32 posts tagged with mail and post.
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Polish Sound Postcards
Techmoan looks at a unique music format from Poland - records pressed into thin plastic, originally with a cardboard backing. They were designed/intended for mailing. More from PRX. [more inside]
Signed, Sealed, & Undelivered
In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was bequeathed to the Dutch postal museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The trunk belonged to perhaps the most active postmasters and post-mistresses of the day, Simon and Marie de Brienne, a couple at the heart of the European communication networks. The chest contains an extraordinary archive: 2600 "locked" letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered and many of which have never been opened.
Santa’s Post Office was built for Eleanor Roosevelt
If you write a letter to Santa Claus/Father Christmas, chances are it’ll end up in a post office in Rovaniemi, a town in Finland that straddles the Arctic Circle. The whole town was burned to the ground by the German army in 1944, and was rebuilt in the shape of a reindeer’s head, as planned by architect Alvar Aalto. Part of the funds came from a UN agency headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, who visited in 1950. She sent the first letter from its post office, and over the years it became the place letters to Father Christmas were sent, hundreds of thousands each year, of which about 40 thousand get replies. The podcast All Points North went to Rovaniemi to find out about Santa’s Post Office, which includes, of course, an interview with Santa.
160,000 letters seized by British warships will be scanned and published
"You can't love me anymore if you don't answer. I will now stop writing. I give up." A cache of 160,000 letters, posted between 1652 and 1815 but seized by British warships and never delivered, will be scanned and posted online for all to see. A large percentage have never been opened. For many that were, it's tragic to imagine that they were never received: an indentured servant writing to her father, apologizing for whatever she did wrong and begging him to send clothes because she doesn't have any, or a wife writing to her distant husband saying that he must not love her any longer because he is not responding to her letters.
Tip your mail carrier
Six months after being laid off by the Fort Collins Coloradoan, journalist Stephen Meyers started delivering mail for the USPS. Now returning to the writerly world, Meyers relays what he learned about America and himself during those two years as a Man of Letters.
The people who live on remote rocks in the North Atlantic
The BBC provides a fascinating look at the lesser-known Faroe Islands, Tales from the far-flung Faroes, via the Faroese Post which is slowly closing on the islands where demand for letter carriers has dropped as population has dropped.
Me vs An Post
Everyone needs a hobby. Dave Curran's is trying to drive the Irish postal service mad. Me versus An Post: Featuring bricks, puzzles, hand drawn maps, invisible ink, scratch offs, cheerful and accommodating ringmasters (literally) and an attempt to resolve a territorial dispute between Canada and the US via postcard.
At the heart of all international post is ... a spreadsheet
Christmas is only eleven weeks away. But how will your card, letter or present get to you from your relative or partner or MeFite crush in distant lands, and who pays who? These questions are periodically asked [1] [2] by MeFites. As explained by Josh Urich, the answer lies in the Universal Postal Union, a Switzerland-based agency of the United Nations, and their lovely spreadsheet you can download and play with.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
"The very term 'country' can be controversial. Who decides what is a country and what isn't? The criterion used in this document is simple: if the USPS lists it in its Index to Countries and Localities, we treat it as a country. Thus some localities (such as Reunion Island) that are not distinct countries are listed, whereas other localities that consider themselves countries (such as Western Sahara) are not listed (but still discussed). Rationale: if you address mail from the USA to WESTERN SAHARA, the USPS won't know what to do with it. If you want to send mail to SAINT PIERRE AND MIQUELON (a part of France that is in Canada) from the USA, it doesn't make sense for the mail to go all the way to France and back." Frank's Compulsive Guide to Country Addresses
"YOU EXIST ONLY TO REDUCE OVERTIME"
the iconic mailbox
In 1915, dissatisfied with the many competing designs for rural mailboxes, the US Post Office Department decided to specify its own box. The result, designed by postal engineer Roy Joroleman, was the iconic tunnel mailbox. Unpatented and easily manufacturable, it would be become ubiquitous along America's roadsides and would often serve as a blank canvas for homeowners' artistic expression. [more inside]
Postal History Corner
Postal History Corner: Canadian Postal and Philatelic History is chock full of fascinating information and high quality images and has been doing so for four years. [more inside]
A Parcel's Eye View
In this hidden-camera video, designer Ruben van der Vleuten answers the question, "What happens when you send something by mail?" (SLV)
"I have now attained the true art of letter-writing..."
Post & Prejudice: [guardian.co.uk] "The Royal Mail is joining in the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice with the release of a series of stamps featuring all six of Jane Austen's novels. Royal Mail commissioned the artwork by Angela Barrett." [Slideshow]
Feed Me
Payhole.me. The Rules: Feed me money. Put in an address. Get something in the mail. [via mefi projects]
I'm gonna sit write down and write twenty-four letters...
A Month of Letters is a challenge with two parts: mail something (anything!) every day the post runs in February and respond to every letter you get.
"Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something." ~Ernest Hemingway
Post A Letter Social Activity Club: "Imagine a day when every personal e-mail you receive is in the form of a piece of mail, in envelopes of different sizes, papers of different colours and textures, handwriting of varying degrees of legibility. Wouldn’t that be pretty nice for a change?" [more inside]
Dear Catherine, Hello, how are you?
"In April 2009, we sent a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall." Now, Michael Crowe and Lenka Clayton (previously on MeFi) intend to send a letter to everyone on the planet.
Direct Postage
What happens if you post a letter using coins instead of stamps?
Mailbox Art: 20 Cool and Creative Postboxes
Zip code with a capital C O D E.
Return to sender: Artist puts Royal Mail to the test - "To put them to the test, Harriet Russell concealed the addresses of 130 letters to herself in a series of increasingly complex puzzles and ciphers. Among the disguises she employed were dot-to-dot drawings, anagrams and cartoons. The answer, it seems, was very far indeed. Amazingly, only 10 failed to complete their journey back to her." Be sure to click the "more pictures" link to the right for more samples. Via one.point.zero.
"The package was not recorded or registered."
Oops: UK tax collection agency loses discs containing personal details of 25 million Britons in the mail.
Geo Info Postcards
How's the weather? Is it polluted? Do you have plenty of rainforests? Send someone a Geography Information Postcard and tell them about where you live by filling out infographics. (via)
"Swedish post horn" sounds like it should mean something
Arago: People, Postage & the Post is the online database of the National Postal Museum. It has lots and lots of lovely things. Some examples are a high quality scan of an 18th Century envelope, a sampling of comic strips featuring mail carriers, a collection of stamps on the theme of map projection and a Swedish post horn.
Male call
Man short on funds, mails himself home. Judge not amused, fines him $1,500. More background info here. Robbed of the Darwin Award.
Here's
Here's a piece from NPR for all those people who, even during these crazy times, have a love of getting/receiving mail (need Real Player to hear)...
Thinking of shipping valuable stuff by UPS? Think different!
Thinking of shipping valuable stuff by UPS? Think different! Every time I forget exactly why I never, ever want to ship anything at all by UPS ground, a story like this one pops up that reminds me. The last time I had something sent to me using that "service" (and I use the term loosely) my Athlon desktop system showed up at my door with the case dented and the CPU & heatsink loose inside the case as the box was jolted so violently that it broke the notch (on the ZIF socket) which usually keeps the assembly in place. Use FedEx if it positively, absolutely has to be there in one piece, I guess.
With the FBI advising how to handle suspicious mail [pdf], the fine people who send you junk snail mail are changing their methods. The Canadian and American Direct Marketing Associations are recommending that their members ''consider notifying consumers by phone or e-mail that a direct-mail piece is on its way so they are not alarmed when it arrives." One cancelled campaign involved mailing marbles to some prospective clients.
USPS advice on the Anthrax treat.
USPS advice on the Anthrax treat. You've read through the hype. Now read about what you really must know.
Staten Island postal people prevent posting of posterior postcards.
Staten Island postal people prevent posting of posterior postcards. Um, I mean, they wouldn't allow postcards of guys' butts to be sent. The cards were advertising short films to be shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (NYT. Login: imaguest; password: imaguest)
The J.W. Westcott II
The J.W. Westcott II delivers toilet paper, the occasional pizza, and, most importantly, mail to freighters making their way through the Great Lakes. And now it's the only boat in the U.S. to be assigned it's own zip code.
The U.S. Post office is a monopoly! or is it?
The U.S. Post office is a monopoly! or is it? USPS allows rate hike under protest...
We can't choose another vendor for this service. It is illegal for anyone to deliver to a mailbox other than the USPS. Has there ever been a substantial court case challenging this?
Should it be privatized? Your thoughts?
We can't choose another vendor for this service. It is illegal for anyone to deliver to a mailbox other than the USPS. Has there ever been a substantial court case challenging this?
Should it be privatized? Your thoughts?
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