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I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

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Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#141

Post by btasker »

n3storm wrote: post #80
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being unaware of paper sizes is baffling to me - where I live, letter and legal paper are common but I’m entirely aware of ISO216 paper sizes.

True, any page oriented software like LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, will show you US Letter sizes and US Letter Envelope sizes and you may have messed up with printing on wrong size... but as other posters say, maybe this days nobody prints on real paper anymore...

They all default to ISO sizes for me.

If I format the page size, Libreoffice does offer "Letter" and "Legal". GIMP shows them as "US Letter" and "US Legal" but again they're not the default.

It wouldn't surprise me if most non-US users hadn't seen them at all, and certainly not that they don't realise the US uses a different size.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#142

Post by therealpygon »

diggan wrote: post #4

> The first thing that came to attention, the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm. I completely forgot that the US, Canada, and a few other countries don’t follow the standard international paper sizes, even though I had written about it earlier. I guess I shouldn't be surp…

> Are US letter sizes what people use instead of A4 in a workplace for documents and such (seems confusing if so)

Yes, it is just our standard like A4 is yours. When you pull a paper out of the pack it is A4 when we pull it out it is ANSI A, commonly known a US Letter size. Instead of 8.27”x11.69”, we use 8.5”x11”. We also commonly use US Legal size, which is 8.5”x14”. Slightly longer and can fit in the same envelope.

> do printers sold in the US default to US letter sizes when printing?

Yes. However all of our printers can do all sizes since our paper is slightly larger, while an A4 specific printer couldn’t print a US letter.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#143

Post by mytailorisrich »

alias_neo wrote: post #133
palata wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am a millennial, so most likely older than the author. Not having envelopes at the ready is one thing, but ordering stamps... on eBay??? And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind. I am a software engineer, and I always have a paper notebook and a pen next to my keyboard to write down stuff. I guess this all tells me I'm getting old :-).

> but ordering stamps... on eBay OP was ordering US stamps to include _in_ the letter, on an SAE (self-addressed envelope) they were sending _from_ the UK, so that the FSF could reply (from the US) using said stamps. As a millennial myself, I have no idea where else I'd look for stamps should I want to include them on a SAE I was sending to said country, so that they recipient wouldn't incur the cost of replying to m…

Sure but, on the other hand, this was overly kind of him. In general, unless it is explicitely requested that you must provide a stamped envelope for the reply the assumption of snail mail is that each side pays for its own envelopes and stamps.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#144

Post by alabastervlog »

xaitv wrote: post #83
gwd wrote: post #14

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes... Wow -- I mean, sure, I don't use a pen that often, but I'm sure I hand-write something at least once a month...

Think the last time I used a pen is about 8-9 years ago when I had to sign something to buy my home. Notes and stuff I just write on my phone or computer and I don't see what else I'd use a pen for.

I tried for a while to do the whole "notebook life" thing that was really trendy to blog about some years back, but found I never had the notebook I wanted on-hand (even if I was just using one notebook...) or forgot to grab a pen or can't find a pen et c. Then making it possible to find anything in them requires more effort afterward.

What do I have on me basically all the time? My phone.

I've done everything in Apple Notes for years now, and it's so much less hassle, and actually works for me. I just make sure to include words I might use to search for a note, when writing a new note. Search does the rest. I can and sometimes do organize things into directories, but usually it's kinda wasted effort. Search is enough.

Meanwhile, the few dozen pages scattered across four or five notebooks that I generated in that brief kick remain, passively, a pain in the ass. I've carted them through two moves, meaning to digitize them, because when I remember they exist and browse I'm like "oh yeah, that was a good idea!" but, out of sight out of mind and when I stumble across them I'm always in the middle of doing other, more important shit.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#145

Post by johannes1234321 »

Symbiote wrote: post #62
rafaelm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because in our countries (I'm also from S.America) the reliability of the post office is questionable at best, so it wasn't something I ever really used.

In most/all of Europe, letter volumes are reducing but they're still used. Even where email is common, letters are usually possible. In your country, - how do you get a new bank card, when the current one expires? - how are you informed about a change like a price increase for electricity? - how do you pay for electricity? (Knowing how much to pay, when etc) What about an elderly person?

Danish Post will soon terminate general mail delivery due to low need.

https://apnews.com/article/postnord-denmark-postal-service-m...

To our questions from Germany:

- by Post, but I can imagine this changing as payment via phone/watch/... is spreading and I can imagine banks willing to reduce cost, making physical cards an paid extra.

- on my contract via e-mail and the energy company's website. There are paper based contracts available, though.

- In Germany/Europe SEPA wire transfers work well for that and are being used for decades, even with online banking being wide spread in the 90ies. (Pre Internet via BTX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildschirmtext )

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#146

Post by KolmogorovComp »

HideousKojima wrote: post #94
andyferris wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other countries switched. Short term pain for long term gain.

>Other countries switched. Except they didn't actually, see my points about the UK (similar points apply to Canada).

Other countries than the UK and Canada exist.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#147

Post by alabastervlog »

massysett wrote: post #96
xaitv wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think the last time I used a pen is about 8-9 years ago when I had to sign something to buy my home. Notes and stuff I just write on my phone or computer and I don't see what else I'd use a pen for.

Wow, I use a pen nearly every day. Sometimes I deliberately get a pen or pencil and paper rather than a phone. I was doing some home improvements in my attic, and I would often need to jot down a measurement so I could cut wood etc. I did this once or twice on my phone and realized it's much easier to do this with a pencil and small notepad. In what is perhaps the most ironic blend of high and low tech, I wrote my ow…

Apple Reminders has native grocery lists now. The collaboration feature (a household can keep just one shared grocery list) and auto-categorizing by store section are serious time and frustration savers. No "oh shit, I left the list at home", no "I could go to the grocery store while I'm out, if we need anything... but the list's at home...", no manually organizing the list, no grocery-list-by-text. It's so nice, saves far more time than any faff it introduces (I'd agree that without the collaboration and auto-categorizing, grocery lists on phones would be more trouble than they're worth)

(I know other apps have also done it, but having it on a built-in is really handy and it works well)

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#148

Post by diggan »

mcgrath_sh wrote: post #91
gwd wrote: post #14

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes... Wow -- I mean, sure, I don't use a pen that often, but I'm sure I hand-write something at least once a month...

Genuinely curious, I don't write anything long by hand, but do you not jot down disposable information with frequency, or date food, or anything like that? I date food we put in the fridge/freezer. I jot down something like a phone number if I am redirected. I have to give my pet medication occasionally and I use a post-it to track so the household can know. Like I said, I'm not writing anything even as long as a car…

> I date food we put in the fridge/freezer

What date are you putting on the food? Every packaging here in Spain (and Europe I assume) has both the production date and "best before" dates printed on them from the factory, and stuff that doesn't have packaging you know if they're bad by looking/smelling/tasting.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#149

Post by warp »

Symbiote wrote: post #62
rafaelm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because in our countries (I'm also from S.America) the reliability of the post office is questionable at best, so it wasn't something I ever really used.

In most/all of Europe, letter volumes are reducing but they're still used. Even where email is common, letters are usually possible. In your country, - how do you get a new bank card, when the current one expires? - how are you informed about a change like a price increase for electricity? - how do you pay for electricity? (Knowing how much to pay, when etc) What about an elderly person?

You physically go to the bank.

The electricity company has their own employees to deliver paper monthly statements to all their customers, they can attach other communications if needed.

My bank has a connection to the electricity company, and can look up in realtime what my open balance is, which you can view and pay in the banking app. You can also pay it in cash at various offices (e.g. Western Union) around the city.

You can also just give the electricity company permission to automatically take it out of your account every month (ppl don't trust the electricity company to get the amount correct, so folks don't usually do this. I do this for the water bill though).

(this is my experience living in Ecuador for 10 years, I'm from the Netherlands, most of this is weird to me :)

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#150

Post by slightwinder »

Symbiote wrote: post #62
rafaelm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because in our countries (I'm also from S.America) the reliability of the post office is questionable at best, so it wasn't something I ever really used.

In most/all of Europe, letter volumes are reducing but they're still used. Even where email is common, letters are usually possible. In your country, - how do you get a new bank card, when the current one expires? - how are you informed about a change like a price increase for electricity? - how do you pay for electricity? (Knowing how much to pay, when etc) What about an elderly person?

There are multiple ways to receive letters. Having a mailman delivering it directly to your house is usually the rich area's way to handle it. The lower version of this is to let people check with the post office themselves. If it's fancy, you have at least your personal postbox there, or you will have to ask office-workers which then depends on their working time. And outside of this, there are other ways to use other locations and people, not directly affiliated with the postal service for delivering letters. Pubs and other shops are often such locations, or in really poor areas the village chief will receive them, and then handle distribution.

But it should be noted, except the physical objects, those letters can be also replaced with other means of communication. Just calling people via phone is common, or nowadays sending an email will also do the job. In my country we have a working and reliable postal system, but companies are still replacing letters with digital communication as far as laws allow it. Payments are also running automatically, so the bills are more informative and for taxes.

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