[HN Gopher] Potatoes in the Mail
___________________________________________________________________
Potatoes in the Mail
Author : mooreds
Score : 466 points
Date : 2025-04-17 21:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (facts.usps.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (facts.usps.com)
| pmags wrote:
| I thought there must be some sort of URL spoofing or invisible
| unicode character action going on. But no, I typed in the URL by
| hand and it appears to be real!
|
| I now know with certainty what sort of "card" my siblings are
| getting for their next b-days!
| mooreds wrote:
| potato or coconut?
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| brick
| pmags wrote:
| Why not both?!
| exogenousdata wrote:
| In THIS economy?!
| Hobadee wrote:
| My grandma used to tell me stories about sending watermelons in
| the mail like that during the summer.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I will send a potato in the mail. I feel like I must do this as a
| rite of passage.
| noefingway wrote:
| True fact! My wife sent one to a friend of hers. Got delivered
| promptly, undamaged.
| htrp wrote:
| Wait until you find out you can send chickens by mail
|
| https://facts.usps.com/shipping-chicks/
| thehappypm wrote:
| I was just at a historical farm and they explained this to me!
| They said that it can often go badly though, like if there's a
| storm that delayed shipments, they can all die, which is super
| sad
| mopenstein wrote:
| My sister worked for the post office years ago. If her office
| received live birds, and thought they might die (because the
| owner couldn't be reached to pick up or whatever), an
| employee could take them home and care for them.
| istjohn wrote:
| Wait until you hear what happens to male chicks.
| yellowapple wrote:
| At least maceration is a more-or-less instantaneous death,
| as opposed to slowly starving in a box.
| dmckeon wrote:
| Various live animals, queen bees and up to 8 attendant bees by
| air, but bee hives by ground only. Fair warning: the recipient
| of mailed bee hives may get a phone call at any time of day or
| night to "please come get them ASAP".
|
| https://about.usps.com/posters/pos138/pos138__v04_revision_0...
| https://pe.usps.com/PUB52_Archive/NHTML/PUB52_Archive_202204...
| Dunan wrote:
| People have sent _children_ by mail:
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-chil...
|
| ...I don 't think they let you do this anymore.
| ars wrote:
| It sounds funny, but they didn't really "mail" them as you
| think of the word. Rather they traveled in the company of a
| trusted adult who happened to work for the post office.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| How much? I need someone to tend my looms.
| bcoates wrote:
| You'll want to save money by shopping in bulk:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Train
| scottcha wrote:
| My Grandparents lived in a very small farming town (pop 500)
| and word would get around town when chicks had arrived and she
| would take us down there to see them.
| thecosas wrote:
| Bricks too! https://facts.usps.com/sending-bricks-in-the-mail/
| amccollum wrote:
| The story of the bank built from bricks sent through the mail
| reminds me of the time I completed a move from Austin to Boston
| by packing all my possessions into rubber tubs and sending them
| by parcel post.
|
| The delivery date was a range, and I wasn't there on the day of
| the first attempted delivery. When I called the post office
| about it, their response (in a thick Boston accent) was, "oh,
| so you're the tub guy, huh?"
|
| All in all, it was a really convenient way to execute a cross-
| country move, assuming you don't have a lot of stuff!
| mopenstein wrote:
| That's how a lot of military personal move their belongings.
| Just slap an address on their suitcase or duffle bag and mail
| it.
| barnas2 wrote:
| Or a TON of checked bags. Ran in to a guy in the airport
| once checking 10 bags. He bought the cheapest suitcase sets
| he could find, packed what he could, and sold the rest.
| m463 wrote:
| > I wasn't there on the day of the first attempted delivery.
|
| oooh, ouch!
|
| I wonder if they have to unload and reload the truck.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Back in that brief window when Amazon was bribing USPS to
| deliver on Sundays and I could get 50-75lbs of bird seed for
| $12 shipped I had lots of fascinating Sunday mornings
| watching postal service workers swear at me and heave bags at
| my front door.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I don't think that stopped: my neighborhood gets lots of
| USPS deliveries from Amazon on Sundays.
| bombcar wrote:
| My cross-country move was
|
| * Sell all furniture
|
| * Shove everything in my car
|
| * Put all my books in boxes and send media mail
| jrmg wrote:
| When I moved internationally, I found out about the 'M-Bag'
| service. The post office gives you real mail sacks (hefty,
| expensive seeming things!), which you can directly fill
| with books and printer matter (and nothing else!). They're
| then tagged after sealing the drawstring, and shipped
| internationally!
|
| I'm sure the USPS wants those sacks back, but the post
| office in the UK, where I had them sent, was just perplexed
| by them and told me to keep them.
|
| https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-M-bag-Service
| drunkonvinyl wrote:
| Flail and flail, it's just another brick in the mail.
| shoo wrote:
| That history of the bank of Vernal was fascinating, thank you
| for sharing. Parcel post offered for packages of up to 50
| pounds + price charged to post parcels from Salt Lake City to
| Vernal being less than half the cost charged by private
| carriers ==> lots of freight to Vernal starts getting sent by
| post! Then, bank director wanting pressed bricks for the front
| the new bank building in Vernal + closest pressed brick
| manufacturer to Vernal being in Salt Lake City + post still the
| cheapest freight option to Vernal ==> 37.5 tons of pressed
| bricks packed into 50 pound crates and posted!
|
| Anyone interested in the history of freight & trade may also
| enjoy reading Marc Levinson's book "The Box" about the shipping
| container.
| https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/th...
| josephscott wrote:
| Looks like the bank built with bricks via the mail is still
| there -
| https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4555831,-109.528633,3a,75y,2...
| uticus wrote:
| going up one level in url to facts.ups.com, then navigating to
| fun, lots of quirky stuff there.
| memhole wrote:
| USPS will mail all sorts of things. WIRED would let you mail them
| tons of interesting things. Working remotely I thought it would
| be hilarious to have everyone try and mail each other weird stuff
| as a company event.
| mooreds wrote:
| What was the weirdest thing that got through?
| memhole wrote:
| I want to say it was a buoy. I might be wrong on that. I
| distinctly remember one of those plastic flamingos. If you're
| asking about my event idea. Unfortunately, we didn't end up
| doing it.
| eagerpace wrote:
| Can you do it for just one stamp or do you need to weigh and
| label it?
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| The linked article says you need it weighed for appropriate
| postage.
| null0ranje wrote:
| You have to weigh it.
| bredren wrote:
| How is postage attached? Can you just use stamps if you know the
| right amount? what if they fall off?
| dheera wrote:
| Superglue and smear epoxy on top of it. If that doesn't work,
| bust out the Gorilla glue.
| neilv wrote:
| On a childhood trip, to visit family in sunny Hawaii, we mailed
| back this coconut from the family yard, by writing our rainy
| Portland address on the coconut in Sharpie.
|
| (The coconut was one of the large, oblong ones, with a smooth
| surface. Not the small, spherical things in the grocery store. So
| there was plenty of room for a legible address.)
|
| When we got home, we planted it in a large indoor planter, hanged
| a lamp over it, and grew a sizable palm tree in our living room.
| nightfly wrote:
| Lol, I remember seeing a coconut in the student mail receiving
| area at PSU in 2010 or so. So I like how this has been done
| multiple times
| smoyer wrote:
| I wonder if that's the one that's now in the HUB fish bowl
| (was there on Monday)
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Grandparent post mentions Portland. PSU may mean Portland
| State rather than Penn State
| jedberg wrote:
| I stayed at a timeshare in Hawaii that had a "decorate a
| coconut and mail it home" activity. Every hour they generated
| 10 coconuts for mailing basically.
|
| It's pretty common in Hawaii. In fact, I think the reason you
| can send them is because of lobbying from Hawaii.
| suriya-ganesh wrote:
| What am I getting wrong? you planted a coconut but grew a palm
| tree ?
| hammock wrote:
| You got it right
| riknos314 wrote:
| > The coconut tree (Cocos nucifera) is a member of the palm
| tree family
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut
| racingmars wrote:
| Coconut trees are in the palm tree family.
|
| All coconut trees are palm trees, but not all palm trees grow
| coconuts.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Ha, I was confused too... but in the US, the terms coconut
| tree, palm tree and coconut palm are used interchangeably.
|
| In India, you'd call a coconut tree a coconut tree and an
| arecanut tree a palm.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I was confused too... but in the US, the terms coconut
| tree, palm tree and coconut palm are used interchangeably.
|
| You're still confused. Coconut tree and palm tree aren't
| interchangeable; to be a coconut tree, the tree has to grow
| coconuts. All palm trees count as "palm trees", whether
| they grow coconuts or not. The prototypical palm tree grows
| dates.
| rafram wrote:
| Don't know if I'd say dates are prototypical. Oil palms
| grow palm fruit, which is probably the most generic (and
| economically important) palm product.
| xeromal wrote:
| And the cause of heart failure everywhere
| rafram wrote:
| Palm kernel oil, yes. Palm oil, no. Both come from the
| palm fruit and are frequently confused for one another.
| xeromal wrote:
| Thanks for the info! I assume the kernel is just the seed
| inside?
| rafram wrote:
| Yes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_kernel
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I've never seen palm kernel oil listed as a food
| ingredient. It seems to be most commonly used in
| cosmetics.
|
| This is a mix up on why certain oils are on the current
| "oils to avoid" list. Palm oil gets a bad reputation
| mainly because of environmental issues with how it's
| grown, not because it's unhealthy. But all these concerns
| get lumped together in the "bad oils" list.
| giarc wrote:
| https://youtu.be/0k2Di6QqqEA?si=mUv-0O79DecW6SFX
|
| Take a listen.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The coconut was one of the large, oblong ones, with a smooth
| surface. Not the small, spherical things in the grocery store.
|
| You say that like you think those are different things.
| veunes wrote:
| That's such a perfect blend of wholesome and chaotic
| royal__ wrote:
| The small fuzzy spherical things are just what's inside the
| large oblong things, once the husk has been removed. People who
| have never really interacted with coconuts may be surprised to
| learn this.
| Cyphase wrote:
| Do they ship to Mars?
| m463 wrote:
| I wish I could find the article.
|
| Years ago, someone tried mailing a lot of stuff through the post
| office.
|
| I remember they mailed a $20 bill, and tried sneaking something
| oversized like skiis into a mail truck.
|
| can't find the article though - search has really been SEO'd to
| death by companies involved in mail.
| ekam wrote:
| o3 found it- guess its a sign of where search is going:
| https://www.nalc.org/news/the-postal-record/2011/april-2011/...
|
| and
|
| https://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/TMP-1...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Speaks to how bad search has gotten but some things are kind
| of inherently hard to search. "Tip of my tongue" sort of
| things. Llms are pretty good for that kind of stuff.
| m463 wrote:
| lol, that is it! :)
|
| _$20 bill. Days to delivery, 4._
|
| _Ski. ... The ski was slipped into a bin of postage that was
| being loaded into a truck behind a station (a collaborating
| staff member created a verbal disturbance up the street to
| momentarily distract postal workers attention). ..._
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Cockeyed
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Man, that's a blast from the past. I loved Rob Cockerham's
| projects.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Irish knights?
| brk wrote:
| Surprised there has been no mention of Wired's Return To Sender
| yet: https://www.wired.com/2008/12/st-15returntosender/
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Once he discovered Wired's contest, he sent us [...] a
| mailbox_
|
| I snorted at this. How meta.
| Ninjinka wrote:
| There was a book I had as a kid called "The Encyclopedia of
| Immaturity" that explained how to do this.
| jen729w wrote:
| Random UK postage fact. Our postcodes are so specific, it's
| sufficient to write the house number and the postcode.
|
| We sent ourselves a postcard from Spain addressed to:
|
| 1
|
| S_3 _S_ (redacted)
|
| UK
|
| - and it arrived.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| My parents' house shares a postcode with just one other house.
|
| When I was in secondary school, one of my classmates didn't
| believe a letter would reach me if the envelope had only my
| name and postcode (no house number or street name), so I gave
| him a stamp and challenged him to try.
|
| I brought the letter to school a couple of days later.
| alistairSH wrote:
| How broadly true is that[1] in the UK (I'm assuming UK here,
| and not AUS or NZ or some other anglosphere country)? And is
| it more true in rural areas vs the city?
|
| 1 - a post code resolves to something approximating a single
| physical address, or at least close enough to reliably allow
| delivery
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Not broadly true in the UK. The median is probably 15 or
| 20.
|
| I've only ever lived in cities.
| rcxdude wrote:
| A post code is usually a few streets. Precise enough to
| prpbably figure put the restof the way in a pinch but still
| a pretty large number of potential addresses.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A post code is usually a few houses, 15 on average
| according to Royal Mail, so that's usually a single
| street.
|
| There are exceptions in rural areas, where one post code
| covers multiple streets.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| That is insanely specific. By contrast, my US zip-code
| covers at least 75 square miles, and that's a
| conservative estimate.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It is extremely convenient when filling in online forms,
| giving an address over the phone, or when getting into a
| non-app taxi.
|
| Web forms and the in-car navigation prompt first for the
| postcode, then present a list of the full addresses and
| you pick one.
|
| Over the phone, "W10 6TR" also avoids needing to spell
| anything, and I encourage you to search Google for it.
|
| There's also some human readable part. The W means West
| London, people who live in West or South West London will
| be familiar with some numbers - W10 is Ladbrook Grove. B
| is Birmingham, BS is Bristol, BT is Belfast etc.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| No need for an address in Ireland, a general description of the
| recipient will do.
|
| https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/irish-postman-somehow-d...
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| Around 1800 there was a letter addressed "Sromfidevi
| England". After some head scratching they delivered it to Sir
| Humphry Davy.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Allegedly the US ZIP code system is similarly precise if you
| use the extra four digits plus the last two digits of the
| address number. For example, 89434-8669-35 should be enough to
| send mail to my favorite bar in town (assuming said bar accepts
| mail there; can't say I've ever tried).
| niij wrote:
| That's a coffee shop.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| Looks like there's a bar next door.
| reversethread wrote:
| It turns out there are only two houses in my zip+4. But I
| don't have much confidence on my mail reaching me with just
| that...
| bombcar wrote:
| Post offices have their own zip codes (usually one higher
| than the town they're in) and if they have less than 10,000
| PO Boxes, ZIP+4 identifies one uniquely.
| zkms wrote:
| There are even multiple services that will mail a Potatoe to the
| recepient, possibly anonymously: https://potatoparcel.com
| https://www.mailaspud.com https://www.anonymouspotato.com
| https://mysterypotato.com (the only one I have used is
| "anonymouspotato").
| ipjrms wrote:
| Are they services or just middlemen who turn around and use
| USPS?
| sva_ wrote:
| It looks like they put the potato in a box?
| thallavajhula wrote:
| What a nice change of pace reading about random USPS facts here
| on HN!
| ipcress_file wrote:
| My wife and I moved our stuff across Canada -- from Alberta to
| Nova Scotia -- by mail. That's when I found out about the
| "monotainer," a giant palletized wire box that they fill with
| items heading to a common destination. Our boxes all went in a
| monotainer and made it to Halifax before we did.
|
| The nicest part: Canada Post moved us in! Everything was waiting
| in our new apartment when we arrived.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| You used to be able to ship via Amtrak, but they suspended the
| service. You could basically send up to a 500lbs pallet. You
| could also ship a bicycle, or a dead body. All three required
| correct packaging.
|
| A bunch of us used the service to ship cheap PCs and CRT
| monitors up to New York for HOPE one year. The shipping cost
| more than the computers, but it wasn't much (a couple hundred
| bucks). Public Terminal Cluster was a huge success. Afterward
| we didn't want to ship them back home, so we gave away two
| pallets worth of old computer gear to whoever passed by on 33rd
| St. Took about an hour.
| chneu wrote:
| Greyhound still kinda does this. I think they're phasing it
| out, or they already did.
|
| Basically if you could put it in a box and it would fit under
| their bus they would ship it to anywhere on their route.
| notatoad wrote:
| i grew up in rural canada and we used this all the time. it
| didn't even have to be in a box - if you could convince the
| driver to let you put it on the bus, you could ship it. and
| as long as it was going to another stop on the same bus
| route you could load it onto the bus yourself and the
| person you were shipping it to could take it off the bus,
| so there was no worrying about how the shippers were going
| to treat your stuff.
|
| it was almost as good a service as having a friend with a
| truck that was going that way. but sadly, no more greyhound
| in canada.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Buddy bought a new (to him) car door off ebay this way.
| paulkrush wrote:
| I love parcels. Always have. My mom worked at the post office.
|
| Cheap postage hack: Nearly all U.S. stamps issued since World War
| II don't have value. You can buy old stamps on eBay for about
| 60-75 % of face value as "face" stamps--and they're perfectly
| valid for mailing.
|
| Unconventional postcards: A thin sheet of plywood with a Sharpie
| address label is a fun postcard. (it just costs a lot more than a
| normal postcard)
|
| Small Flat Rate Box physics: With a 70 lb limit, you'd need
| something exotic--say, a primordial black hole--to exceed the
| weight cap.
|
| Spare the carrier's back: A Medium Flat Rate Box packed with
| 10,000 pre 1982 copper pennies tips the scale at roughly 68 lb.
| Maybe ship the coins another way--your postal carrier will thank
| you!
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| For a few years, your money was better spent investing in
| Forever stamps vs the stock market..
| zoky wrote:
| This was more or less the plan behind the original Ponzi
| scheme. The problem is that it's difficult, if not
| impossible, to convert stamps back to cash at anything close
| to face value.
| dvektor wrote:
| fun fact. in federal prisons (and some portion of state
| prisons), books of stamps are essentially $5 bills. It's
| common to see people with huge wads of stamps in their
| pockets much like you would with cash. a few years ago, it
| became much more difficult to convert stamps back to cash,
| so a few companies popped up that would accept stamps in
| the mail for some value on the dollar and books of stamps
| are the currency of (most) US prisons to this day.
| qingcharles wrote:
| The jails and prisons are all shifting to a system where
| they will frank your mail with the correct postage and
| take it off your commissary to avoid people owning
| stamps.
|
| I once sued because the jail was selling Forever stamps
| at 49c but Congress had reduced the price to 47c. The
| government's argument was that they had purchased 10,000
| of them at 49c, so selling them at 49c was legal as they
| weren't "ripping anyone off." The appellate courts did
| not agree with that argument.
|
| Also, funny thing in jails, the sticky leftover gutter
| parts of the stamp books had value because they could be
| used to repair torn things like books, photos and
| magazines.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| In the '90s I corresponded with a prisoner whose facility
| did not allow them to have stamps; they could only send
| usps envelopes with the postage preprinted directly on
| the envelope.
| abound wrote:
| > Unconventional postcards: A thin sheet of plywood
|
| Can confirm, I laser cut wedding invitations out of 1/4"
| plywood and mailed them out like that. I think it required some
| "non-machineable" stamp or similar, but they all arrived at
| their intended destinations.
| iterance wrote:
| Several friends and I have been tossing around the idea of
| sending a solid billet of osmium in a small flat rate box,
| matching its size. "One rate, any weight," right?
|
| Sadly this experiment would cost in the high tens of thousands
| of dollars. We may try with titanium some day. That would only
| be ten thousand dollars.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Titanium is 4.51 g/cm3, vs osmium at 22.5 g/cm3. Did you mean
| tungsten at 19.3 g/cm3?
| avn2109 wrote:
| This is the HN comment I didn't know I needed.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Midwest Tungsten sells a 1.5" cube (1 kg) for $200. I have
| one, as well as a magnesium cube of the same size. They
| look identical but the Mg cube weighs 1/10 as much. It's
| fun to let someone hold the W cube to feel the weight and
| then toss them the Mg cube with "Here, catch!"
|
| https://shop.tungsten.com/tungsten-cube/
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| I want that 7" cube, but $35k is well out of my price
| range.
|
| Where'd you get the magnesium cube?
| degamad wrote:
| Not sure where they got it from, but the same folk have
| https://shop.tungsten.com/magnesium-cube/
| radicality wrote:
| I have both too! It's a really fun talking piece when I
| have friends over.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Broken tungsten carbide drill bits are a much cheaper way
| to get dense weights (I made a running vest one time) if
| you can find a machine shop or online, etc.
| iterance wrote:
| Yes, tungsten. Oops
| crdrost wrote:
| If you just used lead the billet would be 31lb, it'd be
| procurable and shippable for under $100.
|
| Osmium is about twice as dense so yeah that would still be
| shippable at around 60 lb... I don't think that's even tens
| of thousands at that point? Isn't it going to be in the
| millions? I'm just thinking that like if you went for gold
| instead, 50 lb is 800 oz, at $3300/oz these days doing this
| with gold is $2.64M, no? And surely osmium blows gold out of
| the water by like 10x, right?
|
| Jokes on you when the $100 of insurance is all you get back
| from the post office...
|
| Edit: a sibling comment points out that you can probably do
| this under $100 with tungsten too and get up into that 50lb+
| range.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Depleted uranium would be my first choice for this; we had
| big bars of the stuff laying around the lab that we used
| for door stops. (The lab was a place that designed nuclear
| weapons.)
|
| DU is harmless unless you eat or breathe it but alas it's
| now illegal to possess more than a minute quantity of it.
|
| Tungsten is actually slightly denser and it has the
| advantage of being obtainable.
| KingMob wrote:
| Isn't DU heavy metal-dangerous, but not radiation-
| dangerous?
| adastra22 wrote:
| Yes
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It's both. DU is never completely "depleted" because
| radiation falloff is asymptotic. DU is primarily an alpha
| emitter and alpha particles cannot penetrate skin, but
| they can cause damage if you breathe, eat, or inject DU
| dust.
|
| That's why our use of big lumps of DU as door stops was
| considered "safe" (at that time several years ago) but in
| labs where people machined the stuff they were a lot more
| careful.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Sorry to be a downer, it's a fun thought experiment - but
| also a good way to get a postal worker hurt, and possibly a
| nice lawsuit :)
| butshouldyou wrote:
| How? Postal workers shouldn;t be carrying things that are
| too heavy. I suspect the USPS would have to arrange a
| special delivery.
| chneu wrote:
| Back when flat rates originally came out I don't think they had
| an actual weight limit.
|
| A buddy of mine used to cast and paint figurines. Well, someone
| ordered a bunch of lead ones and they used a flat rate to ship
| it. The box weighed something like 80lbs. It was basically just
| a block of lead
|
| It's probably coincidence but a few months later a weight limit
| was placed on flat rate boxes. It's still crazy high. We always
| thought the timing was funny.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think it was a coincidence. Basically everyone who
| shipped raw metals in quantities that would reasonably fit in
| those boxes, did so.
| mlyle wrote:
| The weight limit is 70 pounds = 31.8 kg. Lead is 11.35
| g/cm^3.
|
| Small flat rate box, 21.9 x 13.7 x 4.12 cm = 1236 cm^3 =
| 14kg; you can fill 100% with lead and mail it. Tungsten is
| also allegedly fine, but it will weigh 23 kilos and be quite
| difficult to pick up (can't get a finger under an edge...)
|
| Medium flat rate box = 95kg; you can fill it 33% with lead,
| or ~45% with steel and mail it.
|
| Large flat rate box = 144kg; only 22% lead.
| Y_Y wrote:
| (CGS units give me nightmares, so I'll swap to SI.)
|
| For solids at room temperature and pressure the best you
| could do seems to be osmium or iridium, unless you have
| access to heavy transactinides. mass/kg
| substance 2.57e5 small flat rate box 2.26e5
| osmium 2.25e5 iridium 2.65e5 meitnerium
| (theoretical)
|
| Considering the expense of synthesizing meitnerium and the
| half-life which is measured in seconds, I would recommend
| getting insurance as well as express shipping if you do
| try.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Less than a second for all known isotopes I can find [0]
| So by the time you get to the post office it's under the
| weight limit (and you and everyone nearby are dead from
| the massive radiation dose probably)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meitnerium#Stability_an
| d_half-...
| Y_Y wrote:
| What's wrong with 278Mt? That should give you a lesiurely
| 4.5 seconds.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The problem is I missed it wasn't ms like the rest of
| them. Still stands though you'll lose too much density by
| the time it's weighed even assuming you could mass create
| the Mt all at once.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Not with that attitude.
|
| If you've got a particularly slothful postal worker you
| might consider topping up your meitnerium with a
| similarly sized sample of roentgenium-282. If you don't
| have any to hand then perhaps you'll have better luck
| producing tennessine-294 and waiting a couple of minutes.
| Amusingly your trip from Tennessee to x-ray land will
| take you via Moscow and Japan.
|
| (Beware that you might end up making the box bulge a bit,
| since you'll necessarily go over the size limit by
| including less dense materials as well as necessary
| apparatus.)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Nearly all U.S. stamps issued since World War II don't have
| value
|
| "Forever stamps" were introduced in 2007. What other stamps
| before then didn't have a face value? I don't remember any.
| yojo wrote:
| I think the idea is you can buy old stamp collections for
| less than face value.
|
| E.g. this collection of 8000 stamps is $75:
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/396477663178
|
| Looking at the pictures, many are more than $.01 value.
|
| Assuming they're uncancelled, you'll end up multiples of your
| money ahead if you rip the collection apart and use it to
| mail stuff.
|
| The challenge would be having enough surface area on your
| package to plaster on 6-cent stamps.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > The challenge would be having enough surface area on your
| package to plaster on 6-cent stamps.
|
| It's not _too_ hard if you mail paper that can't be folded.
|
| Can also cover what you can and get the clerk to print you
| a label for the rest.
| electroly wrote:
| It is "legal enough" to stuff whole sheets of stamps into a
| pouch and attach the pouch to a parcel, if you do it at the
| post office and have them cancel the stamps at the counter.
| Let them know they can just use a Sharpie to cancel whole
| sheets at a time. Legal enough in the sense that my local
| post office lets me do it, and the local postmaster has
| okayed it, and the packages always make it, but I'm not
| entirely sure if it's 100% above-board. My record is over
| 800 stamps on a single Priority Mail box. Way, way more
| than would fit on the surface area of the box, and
| certainly way more than anyone could reasonably use if they
| actually had to apply the adhesive on the stamps.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| I couldn't parse that at first either, but I think what they
| mean is that they don't have value _as a collector 's item_.
| They still have _face_ value, but they sell for less than
| that because they 're not perceived as actual legal postage
| any longer, even though they actually are.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Nearly all U.S. stamps issued since World War II don't have
| value.
|
| That's true of pretty much all stamps from all countries since
| WW2. Postal agencies have discovered that collectors will buy
| new issues and never mail them, preserving them as "mint". So
| it's pretty much free money for the Postal agency. Many
| countries (including the USPS) constantly come up with new
| designs to sell to collectors.
|
| I noticed that when I began collecting as a boy, thinking the
| post WW2 issues were all just "soup can labels" and had zero
| interest in them.
| retetr wrote:
| Your comment made me think of the Terry Pratchett book "Going
| Postal" in which a conman is put in charge of the post office
| and quickly realizes what you said: selling stamps is free
| money. One of my favorites from his later discworld books.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yeah, they are little more than the sticker books you buy
| for kids.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| And I had a 3-year-old who proudly showed me the toy
| covered in "stickers" after he found a book of 100 $0.48
| stamps!
| WalterBright wrote:
| ouch!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| On the opposite of the spectrum:
|
| From a set of year 2000 USPS experiments:
|
| > Helium balloon. The balloon was attached to a weight. The
| address was written on the balloon with magic marker; no
| postage was affixed. Our operative argued strongly that he
| should be charged a negative postage and refunded the postal
| fees, because the transport airplane would actually be lighter
| as a result of our postal item. This line of reasoning merely
| received a laugh from the clerk. The balloon was refused;
| reasons given: transportation of helium, not wrapped.
|
| https://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/TMP-1...
|
| Image links are dead, including on archive.org :(
| userbinator wrote:
| Now you know the reason why courier services often include
| both weight _and_ volume in their pricing calculations.
| timpark wrote:
| I remembered and searched for the same article. I found this
| version (on the same domain) with images and better
| formatting.
|
| https://improbable.com/annals-of-improbable-research-july-
| au...
| skrebbel wrote:
| I would like to understand how this works. Did they hand off
| the to-be-mailed uwrapped, say, lemon or a hammer or a deer
| tibia to a person at a post office? Wouldn't the post office
| clerks just say "sorry you gotta box that, we sell one of
| these here options"?
|
| The article has lots of info about what clerks said and did
| at delivery, but little about when they were sent, which
| suggests to me that there's something about how USPS works
| that different from how it works where I live that's assumed
| to be obvious to the reader. You can't just drop a deer bone
| or a lemon in a mailbox right? It wouldn't fit, would it?
| windhaven wrote:
| From the link: > mailed at public postal collection boxes
| (when possible to cram the object through the aperture) or
| at postal stations (if possible).
|
| In the US, post offices generally have drop boxes outside
| for letters (since you normally just need a stamp), and a
| larger drop box for packages inside, since you can often
| get pre-paid labels for stuff like item returns.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > Never-opened small bottle of spring water. _We observed the
| street corner box surreptitiously the following day upon mail
| collection. After puzzling briefly over this item, the postal
| carrier removed the mailing label and drank the contents of
| the bottle over the course of a few blocks as he worked his
| route._
| veunes wrote:
| The old stamp trick is genius! There's something extra
| satisfying about mailing a letter covered in vintage stamps
| like it's on a time-travel mission
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Wait so what's the point of the forever stamps? And what do you
| search for on eBay exactly?
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| A forever stamp is guaranteed 1st class postage for a letter,
| regardless of the current rate.
|
| Before forever stamps were introduced people would have to
| add a 1 or 2 cent stamp next to the 20 or 25 cent stamp in
| order to reach the current rate for mailing a letter.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I used "media mail" to move myself home from Hawaii back to the
| mainland once. It was so cheap.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Nearly all U.S. stamps issued since World War II don't have
| value._
|
| Can you elaborate? I don't know what this means, and other
| commenters seem confused as well.
|
| From your description, it sounds like they very much have value
| -- 60-75% as you say.
|
| And what are face stamps?
| rtkwe wrote:
| I believe they mean collector value hence them being worth
| less than their face value (which should in theory be the
| rough floor for them since they're still valid postage).
| nativeit wrote:
| I think they're referring to "forever stamps", which are
| worth whatever the cost of a first class stamp normally is.
| They were designed to deal with the fact that people would
| buy stamps at a certain face-value which would then become
| difficult to use when postage rates rise to some non-integer
| multiple of the older stamps.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Forever stamps were only introduced in 2007. Which is a
| long time after WWII...
| lupire wrote:
| Technically they are USA Forever, which is looking less
| and less like Forever.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| My dad once got a package in a decently sized box which was
| covered in 80 year old US stamps with face values from 2 to 15
| cents. There were probably 150 or so stamps in total, enough to
| cover the few dollars or so of postage.
|
| However, the post office apparently forgot to void the stamps
| (usually they draw over them with a pen), so his next step was
| to commit mail fraud. He steamed off 60 cents or so worth of
| unvoided stamps from the box and sent me a letter at school.
| That one went through just fine too.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| It's not uncommon that letter mail within the same city in
| Canada doesn't get the postage marked, and you can reuse the
| stamps; my parents and grandparents sent a letter back and
| forth with the same stamp for more than a year!
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I was able to quarter the cost of a whole shoebox of video-8
| tapes under the media mail provision
| shagie wrote:
| > Unconventional postcards: A thin sheet of plywood with a
| Sharpie address label is a fun postcard. (it just costs a lot
| more than a normal postcard)
|
| I've got a bunch of water color paper post cards from my days
| of random vacations and a large format camera. I recall that
| they also had a slightly more than post card rate postage on
| them (though not excessively so).
|
| I used Polaroid type 59 film (peel apart) in the field and did
| a transfer right there. Take a picture in Yosemite? Pull it
| out, roller it on to the paper and drop it in the mail box. It
| was a one of a kind. The damage incurred while mailing (blunted
| corners, scuffs and such) was part of the nature of the art.
|
| There were also families who were curious about the process and
| I'd sell them a sheet of film at cost for them to do what they
| wanted - be it have a photograph or go through the process of
| making a post card themselves. There was also the "this is what
| an old time camera looks like and how it works" that interested
| some of the younger children - the heavy black cloth and the
| upside down image.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Leather postcards were popular for a few years, but were then
| banned because they jammed up the sorting machines.
| whartung wrote:
| I taped a quarter to an envelope and it went through (obviously
| when postage was 25c).
|
| I asked if anyone had a stamp and someone suggested I just do
| that.
|
| Good thing it worked, it was my rent check.
| shoo wrote:
| Another great postal history article: "The Pneumatic Mail Tubes:
| New York's Hidden Highway And Its Development"
| https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/pdf/pneumatic-tub...
|
| Throughput:
|
| > The operation of the Pneumatic Tube System involved air forced
| cylinders known as "carriers", traveling in a spinning motion,
| through a well-greased tube at 30 miles an hour. At its peak
| productivity six million pieces of mail would whisk through the
| system daily at a rate of 5 carriers a minute with each carriers
| maximum load of approximately 500 letters
|
| Shaking out the system:
|
| > The first cylindrical carrier to travel through the New York
| City [pneumatic tube] system was one that contained a Bible, a
| flag and a copy of the Constitution. The second contained an
| imitation peach in honor of Senator Chauncy Depew, a driving
| force in this project. He was fondly known as "The Peach". A
| third carrier had a black cat in it, for reasons unknown to this
| author.
|
| Diagnosing and fixing stalls in the network:
|
| > The occasional carrier stalls in a tube it could be easily
| detected. Each receiving machine was equipped with a "tell-tale"
| fan. If a carrier failed to arrive on time the air pressure would
| fall to level that would cause the fan to stop revolving. The
| operator at the affected station would call the switchboard at
| the telephone number PE 6-7000. On a control board there, the
| blocking carrier could be located through colored lights
| designating each station. In 99% of the cases the arrested
| carrier could be made mobile again by increasing the air pressure
| behind the blockage and decreasing air pressure in front of it.
| This would in effect cause a vacuum. In the 1% of the time that
| these methods did not work a maintenance crew would have had to
| go out and dig up the streets.
|
| Perks for staff operating the system:
|
| > Recently I met an old friend who told me her father was once a
| rocketeer [responsible for the sending and receiving of the
| carriers]. In conversation with him I learned that he had spent
| some time working on the Pneumatic Tube System at the Bronx
| General Post Office. [...] He told me something off the record.
| Since there was a renowned sandwich shop in the vicinity of the
| Bronx General Post Office, they often got orders from the
| downtown postal stations. The sandwiches were delivered through
| the system. Now that's what I call a real submarine sandwich!
| 1024core wrote:
| They better hide this fact: https://facts.usps.com/diverse-
| workforce/
| jonstewart wrote:
| My dad's college roommate once mailed him a coconut. It was an
| object of fascination for me as a kid.
| 1024core wrote:
| I was working for a postal contractor and we had to go to the
| local P&DC (warehouse sized building where all the local mail
| comes in to be sorted and then shipped to various destinations).
|
| The local foreman was giving us a lecture about safety and things
| not to do in there, and we were standing there listening to him.
| To my right about 10' away were a couple of boxes around 2' tall
| each. I was listening and my eyes were wandering, taking in the
| gigantic space when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw
| the box move! It like tilted a little and there was definite
| movement inside (it had a slit in it)! I yelped like a little
| kid: "that box moved!"
|
| The foreman nonchalantly dismissed it saying, "yeah those are
| ducks being mailed". I was shocked to say the least.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Back in the late 90s and early 2000s a buddy of mine caught and
| mailed a lot of live snakes.
|
| Never heard of one getting out. Bet it would have been exciting
| if one did.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| How cruel.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Let me elaborate. I'm not saying the OPs story is cruel. I'm
| saying shipping live animals is cruel. Shipping animals isn't
| transporting them using some specialized service; it's
| litterally sending them through the mail system like any
| other parcel, the same system that regularly damages heavily
| padded packages. The practice is still common today,
| especially for live chicks, and many animals die due to the
| conditions of transport. Their deaths are treated as an
| expected loss.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Like it or not, this is a bad look for a service that many argue
| is a waste of money.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Anyone who argues that USPS is a "waste of money" is either
| grossly misinformed or lying through one's teeth; USPS is self-
| funded through postage and other fees, not through taxpayer
| funding. You still have to pay for postage to mail a potato.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| USPS supported physical ad spam is a huge waste of time,
| recycling system capacity and environmental impact. I wonder
| if they would still break even if they discontinued that
| disgusting practice?
|
| If you could opt out of having a mailbox and use email for
| police and government correspondence then it wouldn't be so
| offensive, but as far as I know you are practically required
| to maintain a hole where they can shove their ad spam.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| I put my name on this opt out list and it stopped about 2/3
| of the junkmail. It costs $6 for 10 years. I think it was
| worth it.
|
| https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's easy to demonstrate that it is not a waste of money
| compared to commercial services, but let us argue
| counterfactually for the moment that it is the most expensive
| alternative.
|
| It is the only universal (in the USA) communications service,
| and therefore a necessary service which is not filled or
| reasonably filled by private alternatives.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| If the post office mandate was only to be profitable, it would
| have been disbanded decades ago. It is a communication
| organization mandated by the constitution, by the founding
| fathers. Profit was never ever part of rurual postage service,
| neither was rural electrification, not rural phone service, and
| rural internet. The service that shows the most profit is the
| war machine.
|
| How many people does the post office unalive?
|
| The post office is loved by children, young adults, and senior
| citizens. Is the profitable military as popular amoung the
| people who call our veterans loosers? This comes from a
| propoganda machine of the oligarks who want, instead of
| government service, want only their own selfish profits.
|
| War is a waste of money, and arguing about it is a waste of
| time.
|
| To the many who think mail to rural people is a waste of money?
| I would rather recieve a letter from someone than a list of war
| dead.
|
| Thr many who think that profit is the reason for the existence
| of the post office, left a Marine for dead in Africa, lied
| about it, and never learned to pronounce his name to his
| mother.
|
| At least a coconut in the mail is not as empty headed as most
| of the political party that wants to run the entire government
| as a profitable business only to bankrupt it like a casino.
|
| How do they bankrupt a casino?
|
| Show me the first politician who ran on a platform of a
| profitable war machine? Pretty sure it was the German socialist
| Democratic party, who were never thet socialist not democratic.
| jaetee wrote:
| Thanks for this, had heard about it once before, but timing here
| was perfect. Read at 4:20p, grocery store 10 min later, and made
| it to the post office by 4:55p. Mailed a yam to a friend in MT
| postmarked with her bday today. From SD California for a nearly
| 2lbs spud cost $16 for priority with tracking. 8x the cost of the
| potato itself but worth it for the pun potential.
| 404mm wrote:
| Poor USPS probably has to keep special containers on hand just
| for idiots like me that just have to try this.
| YZF wrote:
| I went to some workshop in the US circa 1990 and I ended up with
| a bunch of books that I didn't want to carry with me. So I put
| them in a box and (surface) mailed them home. It was heavy,
| international, and cost very little IIRC. I think this doesn't
| work any more? Parcels have become very expensive.
| sciurus wrote:
| In the US there is a reduced media mail rate for educational
| materials. Not sure how it would work internationally.
|
| https://about.usps.com/notices/not121/not121_tech.htm
| bombcar wrote:
| The US used to have "ship mail" options for sending
| international by boat. Not sure if there was even more
| discounts for media, and/or if it's still offered.
|
| Another comment mentioned M-bags:
| https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-M-bag-Service
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| The scroll to auto navbar is cool but weird
| r2_pilot wrote:
| I don't have much to add to this discussion except I have in fact
| been mailed a potato several years ago.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't understand how there can be 94 comments on this thread
| and not one of them is from someone who attempted (or succeeded)
| in mailing someone a potato. I am a homeowner. I have a address.
| I will receive a potato, or send one to whomever wants one.
| What's important about this story is "is is true?". Who's going
| to test it with me?
| andrewflnr wrote:
| There's at least one who posted just a little bit before you.
| ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43724688
| bigyabai wrote:
| If you're willing to give your address to a Hacker News user
| then you need to spend more time researching your cohorts.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I used to run a website / forum and for a few years we did a
| secret santa; we sent and received packages to and from
| abroad. Not complete strangers, and anyone not comfortable
| with it (we did have multiple victims of stalking etc) didn't
| have to participate of course. But I got goodies from abroad,
| including a pink NY hat and an acrylic 9/11 memorial display
| thingy. Because why not? I sent clogs back, of course.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I'm on a dad support slack, and we regularly mail each
| other holiday cards (well, not everyone participates, but I
| think I spend like a hundred bucks a year sending those
| things out!)
| tptacek wrote:
| For like the last 20 years, the majority of people I have
| done business with are people I have met on Hacker News,
| where I post (like everywhere else) under my own real name.
| fahrnfahrnfahrn wrote:
| I sent a banana in the mail. I also sent a paperback book
| without any sort of box or wrapper. I think it was as
| Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Did the book make it to Magrathea?
| wyclif wrote:
| As one of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy, I'm sure it
| did because of Magrathea's exceptional central planning
| infrastructure.
| layman51 wrote:
| Mailing a banana is something I was wondering about when I
| first saw this thread. I remember seeing a photo in a book
| many years ago of a banana with a postage stamp on it and I
| was wondering whether it was really possible.
| jakebasile wrote:
| I would like a potato. Emailed you.
| timewizard wrote:
| You wouldn't download a potato!
| tptacek wrote:
| I have received your email and do hereby commit to sending
| you a potato.
| jakebasile wrote:
| I have the USPS notification service [1] where they send me
| an email with a scan of all my incoming mail. I look
| forward to seeing what this one looks like.
|
| [1]: https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm
| buu700 wrote:
| I did something pretty similar with USPS around 15 years ago.
| Walked into the post office, handed them a banana, they slapped
| a label on it, and off it went. A few weeks later I heard from
| my friend in Monaco that her mom had gone to check the mail and
| found her hand covered in rotten banana. Whoops.
| jedberg wrote:
| > What's important about this story is "is is true?"
|
| The URL is at usps.com, so I'm guessing this is about as
| official as it gets.
|
| I've mailed a coconut before and it worked. Never done a
| potato.
| 9dev wrote:
| I'm still wondering if they are going to potato
| internationally, in which case I would very gladly exchange
| some continental taters with a colony-grown variety with you!
| blululu wrote:
| I have mailed a potato before. Sent it to a friend to celebrate
| Columbus Day (this was back when we overlooked his atrocities
| because it was a cool Italian guy who trafficked exotic
| nightshades across the Atlantic). It arrived just fine. The
| postal worker was quite helpful about wrapping it up with the
| appropriate postage. Post your address on the public internet
| and I'm sure you will get a lot more potatoes than you would
| expect.
| carra wrote:
| I don't understand how there can be 94 comments on this thread,
| period. I mean, plenty of more interesting topics go unnoticed
| and people want to talk about mailing a potato? Ok...
| squigz wrote:
| Yeah how dare people have fun!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I just think they're neat.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| You do realize that you just inspired the "mail a potato"
| webapp, don't you? I give it approximately one week before we
| see a Show HN with that.
| eddyfromtheblok wrote:
| whoa whoa whoa. you can't post multimillion startup ideas on
| here FOR FREE! somebody's probably registered pota.to
| already!
| wrboyce wrote:
| There are already a few iterations of this idea out there!
| dramm wrote:
| I'd prefer a coconut please!
| rriley wrote:
| USPS actually allows a bunch of odd items if they meet basic
| requirements:
|
| - Potato: write the address directly on the skin and add postage
| - Coconut: often mailed from Hawaii gift shops - Brick: just
| needs postage and an address - Inflated beach ball: address it
| directly, ships like a parcel - Plastic Easter egg: fill it, tape
| it shut, and label it - Flip-flop: address the sole and send it
| off - Small pumpkin: allowed if it's dry and not restricted by ag
| rules - Live queen bees (plus attendants): surface mail only,
| special label - Day-old chicks: special packaging and timing
| required
| IndrekR wrote:
| Have mailed live queen bees in Europe as well. Funniest was
| when receiving some (I think it was from Denmark to Estonia
| before we joined the EU) and one delivery got stuck in customs
| due to unpaid alcohol tax -- someone had misread "Live Bees" as
| "Live Beer". Fortunately this was cleared out within two days
| and bees were still alive (but a little short on food).
| squigz wrote:
| What does shipping a live queen bee look like? How many
| servants does she travel with?
| keane wrote:
| The queen is placed in a small isolation container called a
| queen cage: https://www.mannlakeltd.com/california-mini-
| queen-cages/
|
| The queen cage is placed in a Bee Bus: https://bee-
| pros.com/beeBus.html
|
| Postage is affixed to the Bee Bus which is filled with 3 lbs.
| of bees, which is about 10,000 to 12,000 bees:
| https://www.mannlakeltd.com/carniolan-honey-
| bees/california-...
| upmind wrote:
| Why does USPS allow for these items to be posted?
| veunes wrote:
| Honestly, this is the kind of chaotic good energy I want more of
| in the world
| weinzierl wrote:
| I once sent a beer coaster without envelope and just with an
| address scribbled on and a stamp to a beer loving friend from a
| holiday. We both were surprised it worked.
|
| Also in the late 90s I remember my favourite computer mag having
| a picture of a 5 1/4 inch floppy sent to them. Complete with
| postmarked stamp. Allegedly it survived the procedure.
| dcminter wrote:
| Ha! I did that a few times with 31/2" disks - address and stamp
| on the label and slap a bit of tape over the shutter to prevent
| dust ingress. No issues.
|
| I don't think I'd have risked it with 51/4" floppies though,
| they were a lot less robust and I can't imagine the franking
| machines would have been good for them.
| user777777 wrote:
| Reminder that the post office should not profit as a business
| just as firefighters police public schools do not "profit"
| globular-toast wrote:
| Why? You wouldn't want to eat it after the ink/glue all over it
| and wouldn't it turn up green? Was this one invented for fun or
| is there a real practical reason for doing this?
| happyopossum wrote:
| > wouldn't it turn up green
|
| Err, why? Potatoes will keep for weeks before sprouting and
| turning green. Months if they're away from light.
| Hanschri wrote:
| Here is a great video showcasing what can and cannot be sent with
| Australia Post, plus so much more: https://youtu.be/FNdkTWiXaQM
| sva_ wrote:
| Just don't try to send them to Norway, where you'd need a special
| permit for importing potatoes.
| SirFatty wrote:
| Cats also :-D
|
| https://external-preview.redd.it/-Z5tNlOZZU8uN7KEFXpRvjTgWF1...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Nope. Only specific animals are mailable.
|
| https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm
|
| (You can mail baby chickens and honeybees, though.)
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Yeah, when I worked at the post office there would
| occasionally be a box of chicks go through. No other animals
| that I can remember.
| chrisBob wrote:
| I have gotten bees in the mail twice. The first time they
| delivered to my home, the second time I had to go pick up at
| the post office. Both times the carriers I interacted with
| seemed a little worried about the contents.
|
| The first set didnt' do well at all. I probably lost more
| than 60% of the 5 lbs. of bees, and that hive never thrived.
| My most recent ones are still going strong and I think I can
| officially say at this point that they made it through the
| winter :)
| nopmat wrote:
| Bad time to be working in the undeliverable mail department if
| this practice gains traction.
| erikerikson wrote:
| I am unsurprised but only because my mind was blown when live
| chickens were sent to us via the USPS.
|
| https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm
| excalibur wrote:
| TIL you can also mail coconuts.
| gcapu wrote:
| They also allow you to mail Sea Grape leaves as if they were
| postcards. I did it many times, and here's an old post I found
| that also confirms it.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/obv56n/s...
| gcapu wrote:
| My only complaint is that the leaf arrived, but they didn't
| stamp it. I can't prove to people that it was actually mailed.
| fullstop wrote:
| From the Old Internet:
| https://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/TMP-1...
|
| They tried mailing all sorts of things, including things which
| should not be mailed. Collectively, the USPS seems to have a
| sense of humor.
| lxgr wrote:
| Perhaps even more surprisingly, live scorpions can be mailed too
| (for specific purposes only), as long as they're properly
| packaged and labeled:
| https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm
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