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Farce Majeure

@Daveosaurus @xssfox I recently got a financial statement from Canada (alphas) with my post code as 2138 (all US zip codes are 5 digits, it should be 02138), and I'm really surprised it got delivered. Often they aren't, but it's usually just software bugs on domestic shipping. I have to assume there's some corrective procedure that happens on national borders that doesn't happen internally, but who knows?

2 comments
Dave

@vathpela @xssfox One part of my day job involves managing a database of tens of thousands of postal addresses - including overseas ones. About half the US zipcodes are 5 digit - the other half of them are 9 digit. The system is all very relational but we've managed to force it to recognise leading zeros as part of the number.

If only we could force it to do the same with trailing zeros of areas in hectares...

Alexandre Muñiz

@Daveosaurus @vathpela @xssfox Until very recently a small section of Portland, Oregon, USA had leading zeros in street addresses. The leading zero was used to denote a "negative" address, as the dividing line between the SW and SE sectors is a river that runs mostly south to north, but only mostly. As a result, the same addresses with and without a leading zero could be valid addresses a few blocks away from each other, but on opposite sides of a major interstate freeway, two other highways, and a steep hillside. (The steep hillside and the river being why all traffic from the south is routed through a narrow bottleneck.) So the biggest problem there was software used to route emergency services to 0700 block of SW Gaines St. could send them to the 700 block of SW Gaines St., which can be an over 10 minute drive away from each other. Not great when you want to respond to a fire or a medical emergency.

@Daveosaurus @vathpela @xssfox Until very recently a small section of Portland, Oregon, USA had leading zeros in street addresses. The leading zero was used to denote a "negative" address, as the dividing line between the SW and SE sectors is a river that runs mostly south to north, but only mostly. As a result, the same addresses with and without a leading zero could be valid addresses a few blocks away from each other, but on opposite sides of a major interstate freeway, two other highways, and...

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