Archives for 2001

Aaron has some additional

November 2, 2001 by Michael Boyle

thoughts on the “close the post office” idea that John Robb floated the other day. Basically right on target.

In other news, I hate it when people change the facts in a post without making a note about it. Robb changed the number of employees at the USPS from 300K to 990K, but didn’t acknowledge the initial error, which I reproduced below.

But the fundamental point I made is still valid: people assume that post office operations aren’t automated and must be very old school. Those people make a drastically incorrect assumption.

Jeffrey Zeldman

November 1, 2001 by Michael Boyle

: the New York Public Library Style Guide. A real-world example of how to make the move to web standards.

Bill Moyers

October 31, 2001 by Michael Boyle

: This Isn’t the Speech I Expected to Give Today. From October 16, 2001.

John Robb

October 31, 2001 by Michael Boyle

of Userland Software believes that the USPS shoudn’t be saved. He writes, “Too many workers are in jobs that aren’t leveraged by computer automation” and later states that the postal service is resistant to automation.

According to recent data from the USPS and FedEx, the USPS looks damned efficient. They delivered 200 billion pieces of mail a year with, Robb cites, 300 thousand employees. FedEx delivered 526 million pieces with 215,000 employees. Even if all but 10% of the USPS traffic were addressed and unaddressed admail, that’s still a great deal more volume delivered than FedEx with only 85,000 more employees.

And the other Ed

October 30, 2001 by Michael Boyle

And the other Ed has been doing some truly inspired weblogging. “OK, maybe I’ve spent too much time with my face in someone else’s crotch, but I don’t find this offensive.” Yow. The picture is definitely worth a few thousand words.