Your Mail Will Never Get Lost Again!
In the ’80s I did a stint with the US Postal Service and got to see exactly how mail is processed from beginning to end. Like laws and sausages, you don’t want to really know how things work inside the USPS. According to Wikipedia, Otto von Bismark (1815-1898) said something to the effect of, “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.” Somewhat the same philosophy applies to mail delivery.
Actually, I consider it a modern miracle that so much is delivered with little to no fanfare, and so few pieces actually go astray. You try keeping track of tens of millions of pieces of mail in transit at a time!
TrackingtheWorld, a California-based GPS developer, has developed small GPS-equipped envelope inserts called Letter Loggers that could help the USPS spot bottlenecks in the system.
The technology lets users track a letter’s every move. A vibration- and tilt-sensitive motion detector determines whether the Logger was sitting idle, being sorted, or bumping along in a truck. This data syncs with the GPS locations via Google Earth, allowing officials to spot places where mail lingered too long.
Wow!
