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June 22, 2008
Get your PONC!
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Gary Delaney of GPS Ireland sends word that Irish Post Codes is now live and also now available for use on Garmin Nuvi 7xx series SatNav's. Some more spiel from the site -
"In Ireland more than 40% of addresses are not unique, causing problems for Emergency Services, Courier and Postal Services, Taxis, Service providers, Visitors to your location etc - that is why we in Ireland spend a lot of time giving directions to drivers and visitors. PON Codes will speed up the reaction times of Emergency Services;- the Efficiency of delivery services and generally make Businesses, Tourist Attractions and any place easier to find."
I've no idea whether this will take off or not but I do admire the apparent audacity of the effort.
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Comments
I sincerely hope they go nowhere. Despite plugging this tosh around blogs for well over a year, Gary still refuses to take any suggestions into account.
From the site:
"The Second two characters of the code can be either letters or numbers".
Not only that, but his example uses a "5" in a place where his scheme also permits an "S". He also allows 1, I, 2, Z, 8, B, 6, G, O and zero to appear in positions which can
a) be either letters or numbers according to the scheme and
b) may both be *valid codes* pointing to entirely different locations.
D- Must try harder.
I'll bet that if we are to get a postcode scheme, An Post is just begging the almighty that we get one which is this unpredictable and error-prone.
The most annoying part, other than the not-inconsequential achievement of coming up with something even more opaque than Britain and Canada managed? It's not such a bad idea in principle, just hopelessly mangled in the implementation.
Posted by: John Handelaar | Jun 22, 2008 10:34:49 PM
John - your comments are not entirely correct - check again.
The words "opaque and mangled" as you use them are not clearly understood by me or others probably..... but if opaque means you can see inside the coding to understand it - then that's true - its explained fully on the site and if mangled means that characters are moved to guarantee either letters or numbers in certain places - well that's true also and this is also explained on the site.
Are not these the same arguments you voiced about 3 years ago? Need to upadate the arguments - things have moved on!
Posted by: Gary Delaney | Jun 24, 2008 7:39:48 AM
