Mailbox Automation: Barcode Timestamping

Here is an interesting aspect of the US Postal Service mailboxes. When they are not getting all Jedi Master on your ass, they are using damn cool technology to make sure your 39 41 cent postage gets your mail delivered.

The US Postal Service workers in DC use PDA’s on their routes, identifying every mailbox they open with a swipe of the box’s barcode. USPS managers then know exactly when a mailbox was emptied.

While that doesn’t mean you letter is safe from human collection errors or other delivery issues, it does give some assurance that each mailbox in Washington DC is emptied at some time near when it should be.

Now doesn’t that make you a wee bit happier when someone says, “Yeah, the check is in the mailbox”?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Married, mortgaged, and soon to be a father, Wayan Vota is in the fast lane to mid-life respectability – until the day his brood finds his intimate journal of global traveling and curses him with the ever-eternal reply “I’m gonna be just like you, Dad!”

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