Jump to content

A business using its coordinates with its address.


Guest cache_only

Recommended Posts

Guest cache_only

As a follow-up to the Top 10 list...

 

Seriously, don't you wish businesses would publish their coordinates in the Yellow Pages?

 

Will the use of GPS and coordinates one day supplant driving directions, possibly even street addresses: You're thumbing through the Yellow Pages and you see an ad. You want to visit this business. You simply enter the published coordinates in your GPS and away you go.

 

I realize I can type an address and get driving directions from the web, but I'm referring to using a GPS as my only navigational aid, disregarding street signs and such.

 

Rob

Link to comment
Guest jeremy

More preferable would be a bar code for each listing that you could scan with your GPS. More efficient and less prone to error. The bar code would just be the coordinates so you're not being tracked (like the Cue|cat)

 

Jeremy

Link to comment
Guest CaptHawke

OTE>

 

Seriously, Rob, no.

 

For me, coordinates, latitude and longitude, are a theoretical construct developed by cartographers in order to lay a grid on a globe or map. They do not exist in reality. I have never seen a line of latitude. I have seen buildings with numbers on them, lining named streets. N 28.8975 W 77.0365 (NAD27) is realy just a set of numbers representing a place. Not an actual place.

 

On the other hand, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA actually does exist. The USA is real, so is Washington and Pennsylvania Avenue. It is an identification system based on real physical objects. The numbers and words have meaning in the world, not just the on maps or in the mind of cartographers.

For example: I could start in New Dehli, ask a man on the street how to get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA. He would tell me I had to get a plane to the USA and point me to a taxi stand. The Indian taxi driver could get me to the local airport. The airline ticket clerk could book a flight to Dulles International. A DC cabbie would take me to the White House. All without a single map, much less a GPS. No billion dollar satellites needed. No batteries! How simple.

 

If I want to locate an unnamed piece of dirt out in the woods, then I'll whip out my GPS. Even then, it can't tell me the best way to get there, only a straight line bearing that may lead me over a cliff, so I'll grab my map and compass too. The appropiate tools for the given task.

 

I believe I haven't really mastered a new technology until I know where the OFF switch is and when I should press it.

Link to comment
Guest JIntorcio

Actually, I think it has already evolved the other way. Take a GPS with a street database, enter the address and off you go. Some would even allow you to look up a business name or by category, like the yellow pages, and then lead you there. Why introduce Lat/Long when the already familiar less techno-intimidating street address works fine? Let the machine worry about the details!

 

------------------

>>> John <<<

Link to comment
Guest Scout

quote:
Originally posted by JIntorcio:

Why introduce Lat/Long when the already familiar less techno-intimidating street address works fine? Let the machine worry about the details!


 

Street addresses do not work all that well. I always wonder why the computed location of so many addresses in online mapping sites seems to be off by a half block or more.

 

It's much worse in places like Japan, where street addresses are often not consecutive. Trying to navigate can be quite an adventure, even for taxi drivers. Japanese drivers were early adopters of GPS navigation systems in cars and no wonder.

 

In a related aside, I've always wondered why we still put the street address, city and state on snail mail, if you already know the ZIP+4 code? Isn't that enough to get the mail right to the building? Has anyone heard of any movement by GPS manufacturers to accept a ZIP+4 code?

 

[This message has been edited by Scout (edited 11 June 2001).]

Link to comment
Guest ClayJar

I really like street addresses for the fact that they give me canonical evidence that I am in the right location (as has been stated). I also truly love coordinates, since they tell me exactly where I should be looking for that street address.

 

As long as there is a reliable way for me to get coordinates from street addresses, I'll be exceedingly content. Of course, I could find an address without its coordinates (when you work in a school system with over 100 distinct locations, you'd better get good at it, and quickly), but if I'm going to a strange place, I'll sometimes take the address and go for the coordinates to augment it.

 

Of course, if it's a rural area, you can take your address and stew it in a bowl of chili for all I care. When there are only a few buildings per mile, at most, and only a tiny number have visible addresses, knowing the coordinates is wonderful. (In the rural case, addresses are, in effect, just as arbitrary as coordinates, but coordinates are far more predicatable.)

 

Ed. Note: By the way, the first thing that came to mind when I was reading this thread is that it would fit perfectly in the YKYBGTMW thread.

 

[This message has been edited by ClayJar (edited 11 June 2001).]

Link to comment
Guest cache_only
Originally posted by CaptHawke:

For me, coordinates, latitude and longitude, are a theoretical construct developed by cartographers in order to lay a grid on a globe or map. They do not exist in reality.

 

Yes. I realize this. But this theoretical system is what enables the United States Armed Forces to deploy anywhere in the world. When we invade a country, do you think we call its emb***y and ask for the street names of airport and drop zone locations beforehand? Military objectives are always given in MGRS coordinates. Street addresses, where applicable, are given only as supplemental data.

 

"Hello, Minister Rodriguez. This is Secretary Powell. Listen: We're about to invade your nation. You know the large airport you have in the south of your country...what's the name of the street it's on? Thanks. And the address? Hey, thanks a million. Man, I sure appreciate it because you guys must have changed the name of the street. Whew! We need to update these maps. You sure are a good sport." rolleyes.gif

 

Rob

 

Wow! Look at what the profanity filter did to M-ba-see.

 

[This message has been edited by cache_only (edited 11 June 2001).]

Link to comment
Guest cache_only

quote:
Originally posted by jeremy:

More preferable would be a bar code for each listing that you could scan with your GPS. More efficient and less prone to error. The bar code would just be the coordinates so you're not being tracked (like the Cue|cat)

 

Jeremy


 

Not a bad idea, but I'm left handed. I would probably scan the government barcode embedded in my right hand by accident and end up with directions to myself. icon_biggrin.gif

 

Take care, sir.

Rob

Link to comment
Guest cache_only

quote:
Originally posted by jeremy:

More preferable would be a bar code for each listing that you could scan with your GPS. More efficient and less prone to error. The bar code would just be the coordinates so you're not being tracked (like the Cue|cat)

 

Jeremy


 

Not a bad idea, but I'm left handed. I would probably scan the government barcode embedded in my right hand by accident and end up with directions to myself. icon_biggrin.gif

 

Take care, sir.

Rob

Link to comment
Guest CaptHawke

quote:
Originally posted by cache_only:
Originally posted by CaptHawke:

For me, coordinates, latitude and longitude, are a theoretical construct developed by cartographers in order to lay a grid on a globe or map. They do not exist in reality.

 

Yes. I realize this. But this theoretical system is what enables the United States Armed Forces to deploy anywhere in the world. When we invade a country, do you think we call its emb***y and ask for the street names of airport and drop zone locations beforehand? Military objectives are always given in MGRS coordinates. Street addresses, where applicable, are given only as supplemental data.

 


 

Oh, I thought the original post was about locating a local business. Sorry I misunderstood. Now I realize you were actually talking about targeting cruise missles, which of course, can not read street addresses. Never mind.

 

If you are really interested in military targeting, here's some interesting reading from a speech giving by the Director of Central Intellegence to Congress concerning the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.Bad coordinates based on old information sent US bombs to the wrong building. Maybe a simple phone call to the headquarters of the Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement (FDSP) could have avoided this blunder. "Hello,FDSP? Are you still located at Bulevar Umetnosti 2 in New Belgrade? No, you've moved a couple of blocks? Thanks". You don't always need James Bond and high tech gizmos to gather intellegence.

 

 

[This message has been edited by CaptHawke (edited 12 June 2001).]

Link to comment
Guest cache_only

CaptHawke:

 

I was just having fun with you. I hope you didn't take it too seriously. Judging from your response, I don't think there was any offense taken.

 

Thanks for being a good sport and having thick skin.

 

Rob

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...