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The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts – politicalbetting.com

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  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Political soothsaying has been a mug’s game for a long time now but I will, with absolute confidence, say this: the @trussliz years are going to be truly spectacular.

    There will definitely, definitely be a maximum of two of them but they will be spectacular.

    https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1557313982578450434

    Who do you want to be PM?
    Dominic Grieve or Anna Soubry !!!
    Both 10/10s compared to what has just passed and what comes next.
    So why did they comprehensively fail to win their argument and are no longer mps
    Because the Conservative Party has been hijacked by populists. You can see this in the current leadership contest. The more outrageous the red meat pledge the closer Truss gets to Number 19.

    I am no Tory, as you know, but Sunak has a calm authority that most of the nation is comfortable with. His candidacy has been poor but his calm be authority has been drowned out by the excitable proclamations of La Truss. Much the same happened when Johnson prevailed over the broad church Conservative Remainers and kicked them out of your party. Remind me how that worked out.
    80 seat majority? Calm can be overrated.
    I apologise. Remind me how that worked out AFTER an 80 seat majority had been won.
  • Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The PB consensus on What 3 Words is that

    WE SHOULD ALL GO BACK TO PAPER MAPS

    No, the consensus is that you're as overexcitable as Rishi at a hustings.
    Of Liz after a cup of "Dreamy Sleepy" tea.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,232
    I’m meeting friends for a picnic in Hyde Park on Friday. I just texted one with my suggested exact location in the park, down to the specific deckchair, using what3words

    It’s hype.closer.dozed if you want to join us

    His response?

    “Wow”

    When people respond to an app with the single word “Wow” then that app is a *significant investment opportunity*

  • The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Political soothsaying has been a mug’s game for a long time now but I will, with absolute confidence, say this: the @trussliz years are going to be truly spectacular.

    There will definitely, definitely be a maximum of two of them but they will be spectacular.

    https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1557313982578450434

    Who do you want to be PM?
    Dominic Grieve or Anna Soubry !!!
    Both 10/10s compared to what has just passed and what comes next.
    So why did they comprehensively fail to win their argument and are no longer mps
    Because the Conservative Party has been hijacked by populists. You can see this in the current leadership contest. The more outrageous the red meat pledge the closer Truss gets to Number 19.

    I am no Tory, as you know, but Sunak has a calm authority that most of the nation is comfortable with. His candidacy has been poor but his calm be authority has been drowned out by the excitable proclamations of La Truss. Much the same happened when Johnson prevailed over the broad church Conservative Remainers and kicked them out of your party. Remind me how that worked out.
    The Remainers you refer to in the conservative party, who are no longer mps, tried to subvert the referendum result and I have no sympathy with them
    No they didn't. They tried to subvert the will of Lord Frost, which appears more egregiously unacceptable.
    You quote the two extremes of the issue and why a middle way is needed
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    I’m meeting friends for a picnic in Hyde Park on Friday. I just texted one with my suggested exact location in the park, down to the specific deckchair, using what3words

    It’s hype.closer.dozed if you want to join us

    His response?

    “Wow”

    When people respond to an app with the single word “Wow” then that app is a *significant investment opportunity*

    hype.closer.doxxed if you are not careful.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    Leon said:

    The PB consensus on What 3 Words is that

    WE SHOULD ALL GO BACK TO PAPER MAPS

    Just use OS locate in the hills. Save the volunteers from mountain rescue going up the wrong hill cos you said dildos instead of dildo.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,451
    Leon said:

    I’m meeting friends for a picnic in Hyde Park on Friday. I just texted one with my suggested exact location in the park, down to the specific deckchair, using what3words

    It’s hype.closer.dozed if you want to join us

    His response?

    “Wow”

    When people respond to an app with the single word “Wow” then that app is a *significant investment opportunity*

    Was this your Albanian taxi driver mate?
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    They should make a checksum and encode it as a swear word to put between words 2 and 3.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Ruth Davidson pledges to lead pro-Union campaign in event of second independence referendum
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    The PB consensus on What 3 Words is that

    WE SHOULD ALL GO BACK TO PAPER MAPS

    No, the consensus is that you're as overexcitable as Rishi at a hustings.
    Who’ll ever forget the week Sean got a mancold?
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,700
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
    Has anyone mentioned the OS Maps ap yet? For about £25 a year you carry the entire OS database on your phone and it will tell you exactly where you are. I found it useful recently on the South Downs trying to locate a bridleway that had been overplanted with rape. It was still impassable, though.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
    You are underestimating the wit, guile and general academic genius of PBers stranded on a desolate and windswept mountainside.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    moonshine said:

    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.

    Yes, but what’s the lay price on him. That’s the important one.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    Yes.
    spin.damp.churn
    Fabulous.
    It feels like one of those apps which is going to explode. Like Spotify or something

    Cars are already incorporating it into their navigation tech


    https://www.zdnet.com/article/subaru-is-latest-car-maker-to-use-what3words-for-in-car-navigation/

    They are going to make SO much money
    I hate it.

    The words have no pattern to them so you can't say whether two references are near each other or on the opposite side of the world. Same problem applies if you mishear one word.

    If I have a paper map in the UK I can give you an OS grid reference without recourse to any technology. For this I need a stupid app.

    If I'm sending someone a geolink by phone I don't need this either.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme
    Yes. Let’s all go back to paper maps. They’re brilliant

    Then, if you’re lost and want someone to find you, in a hurricane, you can get out your paper map and have a wild inaccurate guess as to where you are, circle that roughly wrong 12-mild-wide place on the map then, er, take a photo of the scribbled-on map and send the image to a friend so they at least know you’ve got a map?

    Or you could text “for.fucks.sake” and they’d know which specific tree you were sheltering by, but that’s too easy and also you might mistype

    If you are carrying a GPS phone you can read a grid reference too. It is only the means to pass on location information that has changed, not the ability to get it.

    As someone (like Eabhal) who might actually need to call Mountain Rescue in a white-out for myself or others I would ALWAYS have a paper map (and a non-smart phone) as backup, as using your primary phone as both a map and an emergency device is a bad idea.

    I have no real objection to using it to find a pub but it is the overselling that I object to.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    darkage said:

    I think Liz Truss - with her promises of tax cuts and golden uplands - is another example of how, in democracies, the population get the politicians it deserves.

    Oi. Don't blame "the population" for the next prime minister.
    More accurately a significant proportion of the population. British politics is forever stained by the turd that is Brexit and the piss that was Corbyn.

    If the idiots in the Parliamentary Labour Party had not thought that "it is important that all wings of the party are represented" then Corbyn would never have been made LoTO. With no Corbyn then Labour would have coalesced around Remain and the result might well have been different.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.

    You could have stopped after word seven.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    moonshine said:

    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.

    Dude is heavily into neofascist tropes, which is rather more consequential.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Scott_xP said:

    Political soothsaying has been a mug’s game for a long time now but I will, with absolute confidence, say this: the @trussliz years are going to be truly spectacular.

    There will definitely, definitely be a maximum of two of them but they will be spectacular.

    https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1557313982578450434

    Who do you want to be PM?
    Dominic Grieve or Anna Soubry !!!
    Both 10/10s compared to what has just passed and what comes next.
    So why did they comprehensively fail to win their argument and are no longer mps
    Because the Conservative Party has been hijacked by populists. You can see this in the current leadership contest. The more outrageous the red meat pledge the closer Truss gets to Number 19.

    I am no Tory, as you know, but Sunak has a calm authority that most of the nation is comfortable with. His candidacy has been poor but his calm be authority has been drowned out by the excitable proclamations of La Truss. Much the same happened when Johnson prevailed over the broad church Conservative Remainers and kicked them out of your party. Remind me how that worked out.
    10. Number 10!
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Sandpit said:

    moonshine said:

    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.

    Yes, but what’s the lay price on him. That’s the important one.
    Ha! 1000!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    I’m meeting friends for a picnic in Hyde Park on Friday. I just texted one with my suggested exact location in the park, down to the specific deckchair, using what3words

    It’s hype.closer.dozed if you want to join us

    His response?

    “Wow”

    When people respond to an app with the single word “Wow” then that app is a *significant investment opportunity*

    It's the revenue model you need to look at. They have 1,000 customers - not you, you are a user - and a large proportion of that is the rescue services. Hence stories which say "rescue services cautious about w3w" are problematic for them. They are worth $250m having been going several years which suggests that people think the barrier to entry is not that high, the market is limited, or the revenue model unsustainable or vulnerable.

    As I said, I use it and love it - albeit when I was once stuck on the motorway and its use would have been textbook perfect, the RAC said they didn't use it as a means of location identifier and asked me to see (in the dark, it was raining) if there were any landmarks that they could use.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,451

    The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.

    You could have stopped after word seven.
    Five?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Nigelb said:

    Another Amnesty Int'l head resigned due to disagreement with its report on🇺🇦

    "I've been member for almost 60 years. With heavy heart I end my cooperation due to Amnesty's claims re war in Ukraine," co-founder of Swedish branch of Amnesty Int Per Wästberg

    https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1557310789312208898

    Good for him.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    DavidL said:

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    I agree with him. The government needs to run a positive case for the Union consistently. Help for those struggling with heating bills is as good a place as any to start.
    Just remind folk how terrible indy would have been.


    Labour = the Tories’ little helpers
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
    Has anyone mentioned the OS Maps ap yet? For about £25 a year you carry the entire OS database on your phone and it will tell you exactly where you are. I found it useful recently on the South Downs trying to locate a bridleway that had been overplanted with rape. It was still impassable, though.
    It's incredible value. Shame the route plotting function is so slow and clunky.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    Yes.
    spin.damp.churn
    Fabulous.
    It feels like one of those apps which is going to explode. Like Spotify or something

    Cars are already incorporating it into their navigation tech


    https://www.zdnet.com/article/subaru-is-latest-car-maker-to-use-what3words-for-in-car-navigation/

    They are going to make SO much money
    I hate it.

    The words have no pattern to them so you can't say whether two references are near each other or on the opposite side of the world. Same problem applies if you mishear one word.

    If I have a paper map in the UK I can give you an OS grid reference without recourse to any technology. For this I need a stupid app.

    If I'm sending someone a geolink by phone I don't need this either.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme
    Yes. Let’s all go back to paper maps. They’re brilliant

    Then, if you’re lost and want someone to find you, in a hurricane, you can get out your paper map and have a wild inaccurate guess as to where you are, circle that roughly wrong 12-mild-wide place on the map then, er, take a photo of the scribbled-on map and send the image to a friend so they at least know you’ve got a map?

    Or you could text “for.fucks.sake” and they’d know which specific tree you were sheltering by, but that’s too easy and also you might mistype

    If you are carrying a GPS phone you can read a grid reference too. It is only the means to pass on location information that has changed, not the ability to get it.

    As someone (like Eabhal) who might actually need to call Mountain Rescue in a white-out for myself or others I would ALWAYS have a paper map (and a non-smart phone) as backup, as using your primary phone as both a map and an emergency device is a bad idea.

    I have no real objection to using it to find a pub but it is the overselling that I object to.
    I go OS maps app, OS locate app, Harvey's mountain map + compass in the rucksack for emergencies.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    Fair enough. Disappointing because you would have thought the algorithm I was assuming would be pretty easy to write..
    It's genuinely weird:
    20% of the words in their english corpus are plurals (so that means 40% of words have a trivial misspell/hear problem) and the shuffling algorithm is, as far as researchers can tell, hugely deficient.

    Like you I had assumed it would be trivial to either write a decent (but very slow) algorithm as it's just a constraint satisfaction problem _or_ have a completely random algorithm plus a bunch of quality gates for checking the end result to ensure the output was good and run it a few billion times until you got a good distribution.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.

    You could have stopped after word seven.
    Word five would have sufficed.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,232
    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    I get that… but w3w have done all the work and are already scaling up extremely fast. From 11m downloads to 30m downloads in one year

    Quite soon they will be THE standard for this kind of app/tech. Then all Google can do is buy them. Which might well happen

    W3W reminds me a bit of Vivino in its early days. That sense of “wow so simple but clever”. I always wondered if they’d prosper or get bought out, or die

    They are prospering

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizthach/2021/06/03/vivino-continues-watershed-year-in-online-wine-sales-with-155-million-in-funding-and-ceo-appointment/

    The potential for W3W seems greater than Vivino
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    moonshine said:

    Dynamo said:

    The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on 5-6 August: each side says the other side did it:

    * the Ukrainian side's story (Ukrinform);
    * the Russian side's story (TASS).

    Russia has called a UNSC meeting about it for tomorrow.

    How about this mate. Your lot move your occupying troops away from every nuclear site in Ukraine to a radius of 5 miles. And instead an international force secures the sites, with the UN team then able to safely ensure there's no risk of radiation leakage. Prevailing winds can change direction you know.
    If the Russians left the power station, they would have to unplug the Dynamo….
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Political soothsaying has been a mug’s game for a long time now but I will, with absolute confidence, say this: the @trussliz years are going to be truly spectacular.

    There will definitely, definitely be a maximum of two of them but they will be spectacular.

    https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1557313982578450434

    Who do you want to be PM?
    Dominic Grieve or Anna Soubry !!!
    Both 10/10s compared to what has just passed and what comes next.
    So why did they comprehensively fail to win their argument and are no longer mps
    Because the Conservative Party has been hijacked by populists. You can see this in the current leadership contest. The more outrageous the red meat pledge the closer Truss gets to Number 19.

    I am no Tory, as you know, but Sunak has a calm authority that most of the nation is comfortable with. His candidacy has been poor but his calm be authority has been drowned out by the excitable proclamations of La Truss. Much the same happened when Johnson prevailed over the broad church Conservative Remainers and kicked them out of your party. Remind me how that worked out.
    80 seat majority? Calm can be overrated.
    I apologise. Remind me how that worked out AFTER an 80 seat majority had been won.
    Now you are getting pedantic. 😉
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Nigelb said:

    moonshine said:

    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.

    Dude is heavily into neofascist tropes, which is rather more consequential.
    Yes I gather he is a bit of a Putinist still too. I used to come across people admiring of Putin over the years. Always a similar type. Respected "strength". Generally pretty un-pc and rich. You don't tend to hear from them much anymore in the UK at least.

    Still it would be nice if we all finally got to read the JFK and Roswell files so there would be that.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    I get that… but w3w have done all the work and are already scaling up extremely fast. From 11m downloads to 30m downloads in one year

    Quite soon they will be THE standard for this kind of app/tech. Then all Google can do is buy them. Which might well happen

    W3W reminds me a bit of Vivino in its early days. That sense of “wow so simple but clever”. I always wondered if they’d prosper or get bought out, or die

    They are prospering

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizthach/2021/06/03/vivino-continues-watershed-year-in-online-wine-sales-with-155-million-in-funding-and-ceo-appointment/

    The potential for W3W seems greater than Vivino
    30m downloads are cumulative.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    edited August 2022
    British Gas have offered to double my energy bills if I move to a fixed rate, saying that if power gets cheaper I can move to another tariff.

    I note they don't say what happens if it stays cheaper.

    There could be a lot of trouble over people being ripped off on fixed rates. That's a reasonable case for a windfall tax, for a start.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    I get that… but w3w have done all the work and are already scaling up extremely fast. From 11m downloads to 30m downloads in one year

    Quite soon they will be THE standard for this kind of app/tech. Then all Google can do is buy them. Which might well happen

    W3W reminds me a bit of Vivino in its early days. That sense of “wow so simple but clever”. I always wondered if they’d prosper or get bought out, or die

    They are prospering

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizthach/2021/06/03/vivino-continues-watershed-year-in-online-wine-sales-with-155-million-in-funding-and-ceo-appointment/

    The potential for W3W seems greater than Vivino
    30m downloads are cumulative.
    I heard about this app yonks ago. I remember thinking it would be great at a musical festival. And then the govt went all Oliver Cromwell and outlawed music festivals and I forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    ydoethur said:

    moonshine said:

    Dynamo said:

    The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on 5-6 August: each side says the other side did it:

    * the Ukrainian side's story (Ukrinform);
    * the Russian side's story (TASS).

    Russia has called a UNSC meeting about it for tomorrow.

    How about this mate. Your lot move your occupying troops away from every nuclear site in Ukraine to a radius of 5 miles. And instead an international force secures the sites, with the UN team then able to safely ensure there's no risk of radiation leakage. Prevailing winds can change direction you know.
    Even easier, how about all the Russian occupying troops move away from every site in Ukraine back to Russia?
    They should all go to thrower.typed.fencer
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.

    You could have stopped after word seven.
    Five?
    Better still!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    moonshine said:

    Sandpit said:

    moonshine said:

    Not a very liquid market but interesting that Tucker Carlson is second fave to be Republican Veep nominee on bf.com

    Dudes heavy into UAP. Makes it far more likely that Trump becomes the Disclosure President if he chooses him as running mate.

    Yes, but what’s the lay price on him. That’s the important one.
    Ha! 1000!
    You can lay Trump for VP at 25.
    Should be more like 100, but not really worth tying up the money, sadly.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,232
    @TOPPING

    “ 30m downloads are cumulative”

    It’s still roughly doubling in a year?

    Looks to me like it’s growing faster than Vivino at a similar stage
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,493
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location
    You’re either a moron or a bitterly envious tech bro who wishes they’d thought of this. Perhaps both? Most people have a general sense of where they are, or where they are going. The problem is specifying exactly

    This does it. With three words.

    Can people still make mistakes? Of course they can. But they can also lose maps or Google maps can stop working or they can - for whatever reason - forget, or mistype “89.04676 degrees N and 0.3486 degrees E”
    I used w3w to report a burnt out car to the plod last year. It was a Range Rover they’d nicked and they’d got it across a load of fields before getting it stuck in a ditch by the side of some obscure lane before setting it alight and totally gutting it.

    I went on the website to report it and was pleased to see the option of using w3w cos it was tricky to explain how to get to the exact spot.

    Next day I got a call from a copper. They couldn’t find the car. They’d parked miles away from where they needed to be. I gave you the w3w co-ordinates, I said, why don’t you use
    them?

    Haven’t got the app on our phones, he replied.

    Face palm by me, then proceeded to relay convoluted directions to get where they needed to be.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    Dura_Ace said:

    The Tories need to go into opposition and get back to boring centrism.

    You could have stopped after word seven.
    Word five would have sufficed.
    I now realise my error.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,738
    This thread has been sent to

    Gove Prat Muchly

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    edited August 2022
    Democratic efforts to improve strategic resilience are beginning to bear fruit.

    Micron to Invest $40 Billion in U.S. with Passage of CHIPS Act
    https://www.eetimes.com/micron-to-invest-40-billion-in-u-s-with-passage-of-chips-act/

    Could be a particularly well timed piece of counter-cyclical intervention.

    Samsung, SK Hynix face downside pressure amid falling chip demand
    https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/08/133_334214.html
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    Never heard of what3words, though I assume it was the inspiration for Get.Brexit.Done. Disappointingly, the route was unclear, and when they finally reached the destination it was something of an anti-climax.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,232

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location
    You’re either a moron or a bitterly envious tech bro who wishes they’d thought of this. Perhaps both? Most people have a general sense of where they are, or where they are going. The problem is specifying exactly

    This does it. With three words.

    Can people still make mistakes? Of course they can. But they can also lose maps or Google maps can stop working or they can - for whatever reason - forget, or mistype “89.04676 degrees N and 0.3486 degrees E”
    I used w3w to report a burnt out car to the plod last year. It was a Range Rover they’d nicked and they’d got it across a load of fields before getting it stuck in a ditch by the side of some obscure lane before setting it alight and totally gutting it.

    I went on the website to report it and was pleased to see the option of using w3w cos it was tricky to explain how to get to the exact spot.

    Next day I got a call from a copper. They couldn’t find the car. They’d parked miles away from where they needed to be. I gave you the w3w co-ordinates, I said, why don’t you use
    them?

    Haven’t got the app on our phones, he replied.

    Face palm by me, then proceeded to relay convoluted directions to get where they needed to be.
    Yes it’s one of those genius apps that will only fulfil its enormous potential once everyone is using it, so it becomes universal and standard

    Will that happen? Who knows. But I’d say it has a good chance. Then it could be worth squillions

    Nice that it’s British and based in London. Well done UK tech
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,700
    Eabhal said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
    Has anyone mentioned the OS Maps ap yet? For about £25 a year you carry the entire OS database on your phone and it will tell you exactly where you are. I found it useful recently on the South Downs trying to locate a bridleway that had been overplanted with rape. It was still impassable, though.
    It's incredible value. Shame the route plotting function is so slow and clunky.
    It will surely come in time.

    "Plot me a 15-mile day hike around Alfriston with a pub lunch and a cream tea."

    or

    "Please get me off this bloody Monro and take me back to my car."
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    Yes. That might happen, though it often hasn't in the internet era where network effects have entrenched an imperfect implementation.

    Get a proper linguist involved to select an optimal set of words, so that it's more robust to small errors. Maybe standardise the number of syllables or word length. There's a lot that could be done to refine the idea.

    Looking at the Wikipedia page for Morse code it's evident that was refined a few times. That didn't make the original idea crap.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,232

    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    Yes. That might happen, though it often hasn't in the internet era where network effects have entrenched an imperfect implementation.

    Get a proper linguist involved to select an optimal set of words, so that it's more robust to small errors. Maybe standardise the number of syllables or word length. There's a lot that could be done to refine the idea.

    Looking at the Wikipedia page for Morse code it's evident that was refined a few times. That didn't make the original idea crap.
    Indeed. Think of QWERTYUIOP

    Absolutely imperfect. Yet still here. On my iPhone. As I type
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited August 2022
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    I get that… but w3w have done all the work and are already scaling up extremely fast. From 11m downloads to 30m downloads in one year

    Quite soon they will be THE standard for this kind of app/tech. Then all Google can do is buy them. Which might well happen

    W3W reminds me a bit of Vivino in its early days. That sense of “wow so simple but clever”. I always wondered if they’d prosper or get bought out, or die

    They are prospering

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizthach/2021/06/03/vivino-continues-watershed-year-in-online-wine-sales-with-155-million-in-funding-and-ceo-appointment/

    The potential for W3W seems greater than Vivino
    They’re (w3w) just where MySpace was in 2008…
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    If you can use what 3 words then you can open google maps and hit share location which gives rescuers an actual location that real people can use.

    My god you’re a sad fuck
    Can you tell me what problem what 3 words is solving?
    Conveying a location in a format with strong ease of communication and very strong error correction compared to alternative formats with neither
    Every langiage has its own word list so there is no cross language communication i.e. fuck.this.shit in english could be merci.bon.homme in French

    The world list is stuffed full of homophones (and even plurals!) that makes it a minefield to do over spoken medium.
    1 is a feature not a bug. Again, rules out close matched

    2 we have done this. if jump puts you in Shanghai it also suggests jumps which is where you are expecting it to be

    .
    On 2. W3W geographic spread is awful

    https://what3words.com/deep.pink.start
    https://what3words.com/deep.pinks.start

    1 character errors have a high chance of landing you with a few kilometers of your intended location and so the autosuggest shows you the same general area.
    The detail of their implementation might be poor, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't genius.

    And there are lots of things that have been good enough that they've ended up being used very widely, even if they've been lacking in some detail.
    Yes, but what usually happens is that another company refines the basic idea, and that company is the one which ends up making the money.
    Yes. That might happen, though it often hasn't in the internet era where network effects have entrenched an imperfect implementation.

    Get a proper linguist involved to select an optimal set of words, so that it's more robust to small errors. Maybe standardise the number of syllables or word length. There's a lot that could be done to refine the idea.

    Looking at the Wikipedia page for Morse code it's evident that was refined a few times. That didn't make the original idea crap.
    The idea isn’t crap, but the company might be. W3W have their words fixed, the real money is going to be for the next company which refines the idea with better words.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    It's a complete nonsense to suggest Britain is a "failed state".

    We're one of the wealthiest, safest, and most stable countries in the world and play a global role. We are in the top 5-10 countries (usually the top 5) for anything you care to imagine.

    This self-indulgent whingeing is done solely by Brits. Speak to anyone who's moved here from a country with real problems, and they'll laugh in your face.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    Yes.
    spin.damp.churn
    Fabulous.
    It feels like one of those apps which is going to explode. Like Spotify or something

    Cars are already incorporating it into their navigation tech


    https://www.zdnet.com/article/subaru-is-latest-car-maker-to-use-what3words-for-in-car-navigation/

    They are going to make SO much money
    I hate it.

    The words have no pattern to them so you can't say whether two references are near each other or on the opposite side of the world. Same problem applies if you mishear one word.

    If I have a paper map in the UK I can give you an OS grid reference without recourse to any technology. For this I need a stupid app.

    If I'm sending someone a geolink by phone I don't need this either.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme
    Yes. Let’s all go back to paper maps. They’re brilliant

    Then, if you’re lost and want someone to find you, in a hurricane, you can get out your paper map and have a wild inaccurate guess as to where you are, circle that roughly wrong 12-mild-wide place on the map then, er, take a photo of the scribbled-on map and send the image to a friend so they at least know you’ve got a map?

    Or you could text “for.fucks.sake” and they’d know which specific tree you were sheltering by, but that’s too easy and also you might mistype

    If you are carrying a GPS phone you can read a grid reference too. It is only the means to pass on location information that has changed, not the ability to get it.

    As someone (like Eabhal) who might actually need to call Mountain Rescue in a white-out for myself or others I would ALWAYS have a paper map (and a non-smart phone) as backup, as using your primary phone as both a map and an emergency device is a bad idea.

    I have no real objection to using it to find a pub but it is the overselling that I object to.
    I go OS maps app, OS locate app, Harvey's mountain map + compass in the rucksack for emergencies.
    I tend to use a real compass instead of the phone for following a bearing as that's what I'm used to, and a different app (Locus) with an OS background, but yes, pretty much that. If backpacking I sometimes print specific portions of the OS map to cut down bulk and avoid page turns.

    It is all a long way from counting steps with a mechanical counter (72 double paces to 100m) or box searching for the summit in a white out (on one of the innumerable Geal Charns) but most of the skill of navigation is still in reading terrain so it doesn't feel like cheating.

    I know w3w isn't aimed at us but it does really seem like a battle between sales and actual practicality in difficult situations.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Eabhal said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    17 years behind everyone else, and thanks only to my teen daughter, I have discovered “what 3 words”

    What an absolutely genius idea. So simple it feels kind of miraculous. Like magic. The world is decoded

    And a British start up based in london, as well 👍👍🥂🥂

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797
    What a ridiculous criticism. It’s saying it’s “not always 100% perfect in every single situation”. So that’s a reason not to use an obviously life-saving app?

    “Bromsgrove man urging everyone to download the What 3 Words app which saved his dad's life”

    https://bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/bromsgrove-man-urging-everyone-to-download-the-what-3-words-app-which-saved-his-dads-life/
    Yes I agree - it's great.

    Where are you right now btw?

    I'm guessing lurid*fruit*goggles
    The location of my balcony of my favourite room in my favourite cheap hotel in the tiny village of Chorto in Pelion Greece is ///cathode.mitigates.hauled

    Superb
    It's a big problem for Mountain Rescue. Generally used by people who have no idea what mountain they are on, and heavily spammed into walking forums by well-meaning fools.

    Two main problems:

    1) The words can be hard to pronounce or hear over a radio/bad mobile phone reception
    2) They make no spatial reference to anything. If you move a few metres, the words are completely different.

    That's why your grid reference + actually knowing what hill you are on are best. Even "the knobbly one above Arrochar" is better.

    https://twitter.com/ScottishMR/status/1400093860882178049?t=rAsOeCY5uAtbgIZgCqBjug&s=19

    While I agree to some extent, the twunks who need help don't know the grid reference and what lump they are on.
    You have never been the hill in fog and rain with a gale blowing and a paper map and no pre existing knowledge that your precise present location was going to become of critical importance then. Navigation: easy in theory.
    Has anyone mentioned the OS Maps ap yet? For about £25 a year you carry the entire OS database on your phone and it will tell you exactly where you are. I found it useful recently on the South Downs trying to locate a bridleway that had been overplanted with rape. It was still impassable, though.
    It's incredible value. Shame the route plotting function is so slow and clunky.
    I love it but wouldn't rely on it in the mountains. Did one of the Pen Y Fan horseshoes (from the south) last week. I have the ap on my phone and also the physical map. I downloaded the map to use off line too. For some reason the offline didn't work and there was no phone signal. Happily I had the paper map, and tbh the weather was so clear navigation was a piece of cake. But I would never rely on the phone alone.
  • Rishi on BBC1 now (7-7.30) being interviewed by Nick Robinson.
This discussion has been closed.