State?

Reasons why New Zealand and Australia will never unify - #12: Addresses.

I was filling out an online registration form earlier. It was for a local only product from the local subsidiary of a dutch based multi-national. I know they have a local presence because I walked past their head office today. The form contained fields for my address as follows: address, suburb, state and postcode. In other words, an Australian format address. I was just a bit irked because the creators of the form had obviously used a form designed for Australia and hadn't bothered to change the fields to be appropriate to the people using it.

It got me thinking again about the standard Aussie address format. I have had plenty of reason to contemplate it in the past. Back when I was at the BNZ, we shared a fraud detection system with the National Australia Bank. We had to format data out of one of our local systems to send it to this shared system over the Tasman. The problem was that the target system was set up for Australian style addresses and we had huge difficulties mapping our address data into the correct fields. The problem being that we had both a suburb field and a town/city field to deal with. The issue proved quite a tricky one and ultimately meant the system was not as effective as it should have been for us. About the time I left, a replacement system just for New Zealand was being trialled.

I understand why the Australian system works the way it does. A population distribution has the majority of the people concentrated in the capital cities means that town/city is less important than suburb and state for a large chunk of the population. It is not the same here. In fact I wonder if anybody has come across the same system anywhere. What other odd addressing systems are there out there? The British have always claimed to have the most precise method of defining an address. I wonder who has the most confusing.

Aretha said it all

I read the book and started musing on the whole art verses craft discussion. The more I thought, the muddier the subject became. It really is a minefield. In lieu of that whole discussion, instead for Sabriel by Garth Nix I asked the following two questions:
Does this book advance the realms of understanding or illuminate the human condition or do something unique? No.
Does this book engage the reader, tell a story in an entertaining manner and create interesting characters? Yes.

Make of that what you will. Sabriel is another of the YA fantasy titles I have been reading with a view to seeing how well they work for the target age group as well as an adult audience. Of course, to be entertained too. The book does work across the age ranges and I think it is for the same reason as the De Lint book I read last week. In both cases the author knows the difference between simplifying and dumbing down. The plots have been made more linear and direct and the characters avoid some themes but otherwise the reader is treated as intelligent and able to engage fully in the book. Is it really just as simple as respecting your audience and treating them like thinking people? Even if it isn't, shouldn't that be happening anyway?