On Non-Existence

I've not been very productive in the last couple of weeks, we sold our old house about 10 days ago and closed on a new one, built on the site of the old Stapleton Airport; a brand new house on a brand new street. I've been going through the excercise of changing my address with all the various companies that I do business with; I've been able to do this almost entirely online. The funny part of this is that there have been 2 notable exceptions: I couldn't change my address with Netflix, because it doesn't think my address exists, and I couldn't file my change of address with the USPS either, for the same reason. Now, I'd noticed a few weeks ago that Google Maps has the same worldview, which is inconvenient, perhaps, but when people start suggesting that the Internet will replace the need for any written forms or telephone customer assistance, here's a corner case to consider: these are the 2 services that are intimately tied to my street address (because they both involve postal deliveries), and yet were useless because the metadata haven't caught up to the reality on the ground.

— Gordon Weakliem at permanent link