this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Should the postal service be delivering to a sketched map? It seems like a poor use of resources, although maybe things are different in Iceland.
Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses. Not every property even has a valid address, at least not in the form that you'd expect.
Provided it gets routed to the right town in Iceland, I don't think this will take any more resources than any other letter. The postie will know the house anyway.
At least there are street names. Plenty of streets are unnamed.
Oh yeah I've read such a similar link before, it was great!
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names:
Unless Iceland has a magic sorting system, trying to decipher this would significantly slow a carrier down in US.
I'm not saying that a piece of mail should only be delivering if an automated system can figure out where it goes. Clearly human interaction is sometimes necessary. However, there should be some limit to how much human interaction a piece of mail can require and still be delivered.
My guess is that since Iceland is a small, sparsely populated place, a mailman there can follow such a map without particular effort, especially if the location is part of his regular route. I just think "delivering to a map" should probably be in the "quaint thing they do in Iceland" category rather than the "expected from any good postal service" one.
Your guess is correct, also Icelanders tend to have this help out if possible culture
Take a look at the area in question on Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FfMqsFNs7WU7Vejg7
The address in question is on about a 15km (~9mi) stretch of road, and realistically the odds of choosing the correct house randomly are about one in five.
So I'm going to go with "things are different in Iceland", definitely.
And knowing people there, it'd still get there just fine, because the other 4 people know exactly who this is for.
It is very obvious what house they were referring to: https://www.icelandicroots.com/post/h%C3%B3lar-petting-zoo-a-fun-stop-in-dalas%C3%BDsla-for-young-and-old
Odds are the postman glanced at the map and knew exactly where this was meant to go.
Iceland is a country of about 300k people, with one third of that in a single city, and it's smaller in size than most states in the US. The resources required to figure something like this out are pretty minimal. As long as you're not trying to map an address in Reykjavik, you're probably fine.