I remember they pitched Mongolia as a place this would be used, but I fail to see how it actually would be. I haven't been back to Mongolia since this came out, but I would bet good money that no one (besides whatever government entity signed onto (bribed/schmoozed) the project) would use this. English isn't that common among nomads that it would make any sense. Everyone knows the Latin alphabet, but reading and writing is all in Mongolian Cyrillic, so it doesn't even make sense that way.

In the cities (where the large majority of the population lives) in the organized ger districts, there are street names and numbers, so this is really a solution in search of a problem.

Not necessarily. While Ulaanbaatar does have street numbers and such, they're not well-known and are basically never used when giving out directions/advertising. It's more like: The "yellow building to the right side of the big department store". Official addresses also rarely use street names, it's more like: Flat #5, Apartment #2, Microdistrict #4, Sukhbaatar District.

So in reality everyone just uses Post Office Boxes for mail, who often just call you and say mail's arrived and charge 400 tugrug.

That said, no-one I know has even heard about what3words, aside from those who read the initial press release. And I'm from Mongolia.

Hey, weird ask, but I am going to be visiting Mongolia in 3 months with a small group of online pals. Want to be friends? My email is on my profile!

It is localized to other languages, as explained in the article.

One of the complaints in the article is that the different localizations offer uneven quality.

> One of the complaints in the article is that the different localizations offer uneven quality.

And there's no publicly documented way to convert between the localizations. It's not even clear that there's a 1:1 correspondence between the word lists!

It's clear in the article that the lists don't map so you can't even translate between them without going back to W3W and running it through their stuff.

> So, if I want to tell a French speaker where ///mile.crazy.shade is, I have to use ///embouchure.adjuger.saladier

> Loosely translated back as ///mouth.award.bowl an entirely different location!

It's no great surprise that the words don't translate. But what I'm asking is it's possible to infer a word-to-word mapping along the lines of

    English   French
    -------   ------
       mile = embouchure
      crazy = adjuger
      shade = saladier

or if the mapping is weird enough that even that doesn't work.

Just checked that by changing last phrase in Polish, than changing language to English. It doesn't work:

"plomba.rewelacja.oczy" => "exclaim.mainland.engages"

"plomba.rewelacja.fasada" => "dare.lawn.sleepy"

What Three Words has a couple YouTube videos about Mongol Post's usage of W3W addresses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3foOLQwS4

Thank you. I know you weren't arguing. And it wasn't rhetorical - I really did want to know who uses it because I've never heard of it.

Thanks for the info.

Wouldn't it be a lot better to do the following:

  * Realize that things like 'SSN's are being used as social identifiers and actually just issue them.
  * Allow legal entities to authenticate and update their preferred physical address
    In ONE place (so I NEVER have to update billing addresses again!)
    (maybe even for different kinds of data-packets)
  * Make it possible to mail to someone's identity (as the address), BUT
    you first have to authenticate as a legal entity
    (person or registered organization / business)
    that authentication data is hard coded on to the envelope.

This way if someone is abusively sending things they can be targeted by a class action suit/etc.

I wish we would make it possible in the US to use an email address as an address for purposes of things like having a bank account and pick up things like debit cards in person from any branch of that bank if you are traveling, homeless, whatever.

I rarely get any important physical mail these days. But I still run into issues over address problems (ironically, more now that I am back in housing than I ever did while homeless: https://writepay.blogspot.com/2019/02/mailing-address-drama....).

My life is mostly online. I was a military wife for a lot of years and moved around a lot. Lots of people have very physically mobile lives these days.

Yet, we haven't adapted our systems to this reality. We want to tie everyone to a physical address for a long list of things, as if we are plants who can't move from this one location or something.

I don't know what the answer is, but, wow, I sure wish we would come up with better answers than acting like this is still the 1950s and everyone will work for the same company and live in the same house for decades and we can each be found in some particular location all the time.

I wonder if this will be the future of the USPS Online Mailing thing where you get pictures of your mail...

Just register with an email, things are autoscanned and sent to you with a PGP key you provide.

That would be convenient, but it won't happen.

What you will get is a web application you get to sign into to actually get your mail, and you will receive a notification mail in your regular email inbox stating that you have received mail (but not from whom, or what the subject is, because that is privacy sensitive information), so that you know that you should go and get it yourself via the web application.

This is what every digital 'inbox' that isn't email has done thus far. This is in fact exactly what the Dutch government has done with their digital inbox which is intended to replace physical letters from services like the revenue service and municipalities. Thankfully that monstrosity is optional (for now).

The USPS already offers a service that will scan and email the outside of your mail, so you at least can usually see who it is from.

In Australia you can get a PO Box and pay a bit extra to have everything coming there scanned and emailed to you. Obviously wouldn't work for id cards though.

I actually had a virtual mailbox for a while. I don't currently, in part because I am in housing, in part because I'm chronically short of funds.

But maybe I should get one again at some point. Maybe that would help with some of mail/address issues.

Number two sounds like DNS for physical locations.

Wait, you can favorite comments on HN? How?

Click on the timestamp of the comment. It will give you additional options, including "favorite."

Upvotes will privately bookmark things you like. Favorites are public.

I use them occasionally to actually have some hope of finding something again. But if you don't want people to know, then don't use "favorite."