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Comment by cdirkx | Hacker News Reader

A couple of years ago I visited a startup which also tried mapping worldwide coordinates, what3words [1]. They map 3x3m squares to a combination of three words (language customizable). For example: the Eifel tower would be at combos.cove.split. They had some clever tricks for mapping short memorable words to densly populated areas and longer ones to the middle of the ocean. Their aim was similar, to enable talking about a place without the existing infrastructure of adresses and streetnames and for example make it possible to deliver mail in slums.

[1] www.what3words.com

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what3words is terrible technology, and also proprietary.

Quick, what direction do you go to get from combos.cove.split to reindeer.steak.rules? I made up the second address, but it highlights how completely useless what3words is for directions.

Worse than useless.

Quick, what direction do you go to get from 123 Main Street to 456 Birch Street?

Quick, what direction do you go to get from 12.34567N, 12.34567W to 56.43210N, 23.87654E?

Not being able to immediately determine direction between 2 addresses isn't a failing.

> Quick, what direction do you go to get from 12.34567N, 12.34567W to 56.43210N, 23.87654E?

It's a pretty simple piece of math.

Navigating on a sphere can be counterintuitive[0] (not a problem street to street in practice, but the coordinates given by GP were far enough apart to possibly exhibit the issue).

[0]: https://www.greatcirclemapper.net/en/great-circle-mapper.htm...

It's a shame that google didn't go with this approach, although I assume it's because of the lack of portability between all the languages in that area. Maybe what3words should pivot into what3emoji.

Good point about the portability and the emojis idea is clever, but I think the main purpose was to be able to speak then easily.

Our WiFi network name has been our what3words for over a year now since my housemate set it. I'm not sure what their business model is, since this is the first I've heard of them since that.

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