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How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

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Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#21

Post by socillion »

jacquesm wrote: post #6

For an exercise in school we had to draw a postcard. Some of them looked pretty good so we decided to see what would happen if we used them. 100% success, all of them arrived stamped and on time. So, if you're ever out of stamps but you have an urgent envelope to mail... bring out those crayons, success guaranteed.

Actually, just mail it with either no postage or one cent postage. It has a high probability of getting through, even if it's international mail. I did some experiments a few years ago, and of the 4-5 I sent every one of them got through.

Crayons wouldn't help anyway, except for maybe fooling people. The postal service machine's actually only look at the envelopes for flourescence which is applied to the stamps. In reality, the stamp's design could be totally blank. However, if the package or letter is an odd size, humans must handle it because it would otherwise jam the machinery - the reason there are now charges for oddly shaped mail. So, if you're scamming the USPS, make it an envelope that will have to be processed by people. Maybe a 1/2 too wide or something like that.

I'm not 100% about this, but I think the machinery spits out the envelope for a human to look at if there doesn't appear to be a flourescent stamp; else stamps from 50+ years ago would be invalid.

One more interesting item: the USPS uses some pretty cool OCR to read the addresses on mail. As I recall it has a 98% accuracy, although I wouldn't be able to find the source.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#22

Post by ja27 »

psadauskas wrote: post #20
ericb wrote: post #4

I did a similar experiment with good results in college--mailed an individually wrapped slice of American cheese to a buddy.

I mailed a can of soda that was only available in the town where my college was to a friend across the country. It arrived intact, only slightly dented.

In college, Unilever mailed a bar of soap (in the normal bar-of-soap box) to every student on campus. The whole post office reeked of scented soap. Dozens wound up in fountains around campus. I can't smell that soap without being grossed out.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#23

Post by jonknee »

johnohara wrote: post #17

Article has 2000 copyright -- Powered by Wordpress. Has Wordpress been going strong 8 years, or more?

No, but people are able to upgrade their content management systems. The internet wasn't around in 1900, but you can read news articles from that period just fine on NYTimes.com.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#24

Post by solutionyogi »

mrtron wrote: post #18
inaka wrote: post #10

Moving to Argentina has given me a newfound respect for the USPS - their reliability, sense of duty, and their humanity. In many ways they are a representative slice of America - flawed but generally reliable, hard working, and flexible. Losing things in the mail, spending hours waiting in line to pick up a package, christmas presents delayed for three months for no apparent reason, all of these experiences down here…

I loved the daily show bit about how the government can't efficiently run health care - he mentioned how the USPS can deliver a letter across the country in a few days for a few cents. It really is an impressively efficient distributed system considering the hassles involved, specifically the diversity of items as listed in this article!

I hope you realize that it doesn't really cost few cents. The taxes paid by us keeps USPS running. FYI: USPS lost 2.8 billion dollars in 2008.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#25

Post by nostrademons »

wglb wrote: post #14

It has been fashionable to trash the post office (USPS) but growing up in a rural route area, I occasionally did a test by sending a letter to the grandparents with just the last name, the city name and the zip. Always got there. I probably could have just put the name, county and zip.

I've heard that someone once addressed a letter to:

HILL

JOHN

MASS

And it got there. See if you can figure out the intended recipient - it took me a good half hour. Spoilers at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/billbryson/bb_title/disp...

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#26

Post by sachinag »

solutionyogi wrote: post #24
mrtron wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved the daily show bit about how the government can't efficiently run health care - he mentioned how the USPS can deliver a letter across the country in a few days for a few cents. It really is an impressively efficient distributed system considering the hassles involved, specifically the diversity of items as listed in this article!

I hope you realize that it doesn't really cost few cents. The taxes paid by us keeps USPS running. FYI: USPS lost 2.8 billion dollars in 2008.

The USPS operates under an insane number of constraints that private competitors don't. They have to serve every single residental address in America, no matter how remote (UPS, and especially FedEx, laugh at this); they have to have outposts in bumblefuck nowhere; they have to offer six days of service even though volumes don't support it; fixed rate pricing for First Class letters even from/to the most remote destinations; and so on, all under their universal service obligation.

Furthermore, the postal service is mandated by the United States Constitution (Article I, section 8, Clause 7).

Look, it's like criticizing Amtrak. It's under congressional (although not Constitutional) mandate to run all those dumbass routes with stops in the middle of fucking nowhere on tracks where the freight companies are blatantly ignoring the law that requires passenger trains to have right of way. No wonder Amtrak's losing money and are late all the time; they're not allowed to do their jobs.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

solutionyogi wrote: post #24
mrtron wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved the daily show bit about how the government can't efficiently run health care - he mentioned how the USPS can deliver a letter across the country in a few days for a few cents. It really is an impressively efficient distributed system considering the hassles involved, specifically the diversity of items as listed in this article!

I hope you realize that it doesn't really cost few cents. The taxes paid by us keeps USPS running. FYI: USPS lost 2.8 billion dollars in 2008.

[deleted]

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#29

Post by ergbvreg »

ja27 wrote: post #22
psadauskas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mailed a can of soda that was only available in the town where my college was to a friend across the country. It arrived intact, only slightly dented.

In college, Unilever mailed a bar of soap (in the normal bar-of-soap box) to every student on campus. The whole post office reeked of scented soap. Dozens wound up in fountains around campus. I can't smell that soap without being grossed out.

Virgin mobile phones mailed one of those Love Heart candies to business as apart of a "we love our customers" campaign. Unfortunately they got crushed by the post - resulting in white powder filled envelopes being mailed to lots of US business in the middle of the anthrax scare.

Re: How Much Will the Post Office Put Up With?

#30

Post by yummyfajitas »

sachinag wrote: post #26
solutionyogi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you realize that it doesn't really cost few cents. The taxes paid by us keeps USPS running. FYI: USPS lost 2.8 billion dollars in 2008.

The USPS operates under an insane number of constraints that private competitors don't. They have to serve every single residental address in America, no matter how remote (UPS, and especially FedEx, laugh at this); they have to have outposts in bumblefuck nowhere; they have to offer six days of service even though volumes don't support it; fixed rate pricing for First Class letters even from/to the most remote desti…

The postal service is permitted, not mandated, by the constitution.

"The Congress shall have power to...[long list] To establish post offices and post roads..."

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