OT - What3words: The app that can save your life

On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 20:49:17 +0000, David wrote:

Copy/Paste follows:-

So you haven't read the tech. I was right.
You don't even know what it is, do you?


---------------
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"Mike Easter" wrote in message
...
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.

The problem is finding a means of communicating one's location that everyone
understands. What3words *may* become that standard. I suppose it is quicker
to say three words than to say a lot of digits for lat/long (in a variety of
forms: DDMMSS, DDMM.MMM, DD.DDDDDDD etc), but it does hinge on correct
communication of words that may sound similar. At least words for digits are
restricted to ten of them, and only five/nine and four/nought are liable to
confusion, with workarounds like "four - as in one more than three" if
there's confusion.

One of the difficulties is that emergency 999/911/112 operators can't always
understand the form that you give for your location.

In the UK, the postcode (equivalent of US ZIP code, but to a higher
precision) is the de-factor standard for giving the location of a building,
but can't be used for an arbitrary location where there are no nearby
buildings.

On motorways and other trunk roads, signs started to be erected about ten
years ago of the form "M1A 123.4" which says "I'm on the M1 motorway, on the
A carriageway (defined to be heading away from London - like railway use of
"up" and "down"), 123.4 kilometres from the reference datum (in London?)".
Brilliant idea - except when I first used it, the 999 operator hadn't got a
clue how to use the information. I was calling from my hands-free phone
while driving (*), to report an accident that I'd seen on the opposite
carriageway, so I said "I've just passed a sign saying M1A 123.4. There is
an accident on the *opposite*, B carriageway, roughly opposite this sign."
Slightly convoluted but totally unambiguous. The 999 operator kept wittering
on about "what's the postcode" - I'm on a motorway, nowhere near any
buildings. "What junction have you just passed" - I'm really not sure
because I'm in the middle of a long journey and nowhere near a junction
number that I'll have memorised because it's where I'll be coming off the
motorway. "What service station have you last passed" - ditto.

When I got back home, I emailed the duty manager of the relevant police
force to alert them to the fact that their operator had been unable to
process information on signs that are erected for the very purpose of giving
a location in an emergency. I had a reply saying that they had found the
recording of my 999 call and agreed that I had given a location that should
have been sufficient to direct the emergency services to the location, and
that they had identified that more training was needed!

On another occasion, when my wife called 999 to report an accident (while I
was driving), she didn't even need to give her location: the operator was
able to say to her "I think you are near the turning to this village,
heading northbound on this road - is that correct", so I can only assume
that because she had a GPS-recording application running on her phone at the
time, the 999 system had been able to pass her location automatically. How
ever it was done, we were very impressed ;-)


(*) I was on a long journey and didn't want to have to stop at the next
emergency phone (which are every 1 kilometre, I think) on a cold, rainy
night. If the accident had been on my side of the road and there didn't
appear to be anyone else stopped, I'd have stopped both the help and to cal
999.

On 18/11/2019 14:40, NY wrote:
"Mike Easter" wrote in message
...
For some time people in the wilderness w/ a phone have been able to
call for help and locate themselves to the agency.Â* The 'language' is
the coordinates, not some word derivation from that.Â* It seems to me
to be an unnecessary conversion from numerical coordinates to human
words and back to numerical coordinates again.Â* A pointless (and
proprietary) round-robin.

The problem is finding a means of communicating one's location that
everyone understands. What3words *may* become that standard. I suppose
it is quicker to say three words than to say a lot of digits for
lat/long (in a variety of forms: DDMMSS, DDMM.MMM, DD.DDDDDDD etc), but
it does hinge on correct communication of words that may sound similar.
At least words for digits are restricted to ten of them, and only
five/nine and four/nought are liable to confusion, with workarounds like
"four - as in one more than three" if there's confusion.

One of the difficulties is that emergency 999/911/112 operators can't
always understand the form that you give for your location.

In the UK, the postcode (equivalent of US ZIP code, but to a higher
precision) is the de-factor standard for giving the location of a
building, but can't be used for an arbitrary location where there are no
nearby buildings.

On motorways and other trunk roads, signs started to be erected about
ten years ago of the form "M1A 123.4" which says "I'm on the M1
motorway, on the A carriageway (defined to be heading away from London -
like railway use of "up" and "down"), 123.4 kilometres from the
reference datum (in London?)". Brilliant idea - except when I first used
it, the 999 operator hadn't got a clue how to use the information. I was
calling from my hands-free phone while driving (*), to report an
accident that I'd seen on the opposite carriageway, so I said "I've just
passed a sign saying M1A 123.4. There is an accident on the *opposite*,
B carriageway, roughly opposite this sign." Slightly convoluted but
totally unambiguous. The 999 operator kept wittering on about "what's
the postcode" - I'm on a motorway, nowhere near any buildings. "What
junction have you just passed" - I'm really not sure because I'm in the
middle of a long journey and nowhere near a junction number that I'll
have memorised because it's where I'll be coming off the motorway. "What
service station have you last passed" - ditto.

When I got back home, I emailed the duty manager of the relevant police
force to alert them to the fact that their operator had been unable to
process information on signs that are erected for the very purpose of
giving a location in an emergency. I had a reply saying that they had
found the recording of my 999 call and agreed that I had given a
location that should have been sufficient to direct the emergency
services to the location, and that they had identified that more
training was needed!

On another occasion, when my wife called 999 to report an accident
(while I was driving), she didn't even need to give her location: the
operator was able to say to her "I think you are near the turning to
this village, heading northbound on this road - is that correct", so I
can only assume that because she had a GPS-recording application running
on her phone at the time, the 999 system had been able to pass her
location automatically. How ever it was done, we were very impressed ;-)


(*) I was on a long journey and didn't want to have to stop at the next
emergency phone (which are every 1 kilometre, I think) on a cold, rainy
night. If the accident had been on my side of the road and there didn't
appear to be anyone else stopped, I'd have stopped both the help and to
cal 999.

All credit to you, NY, for following matters through. So few people
'bother' nowadays. Well done! :-)

On Mon, 18 Nov 2019 15:15:01 +0000, David wrote:

All credit to you, NY, for following matters through. So few people
'bother' nowadays.

You still have not explained how it works IN YOUR OWN WORDS,
and why it's a scam.

Another blackout?

---------------
BD: I want people to "get to know me better. I have nothing to
hide".
I'm always here to help, this page was put up at BD's request,
rather, he said "Do it *NOW*!":

http://tekrider.net/pages/david-brooks-stalker.php

60 confirmed #FAKE_NYMS, most used in cybercrimes!
Google "David Brooks Devon"
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
[...]

Longitude and latitude have always worked fine for me and will continue
doing so as long as I'm here.

As NY also mentioned, the problem is that there are several/many
different notation methods [1] for longitude and latitude. Both the
'sender' (the person with the emergency) and the 'receiver' (the
emergency services) have to know/agree_on which notation method to use.

That's not easy for Joe/Jane Average, who probably hasn't a clue that
these different notation methods even exist.

[1] For example:

' '/-' prefix versus N/S/E/W postfix
DDD MM SS
DDD MM SS.SSSSS
DDD MM.MMMMM
DDD.DDDDD
':' or ' ' as seperators
etc..

"David" wrote in message
...

On motorways and other trunk roads, signs started to be erected about ten
years ago of the form "M1A 123.4" which says "I'm on the M1 motorway, on
the A carriageway (defined to be heading away from London - like railway
use of "up" and "down"), 123.4 kilometres from the reference datum (in
London?)". Brilliant idea - except when I first used it, the 999 operator
hadn't got a clue how to use the information. I was calling from my
hands-free phone while driving (*), to report an accident that I'd seen
on the opposite carriageway, so I said "I've just passed a sign saying
M1A 123.4. There is an accident on the *opposite*, B carriageway, roughly
opposite this sign." Slightly convoluted but totally unambiguous. The 999
operator kept wittering on about "what's the postcode" - I'm on a
motorway, nowhere near any buildings. "What junction have you just
passed" - I'm really not sure because I'm in the middle of a long journey
and nowhere near a junction number that I'll have memorised because it's
where I'll be coming off the motorway. "What service station have you
last passed" - ditto.

When I got back home, I emailed the duty manager of the relevant police
force to alert them to the fact that their operator had been unable to
process information on signs that are erected for the very purpose of
giving a location in an emergency. I had a reply saying that they had
found the recording of my 999 call and agreed that I had given a location
that should have been sufficient to direct the emergency services to the
location, and that they had identified that more training was needed!

All credit to you, NY, for following matters through. So few people
'bother' nowadays. Well done! :-)

I was really horrified that a supposedly trained 999 police operator was
unable to process the information on those signs every 0.5 km which are
there for people to report emergency locations. Admittedly there hadn't been
much publicity about them (and there still hasn't been) but I'd expect
trained emergency operators to know things that the average punter doesn't
know about. I offered to stop and read the ID number off one of the little
posts on the hard shoulder that are every 100 metres (those have been there
for several decades) and tell her that, but she said "I wouldn't know that
to do with that information either". It was as if she was fixated into a
postcode as the only method of locating me - which is meaningless on the
open road - and she was quite cross that I couldn't tell her number of the
last junction that I'd passed. If it had been on a stretch of road that I
drove every day, I could probably have given her a junction number or at
least the number of the road that joined the motorway, but a long way from
home, late at night, there was no chance that I could be more precise than
+/- 50 miles ;-) And I thought *no* information was better than information
that could be wrong.

So I thought it was important that the training issue or software issue on
the desks that they use to log emergency calls was fixed ASAP. It might have
been my life that depended on them getting it right next time ;-)

"Frank Slootweg" wrote in message
...
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
[...]

Longitude and latitude have always worked fine for me and will continue
doing so as long as I'm here.

As NY also mentioned, the problem is that there are several/many
different notation methods [1] for longitude and latitude. Both the
'sender' (the person with the emergency) and the 'receiver' (the
emergency services) have to know/agree_on which notation method to use.

That's not easy for Joe/Jane Average, who probably hasn't a clue that
these different notation methods even exist.

[1] For example:

' '/-' prefix versus N/S/E/W postfix
DDD MM SS
DDD MM SS.SSSSS
DDD MM.MMMMM
DDD.DDDDD
':' or ' ' as seperators
etc..

Exactly. And if the sender's location software only quotes the location in
one DMS notation and the recipient's only accepts it in another format,
vital time is lost translating between DMS and DM.MMMM or D.DDDDD notation.

If What3words becomes a universal standard, then that's the one that all GPS
devices will quote and the ones that all emergency operators will
understand. The satnav on my wife's car has an "emergency info" mode which
quotes the nearest postcode and the nearest junction between two roads - but
not the lat/long or OS grid ref AFAIK.

I think when I made the emergency call to report the motorway accident I was
still using an old non-smart phone with no GPS receiver, so I didn't have
the option of being able to quote *any* location coordinates, whether DMS,
What3words, Ordnance Survey or whatever. Nowadays I have GPS enabled all the
time on my phone, so it is always able to give a GPS fix on request, and I
have What3words and also GPS Status; the latter gives (amongst other things)
GPS location, switchable between OS and DMS - or various esoteric notations
like Maidenhead (??), CH1903, MGRS and UTM.

OS coordinates are another "movable feast": one notation uses two letters
followed by several digits (the more digits, the greater the precision),
whereas another uses all digits. TQ12345678 versus 8123495678, where TQ
means "this specific 100x100 km square" and "8.....9....." means the same
square (presumably 800 km in one direction and 900 km in the other from the
datum which is off the south west of Great Britain). I tend to put a comma
(when writing) or a pause (when saying it) to separate the "northings" from
the "eastings" part of the grid reference: "TQ 1234 5678" which says: this
is a grid reference which is accurate to the nearest 1/10 of a km - the best
that you can estimate by eye when reading a coordinate off a paper map that
is overlaid with 1 km squares.

Interesting, incidentally, that the OS grid was metric from a long time ago
(probably before WWII, though I'm guessing), even though miles, yards, feet
and inches - and pounds, shillings and pence - lasted a lot longer.

On 18/11/2019 19:31, NY wrote:
"David" wrote in message
...

On motorways and other trunk roads, signs started to be erected about
ten years ago of the form "M1A 123.4" which says "I'm on the M1
motorway, on the A carriageway (defined to be heading away from
London - like railway use of "up" and "down"), 123.4 kilometres from
the reference datum (in London?)". Brilliant idea - except when I
first used it, the 999 operator hadn't got a clue how to use the
information. I was calling from my hands-free phone while driving
(*), to report an accident that I'd seen on the opposite carriageway,
so I said "I've just passed a sign saying M1A 123.4. There is an
accident on the *opposite*, B carriageway, roughly opposite this
sign." Slightly convoluted but totally unambiguous. The 999 operator
kept wittering on about "what's the postcode" - I'm on a motorway,
nowhere near any buildings. "What junction have you just passed" -
I'm really not sure because I'm in the middle of a long journey and
nowhere near a junction number that I'll have memorised because it's
where I'll be coming off the motorway. "What service station have you
last passed" - ditto.

When I got back home, I emailed the duty manager of the relevant
police force to alert them to the fact that their operator had been
unable to process information on signs that are erected for the very
purpose of giving a location in an emergency. I had a reply saying
that they had found the recording of my 999 call and agreed that I
had given a location that should have been sufficient to direct the
emergency services to the location, and that they had identified that
more training was needed!

All credit to you, NY, for following matters through. So few people
'bother' nowadays. Well done! :-)

I was really horrified that a supposedly trained 999 police operator was
unable to process the information on those signs every 0.5 km which are
there for people to report emergency locations. Admittedly there hadn't
been much publicity about them (and there still hasn't been) but I'd
expect trained emergency operators to know things that the average
punter doesn't know about. I offered to stop and read the ID number off
one of the little posts on the hard shoulder that are every 100 metres
(those have been there for several decades) and tell her that, but she
said "I wouldn't know that to do with that information either". It was
as if she was fixated into a postcode as the only method of locating me
- which is meaningless on the open road - and she was quite cross that I
couldn't tell her number of the last junction that I'd passed. If it had
been on a stretch of road that I drove every day, I could probably have
given her a junction number or at least the number of the road that
joined the motorway, but a long way from home, late at night, there was
no chance that I could be more precise than +/- 50 miles ;-) And I
thought *no* information was better than information that could be wrong.

So I thought it was important that the training issue or software issue
on the desks that they use to log emergency calls was fixed ASAP. It
might have been my life that depended on them getting it right next time
;-)

Indeed! You did *EXACTLY* the right thing.

*THANK YOU* - it might be *ME* "next time"!!!!

Stay safe, young fella. :-D

In article ,
says...
So I thought it was important that the training issue or software issue
on the desks that they use to log emergency calls was fixed ASAP. It
might have been my life that depended on them getting it right next time
;-)

Indeed! You did *EXACTLY* the right thing.

*THANK YOU* - it might be *ME* "next time"!!!!


Fingers crossed.

--
jeremy

On 19/11/2019 05:48, jeremy wrote:
In article ,
says...
So I thought it was important that the training issue or software issue
on the desks that they use to log emergency calls was fixed ASAP. It
might have been my life that depended on them getting it right next time
;-)

Indeed! You did *EXACTLY* the right thing.

*THANK YOU* - it might be *ME* "next time"!!!!


Fingers crossed.

I somehow doubt that you have ever been on a motorway! :-P