink a little less spilt, which for some seems to be a satisfactory outcome.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rr on 17 August, 2022, 03:23:15 pm
I am reminded of this
https://archive.org/details/tac-31/page/12/mode/2up

Sent from my motorola edge 20 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 17 August, 2022, 03:26:48 pm
It's become quite popular with Deliveroo customers, the under 25's anyway, they include it in the delivery notes. I'd never had that a year ago, now it's on about 20% of orders, it's certainly better than the apps own locator. Straight to the door, instead of about the right street and going up and down looking for numbers...  I wouldn't want to rely on it in a life threatening situation, though it can slightly improve the chances of your burger still being lukewarm and your drink a little less spilt, which for some seems to be a satisfactory outcome.

This is exactly the sort of thing it was designed for.   :thumbsup:

(Though, tbh, if you're making an order using an app on a device with GPS, why can it not just send exact coordinates to the courier's app on a device with GPS?)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2022, 05:14:46 pm
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8de83bf496eb3517beec52b08d490944a76ca7d4/0_413_3864_2318/master/3864.jpg?width=620&quality=85&fit=max&s=815356c73dc443c335a5b663af753684)
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/17/manchester-united-elon-musk-cristiano-ronaldo

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 05:44:03 pm
Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.  All the information from EENA says the UK has it fully implemented and BT, EE and others have given out press releases saying it is up and running yet it simply hasn’t reached me on the front line yet.  Why? 

I have no idea where the blockage is.  The message standard looks pretty comprehensive.  If the endpoints are functioning as claimed then it should be simple to retrieve the info in real time and display it in Control Rooms and on the mobile data terminals on all front line appliances.  Not only would it be invaluable information for us, it would cut malicious calls overnight.   It would also reduce  risk to public and firefighters alike from unnecessary high speed blue light movements.

Is it down to cost?  If so then then that is poor as it should very quickly pay for itself with the reduction in the numbers of assets sent to search for unclear locations  Is it technology issues and a lack of the right professional skills to drive forward this type of project?  The fire service certainly had have history with the expensive shambles of the regional control centres project way back in 2008.  Or is it a case of once burned, twice shy creating a reticence to adopt new technology after that fiasco?

Our use of W3W also puts onus and cost on to individual firefighters as well as the public.  We are using our personal phones to convert W3W locations back to locations on maps and navigate to them as our appliances don’t have sat nav capability and certainly not one that is portable across fields etc when on foot.  That’s using our data allowance, putting an app on our phones that we otherwise wouldn’t have etc.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 17 August, 2022, 06:05:00 pm
These are compelling questions.  My guess is 'not invented here' syndrome, or because it's not being pushed by a an entity with wider commercial goals.  (W3W's interest in emergency services is surely as a means to becoming a de-facto standard for sharing locations, rather than the profit they stand to make from licencing software to emergency services.)

Possibly something that could benefit from some FOI requests?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2022, 06:16:33 pm
Both AML and W3W are UK inventions/companies, so it's not "not invented here" syndrome. My guess for why UK emergency operators aren't using AML is just that it's been deemed too expensive to invest in the necessary reception tech.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 07:06:06 pm
I don’t think the reception tech is the issue as that seems, from what I can find, to be up and running.  That’s the endpoint for the SMS message that BT etc have set up according to my interpretation of their press release.  My understanding (limited - I have just spent a couple of hours reading EENA’s specification and implementation documents) is that the AML messages are now coming in to BT / EE as the service provider when their call centres “stage 1” handle the emergency call (the “which service do you require” bit when you dial 999 before you get connected to Police / Fire or whoever).  These messages should be stored and be accessible to the emergency services via an endpoint somewhere so that their systems can extract them and filter the ones they want in real time.  It’s this extraction and presentation to the fire service control room operators that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Control room systems are purchased on relatively long term contracts as they are complicated to change and expensive to buy both financially and in terms of staff time.  There are only a few players in the market.  I think it is fair to say that some of those have had real problems recently with reliability of their installations at some services.  It could be that some of these suppliers can’t, or have decided not to, implement AML in their systems but it seems unlikely that they would all do this.  It could also be that some services have decided not to risk implementing AML by shoehorning it into an installation that has already shown instability. Again it seems unlikely they would all do this.  I am genuinely unsure why we haven’t implemented it.  I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2022, 07:17:24 pm
Would it not be specified when emergency services were buying control room systems?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 August, 2022, 07:24:24 pm
My guess is now yes, but long term nature of these contracts means iirc my service last went about purchasing a new system in 2012 for implementation in 2014.  I would hope that the imminent replacement for this system will have a requirement to implement AML as a priority.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 18 August, 2022, 01:14:56 pm
One thing I found buried away ion the web and not directly relevant to the UK but interesting none the less was figures for AML in New Zealand from 2021.  Seventy five percent of all genuine calls to the emergency services returned an AML message, 15% were received within 15 seconds and 97% within 30 seconds.  If replicated in the UK this would compare to our target of mobilising the correct resources within 60 seconds of the call being connected.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 18 August, 2022, 01:32:36 pm
Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.

I absolutely agree with your point here.

Why not adopt AML? Why W3W?

My guess, purely based on experience, is that the people who make these decisions simply don't understand technology. W3W have very good marketing and it is simple to demonstrate. Doesn't make it good, but  . . .

One high-tech employer I had was looking into a new source control system. They rejected Git, because
Quote
Git isn't professional software

Total ignorance. Git doesn't have a slick marketing department that takes you to nice lunches.

W3W is very good at marketing. It is a good product for some niches (like delivery drivers, but I hope they'd still check a house number).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 18 August, 2022, 02:35:41 pm
Having thought on this, the big issue here is that we appear to be using / pushing an incorrect solution in W3W to cover for the fact we haven’t implemented AML.

I absolutely agree with your point here.

Why not adopt AML? Why W3W?

My guess, purely based on experience, is that the people who make these decisions simply don't understand technology. W3W have very good marketing and it is simple to demonstrate. Doesn't make it good, but  . . .


I doubt the two decisions will have been taken at the same level.  The decision to implement or not implement AML would have some big implications and as a sizeable project would be taken at board level by strategic decision makers.  The operational staff may not even have known any decision was being taken.    The decision, such as it was, to offer support for W3W will have been an operational level attempt to solve a problem we definitely have with locating mobile callers.  The people driving it won’t have been IT professionals but rather control operators who have the problem day in day out and thought they had identified a solution. IT may have cast a quick eye over it before publicity went out but no more.  I work as a developer for a private sector company in one of my jobs as well as being an on call firefighter.  I have much more of an understanding of closed v open source etc but as I showed yesterday, even I got drawn into the solving the problem without considering why the selected solution wasn’t the right one, wasn’t even addressing the right questions and may do more damage going forward.   I can fully understand why our control operators and frontline firefighters may see W3W as a solution when they only have a user’s understanding of the issues.

All the above is just my guesswork.  I need to be a little careful here, as I am aware another yacfer may well have had a seat at the above table until his retirement.  He  will almost certainly have a lot more insight into any process than I have and I don’t want to tread on his toes or accidentally spread misinformation when I wasn’t party to any decision making process. I can also understand he may not want / think it appropriate to comment.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 19 August, 2022, 10:36:43 pm
I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light.

Well, I struck lucky with my first enquiry.  The answers I got were :


I was aware that another important function promised with this system back on 2014 had never materialised but wasn’t aware that multiple bits of functionality had been affected.  No doubt incredibly frustrating for those involved and for frontline staff and imho a complete shambles that has dragged on far too long.   Surely the nettle should have been grasped long ago and if a fix couldn’t be found then a new solution should have been sought?  Or is that a naive viewpoint?

Just as an aside, I checked the current marketing brochure of the system we currently use and no mention of AML integration but it does bring the prospective purchaser’s attention to “ What3Words integration for location finding”. 
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 22 August, 2022, 08:00:52 pm


(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FayS5iNWQAAg8jm.jpg)

Just an ambulance service promoting what three words...

Now check that location out in w3w...

J
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 22 August, 2022, 08:12:55 pm
Wow, it's real (https://twitter.com/NEAmbulance/status/1560929826315419648).  As is the weird blurring in the photo.

Deliberate, or standard ironic incompetence?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 22 August, 2022, 08:28:05 pm
The Javascript Console on the W3W website says "[Warning] Google Maps JavaScript API warning: RetiredVersion https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/error-messages#retired-version (util.js, line 244)" so all I see is a sea of grid squares.

Oh well, I'll just use one of the open source alternative w3w decoders.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 August, 2022, 07:58:13 am
names.rank.forest is in Essex, and has actual satellite imagery and mapping, but I'm assuming NEAS is North-Eastern. Maybe it's North Essex? Maybe it's not that place...

Anyway the weirdest thing to me is the lack of mapping or satellite imagery in the other options. Cos it's not just that the map is blank, it's simply not there. So much for delivering McChicken to the nomad suburbs of Ulan Batar.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 23 August, 2022, 08:03:43 am
I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light.

Well, I struck lucky with my first enquiry.  The answers I got were :

  • AML is working and we can access the endpoint and extract the data
  • Our existing control room system integrates with the AML endpoint
  • The installation of our existing control room system has, right from day 1 been subject to crashes, freezes and go slows.  The reasons behind this have never been successfully dealt with.  There are a number of functions that the service would like to turn on but whenever they try, the system threatens to fall over so they remain inactive despite the fact that they would be extremely valuable to us.
  • The requirements for the new system included the proven ability to implement AML.

I was aware that another important function promised with this system back on 2014 had never materialised but wasn’t aware that multiple bits of functionality had been affected.  No doubt incredibly frustrating for those involved and for frontline staff and imho a complete shambles that has dragged on far too long.   Surely the nettle should have been grasped long ago and if a fix couldn’t be found then a new solution should have been sought?  Or is that a naive viewpoint?

Just as an aside, I checked the current marketing brochure of the system we currently use and no mention of AML integration but it does bring the prospective purchaser’s attention to “ What3Words integration for location finding”.
That is a mixture of good news and 'expected as usual' for underfunded IT implementations.

Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

Nothing wrong with using both; it would be good practice to cross check the location from AML against other information (such as W3W or 'we are on the A16 past the turnoff for services').
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 23 August, 2022, 12:25:01 pm
Nothing wrong with using both; it would be good practice to cross check the location from AML against other information

Indeed.  If the device can't get a GPS signal, the position could be highly inaccurate (though looking at the AML spec (https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/103600_103699/103625/01.01.01_60/ts_103625v010101p.pdf), the handset should report the positioning method and an estimated level of confidence as part of the message).  It's also possible to spoof a location using developer tools, which is conceivably the sort of thing you might forget you were doing if an emergency situation interrupted your hacking session.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: FifeingEejit on 23 August, 2022, 03:00:11 pm
One high-tech employer I had was looking into a new source control system. They rejected Git, because
Quote
Git isn't professional software

Total ignorance. Git doesn't have a slick marketing department that takes you to nice lunches.

Git's a crappy wee command line tool that does great stuff
So does del, rm, mv etc.

Wrap a UI over them though and that's your lunch sorted...

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 23 August, 2022, 07:08:28 pm
Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

It may be possible.  I think I have a contact who may know the answer to that but I may not get the opportunity to speak with them for a few days due to annual leave.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 14 September, 2022, 06:24:08 pm
Oh look, the government's queueue-for-the-Queen livestream is using What3Words.  Badly:

https://twitter.com/jmbatchelor/status/1570060105768370176
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 14 September, 2022, 08:21:44 pm
The thing that's shit about this is that while the w3w website acknowledges you might have misheard and offers alternate suggestions, it only ever offers two of them, neither of which are correct.

If it were designed to be properly useful, it would offer a long list of all plausible alternatives, but of course that would be embarrassing because there are probably hundreds, so marketing wins over usefulness*.

And if it were a proper standard and not stupid rent-seeking, someone else could build a website that does this.

(* I'd like to think the emergency service integrations aren't so limited, but that's wishful thinking, isn't it?)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 16 September, 2022, 09:42:57 pm
Is it possible to find out how the control room staff can retrieve the AML information?

It may be possible.  I think I have a contact who may know the answer to that but I may not get the opportunity to speak with them for a few days due to annual leave.

Still working on this.  No joy as yet.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 16 September, 2022, 10:01:36 pm
Pyto causes mourners to fly to Yosemite…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/09/16/typo-directs-mourners-join-royal-queue-5000-miles-away-california/
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: quixoticgeek on 11 October, 2022, 06:44:31 pm


Quote
The 2021 accounts for @what3words are out.

They lost over £43,000,000 in a year.

Turnover fell.

https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1579726108546994177

That's impressive...

J


Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jurek on 11 October, 2022, 06:53:03 pm
Blimey!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 11 October, 2022, 06:56:09 pm
So, it was always about raising investor capital, rather than providing a useful service?  Shocking.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 11 October, 2022, 07:11:13 pm
Best question on that thread:
Quote
WTF did they spend £43m on.

Their technology hasn't really changed in 5 years and doesn't have concurrency to worry about.

So basically this is marketing and peeing up the wall.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 October, 2022, 07:51:45 pm
My favourite comment from the twitter thread:
Quote
Strewth… that’s not a business. I’ve seen money laundering fronts with better finances.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 11 October, 2022, 08:02:29 pm
https://what3words.com/money.laundering.down
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 11 October, 2022, 08:04:59 pm
https://what3words.com/worse.performance.ever
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 11 October, 2022, 10:30:05 pm
At that rate of loss, there is a very aptly encoded location not 10 miles from where I sit.  https://w3w.co/money.soon.goes (https://w3w.co/money.soon.goes)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2022, 10:42:00 pm
So, it was always about raising investor capital, rather than providing a useful service?  Shocking.
Such cynicism in one so young absorption of 'the market' in one so middle-aged.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2022, 06:56:39 pm
Not w3w, but more widely on creating a digital address system:
Quote
Ghana presents one such example. The country launched a smart initiative in 2017: a digital system to give every urban property an address. It’s a phone-based application which is designed to locate features anywhere in Ghana. The address is presented in alpha-numeric format (such as EY-0329-2478) and shows details such as the region and the metropolitan, municipal and district authority. It also shows the street name of the feature (a house or church, for example) and displays its coordinates.

Individuals can generate their own address and sometimes officials visit a property, generate the digital address for that property and supply the occupants with a tag, or physical label, to affix to the property.
https://theconversation.com/ghana-digitised-its-address-system-its-failure-offers-lessons-to-other-african-countries-creating-smart-cities-194454
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 December, 2022, 07:50:59 pm
Quote
Walkers in the UK have been warned not to rely on smartphones to find their way on hills and mountains, and instead learn to use a map and compass, amid an increase in calls to rescue services.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/27/walkers-upland-britain-told-not-rely-on-smartphones-rescuers-compass-maps
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 27 December, 2022, 11:02:31 pm
Quote
Walkers in the UK have been warned not to rely on smartphones to find their way on hills and mountains, and instead learn to use a map and compass, amid an increase in calls to rescue services.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/27/walkers-upland-britain-told-not-rely-on-smartphones-rescuers-compass-maps

I suspect the actual problem is ignorance of how to use a map, regardless of its medium.  But that's a fairly subtle distinction that the intended audience (who are no doubt using the online version of Google Maps or something daft, and being insufficiently careful about batteries) won't appreciate, so fair enough.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 June, 2023, 06:53:02 pm
Some friends of mine were up in the hills in Scotland last week and had cause to call 999. Initially they were asked for a w3w string which confused them somewhat. They offered a 6 figure map reference which then confused the call handler as it only had 6 figures...

Having got the call hadler to understand that a 6 figure map reference has 6 figures, they were then told "oh it's ok, we've got your position from your phone", presumably AML was working after all.
Amulance found them at the place they said they'd meet it.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 20 June, 2023, 08:03:15 pm
Some friends of mine were up in the hills in Scotland last week and had cause to call 999. Initially they were asked for a w3w string which confused them somewhat. They offered a 6 figure map reference which then confused the call handler as it only had 6 figures...

Perhaps the system needed to know which map square it was in and was expecting the two-letter prefix that a human would know automatically on account of which hills were being discussed?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 June, 2023, 08:04:08 pm
I think the practice now is to give OS grid refs to 8 figs. Another case of spurious precision, usually.

The whole experience sounds like what3fails. But at least it ended up with meeting the ambulance. Hope the injured person was okay...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: DaveReading on 20 June, 2023, 10:48:22 pm
I think the practice now is to give OS grid refs to 8 figs. Another case of spurious precision, usually.

8 digits (i.e. the 4 most significant digits of the northing and easting) would give both to the nearest 100 metres.  That doesn't sound like "spurious precision" to me.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 June, 2023, 11:13:43 pm
I think the practice now is to give OS grid refs to 8 figs. Another case of spurious precision, usually.

8 digits (i.e. the 4 most significant digits of the northing and easting) would give both to the nearest 100 metres.  That doesn't sound like "spurious precision" to me.

<egg sucking lesson>
It looks like there's  two understandings of 8 figure map reference. I think Cudzo means 6 figure (100m) precision then precision down to 10m. However the vanilla 6 figure map reference repeats every 100km(?), which is less than ideal if you're looking to be rescued. The statement can be qualified: "I'm halfway up Ben wotsit, grid ref 987654."

8 figure references as you describe are unique.  Presumably the first significant figure of the Easting and Northing does the job of the two letter square reference.
I don't think 8 figure references or two letter squares are taught enough.  (Makes note to see how much the Scouts will understand)
</egg sucking lesson>
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Pingu on 20 June, 2023, 11:55:27 pm
You need the letters at the beginning of the NGR.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 21 June, 2023, 12:19:52 am
8 figure references as you describe are unique.  Presumably the first significant figure of the Easting and Northing does the job of the two letter square reference.

Indeed.  Presumably on the basis that it makes the ingestion of the coordinates by Babbage-engines a bit less fraught and prone to fuckups, which is a worthy goal in any coordinate system.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 08:22:05 am
I think the practice now is to give OS grid refs to 8 figs. Another case of spurious precision, usually.

8 digits (i.e. the 4 most significant digits of the northing and easting) would give both to the nearest 100 metres.  That doesn't sound like "spurious precision" to me.

<egg sucking lesson>
It looks like there's  two understandings of 8 figure map reference. I think Cudzo means 6 figure (100m) precision then precision down to 10m.
I did.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: DaveReading on 21 June, 2023, 08:28:30 am
You need the letters at the beginning of the NGR.

Uniqueness requires either the 100 km grid square letter, or the corresponding numbers (0 to 6 for eastings, 0 to 12 for northings).

(https://www.derbyshireramblers.org.uk/images/derbyimages/natgrid.gif)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 21 June, 2023, 10:23:07 am
Some friends of mine were up in the hills in Scotland last week and had cause to call 999. Initially they were asked for a w3w string which confused them somewhat. They offered a 6 figure map reference which then confused the call handler as it only had 6 figures...

Perhaps the system needed to know which map square it was in and was expecting the two-letter prefix that a human would know automatically on account of which hills were being discussed?

Well the human might know, and on the blue first series you certainly would because that was how you knew the map.  SK08 etc. Someone with a modern map of the Peak District might know how to find their current grid ref on map but not realise there is a two letter prefix.  Plus some maps cross through 00 and thus letters in their grid refs.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 21 June, 2023, 11:45:53 am
Yes, there can be some confusion around OSGB co-ordinates.

Eg the summit of Ben Macdui is at WGS84: 57.070419, -3.669233

Looking at an OS Map, using traditional 6-fig grid ref it is at NN988989
This grid ref has a 100m x 100m resolution, which is useful enough for paper maps.

Some co-ordinate conversion tools will convert the WGS84 to OSGB as 298891, 798948
The leading 2 and 7 define the NN 100k grid, per the picture above.
The additional 2 digits at the end (xxxx91, xxxx89) increase the resolution down to 1m x 1m, which is in the same order of magnitude as typical GPS accuracy ( say 3 to 5 m with a good sky view ).

The confusion with OSGB co-ords lies in whether the initial digit is the 100k square designator, or if it's the start of a higher-resolution co-ordinate within the 100k square.

My basic rule-of -thumb is:
If there are 6 digits, it's a traditional 100m x 100m resolution, and the 100k designator is required.
If there are 8 digits, it's *probably* a 10m x 10m resolution, 100k designator required.
If there are 10 digits, it's *probably* a 1m x 1m resolution, 100k designator required.
If there 12 digits, it's a 1m x 1m resolution, and the leading digits fully qualify the 100km square.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 11:58:23 am
Yes, there can be some confusion around OSGB co-ordinates.

Eg the summit of Ben Macdui is at WGS84: 57.070419, -3.669233

Looking at an OS Map, using traditional 6-fig grid ref it is at NN988989
This grid ref has a 100m x 100m resolution, which is useful enough for paper maps.

Some co-ordinate conversion tools will convert the WGS84 to OSGB as 298891, 798948
The leading 2 and 7 define the NN 100k grid, per the picture above.
The additional 2 digits at the end (xxxx91, xxxx89) increase the resolution down to 1m x 1m, which is in the same order of magnitude as typical GPS accuracy ( say 3 to 5 m with a good sky view ).

The confusion with OSGB co-ords lies in whether the initial digit is the 100k square designator, or if it's the start of a higher-resolution co-ordinate within the 100k square.
Useful post.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 21 June, 2023, 12:02:21 pm
The confusion with OSGB co-ords lies in whether the initial digit is the 100k square designator, or if it's the start of a higher-resolution co-ordinate within the 100k square.

Which is a strong argument for not using the numerical version.

If I were talking to a human with an OS map, I'd use a traditional 6-figure grid ref, perhaps including the letter prefix for clarity.

If I were talking to a computer (which in this context means someone who doesn't understand maps mindlessly plugging coordinates into something that will plot a location on a map) I'd use WGS84 with decimal degrees, and when they didn't understand that I'd probably try to find them a W3W address or a postcode, because if you can't cope with entering WGS84 coordinates an OS grid reference (in any form) is unlikely to add clarity to the situation.

(Degrees, minutes, seconds can get in the sea, where it belongs.)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 12:07:08 pm
Six figures plus letters is the format used by the OS Locate app.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 21 June, 2023, 12:23:18 pm
Six figures plus letters is the format used by the OS Locate app.

My eTrex gives the letters plus 5 digits of precision (which is entirely reasonable for a GPS receiver).  It tends to display coordinates on two lines, like so:

SP 07036
BNG 86639


So that it's clear where the easting ends and the northing begins, which makes it easy to drop digits when reading them out.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 21 June, 2023, 12:26:54 pm
Six figures plus letters is the format used by the OS Locate app.
You can set it to 8 or 10 figures if you want. And if you use the "share" button, it defaults to 10 figures anyway.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 21 June, 2023, 12:30:12 pm
My Suunto watch which I wear in the hills gives letters and then 5 digits each for E and N, to a total of 10 digits.
That's a resolution which is consistent with GPS accuracy.
The letters make it un-ambiguous.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 12:33:15 pm
Six figures plus letters is the format used by the OS Locate app.
You can set it to 8 or 10 figures if you want. And if you use the "share" button, it defaults to 10 figures anyway.
Gosh! Had a poke around and so it does. Also lat/long if preferred. All cunningly hidden under the 'About' button.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 11 July, 2023, 11:18:55 pm
Just seen an advert from the OS. Is this a consequence of the money thrown at W3W…?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: L CC on 12 July, 2023, 08:39:17 am
Just seen an advert from the OS. Is this a consequence of the money thrown at W3W…?
It is a consequence of their new marketing team.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 12 July, 2023, 10:26:03 am
Just seen an advert from the OS. Is this a consequence of the money thrown at W3W…?
It is a consequence of their new marketing team.

Ah, that’s something I hadn’t realised. The sleeping lion awakes?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: L CC on 12 July, 2023, 10:30:13 am
It's an unrivalled national resource.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 19 July, 2023, 10:42:26 pm
I might make a few discrete enquiries when I next speak with an appropriate person  and see if they are able to shed any light.

Well, I struck lucky with my first enquiry.  The answers I got were :

  • AML is working and we can access the endpoint and extract the data
  • Our existing control room system integrates with the AML endpoint
  • The installation of our existing control room system has, right from day 1 been subject to crashes, freezes and go slows.  The reasons behind this have never been successfully dealt with.  There are a number of functions that the service would like to turn on but whenever they try, the system threatens to fall over so they remain inactive despite the fact that they would be extremely valuable to us.
  • The requirements for the new system included the proven ability to implement AML.

I was aware that another important function promised with this system back on 2014 had never materialised but wasn’t aware that multiple bits of functionality had been affected.  No doubt incredibly frustrating for those involved and for frontline staff and imho a complete shambles that has dragged on far too long.   Surely the nettle should have been grasped long ago and if a fix couldn’t be found then a new solution should have been sought?  Or is that a naive viewpoint?

Just as an aside, I checked the current marketing brochure of the system we currently use and no mention of AML integration but it does bring the prospective purchaser’s attention to “ What3Words integration for location finding”.

Somewhere way up thread, I promised an update on this so….

Our new control / mobilisation system is now up and running as of last month.  I attended a fire yesterday and on return to the station, I had reason to drill into the incident log within the new system to find some timings on when I sent various messages etc.  In doing so, I came across the AML entries so it clearly works and on the very limited evidence of a single incident, it is both fast and accurate. 

The first entry has given a low confidence initial location to the system before the call has even been transferred from the BT 999 centre to our Control Operator, something like 3 seconds into the 999 call.  It says low confidence but the GPS coordinates were well within 100m of the actual location. 

A second, higher confidence, location is received within 20 seconds of the call starting and that gave a location close enough that I would say it was where the caller was stood when they made the call.

My only issue now is that the postal address this gps coordinate was converted to was inaccurate by a good 5 miles.  Not sure if this was due to an incorrect address given by the caller or whether the system somehow assigned a wrong address but fortunately the attending resources were chosen based on the gps coordinates.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 20 July, 2023, 12:50:00 am
That's good to hear.  Apart from the postal address thing.  TBH, converting map coordinates to postal addresses is always going to be a bit sketchy, so I'd hope the system wasn't doing that automatically, and was merely passing through something reported by the caller.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 20 July, 2023, 07:59:48 am
My only issue now is that the postal address this gps coordinate was converted to was inaccurate by a good 5 miles.  Not sure if this was due to an incorrect address given by the caller or whether the system somehow assigned an wrong address but fortunately the attending resources were chosen based on the gps coordinates.

W3W also suffers from this, so I think that the problem is in the mapping of locations to postal addresses.

I've been given w3w location codes for a place that were over a mile out; checking on google maps, the w3w location matched the location that google maps had for the place. In other words, the google maps location was incorrect. I suspect (but have no proof), that if you search for a place in w3w (e.g. joan's diner in settle), then w3w uses google maps to find a location and then calculates the code from that.

Similarly, if you take a w3w location code and try to match it to a location, it is picking a 'registered place' in google maps nearby. That is dangerous if used by emergency services.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: rr on 20 July, 2023, 09:08:18 am
The best way to locate an address is via the royal mail website, they, at least in theory, know the location of every delivery point in the UK.
I suspect this is one of their most valuable assets so I imagine automated access to it is expensive.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 20 July, 2023, 09:36:59 am
That’s fine for properties, but problematic for roads, fields and mountains. Etc.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JellyLegs on 20 July, 2023, 11:03:32 pm
My only issue now is that the postal address this gps coordinate was converted to was inaccurate by a good 5 miles.  Not sure if this was due to an incorrect address given by the caller or whether the system somehow assigned an wrong address but fortunately the attending resources were chosen based on the gps coordinates.

W3W also suffers from this, so I think that the problem is in the mapping of locations to postal addresses.

Now you may have something there.  The AML location was translated to both a postal address and a W3W code and all 3 were presented to me.   I ignored the W3W code as I had a good lat long from the gps which had been mapped for me so why add an extra round trip to W3W just to get back what I already knew?  My presumption was that the lat long had been converted to W3W and separately gps lat long incorrectly converted to an address of sorts.  I now wonder whether the conversion process was gps to W3W and then that W3W to incorrect address.  I do hope not!  I will attempt to make some further enquiries.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 July, 2023, 11:33:49 pm
JellyLegs, this is really interesting useful stuff. Thanks.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: grams on 31 July, 2023, 11:15:58 am
FT deep dive into W3W's finances:
https://archive.ph/rWK12

TL;DR: Their income is a fraction of annual spending and the author thinks the numbers point to a "precarious cash position" - i.e. about to run out of money, short of something unexpected (or firing all of their staff).
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 31 July, 2023, 12:59:05 pm
How completely unsurprising.  Not just because everything seems to succumb to Finance these days, but the entire concept seemed designed to appeal to investors more than end-users.  (Parts of the world that lack formal postal addresses always seemed like the least-flawed use-case, but that's unlikely to be lucrative.)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 31 July, 2023, 06:55:09 pm
What 3 weeks?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2023, 07:50:26 pm
Well there presumably isn't much money in Mongolian deliveroo, but if Rio Tinto used it at Oyu Tolgoi? They need a version that works underground... and think of the cave rescue potential!
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Feanor on 31 July, 2023, 08:54:17 pm
They need a version that works underground... and think of the cave rescue potential!

Does it? How?

I thought it was just a proprietary method of encoding an existing GPS lat/long into words because people are too stupid to type the numbers.

Still requires a GPS lat/long in the first instance.

Or have I misunderstood what.this.thing does?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2023, 09:02:47 pm
They need a version that works underground... and think of the cave rescue potential!

Does it? How?

I thought it was just a proprietary method of encoding an existing GPS lat/long into words because people are too stupid to type the numbers.

Still requires a GPS lat/long in the first instance.

Or have I misunderstood what.this.thing does?
I'm sure it doesn't work underground, because as you say, it needs to sight GPS satellites. It was just a poor attempt at humour, because when w3w started up, their use case was deliveries in address-less Mongolian nomadice settlements; I was saying there's not much money in that, but if they could get a big business using it... (Oyu Tolgoi is a huge copper mine in Mongolia run by Rio Tinto)
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: L CC on 01 August, 2023, 10:16:48 am
When talking scathingly to No1Daughter about this yesterday she said it was great for them at Eastern Concrete because you couldn't rely on the doofus at the corner of the field having an address or enough nous to share a series of numbers. I explained that you don't need the numbers, the smartphone shares them. But she pointed out that the concrete truck despatch & planning would need to have software that decoded the message for the doofus driving the concrete truck. I asked if the business had paid for software to use what 3 words and she said no, she used her phone. Which is another reason they haven't made money, businesses who use it don't pay for it.

I asked what they'd used before W3W and the answer was doofus had to phone and talk to driver doofus and give directions.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 01 August, 2023, 10:22:03 am
When talking scathingly to No1Daughter about this yesterday she said it was great for them at Eastern Concrete because you couldn't rely on the doofus at the corner of the field having an address or enough nous to share a series of numbers. I explained that you don't need the numbers, the smartphone shares them. But she pointed out that the concrete truck despatch & planning would need to have software that decoded the message for the doofus driving the concrete truck. I asked if the business had paid for software to use what 3 words and she said no, she used her phone. Which is another reason they haven't made money, businesses who use it don't pay for it.

I asked what they'd used before W3W and the answer was doofus had to phone and talk to driver doofus and give directions.
So now they pump a w3w location into the app, get routing via google, and drive a concrete lorry over a bridge with a 3 ton weight restriction.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 01 August, 2023, 10:22:59 am
It really is a problem looking for a problem.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: andrew_s on 02 September, 2023, 12:44:39 pm
That's good to hear.  Apart from the postal address thing.  TBH, converting map coordinates to postal addresses is always going to be a bit sketchy, so I'd hope the system wasn't doing that automatically, and was merely passing through something reported by the caller.
It would be simple enough for a fire service or other similar body to set up. They are PSGA members, so have access to the full national address gazetteer. Either download the data for the area (updated every 6 weeks) or use the API (https://osdatahub.os.uk/docs/places/gettingStarted).

The only awkwardness would be when the closest address location was the other side of a railway line, motorway or river.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Afasoas on 25 September, 2023, 10:42:26 pm
Main bug bear with W3W (proprietary nature aside) is word length.

For some places, it's a lot of characters to exchange phonetically, which in a situation where communications are a compromise (national disaster/large scale emergency), phonetics are important. Especially as misunderstanding two similar sound words can put you in a completely different location to the one you mean.

The other, perhaps slightly less important concern, is relaying W3W locations between speakers of different languages. I undersand W3W is available in 50 different languages but that doesn't necessarily resolve the issue.

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 25 September, 2023, 11:38:33 pm
necessarily resolve the issue.

resolve.the.issue doesn't work. You need

resolve.they.issue
resolve.them.issue
or
resolve.then.issue

Easily memorable and no problem telling an operator where you are in a crisis...
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 25 September, 2023, 11:49:53 pm
Main bug bear with W3W (proprietary nature aside) is word length.

For some places, it's a lot of characters to exchange phonetically, which in a situation where communications are a compromise (national disaster/large scale emergency), phonetics are important.

If you're exchanging characters phonetically, wouldn't it be simpler to just use numerical coordinates, with a bit of 'fife' and 'niner' to taste?

(Yes, of course it would.)

Anyway, I'm waiting for someone to come up with a cursed W3W-ified version of GPX files, for when 32-bit floats just aren't bloaty enough...   :demon:
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: lissotriton on 26 September, 2023, 01:49:40 am
The other, perhaps slightly less important concern, is relaying W3W locations between speakers of different languages. I undersand W3W is available in 50 different languages but that doesn't necessarily resolve the issue.
Yes, W3W is available in a variety of languages. But that's not much use if you want to share your location with someone using it in a different language. And doing a word for word translation would give you a completely different location.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: SoreTween on 05 October, 2023, 12:13:39 am
Wow, it's a pile of steaming shite isn't it?  Tried to use it tonight to report a fixthathole.  Great idea, great implementation of the grid but the human wank-stains running it really need a life.  FFS, I find a spot on the map through their web shite and I can't even copy the text three words of the location to pass on.  Click here to create an account.  Click here to provide your credit card details, DoB, address, shoe size & grandparents maiden names.  Monetization appears to be the 1st goal, 2nd goal, 3rd goal and every goal down to infinity.  I hope it implodes when the vulture capital runs out.

There's probably a blocker add on for firefox that would block the blocker script that's blocking me copying the three words.  But really, I'd rather sit & laugh while they burn & use OS grid or Lat/Long.

Twats.

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 05 October, 2023, 12:39:07 am
To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JonBuoy on 05 October, 2023, 06:58:40 am
Wow, it's a pile of steaming shite isn't it?  Tried to use it tonight to report a fixthathole.  Great idea, great implementation of the grid but the human wank-stains running it really need a life.  FFS, I find a spot on the map through their web shite and I can't even copy the text three words of the location to pass on.  Click here to create an account.  Click here to provide your credit card details, DoB, address, shoe size & grandparents maiden names.  Monetization appears to be the 1st goal, 2nd goal, 3rd goal and every goal down to infinity.  I hope it implodes when the vulture capital runs out.

There's probably a blocker add on for firefox that would block the blocker script that's blocking me copying the three words.  But really, I'd rather sit & laugh while they burn & use OS grid or Lat/Long.

Twats.

Did you try clicking the copy button that they have conveniently placed alongside the three words?
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: JonBuoy on 05 October, 2023, 07:03:43 am
To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

In FillThatHole you can indeed click a point on the map and it does indeed place a marker there and store its location in the report.  Whether the hole gets sorted is another matter entirely.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: SoreTween on 05 October, 2023, 07:44:30 am
Did you try clicking the copy button that they have conveniently placed alongside the three words?
Ah.  Er, no.  :facepalm:  The symbol is of course obvious now.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: SoreTween on 05 October, 2023, 07:49:40 am
To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.

In FillThatHole you can indeed click a point on the map and it does indeed place a marker there and store its location in the report.  Whether the hole gets sorted is another matter entirely.
You can indeed click on the map to place a marker but it doesn't give you the coordinates.  There is also a text box where you are asked to describe the location beneath which:
Quote
Please assume that the authority is unable to view the map above, and only has this description to find the hazard. Ideally specify the placename, road name, and nearby house number.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 November, 2023, 03:56:18 pm
In Radcliffe on Trent there is a BP Pulse electric car charging point whose What Three Words address is bottom.flinch.exits
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: slope on 29 November, 2023, 04:16:39 pm
From walkingworld.com November 2023 newsletter

Quote
Locating yourself in an emergency.

A story did the rounds earlier this month that Ordnance Survey was discontinuing the OS Locate app for Android phones. Search and rescue teams have long recommended OS Locate for finding and reporting your position in an emergency. It has the advantage of giving the location in the standard OS Grid Reference format, so there's no need to do any 'translation' from another format.

OS Locate also takes the position directly from the GPS in the phone, rather than from the centre of the map on the screen. Other apps, including the widely promoted What3Words, can misreport your position if you accidentally shift the map, easily enough done in a downpour and under stressful circumstances. There have been several cases of rescue teams looking for casualties several kilometres away from the actual location and this is very likely the cause.

Fortunately OS Locate seems to have got a reprieve and is still available on the Google app store as well as on the Apple store. It might be a good time to install it. It's free and takes up very little space. You may want to go to Settings in the app and set the grid reference format to 8 or 10 figures, so you can report your location to 10 or even 1 square metre.

Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 29 November, 2023, 11:49:48 pm
There's a numpty post on our local FaceAche "Town: Cross Person, Wrongly Delivered Parcel, Missing Cat Reporting, Don't Report to Council but Post Here Service" which suggests that you add the W3W thing to your address details.

So your package gets delivered to a 1m sq block of sea 500 miles from Jakarta, on account of the Evri operator doing a one letter oops.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 29 January, 2024, 07:30:03 pm
From the department of irony:

https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2019-2439

Quote
Complainant contends that the disputed domain name [whatfreewords.net] is confusingly similar to Complainant’s distinctive WHATTHREEWORDS trademark as the disputed domain name is aurally and visually similar to the WHATTHREEWORDS mark. In that regard, Complainant further contends that the terms “three” and “free” are phonetically identical and indistinguishable when enunciated.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2024, 02:05:31 pm
Next up, WHATTREEWORDS, a geolocation system using tree species found in Ireland and Jamaica.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: ravenbait on 30 January, 2024, 03:06:50 pm
To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.
My employer's Report A Thing service converts the map point into latitude and longitude, which is supplied to the relevant persons.

Sam
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 30 January, 2024, 06:12:21 pm
Every time this thread pings I click in, wondering if they have gone bust.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Lightning Phil on 30 January, 2024, 07:35:12 pm
https://NO.MORE.WONGA
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Kim on 30 January, 2024, 11:47:01 pm
To be fair, if you're finding a spot on the map, you ought to be able to click on the one on the PotholeMan3000 FillThatHole website and have it automagically convert that into whatever internal coordinate representation it uses without you having to care about coordinates of any kind.

Prior experience of reporting water leaks suggests this is me being wholly unrealistic.
My employer's Report A Thing service converts the map point into latitude and longitude, which is supplied to the relevant persons.

To be fair, I don't think it was the coordinates themselves that were the problem.  I suspect that the underlying Report-O-Matic issue is either:

a) The coordinates are faithfully stored in the database, and then ignored when it comes to creating a job for the Big Hole Gang to go and investigate the leak.

or

2) The coordinates are supplied to the Big Hole Gang in some useful-to-them format, but so is the [not necessarily a] customer's address, and like Hearing people in the presence of a telephone number, they just can't help themselves and rush straight there without reading the rest of the report.


Either way, your employer may well be more competent than Severn Trent.
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Jaded on 31 January, 2024, 12:27:39 am
Oh.

still.not.bust
Title: Re: what 3 words
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2024, 10:07:53 am
///send.remittance.please///