111 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
111 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
These3Words
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=============
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Remember a location anywhere in the world with just three words.
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Try it: X
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Some interesting locations:
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* [Battery Park, NYC](?)
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* [Downtown San Francisco](?)
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* [Sydney, Australia](?)
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This app was inspired by http://what3words.com/
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example
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=======
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>>> import thesethreewords as these
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# the home of particle physics
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>>> CERN = (46.232355, 6.055419)
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>>> three = these.three_words(CERN)
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>>> print three
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'turks-yunnan-salant'
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>>> these.decode(three)
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(46.232335567474365, 6.055419445037842)
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See where this is on [These3Words map][cernmap].
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requirements
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============
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You need to install the [geohash][geohash] and [bottle][bottlepy]
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libraries:
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$ pip install geohash
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$ pip install bottle
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six words
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=========
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There are a lot of 3x3m squares on the earth's surface. To encode
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them in only three words requires a long wordlist, as a result
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some fairly obscure words get on it. If you can live with
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having to remember six words the wordlist is much shorter.
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The six word wordlist comes from the amazing [humanhash][humanhash]
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library. Words were chosen to maximise clarity in human
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communication, they should be more familiar than the words
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on the three wordlist:
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>>> six = these.six_words(CERN)
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>>> print six
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'spaghetti-carolina-kentucky-oscar-iowa-table'
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>>> these.decode(six)
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(46.232335567474365, 6.055419445037842)
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how it works
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============
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Each latitude/longitude pair is converted to a nine
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character geohash. This provides about 3meter
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resolution at all latitudes. The geohash is then
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converted to an integer which is encoded as a string
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of words.
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The wordlist used to encode the `geohash` into just
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three words uses your local computers dictionary. Some
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attempts are made to remove really obscure words but
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it could be better. You need to use the same wordlist
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when encoding and decoding a `these-3-words` hash.
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The `these-3-words` hash shares the
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property of a `geohash` that nearby locations share
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have similar `these-3-words` hashes
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>>> other_CERN_site = (46.256811, 6.056792)
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>>> six = these.six_words(other_CERN_site)
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>>> print six
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'spaghetti-carolina-kentucky-utah-seventeen-neptune'
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>>> these.decode(six)
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(46.256797313690186, 6.056792736053467)
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The other CERN site is [here][othercernmap] on a map.
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webservice
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==========
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The file `server.py` provides a tiny webservice that allows to display a
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location given by three words on a Google Maps map.
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The server requires [bottle.py][bottlepy] to be installed. It can be run
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locally by typing `./server.py` or `python server.py` respectively.
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brought to you by [@betatim][betatim] and [@kdungs][kdungs] productions
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[humanhash]: https://github.com/zacharyvoase/humanhash
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[geohash]: https://code.google.com/p/python-geohash/
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[cernmap]: http://these3words.herokuapp.com/turks-yunnan-salant
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[othercernmap]: http://these3words.herokuapp.com/spaghetti-carolina-kentucky-utah-seventeen-neptune
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[bottlepy]: http://bottlepy.org/
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[betatim]: https://twitter.com/betatim
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[kdungs]: https://twitter.com/kdungs
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