Technology Archives - Social Correspondence

Driverless Cars

Autonomous vehicles (AVs), or Driverless cars, have been testing their performance in San Francisco for many months, at first with drivers at the wheel to trouble shoot. With its steep hills, crowded streets, distracting views, and large numbers of pedestrians, the city is notoriously difficult to drive in, making it a good test ground. That is, good for the profit-making company sponsors, including Google, GM, Amazon and others, but so far, not so great for San Francisco residents. The AVs went truly driverless just a few weeks ago. In a totally unscientific survey, I asked a…

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August 29, 2023

Mail / Politics / Postal Service / Stamps / Technology / U.S. Postal Service

The Ten-Year Plan

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the USPS revealed a new ten-year plan on March 21, 2021 aimed at reinvigorating the postal service. Parts of the plan are ready to be implemented, including increasing the cost of stamps, slowing down first-class mail delivery in favor of more lucrative package delivery, closing selected facilities, and cutting back post office hours and staffing. Such changes are subject to approval by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent Federal agency. First-class stamps are currently 55 cents First-class mail volume has decreased by 28% over the past 10 years, one of the…

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June 3, 2021

Creating chaos at the U.S. Postal Service

Mailbox, Annapolis, MD

Mail / Mailboxes / News / Pandemic / Politics / Post Office / Postal Service / Technology / U.S. Postal Service / Voting

Creating chaos at the U.S. Postal Service

Multiple crises over the past year created an unprecedented level of chaos at the U.S. Postal Service. The service has been disrupted by political disputes over mail-in ballots; removal of street mail boxes, mail sorting machines, and barcode readers; COVID-related illnesses among postal employees; and a much higher volume of mail and packages due to the pandemic. Some of the causes of chaos were deliberate and avoidable. First, there was the dispute over mail-in ballots. Due to the pandemic, many voters chose to cast their ballots by mail rather than wait in long lines to vote…

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February 1, 2021

Digital Publishing / Handwriting / Letter writing / love letters / Mail / Technology / War letters

A Box of Old Letters

One day, while in my mid-teens, I came across my mother looking through a box of old letters. This box, always on the top shelf of her closet, had followed us from house to house and from town to town, but this is perhaps the first time I expressed curiosity. The letters, it seemed, were written during World War II, letters that my parents exchanged with one another during those war years. Most likely, some of them would have pre-dated their marriage in 1943, while others may have been written later. I wanted to read them, but my mother said that they were personal, and she did not want to share them.

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May 17, 2019

Archives / Digital Publishing / Memorabilia / Technology

Roots

Taking stock of one’s roots can be much more than a hobby or pastime. Thanks to multiple resources for genealogical research, it is possible today to trace ancestry, connect with distant relations, and explore your own identity. For decades, I have been the owner of boxes and drawers full of family photos. They range from formal portraits of elders and ancestors, taken from the late 1800s to the turn of the century, to mid-century snapshots of my early nuclear family, circa 1940s through 1960s. Due to faulty color film and sticky photo albums of the 1970s…

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October 3, 2018

Volkswagen buses meet on Old Route 66

books / email / Handwriting / Letter writing / Mail / Post cards / Social Media / Stamps / Technology / U.S. Postal Service

Postcards and Notes

Summer and fall are excellent times for vacation, and there is no better way to share those experiences than by sending postcards and notes by mail. It’s quick, it’s easy, and there are beautiful options to represent those good times. But more to the point, postcards and notes are a great way to communicate, anytime and any place. “Having a great time in (fill in the blank). Wish you were here.” This is a standard cliché about messages on postcards, that they are rote and say very little. But nothing could be further from the truth.…

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September 25, 2017

email / Fake News / News / Postal Service / Social Media / Technology

Off the Grid

Increasingly, my reading and research are dependent on electrical power and our cable infrastructure. I check my devices, a smart phone, tablet and laptop, regularly to catch up on email and social media, and to see what is happening in the news. I often wonder how we managed before the Internet, when things were off the grid. When our country was first settled, mail service was spotty and intermittent. The methods of delivery improved only because the British wanted to keep tabs on the colonies, and, most importantly, to collect taxes. Back then, people warmed themselves…

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April 5, 2017

Fake News / News / newspapers / Politics / Technology

Fake News

Although fake news was barely a blip on the screen prior to 2016, it already existed in abundance. Following the November election, many questions have been raised about the influence of fake news. Not only had an important election been at stake, but also the credibility of what we read and how we perceive it. Fake news has now become a major topic of discussion. Not a day goes by that mainstream media does not shine light on a questionable statement, including “alternative facts.” The President and his team refer to the mainstream media as “dishonest.”…

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February 4, 2017

Digital Publishing / email / Politics / Technology

A Post-Truth World

Actions throughout the world, as reported in the daily news, are disturbing. War, famine, violence, aggression and poverty are ongoing staples in the news cycle. Unfortunately, a significant new victim has emerged in recent times: the truth. We now live in a post-truth world, at least in the political sense. Most of us grew up, I believe, with the admonition by our parents and teachers to always tell the truth. The truth would always win out, and things would go worse for us should we be caught in a lie. Perhaps the fear of being caught…

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December 6, 2016

Letter writing / Mail / Post cards / Postal Service / Stamps / Technology

The Missing Postmarks

When did the postmark on our letters go missing? By postmark, I refer to the round circle that once included the date, time of receipt and location of the post office. Generally, the circle was stamped to the left of the cancellation, those wavy or straight lines that partially cover the stamp(s) to indicate that the stamp has been used. I was reminded of this absence recently by the marketing efforts of a certain coffee company promoting a new first edition blend, using a version of the classic circle. Although our first class, stamped mail still…

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October 5, 2015