I spent ~5 years volunteering for a search and rescue team in New Mexico.
We definitely got the cellphone tower triangulation data. I never once saw GNSS data provided by a carrier. We used FindMeSAR https://findmesar.com/, the subject would usually text back the coordinates from the phone.
Just one data point.
The revolution that's occurred since my SAR volunteer days is the wide availability of satellite messenging on consumer phones. I'm guessing that's really changed the situation quite a bit.
>assuming you have formalized the statement correctly
That's a pretty big assumption, though, isn't it? As we saw the Navier-Stokes psychosis episode over the New Year holiday, formalizing correctly really isn't guaranteed.
So if you buy a watch but run slower than max effort, wouldn't it the watch record an inaccurate value? The watch probably only determines effort through heart rate but that has significant individual differences.
Sam publicly asking for a 10x bigger power grid and 7 trillion dollars is a pretty clear sign that they're out of short to medium-term ideas other than "MOAR PARAMETERS".
Well, he also wanted a shit ton of money so that OpenAI coupd build its own silicon, after most of the real world money generated by the AI hype went to nVidia.
Just imagine what valuation OpenAI would have as a grid monopolist combined with nVidia, ARM, Intel and AMD! Hundreds of trillions of dollars!
GiveWell can point you to various charities in 3rd world countries where you can be reasonably certain you can save a life for about $5000-7000. https://www.givewell.org/
Save 1 life in the USA, or take the same 7.5 million and save ~1000 lives in Africa. Interesting lens on which to view these numbers.
It costs me 100 bucks to produce and sell an item, the market is only ready to pay a price of 80. I loose 20.
In terms os life: the value of life is universal (at least it should be), the cost of saving one (or ending one...) depends on circumstances. And the price someone is paying in order to safe / end said life is again something different.
Edit: The value of the item initially mentioned can be anything: from the 80 for the customer at the time of purchase, 500 because it provides the customer with clean water a week later or even negaitive (e.g. because it is a replacement part, non-original, for a classic car and the resulting values of the car decreased after installation).
Ah, cost is the amount to produce and price is the amount to consume then? I never actively tagged those ideas with distinct words, but I appreciate the insight.
Using "cost" to refer to the amount you pay for something and "price" for the amount you get for selling it is pretty standard usage, especially in accounting contexts.
Cost is on the producers side, peice is whatever the product can be sold for. Value is depending on circumstances, accounting value on the other hand is pretty well defined, and either based on cost (inventory at the manufacturer) or purchasing price (inventory and assets on customer side).
I think the term cost can only be specified with respect to an entity.
A given good has multiple cost, up and down the supply chain. A widget can have different costs to the original manufacturer, the wholesaler, retailer, and finally consumer.
It makes no sense to say the cost of a widget is X, without specifying cost to whom.
I volunteered in SAR for five years, and the topic of W3W would occasionally come up.
For me, it’s just already damn hard to make sure you can hear numbers correctly over the radio. In marginal conditions, it’s a hell of a lot easier to use numbers (and requires less time due to not having to repeat or ask for clarification).
Do I really want to be trying to say “arrows.midst.senses” over a handheld radio?
Especially since "arrows.midst.senses" and "arrow.midst.senses" are two different locations, and if you mishear it as "arrows.midst.sends", that's yet another different valid location.
Really, there's all the research done (since the invention of early radio?) on what makes a phonetic alphabet or phonetic code usable in noisy conditions, and instead W3W effectively plants a field of rakes in front of blindfolded people.
Very similar experience, decade in volunteer SAR with a lot of police and fire overlap.
I hold exactly the same opinion as you, however what is very telling us that the police and fire services love it. I think that's because of the accessibility of the system rather than the underlying algorithm or communication.
I am also coming to see w3w locations written more and more as a more accessible alternative to coordinates, especially in land sales and forestry situations.
I do particularly hate that government services and agencies are becoming reliant on a commercially licensed pattern. It does not tick the sustainability tickbox for me.
poor implementation aside, the format has its advantages over numerical coordinates
besides the greater public awareness of w3w amongst certain demographics compared to coordinates, they may be harder to hear, but it's much easier to read out three words correctly than it is 16-18 numbers
the thing with words is that they're easy to hear in context, but take them out of context and they're often indecipherable
perhaps a system that gives each square a coherent-sounding sentence could be tried, although I'm sure that would have its difficulties too
12.34567N 89.01234W is 14 digits, 2 points, and 2 signs or letters.
Earth is about 2^49 square meters. If you want precision of ~8 square meters, you're going to need to convey 46 bits of information (or use an optimization that gives less resolution over oceans, etc, but that's only going to be a small win-- a bit or two).
46/3.3 = 14 digits, but the latitude/longitude coding is a little less efficient because it's not uniform. A plus code does it in 11 characters (not including the plus) worth each 4.32 bits =~ 47.5 bits.
if Earth sqm = 2^49:
to address a single metre, we'd need 49 bits.
log_10(2^49) = 14.75 so we'd need 15 spoken decimal digits for 1 sqm. for 8m do log_10(2^47)
> if Earth sqm = 2^49: to address a single metre, we'd need 49 bits.
Yes-- that's why I said it was 46 bits for an 8 square meter area (because this is about the size of area you care about for this problem-- W3W is 9 square meters).
> for 8m do log_10(2^47)
No, because 2^3 = 8, so one does log_10(2^(49-3)) and gets 13.8. 46 / 3.3 =~ 13.9 works because 1/log_10(2) =~ 3.3.
Why are you not sending text messages to each other if it is so hard to understand? You can have plenty of error correction to make sure the message always is correctly received.
If they are in a situation in which they can send W3W coordinates by text message, then they are in a situation in which they can send ordinary numerical coordinates by text message.
And I'm implying that there are situations where they cannot take the luxury of communicating by text with the extreme care required not to make the slightest typo in W3W.
If what you care about is climate change, you should be in favor of cramming people into the smallest possible spaces in urban areas, not putting them in rural areas where they have to drive 20 minutes to get to the grocery store.
The carbon footprint of your average city dweller is far lower.
It's not only about climate change, most of the effects are to be seen on the biodiversity, the beauty of the countryside (yes, it's important), agricultural production and water supply, as concrete reduces a lot water absorbtion.
Lyme disease outbreaks can be attributed in part to the increase in rodents population, which is due to the urban sprawl and the increased difficulty for predators to hunt in suburban areas.
Public transport is only more environmentally friendly if people actually use it. Out where my parents live it was not uncommon to see busses driving for miles with 0-2 passengers. The problem was that providing good enough public transport that you didn't need a car at all is basically impossible. And since everybody had a car, the number of people that wanted to spend 60+ minutes taking a buss that went 3-4 times a day into town, instead of driving 30 minutes, was basically zero. They eventually cancelled the bus line since it was just too expensive and inefficient to run. The alternative of trying to provide a truly useful public transport service (say 2 buss lines running every 30 mintues) would have been extremely expensive and would have meant even more empty busses.
That's true, but you can always be triangulated down a couple hundred meters by figuring out which towers you're connected to.