🚀 go-pugleaf

  A couple of points I'd like to bring up....

 What about density? The reason the current area codes are rather 
disproportionate is due to population density. The phone company and mail
service do this for purposes of their convenience.
 Stating the above, the grid system would be difficult to use for everyday
puposes in the case of apartments... The world trade center we'll be liberal
and say is 300mX300m. And people within can occupy one of 145 (or so, I don't
know this exactly) vertical coordinates (not part of your system). 
 One thing in favor of the current system is that it eliminates a lot of 
human errors in emegency situations. A 1st street in carnegie and a 1st 
street in crafton is a little more pronounced than 1st St, 8026W 4022N and
1st St 8027W 4022N. Computer being as sophisticated as you say, current
addresses pose no problem. Dealing with emergency situations, the system
is not the computer making an error, but a human. Asking a human to recite
a 12-digit numerical string under duress may be asking too much.
 Going back to the human aspect again (ignoring the computer aspect, which
works in *both* cases we will say for argument). The geocode does not betray
any information to the person trying to find it without assistance. The
geocode will allow you to determine (assuming you have global positioning
equipment in the car) when you intercept one of the co-ordinates, but not
tell you if this is the street you take to find the house. geocode is 
ignorant of topology. Streets would have different geocodes, and just as 
different than adjacent streets. What of a 1 1/2 mile street running NE? 
It would have 8 of 12 geocode numbers changing on the houses on it! 
  Some information on the address is redundant. City, 
State/Province/Prefecture, country, and postal code. This allows 
other means if the zip code is unreadable. 
  And finally, what about regular people, given that people who travel a 
lot invest in a geocode system, how do these people figure out the geocode?
You can't watch the odometer, because of topology (go 5 miles to go 3 
miles east, due to turns and hills). They also would not have the benefit of
a computer for looking up addresses (make out a christmas card list 
sometime).

  Let me paraphrase: You say computers are powerful enough, so they are 
powerful enough to understand ANY (polar even!) co-ordinate system. And 
you wish to introduce this new geocode for their benefit. You say it's 
too hard to remember an address. Using your method, you will replace the 
address with a 12-character (12d 34m 56s Lat 78d 90m 12s Lng) string, which
at best will have two digits change on a perfect N/S or E/W street. The 
realistic digit changes would be 8 (mins and secs given min = about a mile)
. And force people to memorize 12-character 'addresses', plus maybe an
additional one or two for vertical differentiation.
   I'll put it bluntly.... You're asking a heck of a lot, considering the 
strings in most people's eyes would be random. From a computer 
standpoint, it isn't practical usless you get the former implemented, 
otherwise it's an extra translation.

   Here's a test: Every day (if you have a car, if not ask a friend who 
does), look at the odometer of a car. Write the number down, and hide it.
Do this every day for two weeks. See how much energy you spend trying to 
remember 5 digits! See what happens (assuming you haven't peeked at the 
numbers since you wrote them down) after a week, and how well you 
remember the numbers. I think that how well you retain the 14 numbers is
how well the average person would (I am betting not very...)

PJ Volk