[rescue] Things I'd like to find good homes for...

[Clem Cole]

@Nathan - sounds like an interesting and fun collection. But like others,
it's not clear I'm adding and like adh, even though I'm also down I495 a
piece from North Andover (01824).


@Liam tad off main subject - see below

On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 10:11 AM Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 at 15:55, Sandwich Maker <adh at an.bradford.ma.us> wrote:
> >
> > yes, we can.  it's a simple duckduckgo query
> > zipcode 01845
>
> Well, yes, I could Google it or whatever too, but I meant by eye.
>
Sure, that 100K zip codes or 'towns' as it was originally considered, which
is more than the ~20K cities and towns in the USA.

FWIW: the first digit will sort of tell you time zone/general area [0-1
being east coast, moving toward 9 for left coast and Hawaii].     The
second digital is generally by the state within the first digit and the
last three are more random (originally assigned in the late 1950s as zones
via population density).

To start to get the precision of block/bldg like in Europe, the US adds 4
more optional digits (*i.e.* zip+4)  Which corresponds to the mail carriers
'slots' which are used for last-mile style sorting.   Canada used Alpha
Numerics and as a result, a few years ago the number of unique Canadian zip
codes was a large multiple of the population.  I never looked into how it
was allocated, however.

A better scheme all around is 'what-3-words'  try these:
https://what3words.com/prices.slippery.traps
https://what3words.com/heave.wipes.clay
https://what3words.com/sulk.held.raves
warning if you have not seen this web site, be prepared to waste some time
playing with it ;-)