[HN Gopher] It is impossible to exceed the weight limit for a sm...
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It is impossible to exceed the weight limit for a small USPS flat
rate box
Author : MVorlm
Score : 119 points
Date : 2022-04-21 22:35 UTC (1 days ago)
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| radicality wrote:
| Semi related - a few months ago, while not fully sober, I was
| aimlessly browsing through Amazon and ended up owning a set of
| two 1.5inch cubes - one aluminium, one tungsten.
|
| It's kind of a silly purchase considering it's a lot of money for
| 2 metal cubes, but it's honestly very impressive just how heavy
| that small cube is - both objectively, and when compared to the
| aluminium cube. Also makes for a great talking point when having
| guests over.
| chiph wrote:
| When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten
| cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5"
| cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg
| [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will
| admit to wanting to experience their density for myself.
|
| [0] free Prime shipping for the win
| akvadrako wrote:
| Tungsten doesn't seem especially heavy; it's a little less
| than gold.
| valbaca wrote:
| right, just buy 1kg of gold instead
| postalrat wrote:
| And much heavier than lead.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It's not the heaviest thing in the world, but it's probably
| the heaviest thing a person could buy a practical cube of.
| The main metals heavier than lead are gold, iridium,
| mercury, platinum, tungsten, and uranium.
|
| Uranium is a comparable price and density to tungsten, but
| buying iridium is gonna be at least 50x the price for
| something 10% denser.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Uranium at it's elemental density is a comparable price
| to tungsten??
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I looked it up because I hadn't heard of the crypto bro
| thing. OMG. You can apparently get them from tungsten.com for
| only $2999 according to GQ.
|
| https://www.gq.com/story/tungesten-cubes-what-is-going-on
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wish I was a millionaire. I could fulfil my wish of owning
| replica of IPK that is small cylinder of Platinum-Iridium
| weighting very very close to kilogram.
| tyingq wrote:
| On the other end of the spectrum is lightweight, but bulky stuff.
| I sold things like this for a time, some time ago. Would get a
| fair amount of grief from customers who would use the simpler
| UPS/Fedex calculators on the weight only and complain that I
| padding shipping prices. But UPS and Fedex charge "dimensional
| weight" for these types of shipments, and you have to use a more
| complicated formula.
| bombcar wrote:
| The flat rate envelope used to be a bit cheaper than that small
| box - and the small box fits inside the envelope with a bit of
| work - no tape!
| TMWNN wrote:
| The USPS 1096L box
| (<https://store.usps.com/store/product/shipping-
| supplies/prior...>) fits perfectly inside the USPS padded flat
| rate envelope (<https://store.usps.com/store/product/shipping-
| supplies/prior...>). Great for giving an item slightly more
| protection.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I once purchased lead weights online, and they came packed
| tessellated in a flat rate box. Shipper definitely got their
| money's worth.
| radicality wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what kind of weights were they? I was under
| the impression that it has been phased out of many uses because
| of high toxicity (including via skin absorption when handling
| it)
| AceyMan wrote:
| I'm a tennis racquet tech (side gig) and we use spools of Pb
| tape for weight and balance tuning of frames. It's uncoated,
| so following installation I (a) scrub my hands down with a
| brush and dish detergent and (b) shellac the tape where it is
| on the customer frame with two coats of clear nail polish.
|
| They make rubber adhesive strips with four or five wee bits
| of tungsten in them, but they are too expensive for general
| use, nor do they offer the precision you get from a
| continuous length of lead tape. They are also too thick to
| install on the handle pallet under the grip, which is no
| problem with lead tape since it's about 0.3 mm thick (rough
| guess, I haven't actually mic'ed it).
| walrus01 wrote:
| people buy bulk lead for sailboat keels and such all the
| time, you just have to handle it properly.
| aix1 wrote:
| Lead weights continue to be widely used in diving:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_weighting_system
| (there's a section on materials and toxicity).
| halfdan wrote:
| They are, but as a diver I will never touch them unless
| they look in proper shape and are the types wrapped in some
| other material. Some fishy dive centers will have the old
| style raw lead blocks..
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You breath TEL whenever you go near an airport. That's a
| far more pressing concern than incidental exposure
| through contact. If that's your threshold you may as well
| isolate from zinc and copper too.
| postalrat wrote:
| Your risking your live going under water but are afraid
| of some lead?
| travisporter wrote:
| Exactly what I was thinking. Bet they're iron, about 70% less
| dense and a good supplement for your blood cells. https://www
| .wolframalpha.com/input?i=densiy+of+iron%2Fdensit...
| Doxin wrote:
| Does lead actually absorb through the skin? I always heard
| the main pathway was getting lead dust on your hands and then
| eating/inhaling that.
| a9h74j wrote:
| On Earth.
| Hamcha wrote:
| Depends how you measure it. Any X kg/lbs of matter here on
| earth is still that same X kg/lbs everywhere in the universe.
| Assuming the scale being used to weight is correctly calibrated
| to whatever planet it's in, it would still show up as the same
| amount of kg/lbs.
| grog454 wrote:
| "a teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh around a
| billion tonnes."
|
| https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/n/neutron+star#:~:text=.
| ...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| It would be impossible to put neutron star material inside
| a cardboard box, and the original post was talking about
| possibility.
| ben_w wrote:
| If I remember right, given that free neutrons aren't
| stable and have a very short half life, it would be
| explosively unwise even if it was physically possible.
| tialaramex wrote:
| This is why simple balances are such a brilliant idea despite
| their simplicity. You don't need to calibrate to the local
| conditions, if I have a 250g mass on one side, and I put
| something on the other side and it balances, that's 250
| grams, done. Only the (often provided with the balance)
| prototype masses need to be calibrated and that can be done
| by experts far from your local environment.
|
| Until as recently as 2019 this approach - using a prototype -
| was the only extant mass definition, the prototype kilogram
| lived at a specialised laboratory and its clones were used
| around the world to define mass (yes including the pound if
| you're an American).
|
| [ Today instead the Planck constant is defined to be exactly
| 6.62607015x10^-34 kg x m^2 per second and it's possible to
| build devices such as a Kibble balance to estimate what the
| kilogram is from knowing this definition, the better your
| Kibble balance the better the estimate ]
| a9h74j wrote:
| Depends upon what you set out to measure. _lbs_ is
| specifically a unit of force. _kg_ is specifically a unit of
| mass. It is a category error to equate these as measures,
| although (in many places) an everyday convention to do so _on
| Earth_.
|
| IIRC the English unit for mass is the _slug_. If the tecnical
| limit is 70lbs or so, that is must technically be read as
| _lbs force_ -- aka force of gravity which varies with
| location.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| you could really take USPS for a ride by shipping something
| to Venus!
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Wikipedia lists it as a unit of mass -- as defined by the
| amount that exerts a certain force.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)
|
| The pound unit of force is abbreviated 'lbf'.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(force)
| rzzzt wrote:
| Kilopond or kilogram-force is the force with which a 1 kg
| object is pushing on its base:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram-force
| midasuni wrote:
| I assume they were saying
|
| Densest material _on earth_
|
| There are denser materials, but you would struggle to send
| them via UPS
| Blackthorn wrote:
| That said, it sure wasn't fun for the mail person when they had
| to deliver me those two boxes of lead ingots.
| jotm wrote:
| I got a pair of dumbbells once (30KG total) that were very
| efficiently packed in one small box and felt kinda bad about
| the guy
| mikestew wrote:
| I'll raise you a 114lb/52Kg battery (not USPS, though; FedEx,
| IIRC):
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RPOI7F4/
|
| I, too, felt bad for the guy until I saw him toss it on his
| shoulder like it was nothing, carried to the garage and
| gently set it down. Not a big guy, either. :-)
| athenot wrote:
| The UPS person who delivered my full size punching bag was
| not super thrilled. 100 lbs and 150cm tall odd shape. I
| wish I was there when delivery happened as I was prepared
| to tip them for the inconvenience.
| postalrat wrote:
| I ordered a couple 70 pound blocks of tungsten. They were each
| double boxed and still somehow managed to slip through the
| first box. Might have been both amusing and annoying to handle
| those boxes.
| leviathant wrote:
| Not part of the USPS small box story, but I ordered a bundle of
| steel plates that unfortunately fit through our mail slot on
| our front door, and absolutely destroyed the ceramic tile floor
| when the delivery person dropped them through that slot.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I have a 115lb shipment of small metal parts that needs to be
| across the country before Wed. Both FedEx and UPS quoted me ~$750
| to ship it in a 12"x8"x8" OSB box via 2-day shipping. Fedex one
| rate boxes have a weight limit of 50lbs. The small boxes are
| $31/ea to ship. I just finished breaking the shipment up into 3
| parts. Heck, next day would be ~$300.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Negotiated FedEx and UPS rates are often 90% off the retail
| price or better. If you can get the box sent from a shipper
| that has a daily pickup from UPS and reimburse them, you may
| save a great deal of money.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Check UPS's new flat rate options for this. They call it
| "Simple Rate".
| treeman79 wrote:
| https://www.deseret.com/2014/11/24/20553427/legend-of-vernal...
|
| One guy mailed a bank. One brick at a time.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| A laser fusion system can compress materials to a density higher
| than Osmium but it doesn't stay that dense for very long.
| macksd wrote:
| Not the hardest part about fitting it into the box.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| "for those of you who have seen those firsthand"
|
| I feel old.
| deepspace wrote:
| Since I discovered the availability of anvils on Amazon, I have
| always wondered about the economics of shipping them.
|
| Right now, I can order a 66lb "Happybuy" anvil for $153 with free
| prime shipping. One assumes that the $153 includes the cost of
| shipping it all the way from China in the first place.
|
| For comparison, a similarly sized anvil from a reputable local
| dealer costs $949 plus tax and shipping at the lowest rate (UPS
| standard) is $93.
| nkurz wrote:
| While the tweet is correct ("It is physically impossible to
| exceed the 70-pound domestic weight limit for a small flat rate
| box") the shortened title here which omits the word "small" is
| very misleading. The USPS offers a variety of sizes of flat rate
| boxes (https://www.usps.com/ship/priority-mail.htm#flatrate), all
| of which have the same 70 lb weight limit. It's only the "small"
| that cannot be overweight. The two mediums and the large can
| exceed the limit with dense contents. Perhaps the title could be
| changed to omit "physical" and add back "small"?
| PainfullyNormal wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've removed the (redundant, I suppose) word 'physically'
| and squeezed in 'small' in the title above.
| mc4ndr3 wrote:
| Don't forget the packing peanuts. About a ton per cubic
| centimeter of product.
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(page generated 2022-04-22 23:00 UTC)