David wrote:
Once the three words have been passed to the rescue agencies there is no
need for ANY electronic equipment to be functional on or near the
person(s) requiring assistance.

- it seems to me that one needs to have such as a phone both to
'determine' one's location AND to convey one's location to the help agency
- it further seems to me that if one has such an electronic device for
receiving coordinates and for transmitting the info, that 'device'
/language/ is perfectly satisfactory; there is not NEED for 'human'
language, ie words are unnecessary
- the process of internet to device to agency can be perfectly well
handled w/o any human words, with the possible exception of HELP!.

It will be a boon to boaters all over the world - and to many other folk
too. In particular to those who do not have a mains power supply close
at hand.

For some time people in the wilderness w/ a phone have been able to call
for help and locate themselves to the agency. The 'language' is the
coordinates, not some word derivation from that. It seems to me to be
an unnecessary conversion from numerical coordinates to human words and
back to numerical coordinates again. A pointless (and proprietary)
round-robin.

I have no problem w/ someone 'inventing' something and then shilling it
to various businesses by causing them to believe that having words to
represent their business location is more attractive to the public than
some other method such as numbers; but I don't think the 'necessity' of
it for life-saving is an accurate concept.

I also find it of interest that some jurisdictions have so much trouble
w/ their grids or postal codes or 'house numbers' that they have no
other means of id/ing a person's house address than 3 such words. In
that case, in the public good, such a system of words should be
non-proprietary, ie free and open source, such as for Mongolia.


--
Mike Easter