I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

4/24/2025 at 4:21:29 PM

This is funny because I was the operations assistant (office secretary) at the time we received this letter, and I remember it because of the distinct postage.

by davisr

4/25/2025 at 12:23:50 AM

I met a web developer working for the FSF at a Boston pub one night while in town for a Red Hat conference. After many drinks, he walked us down fifth street to the FSF office building. I wasn’t sure what to expect but when we got there, he typed in some numbers on the door entry system, and what came out was RMS singing the free software song lol. It was a wonderful treat for a young Linux nerd on a hazy adventure in the early morning

by ngharo

4/25/2025 at 6:43:19 PM

I love that your story could be read in two different ways: (1) a recording of RMS appeared on the door entry system screen, or (2) the man himself waltzed out of that door and started singing.

by fph

4/26/2025 at 1:40:40 AM

I must shamefully admit that I did indeed read this and think RMS himself came out singing.

by rmwaite

4/26/2025 at 7:24:25 AM

RMS does indeed give out some strong Tom Bombadil vibes.

by fph

4/24/2025 at 4:36:36 PM

How wonderful! Since the game of the day seems to be the technicalities of the minutiae, could you explain the decision to send the GPLv3 vs GPLv2? Is this a request that happens often?

by MadnessASAP

4/24/2025 at 4:42:21 PM

The version wasn't specified in the request

by jenscow

4/25/2025 at 1:01:41 PM

They should have responded a code 300 Multiple Choices

by yoda222

4/25/2025 at 1:21:35 PM

Or still 200, but with a "Vary: Accept-Version" header.

by dolmen

4/24/2025 at 5:44:30 PM

The sender didn't specify the version in his request, so I find it natural that they've sent him the latest version.

by self_awareness

4/24/2025 at 6:53:32 PM

The author mentioned this exact problem. Quoting:

> There was a problem that I noticed right away, though: this text was from the GPL v3, not the GPL v2. In my original request I had never mentioned the GPL version I was asking about.

>The original license notice makes no mention of GPL version either. Should the fact that the license notice contained an address have been enough metadata or a clue, that I was actually requesting the GPL v2 license? Or should I have mentioned that I was seeking the GPLv2 license?

This is seemingly a problem with the GPL text itself, in that it doesn't mention which license version to request when you mail the FSF.

by taftster

4/24/2025 at 10:55:37 PM

A Sid Caesar skit showed doughboys celebrating and one shouted "World War 1 is over!"... when they made GPLv2 maybe they didn't anticipate creating future versions (although yeah, if you're already on v2 you should foresee that).

by hughw

4/25/2025 at 12:00:57 AM

There is a GPL v.1, and it may have been so numbered at initial publication:

<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.html>

by dredmorbius

4/24/2025 at 8:51:39 PM

Well to be fair, that's not the full license notice, that's only the last paragraph. There should a couple more above that one and the first paragraph says the version of GPL in use. That said I think the license notice is also just a suggested one, it's not required that you use that _exact_ text.

by DSMan195276

4/24/2025 at 6:31:16 PM

How does a sender who only has a GPLv2 license notice even know that there is a v3? Should they first send a letter asking which versions are available?

by kevincox

4/24/2025 at 10:33:52 PM

the usual license header has something along the lines of "either version [23], or at your discretion, any subsequent version", which clearly explains that there are specific versions with distinct rules. Many people opt not to include this clause because they (understandably) don't want to automatically agree to a contract that hasn't even been written yet. However if they fail to make the version clear that's on them.

Anyways I don't think this defense would ever fly in court. As soon as the plaintiff's lawyers produce evidence that you are aware of GPLv3 (such as pointing out that you have GPLv3 software on your PC or phone) the judge is going to see that you're trying to game the system on technicality and sanction you. Judges really don't like this sly loophole BS where it's extremely obvious that you're feigning ignorance for the sake of constructing an alternate reality where you hypothetically never knew there was a GPLv3.

by snickerbockers

4/24/2025 at 6:59:03 PM

If the sender requests GPLv2, he should receive GPL version 2.

If the sender requests GPL, I find it natural for him to receive version 3, because it's the latest version. At the time of receiving the license, he gains knowledge about the existence of version 3 (the header on the print says the GPL he received is version 3).

If the sender has a notice about GPLv2, it means that there's a high chance that there's also GPLv1. This should be a sufficient hint that requesting only "GPL" is not sufficient, because the sender should be aware of the risk of receiving GPLv1 if he won't mention the "v2".

by self_awareness

4/24/2025 at 11:09:02 PM

GPLv2 by default means GPLv2 or later, so GPLv3 is perfectly valid indeed.

by pantalaimon

4/25/2025 at 6:39:34 AM

That's actually not true. GPLv2 by default means v2, not v3, unless you explicitly allow "or later."

Linux is actually the famed example of v2 but not v3.

by mmx1

4/24/2025 at 5:14:39 PM

What sort of request volume did you get? How many per day were you sending out?

by cortesoft

4/24/2025 at 6:14:57 PM

On average, zero per day, maybe 5 to 10 per year.

by davisr

4/24/2025 at 7:06:56 PM

I'm really surprised that it's more than 1 ever.

by zorked

4/25/2025 at 7:12:03 AM

At scale, there are a lot of confused people who do unexpected stuff. The maintainer of cURL has people contact him when a notice shows up in car software or when they think he is connected to hacking: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/02/16/why-is-your-email-in-... https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/

by mapmeld

4/25/2025 at 9:02:49 PM

At FSF, someone would call every month thinking they had been "hacked" and that FSF was responsible because they found "evidence left behind" (the GPL).

by davisr

4/25/2025 at 9:40:48 PM

This is gold :) I wished you share more of this stories

by pmkary

4/25/2025 at 4:43:05 AM

Was including reply postage in fact required?

by leoh

4/24/2025 at 1:01:05 PM

At least he got a response. Meaning the address didn't change mostly.

A few years back I worked on an embedded linux project. For our first "alpha" release one of the testers read through the license agreement (as opposed to scrolling past all that legalese like most people do) and found the address to write to to get all the GPL source, he then send a letter to the address and it was returned to sender, invalid address. Somehow the lawyers found out about this and the forced us to do a full recall, sending techs to each machine to install an update (the testers installed the original software and were expected to apply updates, but we still had to send someone to install this update and track that everyone got it). Lawyers want to show good faith in courts - they consider it inevitable that someone will violate the GPL and are hoping that by showing good faith attempts to follow the letter and spirit the court won't force releasing our code when a "rouge employee" manages to violate the license.

The more important take away is if your automated test process doesn't send letters to your GPL compliance address to verify it works then you need manual testers: not only are you not testing everything, but you didn't even think of everything so you need the assurance of humans looking for something "funny".

by bluGill

4/24/2025 at 3:28:43 PM

The Free Software Foundation closed their office at 51 Franklin St in August 2024 [1]. Their new mailing address is on 31 Milk Street [2].

If this test was reproduced today, we may see different results ;)

[1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-office-closing-party

[2]: https://www.fsf.org/about/contact/mailing

by AlbinoDrought

4/24/2025 at 3:44:23 PM

That's recent enough that mail forwarding should work, if they set it up:

> Standard mail forwarding lasts 12 months. You can pay to extend mail forwarding for 6, 12, or 18 more months (18 months is the maximum).

Edit for source: https://www.usps.com/manage/forward.htm

by dunham

4/24/2025 at 4:33:06 PM

> > Standard mail forwarding lasts 12 months. You can pay to extend mail forwarding for 6, 12, or 18 more months (18 months is the maximum).

That's kind of awkward when you consider people will find that address for source code where that license file just wont be updated for decades to come, if at all.

by giancarlostoro

4/24/2025 at 7:19:43 PM

We need DNS, but for mail addresses.

by __turbobrew__

4/24/2025 at 11:44:27 PM

Maybe DNS for mail addresses is like a Post Office Box number? :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_box

With 20/20 hindsight, if the FSF had used a P.O. Box number in the license, the license addresses would always be correct even if the FSF office changed addressed or (as now) was no longer maintained.

Of course, the cost of a P.O. box over 40 years would have added up to thousands of dollars and that is less money for FSF advocacy. And time spent going to the post office to check the box would also have taken away from advocacy time.

Another physical mail DNS-like idea is mail forwarding -- but it typically has time limits at the post office although not for private mail forwarders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_forwarding "Private mail forwarding services are also offered by private forwarding companies, who often offer features like the ability to see your mail online via a virtual mailbox. Virtual mailboxes usually have options to get your mail scanned, discard junk mail and forward mail to your current address."

Although strictly speaking, these forwarding services are not quite like DNS (even if they do get at the idea of indirection). A true mail DNS would be more like a service you mail a post card to with a person's or organization's name and which mails a post card back to you which tells you what address to currently write to in order to reach that person or organization. (At least, if you write to that received address during some time-to-live window of validity of the address.) And I guess Encrypted DNS would be like you and the service using more expensive security envelopes instead of post cards? :-)

by pdfernhout

4/25/2025 at 11:16:38 AM

> Of course, the cost of a P.O. box over 40 years would have added up to thousands of dollars and that is less money for FSF advocacy. And time spent going to the post office to check the box would also have taken away from advocacy time.

To be fair, renting office space in downtown Boston also adds up to tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars, every year. By comparison, $500 dollars a year [0] for a medium PO Box (in the lobby of the building for their new office, no less!) is a steal.

[0] https://poboxes.usps.com/findBox.html?q=02196

by vitus

4/24/2025 at 8:57:46 PM

CGP Grey, a youtube channel, has a video on some of the problems of the postal codes and addresses from earlier this year that I learned about alternates to my familiar US based system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5oDtVAYzk

by schlauerfox

4/24/2025 at 8:45:21 PM

Even moving once has made the need for this clear to me, it boggles my mind that it isn’t a (common) thing.

by solarkraft

4/24/2025 at 8:23:56 PM

One thing I've been meaning to try, but never got round to, is to stick a URL on an envelope, pointing at a page with an address, and see if the mail (royal mail, in my case) actually deliver it. I suspect they would but that it would take a few extra days. It's no worse than some of the addresses that they do deliver.

by ajb

4/24/2025 at 9:09:52 PM

What about encoding the address as a QR code?

This should not require any Internet access to view by whoever is scanning it to be sorted for delivery.

by ayewo

4/24/2025 at 9:47:22 PM

It also does not help you to update the address later.

by aftbit

4/24/2025 at 10:53:43 PM

It does if it leads to a web page with an address.

What happens when all project maintainers die and the source code disappears?

by giancarlostoro

4/25/2025 at 10:47:56 AM

It does, but I think the person you were responding to was referring to the "This should not require any Internet access to view" part.

by Sophira

4/25/2025 at 2:06:13 AM

Hopefully it will never disappear, since Software Heritage and ArchiveTeam will have saved it.

https://www.softwareheritage.org/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Codearchiver

by pabs3

4/25/2025 at 5:23:45 AM

Hope is not a strategy. As much as I hate crypto, something on the blockchain might be more durable. You want something that isn't reliant on any one person or company to continue to exist (though maybe the long now foundation will) and even if Bitcoin goes to zero, I think there will be some die hard true believers to keep running miners even past the built in 2140 expiration date.

by fragmede

4/26/2025 at 1:19:39 PM

you also have die hard true beliviers data hoarder/archivist

by homarp

4/24/2025 at 8:50:12 PM

since this is hacker news... i once had some trouble changing mail address from one supplier (they would send the materials to the new address, but insisted on sending billing/tax info to the old one) so i did the mail forward process some three times + their extensions (i recall it was 6 + 3mo or so)... it got me close to 3 yrs of reliable mail forward from the great folks at usps until i could get thru the supplier personnel thick skull.

the only issue "redoing" the request is that people at the old address can block it, so be sure to talk to them first.

by 1oooqooq

4/24/2025 at 9:29:01 PM

> the only issue "redoing" the request is that people at the old address can block it, so be sure to talk to them first.

That's so strange, especially when you consider that for legal purposes, if you receive mail at someone's home, you are now a "resident" and it is harder for police to kick you out. Why would anyone willingly want your mail to come to your address.

by giancarlostoro

4/25/2025 at 12:32:21 AM

Simply receiving mail does not make you a resident. You must establish residency and that is being allowed access to the home, the understanding that you are leaving belongings behind with the ability to access them later, how long you have stayed, and maintaining things like utility bills. A lease is a contract that clearly establishes the guidelines between two willing parties. Absent that, the definition of residency is typically delineated in your state landlord-tenant laws.

Disclaimer: in the USA

by grepfru_it

4/24/2025 at 3:45:36 PM

I wrote a little more about the various offices as someone who used to work there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43783632

by mattl

4/24/2025 at 8:54:56 PM

This test isn't about writing to the FSF, it's about writing to the vendor who supplied the software.

by twic

4/24/2025 at 8:24:03 PM

Did they also force RMS to move out?

by brian-armstrong

4/24/2025 at 8:44:16 PM

Maybe he refused to move, so they did?

by Scoundreller

4/24/2025 at 1:23:36 PM

An updated version would say to make sure every email address you use/show in the application/terms/policies are usable and someone receives it.

When reviewing stuff that introduces new emails and whatnot I always spend 10-20 seconds sending an email with "Please respond if you see this" to verify it actually works and someone receives it, as I've experienced more than once that no one actually setup the email before deploying the changes that will show the email to users.

by diggan

4/25/2025 at 8:10:35 AM

> court won't force releasing our code when a "rouge employee" manages to violate the license.

Is this an actual, real risk? Has a court ever forced anyone to release their code because they were violating the GPL?

My understanding is that this is not how this works. If you violate the license you simply don't have a valid one and basically committing copyright infringement. The punishment for that isn't being forced to comply with the license, it's having to pay damages to the copyright owner.

Showing good faith doesn't really change the end result: you're using code that you don't have a license to. The only fix is to start complying or stop selling your software until you remove the code you don't have a license to use.

by ahtihn

4/25/2025 at 3:36:44 PM

Not that I'm aware of. NEXT however did release objective-C source code, but AFAIK that never went to court (anyone able to find those details - I can't find them now).

The text of the GPL is release source code. There are a few people who want release source code to be the only way out of any infringement. If a company intentionally violates the GPL that starts to look like a reasonable argument to courts. However if a company takes "enough" effort to not infringe and does anyway a smaller penalty would apply.

If you don't have a license and distributed software, then that is a copyright violation and the author is entitled to damages. Exactly what those are is something the court figures out. However one important piece of evidence is the license was release your source code. Thus lawyers want that additional cover of we knew and decided not to use GPL code, and there are the steps we took to ensure we didn't: since we took effort you shouldn't apply that extreme penalty.

I do know that good faith in other areas has made a difference. Companies have been caught bribing foreign officials before - which is a shut down the company level event (many countries have laws that if you bribe a government anywhere, not just in their country). However because the company could show they made good faith efforts to ensure everyone knew not to bribe this was just the act of a rouge employee.

How real is it? Hard to say. Good lawyers will tell you that putting in some effort to ensure you don't infringe is cheap protection even if the risk is low.

by bluGill

4/24/2025 at 8:48:10 PM

reminds me of this old joke. Two testers walk into a bar, the first says "i'll have a beer please" and they get their beer as expected. The second says "I just want water" and they get the water just like the asked. Then a user walks into the bar and asks "where's the bathroom?". The bar explodes.

by chasd00

4/24/2025 at 1:42:14 PM

Why should the test process be sending physical letters (edit: in 2025)? Nothing in the GPLv2 requires a physical letter.

The address the OP sent a letter too has already been removed from the canonical version of the license (and was itself an unversioned change from the original address), and section 3 doesn't require a physical offer if the machine-readable source code is provided.

by terinjokes

4/24/2025 at 2:47:41 PM

Some companies still do this mainly to make the GPL request process more annoying so fewer people do it. If you have to mail a letter with a check to cover shipping/handling and wait for the company to send you a CD-R with the code on it, fewer people will look at the code compared to if the company just put it on Github or something.

by ndiddy

4/24/2025 at 4:55:18 PM

If the goal is to be annoying, sure make sure folks can jump through hoops. I just don't think in 2025 a company legitimately intending to satisfy the GPL requirements needs anything to do with physical mail, since they'll provide it online.

I stopped putting in requests for source code offers because I've had a 0% success rate.

by terinjokes

4/25/2025 at 2:09:00 AM

Please let the Software Freedom Conservancy know about any companies that are still in violation of the GPL by not satisfying requests for source code.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/help.html

by pabs3

4/24/2025 at 6:30:25 PM

Companies don't legitimately intend to satisfy the GPL requirements.

If you put in a source code request and get no reply you should try to contact the copyright holder or someone like the Software Freedom Conservancy or the EFF, because they are breaking the law. There was a case recently in Germany where a court forced a maker of home routers to give up not just their source code, but also the scripts to install modified software - as required by the license. (As I understand it there is no precedent in a civil law system, but it does mean at least one judge believes Tivoization of GPLv2 software is illegal)

by immibis

4/24/2025 at 7:07:59 PM

I am keeping an eye on SFC's lawsuit against Vizio[0].

[0]: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

by terinjokes

4/25/2025 at 5:28:32 AM

I offer GPL source via physical address because I don't want to distribute it with the software and I think the GPL said you have to do it that way. I also provide an email address for convenience but without it being the official way so I don't really have to respond to those. In 10 years, I've had zero requests either way.

by foxglacier

4/25/2025 at 3:36:16 PM

Why do you distribute under GPL if you don’t want to distribute the source?

by adastra22

4/25/2025 at 6:47:46 PM

Maybe because they have to. If you are reusing GPL code, you don't really have a choice.

by fph

4/24/2025 at 2:56:25 PM

Most of the time the GPL request is a waste of time with no purpose other than annoy a company. You can download linux source code from many places, why do you want to get it from us?

There is a slight possibility we have a driver that you could get access to, but without the hardware it won't do you any good. Once in a while we have hacked the source to fix a bug, but if it isn't upstream it is because the fix would be accepted (often it causes other bugs that don't matter to use), and in any case if it isn't upstream, the kernel moves so fast you wouldn't be able to use it anyway.

by bluGill

4/24/2025 at 5:26:09 PM

Again I see no purpose in doing things this way besides trying to minimize the amount of people who look at your GPL code for some reason. Isn't it more annoying for the company to make someone in customer support read paper letters, burn the GPL package onto a CD-R, and mail it than it is to simply host the GPL package for each product on a support site or Github or something and include a link in the product documentation?

by ndiddy

4/25/2025 at 2:04:02 AM

There's definitely a purpose, it's to obfuscate usage of GPL software and dodgy linkage. There's no other reason for situations like hosting a binary download as a plain download on a website while getting the source requires mailing a check or money order to a UK address.

by ack_complete

4/24/2025 at 4:45:32 PM

You only have to serve those requests if you distribute your changes yourself.

So presumably as a hardware company you'd be offering your hardware with your custom linux installed, and then people wanting to audit or hack the product they bought would request the code from you.

by regentbowerbird

4/24/2025 at 7:21:03 PM

This is GPL2 - there is no requirement that you be able to install/use/hack the software, only that you get the same source.

by bluGill

4/25/2025 at 2:11:19 AM

That is incorrect, the GPLv2 requires that you be able to modify the code, build it, reinstall the binary and run the modified binary.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

by pabs3

4/25/2025 at 1:37:27 PM

This relies on a court's interpretation. GPLv3 made it explicit that the user has to be provided with everything they need to install modified software. GPLv2 just says "scripts used to control installation" which can be easily interpreted to exclude private signing keys. And the LGPLv2 says when an executable statically links to the library the user must be able to produce a modified executable - nothing at all about being able to install that executable.

by immibis

4/25/2025 at 3:38:10 PM

That is an overly obtuse interpretation. Real law doesn’t work that way. Get in front of a court and the bench judge will shut down that kind of analysis real fast. The intended interpretation is quite clear in context.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 6:33:23 PM

There's actually a near-100% chance that the kernel on my device is not the upstream kernel. There's a near-100% chance that you have added some custom drivers or got them from your upstream. There's also a near-100% chance that you have written some scripts to install the kernel on the device, which you are required (at least one German judge thinks so) to share with me so that I can install a modified kernel on my device.

by immibis

4/24/2025 at 12:38:58 PM

Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. Granted I don't send them very often but I wouldn't think much of it if I had to. But I guess younger people and particularly those in tech may genuinely never need a reason to send a letter (or, it seems, write an address by hand).

by NoboruWataya

4/24/2025 at 2:20:56 PM

Slightly alternate take: this post (and the fact that FSF still replies to paper mail) is about accessibility

Which changes as times change.

In the 90s, requiring access to the internet and an email address would have been exclusionary and decreased access.

Now, 30 years later, it's reversed and physical mail is difficult.

But from another perspective... the goal should be to ensure that anyone who wants to do a thing can, with as few third party requirements as possible.

In the sense that the FSF wants to be the exact opposite of {install this vendor's parking app to pay for parking} + {get an email account with this particular provider to ensure your email goes through} + {install TicketMaster for access to venue} + {this site requires IE^H^HChrome} all the other mandatory third-party choices we're forced into.

Postal mail, for all its faults, is universally accessible by design. And continuing to support the most accessible method of communication is laudable!

Accessibility and convenience >> convenience

by ethbr1

4/24/2025 at 2:52:08 PM

> the goal should be to ensure that anyone who wants to do a thing can, with as few third party requirements as possible.

This is a good starting point, but if you have no barriers then you get abuse problems which is why email is terrible. I remember being horrified in the 90s about attempts to charge 1 cent per email. Now I long for a world where that actually happened.

by Misdicorl

4/24/2025 at 7:59:10 PM

Ironically, the amount of effort I expend dealing with spam from the postal service is much larger than the amount of effort I expend dealing with email.

by tshaddox

4/24/2025 at 9:16:10 PM

I’m pretty sure I spend less than 5 minutes a week dealing with physical spam mail. I have a recycling bin right next to where the mail arrives and most days are 15 seconds of “these go into that bin unopened” and sometimes I have to open an envelope and glance at it to see if it’s something relevant to me.

Even with the best spam filtering on email, I’m well over 5 minutes a week of distraction from it.

by sokoloff

4/25/2025 at 12:03:54 AM

And now imagine how easy dealing with email spam would be if the marginal fiscal cost was not 0 like physical spam. All the technology and tools available and less than 1% of the viable spam surface area

by Misdicorl

4/24/2025 at 3:06:44 PM

You're paying that cent, but in the form of endless ads hijacking your consciousness.

by creaturemachine

4/24/2025 at 5:46:40 PM

you can still do some setup and access mail by using applications like thunderbird, which have no ads.

by overtomanu

4/24/2025 at 8:22:11 PM

Or use an adblocker

by odo1242

4/24/2025 at 4:35:39 PM

> Postal mail, for all its faults, is universally accessible by design

I think it's important to note that this isn't actually true. For a lot of homeless people or people who move often postal mail isn't as good. Online communication is actually more universal. Most (all?) public libraries have computers now.

by xmprt

4/24/2025 at 5:28:04 PM

Not sure if this works in other countries, but here in the Netherlands, homeless folks can get a postal address at municipal offices. People who move can set up (albeit paid) mail forwarding for up to a year.

Other than that, there’s good old ‘poste restante’, in which you can supposedly address mail to any post office and they’ll hold it for the recipient (even internationally), although I’ve never tried this.

(I appreciate that not everyone may actually know about these options, though.)

by Tijdreiziger

4/25/2025 at 2:18:20 AM

I wonder if any post offices have digital post box services to open, digitise, email and incinerate any incoming letters.

by pabs3

4/24/2025 at 4:33:19 PM

A common mistake in accessibility is to assume accessibility is mostly for users who are blind. I've rarely seen the opposite approach, calling something accessible that is very much not accessible to a person who is blind. A url is much more accessible for many people with disabilities than the postal mail.

Even if you mean access instead of accessibility, presumably a person who can find a way to acquire stamps can just as easily make it to a library with public computers.

by samspot

4/24/2025 at 6:30:56 PM

accessibility: the quality of being able to be entered or used by everyone, including people who have a disability

by ethbr1

4/24/2025 at 6:16:51 PM

Physical mail isn't difficult, even now, for anyone with a modicum of competence. I can understand if someone hasn't used physical mail before, but it's very easy to look up how to send a letter + buy envelopes and stamps. If someone cannot do that without difficulty, they really need to work on their basic life skills.

by bigstrat2003

4/24/2025 at 7:08:28 PM

Buying a stamp in the home country is doable for most people. But even then, imagine you are 20, how many mails do you think will you have sent?

For a different country, I'd have no idea. Especially if it's so far away like the USA and I can't locally get a special reply post stamp. What I would have done is to put in 5€ in the envelope and call it a day. The person would probably be happy seeing other money.

by carstenhag

4/24/2025 at 7:27:47 PM

His difficulty was finding postage stamps for the self-addressed return envelope, and clearly the author is not American. Do you think it would be quite so easy to "buy envelopes and stamps" if you had to send a stamped return envelope to Nepal or Manila? Is that a "basic life skill" or would you have to do a little research to figure out what you'd need?

by mvdtnz

4/24/2025 at 9:40:21 PM

He had difficulty writing an address on an envelope.

This skill is something we expect of 8 year old children.

by Symbiote

4/25/2025 at 8:38:18 AM

I sympathize strongly with the author. I write with a pen so infrequently (years between handwriting) that I often have handwriting errors that displease me.

So I usually do some practice writing on scratch paper before attempting the final version.

Notice he said "printing the address would have taken less time". That doesn't sound like the issue was formatting or knowledge. It reads to me as the physical skill of penmanship.

by Brybry

4/25/2025 at 3:41:38 PM

How is that possible? I write things literally every day. Everyone I know does so. How do you go a literal year without picking up a pen?

by adastra22

4/25/2025 at 7:54:39 PM

At various points, I've gone years at a stretch without using a pen -- except maybe to scribble my signature on a paycheck or something. I just never encountered anything that required using one during those times.

It's not very far-fetched -- especially for regions where paper checks became outdated long ago, like my European friends have told me has been the case there since the Earth cooled.

So how, specifically?

These days, I get paid electronically. I pay my bills online. I bought some Forever stamps and mailing envelopes once about 5 years ago, but I haven't had any reason yet to use any of them. If I have to send out a package, I'm using a service like PirateShip and printing a self-adhesive label to keep it consistent with other packages. My work is usually done with a computer -- and when it is more hands-on, then it's usually work that doesn't imply writing anything at all.

When I want to take a quick note, I use my pocket supercomputer. For longer notes and correspondence, I use a real computer. If I need to draw a diagram to share with others, I'll probably be sharing it with them electronically so I produce that diagram electronically from the start.

I did use a pen the other day to draw a napkin sketch of a wiring diagram for some changes I want to make in my garage. AFAIK, I only have 1 working pen at home. I knew exactly where to find it; it was sitting in the last place I used it, about 3 months ago.

But now I'm inclined to reproduce that diagram electronically so I can easily move elements around and label it all clearly (so I can formulate a complete plan and spend more of my time doing the work instead of thinking about it once I get up on a ladder in the dark), so drawing it on paper may have been just a duplication of effort.

by ssl-3

4/25/2025 at 4:25:32 PM

Aside for signing my signature (which I almost never need to do anymore) then the only time I need to handwrite is to fill out forms, usually for medical purposes, and I don't go to the doctor every year (yes, I recognize this is unwise).

If I have time I prefer to scan forms and fill them out with a computer.

All my text generation is digital using either a keyboard or touchscreen.

by Brybry

4/25/2025 at 7:44:04 AM

Nowadays, not really. I had a similar experience - the first (well, first in a few years) time I had to send mail was this year for my taxes, and I ended up having to buy another envelope from the post office because I mixed up the delivery address and return address.

by odo1242

4/25/2025 at 3:51:04 AM

Maybe we used to. When sending letters was still a thing people did.

by singpolyma3

4/24/2025 at 3:28:34 PM

It's like the classic argument about IRC vs Discord. IRC is more convoluted to use, the clients are subpar, you need to set up a BNC to receive messages when offline, but Discord requires you to give up your phone number.

Some people find IRC less accessible, but I find having a phone number that I'm willing to give to a third party is a much more difficult requirement.

by ta8903

4/24/2025 at 6:35:37 PM

Don't forget the next part: whenever you point out that Discord requires you to give them your phone number, hundreds of Agent Smiths appear in the replies to say that actually you don't. Who are we to believe - the repliers, or our own lying eyes?

(The Agent Smith effect is something conspiracy theorists made up to explain why every time they show off their conspiracy theory in public, every single person around them suddenly gains the same opinion of them. I'm using it humourously)

by immibis

4/25/2025 at 2:51:30 PM

> Who are we to believe - the repliers, or our own lying eyes?

Believe the repliers: I created an account in May 2024 and I have not added a phone number. Here's a screenshot from my settings: https://imgur.com/a/Q7kJpDv

But also, your eyes aren't lying to you: some servers require accounts to have confirmed phone number in order to join. So there is probably a lot of people who have had the experience of creating a Discord account, trying to join a server / accept an invite, and immediately seeing a "you must provide a phone number" prompt.

by mega_dean

4/24/2025 at 10:34:17 PM

The explanation is pretty simple: The most fervent users of discord also have overlap with the longest users of discord, and their account age and usage patterns means that discord's risk systems have never demanded a phone number from them.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 3:49:22 PM

> is universally accessible by design

I disagree. It requires taking time out of business hours, and they don't pay you your salary while you line up multiple times for 30 minutes each. I've sometimes had to line up for 2 hours total (4 times) just to mail one thing. Once to ask "how do i mail this", once to ask for a pen (couldn't cut the line because a Karen wouldn't let me), once because I filled the wrong form, etc. Typical USPS experience

by dheera

4/25/2025 at 7:17:38 AM

The task is sending a letter, not a parcel.

You buy the stamps (from the post office, another shop with opening hours you prefer, or online), sick one on the envelope and put it in a mailbox.

Overcomplicating everything so you can grumble on the internet isn't required.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 7:03:36 PM

I find it hard to believe that waiting two hours is normal for customers of the USPS. You can order stamps online, they have (collection) postboxes and even offer a pick-up service for parcels. At $0.73 to send a letter anywhere in the USA, that sounds like a pretty impressive offering to me.

by seabass-labrax

4/24/2025 at 7:24:23 PM

> I find it hard to believe that waiting two hours is normal for customers of the USPS.

GP said postal services are "universally accessible". So first, it doesn't matter is it's "normal", it matters if it happens at all. And USPS does not represent postal mail universally - I have never even seen a USPS building in my life and don't expect to. Is postal mail as universally accessible to a homeless man in Laos and a 5-year-old kid in rural India? I think it's ludicrous to claim that postal mail is "universally accessible" and displays a huge Western bias.

by mvdtnz

4/24/2025 at 7:05:15 PM

It's lining up multiple times. When I walk in with a box, I don't know how the hell to mail it, what to fill out, what the pricing vs. delivery ETA grid is so I can decide where I want to position myself on that curve, the different forms you need to fill to be on different parts of that curve.

I usually end up screwing it up a few times in the process too. I didn't realize that the free boxes they give you are only for 2 day service (and doesn't work for 1 day or 3 day). 1 day is a different box, 3 day is bring-your-own-box.

The pens they provide don't work, you have to line up to get a pen. You have to line up to ask a question. The workers are grumpy, the people in line are grumpy, I've had the experience that sometimes nobody will let you cut anything even if it's just for a pen or a piece of tape.

Oh and they charge you if you ask for more than about X of tape. It's a tricky dance. I think X is about 20cm. If you ask for 30cm, they will refuse even the 20cm and ask you to buy 300cm, which entails getting in the 30 minute line again (so the actual cost of the tape is 0.5 * your hourly consulting rate, so if you're a software engineer paid $100/hour of stocks and $100/hour of equity, that'll be a $50 roll of tape plus $30 of stock assumimng Trump just announced more tariffs). If you ask for 15cm, they might give you 20cm for free. It's tricky. I wish there were a sign that said "free tape: <=20cm" or whatever the actual number is, in front of each employee's desk.

Which reminds me, the actual number also seems depends on the mood of the USPS employee, so you also need to carefully watch your position in line so that you try to get yourself in front of the happiest employee. If the grumpiest employee is almost done with their previous customer, you have to fake needing to fix something really quick and let someone ahead of you in the line so that they get the grumpy one and you get the happy one. Or you can try to estimate the processing time of the few people ahead of you in line by eyeballing the complexity of shipping whatever they are holding, and time your place in line to be in front of the happiest employee when it gets to you. That way you are more likely to get more free tape to seal your box.

You also need to think about how to keep them happy. That usually involves some small talk. More small talk gets you more tape. Weather is a good safe topic on the east coast, because you can commiserate the bad weather with the USPS employee, but in California the weather is always good, so it doesn't make for good small talk, and the USPS employee might be at risk of going from happy to grumpy because they'd rather be outside.

by dheera

4/25/2025 at 6:30:31 AM

This is some other issue, perhaps untreated executive dysfunction.

I have seen people struggling to complete tasks at post offices and banks, queuing multiple times unnecessarily, being afraid of choosing the wrong options but not doing any research, etc. They don’t take the basic steps that the others in line do to make their visit work.

by 1123581321

4/25/2025 at 2:57:09 AM

If you have this much difficulty mailing a package I think your consulting rate should be a lot more than $200 an hour.

Shipping quotes are trivial to get online. It's also easy to print shipping with pirateship.

USPS picks up packages for free with your regular delivery.

by qmr

4/25/2025 at 9:19:41 PM

I find your experience at the post office weirdly fascinating. Yeah, I am a strange guy.

by elzbardico

4/24/2025 at 5:48:34 PM

I mean it is the fallback method. The solution for the "I never heard of this internet thing, or something else is preventing me from finding the licence online" problem.

Almost everyone will just use their search engine to find this page: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html

What can you do to serve the licence to those who can't or won't do that (for whatever reason)? I think it is hard to find something more universally accessible to serve that edge case.

You describe your story of how sending a letter went to you, and I admit it sounds like a bit of a pain. But you managed to do it. And by the sound of it you were totally novice at it. (didn't even bring your own pen!) Someone can do the same thing you did anywhere from Nairobi, McMurdo, Pyongyang, or Vigánpetend.

It is not "universally accessible" in the "easy and comfortable" sense. It is "universally accessible" in the "almost anywhere where humans live you can access this service" sense.

by krisoft

4/24/2025 at 6:57:02 PM

I mean, part of the problem is I didn't own a pen at the time.

I have multiple computers and phones, I thought that was the interface to the post-2000 world.

I do have paint, but that's a little clumsy.

I grudgingly own a box of BIC pens now, but ... It's like requiring people to own a horse to do something these days. And in past experience during school days, those goddamn BIC pens all go bad (ink dries up or something), before I use even 5% of one of them.

I realize this all probably sounds very silly to someone born before 1980 but ... yeah it's just the reality of the world, I don't normally need pens to do anything, and am used to pens being provided in the rare occasions I need to sign a receipt or something, and usually I just end up drawing a cat on the signature line.

by dheera

4/24/2025 at 8:40:44 PM

> I realize this all probably sounds very silly to someone born before 1980

I was born after 1980 and I think you're beating a dead horse, here. You're conflating accessibility with convenience. Not just with this comment, but others you've made in this thread.

> those goddamn BIC pens all go bad (ink dries up or something), before I use even 5% of one of them.

Grab the pen by the end opposite the nib, give it a good shake for a few seconds, lick the nib, scribble on a scrap piece of paper until it starts writing again. Problem solved. You can't resurrect a dead laptop or computer by licking and shaking it (at least I've never succeeded in doing so).

by hermitdev

4/24/2025 at 8:38:20 PM

Oh, i absolutely get you! Was not intending to pen-shame you in any way. Just used it to illustrate that the postal process worked (eventually, and with a lot of inconvenience) even though you were not best prepared for it.

But i have been exactly where you are. We were having a book club and trying to vote on the next book to read, and turns out none of us out of twenty literature loving people had a single pen on us. So yeah, that is for sure the current reality.

> usually I just end up drawing a cat on the signature line.

Thats awesome! Do the they accept it usually?

by krisoft

4/24/2025 at 9:20:33 PM

Yes! I've never had an issue -- in the US at least, signatures on receipts generally don't matter. Cat sketches are usually fine.

The only place I've had it mattered is when signing bank documents in Asia.

by dheera

4/25/2025 at 12:25:00 PM

> those goddamn BIC pens all go bad (ink dries up or something), before I use even 5% of one of them.

No, the ink does not dry. What happens is that the ball gets stuck if it is used too infrequently. This is solved by rubbing it against paper, or even better something rubbery. The underside of most people’s shoes works well for this. Just last week I used a Bic that was at least 30 years old. These things are very dependable.

by kergonath

4/24/2025 at 9:37:33 PM

You are intentionally making things difficult when you don't own a pen.

That's very much your problem, and the rest of the world doesn't need to accommodate it.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 10:10:34 PM

When paper and pen was invented, I'm sure there was a bearded caveman holding a fish who made a comment about how it was someone's problem that they didn't have a tool to carve stone tablets.

Paper is on its way out, electrons are the new medium.

by dheera

4/25/2025 at 12:27:55 PM

Do you realise that this is the exact same positions as people who refuse to use a computer or a phone on principle? Ranting about having to use a pen is not being hip or modern, it’s being obnoxious.

by kergonath

4/25/2025 at 10:38:01 AM

> I mean, part of the problem is I didn't own a pen at the time.

I find this mind-boggling.

I immediately came up with a parallel -- "they wanted me to walk to the counter but I do not own shoes."

Which took me to the universe of Pixar's _Wall-E_ and now I can't help but imagine that the subset of "people born after 1980" are helpless in their floating chairs and apparently I am aberrant because I learned to walk, and that makes me old.

by lproven

4/24/2025 at 9:22:13 PM

Your life sounds positively exhausting.

by sokoloff

4/24/2025 at 8:45:36 PM

Bravo! I cannot tell if this is a satire of something. Can some explain the joke, if any?

by Octopodes

4/24/2025 at 6:36:35 PM

If you're talking about packages via USPS, you can use print + pay & drop boxes for anything that fits.

https://www.usps.com/ship/online-shipping.htm

If you're talking about letters, the innumerable blue drop boxes.

by ethbr1

4/24/2025 at 1:42:59 PM

Agreed. I am a millennial, so most likely older than the author.

Not having envelopes at the ready is one thing, but ordering stamps... on eBay??? And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind.

I am a software engineer, and I always have a paper notebook and a pen next to my keyboard to write down stuff.

I guess this all tells me I'm getting old :-).

by palata

4/24/2025 at 1:48:34 PM

> but ordering stamps... on eBay

OP was ordering US stamps to include _in_ the letter, on an SAE (self-addressed envelope) they were sending _from_ the UK, so that the FSF could reply (from the US) using said stamps.

As a millennial myself, I have no idea where else I'd look for <recipient country> stamps should I want to include them on a SAE I was sending to said country, so that they recipient wouldn't incur the cost of replying to me.

I don't find looking on eBay particularly strange, though I'd do a quick search for alternatives first.

by alias_neo

4/24/2025 at 2:17:58 PM

> I have no idea where else I'd look for <recipient country> stamps should I want to include them on a SAE I was sending to said country

I would try to buy them online from their post office. For the USA, there is https://www.usps.com/business/postage-options.htm:

“Print Labels Online with Click-N-Ship

With your free USPS.com account, you can pay for postage and print just one label or a batch of shipping labels online”

Germany has (https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/germany-news/deutsche-pos...):

“You simply need to open the app, select the appropriate postage service, tick “Code for labelling” (Code zum Beschriften), and pay with PayPal. You will then immediately receive a code, consisting of the letters #PORTO and an eight-digit string, which you must write in pen in the top right-hand corner of the envelope or postcard. Then, just pop it in the post box, and you’re done! The code is valid for 14 days and can only be used for Germany-bound mail.”

That 14-day limit may not be a good idea for this use case.

by Someone

4/24/2025 at 7:09:37 PM

The Deutsche Post '#PORTO' method does not apply to international shipments, unfortunately. However, you can still purchase barcode labels online for printing, and conventional stamps are simply values in Euro cents so can be used for both domestic and international deliveries.

In addition, the 14-day limit no longer applies. Deutsche Post were challenged in court, and the digital stamps must now last for as long as conventional stamps do:

https://nrwe.justiz.nrw.de/olgs/koeln/j2023/3_U_148_22_Urtei...

by seabass-labrax

4/24/2025 at 4:33:55 PM

That German app is not available in the App Store in my country (and I presume in any country other than Germany), so I would also be forced to go to eBay for stamps

by kalleboo

4/24/2025 at 4:46:47 PM

Then I would Google for an alternative, and find https://shop.deutschepost.de/briefversand/briefmarken/briefm...

by Someone

4/24/2025 at 7:33:10 PM

I just priced a stamp to send to New Zealand using that USPS website and it came to over USD$20 so that's not a realistic option. To be fair I had to take some guesses with weight (what the fuck is an ounce and how many letters fit into one?) and dimensions (they don't have units on that website, so I guess my letter is 6x3 whatevers).

by mvdtnz

4/24/2025 at 4:07:00 PM

that honestly seems more complicated and likely to fail than just buying the correct stamps on ebay.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 5:39:54 PM

You use an International Reply Coupon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon

by wbl

4/24/2025 at 5:43:42 PM

You obviously read neither the blog post nor the Wikipedia article.

by layer8

4/24/2025 at 1:54:00 PM

Sure but, on the other hand, this was overly kind of him. In general, unless it is explicitely requested that you must provide a stamped envelope for the reply the assumption of snail mail is that each side pays for its own envelopes and stamps.

by mytailorisrich

4/24/2025 at 2:05:57 PM

And you could also put a dollars bill in the envelope?

by palata

4/24/2025 at 2:55:04 PM

How to get accountants to hate you in one easy step

by wongarsu

4/24/2025 at 2:20:54 PM

From the UK...?

by FeepingCreature

4/24/2025 at 5:27:08 PM

Perhaps a couple of grams of silver?

by dmurray

4/24/2025 at 2:38:57 PM

The Post Office will sell you US currency, but AFAIK not US stamps.

by pansa2

4/24/2025 at 2:12:26 PM

Offhand, I don't think I've ever mailed an International letter or package.

Is return postage something that, normally, my local post office would help me with? E.G. do they have some method of marking or adding post to a package that would be accepted globally (or at least within the destination country)?

by mjevans

4/24/2025 at 2:31:37 PM

That's the International Reply Coupon mentioned in the article, but it's not supported by all countries.

I think I've sent far more international letters and parcels than domestic. Christmas cards for elderly relatives in the country I was born in, and postcards when I travelled abroad.

Some obscure things I sold on eBay were mostly sent abroad.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 7:26:23 PM

"""

United Kingdom

The Royal Mail stopped selling IRCs on 31 December 2011[26] due to a lack of demand. United States

The United States Postal Service stopped selling international reply coupons on 27 January 2013.[27]

"""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon#Uni...

That explains why I was confounded in my efforts to search within USPS results.

by mjevans

4/24/2025 at 5:52:24 PM

I send $3 U.S. with QSL (ham radio) cards. It seems like everybody is able to convert that to local currency to cover postage.

by dl9999

4/25/2025 at 7:06:10 AM

I send international reply coupons with QSL cards. They no longer sell them in Ireland, where I live, but you can still order them from Swiss Post, online. They work everywhere. They mail them to you for free.

https://shop.post.ch/en/packing-sending/sending-letters/regi...

by relistan

4/24/2025 at 2:33:07 PM

by ahazred8ta

4/24/2025 at 2:39:25 PM

yep, article also mentions them:

> I was disappointed to find out that the UK’s Royal Mail discontinued international reply coupons in 2011. The only alternative that I could think of was to buy some US stamps.

by Lex-2008

4/24/2025 at 2:50:27 PM

The author in the UK so it's pretty much a given that they're exaggerating for comedic effect, but... living in the UK myself, I have only sent maybe about 5 letters in my life, all to the government bureaucracy, and none more recently than a decade ago. And I'm a millennial, albeit on the younger side (so I tell myself).

I don't have any pens, paper or a printer in my house, so I'd probably go to my workplace if I needed to send a letter nowadays. I do occasionally send a parcel though, which involves printing off a shipping label, so the process isn't completely alien.

by cameronh90

4/24/2025 at 6:27:28 PM

It's bizarre to hear about people not even having a single pen, like the author. What's the last time you ever used one? What is your daily life like?

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 10:42:36 PM

I went for 10 years not using a pen at home. That streak would be even longer, except for about a year I took up journalling as a hobby.

I'm not sure exactly what you think people must be handwriting:

- Notes? I use Obsidian for work notes, Google Keep for stuff like shopping lists

- Signatures? Delivery receipt signatures are done with a finger on a touch screen, stuff like employment contracts and finance paperwork have basically all moved to e-signatures. I genuinely think the last thing I signed with a pen might have been my mortgage, and that one I had to go to solicitor's office anyway as it had to be officially witnessed.

- Paper forms? Print, sign and scan was occasionally requested until a few years ago, but I did it in the office because I also didn't own a printer at that time. Even "important government forms" are done online now.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 10:02:34 PM

I think the last the last time I used a writing implement was actually about two months ago, and it was a sharpie that I had to go to the corner shop to buy. I needed to take a verification picture of myself holding the date for an online pharmacy.

I do have an iPad with an Apple Pencil, but even that I use quite rarely - though I at least know where it is. If I'm annotating a PDF, that would be my tool of choice.

Aside from that, I'm not sure that my daily life is really that unrecognisable from anyone else's. Just that instead of writing stuff on paper, I either type it or tap it on my phone. For maths, I'm just quite quick at TeX input.

by cameronh90

4/24/2025 at 4:15:12 PM

We don't have a printer at home (UK), sending parcels is the only time we'd need it but our small local post office prints labels (eg for Amazon returns, or parcel companies).

I did print a page at work recently, the second one since I started my job 5 years ago.

by pbhjpbhj

4/24/2025 at 5:58:11 PM

Most of the time I have to send parcels now, I use those drop off lockers where you just put it in the right cubbyhole and - I guess - they label it when they pick it up. Otherwise, most couriers will do label on pickup, or the return label is included with the delivery in the first place. Very occasionally there's no other option but to find some way of printing it myself.

I did have a small inkjet printer at one point, but the ink kept drying up, so in the end it was costing me £10 and a trip to Tesco every time I needed to print something. Thought about getting a laser, but it's quite a lot of space to waste on something I use so rarely. I might get one of those little thermal printers that are small enough to keep in a drawer.

by cameronh90

4/24/2025 at 3:35:35 PM

I'm also a millennial software engineer but I usually write stuff down to text files. I do use pen and paper to draw things if that helps my understanding of them. Like when there's geometry involved.

Sending letters isn't an alien concept to me either. I'm old enough to have done it regularly as a kid. I especially liked the part where you have to write the zip code in those machine-readable digits.

by grishka

4/24/2025 at 5:05:31 PM

> I especially liked the part where you have to write the zip code in those machine-readable digits.

How long ago was that? The machine have gotten really good at deciphering regular handwriting quite a while ago.

by eru

4/24/2025 at 6:25:01 PM

When and where were you required to write the ZIP so strangely? I've never heard of such a bizarre requirement.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 6:31:29 PM

Russia. It's still a thing most likely.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_postal_codes...

by grishka

4/24/2025 at 6:56:00 PM

Fascinating, thanks!

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 7:50:02 PM

That is cool!

by palata

4/25/2025 at 12:52:09 PM

Nah, I'm young and even to me the author's just on the extreme side of "digital native". The first thing I saw in the article was this and knew it was fake, too: "Considering the storage constraints back then" (he's just repeating it, he doesn't know if it's actually applicable). And now you know why random blogs, while insightful, shouldn't be treated as gold truth.

by spoonsort

4/25/2025 at 2:14:12 AM

I actually buy all my stamps on eBay. You can buy legit Forever USA stamps at below market rates.

by qingcharles

4/24/2025 at 5:03:51 PM

> And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind.

Some people really have terrible hand writing. And dyslexia is a thing, too.

by eru

4/24/2025 at 5:50:02 PM

That weren’t the reasons stated, though.

by layer8

4/24/2025 at 2:57:41 PM

> Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author.

It was pretty recognizable as trolling--the very good and clever "old school Internet" style of trolling where it sounds plausible and sincere, but then you get done reading it and say, "Oh lawd, he got me! Good one!" The kind of writing that people used to spend a lot of time perfecting on Slashdot. I refuse to believe there are adults out there where things like using a pen to write and mailing a letter are alien concepts that need to be learned. It was very earnestly written though, bravo!

by ryandrake

4/24/2025 at 3:24:48 PM

> I refuse to believe there are adults out there where things like using a pen to write and mailing a letter are alien concepts that need to be learned.

Well, believe it. I'm in my 40s and haven't written a letter since I was a kid. Why would I ever have to? Ask someone who was born in 2003 if they've ever written and mailed a letter. 99% are going to say no.

by bongodongobob

4/24/2025 at 3:43:00 PM

As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns.

by programjames

4/24/2025 at 4:11:18 PM

You file tax returns by post? What country? Do they charge you extra to submit by post?

That's crazy to me - tax returns for our micro-business and personal tax has been online since at least 2005.

by pbhjpbhj

4/24/2025 at 5:21:44 PM

I had to file my tax by postal mail in the US. Granted there is the option to file online, but that only works for ~80% of the people when things are completely within the intended domain. I have just one extra item outside of standard salary slips and some investment income, so I had to file physically.

by yyhhsj0521

4/24/2025 at 9:58:58 PM

For federal returns, there's a site called Free File Fillable Forms, which has digitized versions of all the tax forms. Unlike the normal IRS Free File program, there's no restriction on income. If you're comfortable filing paper tax returns, this is the exact same process except the returns are digital and sent over the internet. For state returns, the process depends on your state but everywhere I've lived has a free site that you can use to file your state return.

by ndiddy

4/24/2025 at 11:04:25 PM

From https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-form...:

Attaching statements — This program does not allow you to attach any documents to your return, except those available through the program. If you need to attach any such documents, you will have to print and mail in the return.

Especially with business returns, it's common to have to attach statements to certain forms, for example if you choose the de minimis election for equipment repairs that would otherwise have to be capitalized, or when the § 174 changes went into effect and everyone had to start amortizing software development expenses over multiple years. You can't do that on Free File Fillable Forms.

by dpifke

4/24/2025 at 6:29:49 PM

In my state (Minnesota), there is no free online filing for state income tax. You either pay for one of the online filing softwares, or print the sucker out and mail it in. I choose the latter :)

by coldpie

4/24/2025 at 4:04:50 PM

>As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns.

Why didn't you efile like a normal person? The only time you need to do it the hard way is if you are under 16 and filing for the first time.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 4:14:33 PM

I had to file by mail because I moved to a new state and got 2 W-2s for the same job, of which the W-2 for the former state left the federal fields (1-13) blank. This weird W-2 apparently makes me ineligible for e-file.

Edit: In hindsight, I could have just waited until the start of 2025 to update my address in the HR system and gotten a single, normal W-2, but then I would be both violating the remote work rules (by not adding my new work location) and (probably) committing tax fraud.

by tart-lemonade

4/25/2025 at 3:51:57 PM

There is a lot of stuff that can make you ineligible for efiling.anything exceptional and not handled by the standard form requires efiling. They only just recently dropped the requirement for 83(b) elections to be sent in with your tax return, and until then I had to send in a paper return every time I did that.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 4:33:34 PM

Most people do it digitally or have an accountant do it, this isn't the norm.

by bongodongobob

4/24/2025 at 4:17:10 PM

Do you not send thank you cards for birthday and holiday gifts?

by tart-lemonade

4/24/2025 at 5:26:26 PM

Physical thank you cards are pretty dead. I don't even keep track of mailing addresses for a number of my friends (and a couple siblings, come to think of it) - how would I send them a physical card?

Even older relatives - we sent a physical gift a bit ago, but the response/thanks was by text. It just doesn't make sense to send a letter, have it take a week, never know whether it got lost, etc.

by singingboyo

4/24/2025 at 5:53:49 PM

In Europe where I live sending birthday letters and the like to relatives is still a standard practice, at least in my social environment.

by layer8

4/24/2025 at 10:46:35 PM

The only people I know of that do this are over 60.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 5:31:08 PM

No. In person, text, or phone call.

by bongodongobob

4/24/2025 at 11:22:04 PM

I had to inform numerous companies of my mums death last year. A lot of them had either phone support with very long wait times or a postal address, no email. It took me less time to write a letter and post it than to wait on hold

by mrloop

4/24/2025 at 4:38:12 PM

I just sent in my taxes by USPS mail a couple of weeks ago. Long after online payments were available, I would pay my monthly bills by writing checks and sending them in the mail, as that process actually took me less time than logging in to five or six different websites and navigating through their online payment flows.

by SoftTalker

4/24/2025 at 5:00:47 PM

That's very uncommon. All my bills are set to autopay on my credit card. Who manually pays bills? You don't need to click the buttons every month.

by bongodongobob

4/24/2025 at 6:34:35 PM

I click them manually every month. It's kind of a holdover from when I needed to time things in order to keep my checking account in the black, but I kept the process as it helps me keep track of my bills and catch any errors or discrepancies, which does happen.

It certainly takes less time than writing a check and stuffing an envelope, though, what with saved credentials and smartphones; I can do this in a matter of moments while lying in bed every other Friday morning.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 8:06:12 PM

Payment to a credit card often involves extra fees. And I don't want to give them autopay access to my checking account.

by SoftTalker

4/24/2025 at 6:29:23 PM

There's a difference between writing a letter longhand, and simply knowing how to use a pen.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 3:07:33 PM

> I refuse to believe there are adults out there where things like using a pen to write and mailing a letter are alien concepts that need to be learned.

Some adults were born in 2007

by petesergeant

4/24/2025 at 6:18:48 PM

Anyone, even someone born in 2007, should know how to use pen and paper. This is a basic component of being an educated person, not knowing how to do that is as shocking as being illiterate.

by bigstrat2003

4/25/2025 at 2:16:33 AM

Sure. But why are they mailing letters? I remember being 18 myself (a looong time ago), and having a helpful adult shocked that nobody had ever taught me how to write a check. I think I've written a total of 8 in my whole life now?

by petesergeant

4/25/2025 at 7:26:39 AM

If a British 12 year old today were to need to write a cheque, I'd expect they would need to look up or be told how it's done.

I wouldn't expect them to need to buy a pen first, or to need several attempts to write 10 words nearly.

by Symbiote

4/25/2025 at 3:54:00 PM

You messed up typing nearly though.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 4:33:29 PM

Younger than Gmail, YouTube, and the iPhone.

by xmprt

4/24/2025 at 5:54:56 PM

The iPhone is not yet 18.

by layer8

4/25/2025 at 3:54:37 PM

By only two months.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 3:46:31 PM

Once I had to send an international RMA that they wouldn't pay for the shipping. It went something like this:

0. Went to Fedex to check on the shipping cost for this tiny box. It was $120 so I passed

1. Went to USPS, found that they were closed, the only option was a 30 minute line to use the machine. Lined up for 30 minutes, found that it the goddamn UI on the machine did not support international shipments.

2. Went home to generate a USPS international shipping label. $25, much more acceptable. FedEx should be out of business.

3. I didn't have a 2D printer at home, tried to 3D print the shipping label with 1 layer of white and 1 layer of black but it wasn't high resolution enough in the X/Y direction for the label to be readable so I gave up

4. Went to FedEx to use their 2D printers but realized I forgot my USB drive at home

5. Went home to get my USB drive

6. Back to FedEx, realized I forgot my mask (this was COVID times, so no go)

7. Went home to get my mask

8. Back to FedEx, printed the 2D shipping label

9. Back to USPS, found out they had no tape

10. Back to FedEx to buy a roll of tape because I don't know where the hell else to buy tape same day, and all my tape at home are electrical tape, teflon tape, or Gorilla tape

11. Back to USPS and the stupid package drop box had a mechanical issue preventing it from opening more than a few cm, not enough to fit my package

12. Went to another USPS to drop the package

by dheera

4/24/2025 at 4:07:58 PM

> 3. I didn't have a 2D printer at home, tried to 3D print the shipping label

This sentence really captures the absurdity of this story.

by processunknown

4/24/2025 at 4:12:34 PM

Could have 3D printed a pen holder for the 3D printer and then used the 3D printer as a plotter to write the address on a sticker or the envelope itself.

Right?

by genewitch

4/24/2025 at 4:18:44 PM

> FedEx should be out of business.

Those crazy retail rates exist so businesses can get big discounts. The company I work with ships maybe half a dozen packages international with FedEx a year and they still give us like 60-70% off retail.

by ac29

4/24/2025 at 4:09:54 PM

>12. Went to another USPS to drop the package

You have a USPS drop box for tiny boxes in front of your house.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 6:36:29 PM

I do? Where?

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 8:55:00 PM

Mailboxes are bidirectional. If there is outgoing mail in the mailbox your postal worker will take it to the post office. That is what the flag is for. Not sure how well this is adhered to anymore, to be fair. I could be out of date.

by retrac

4/24/2025 at 9:32:12 PM

Not sure about OP but it's become more common in certain areas of the US to not have mailboxes in front of each house. But usually there's a shared bank of mailboxes within a mile so with the ability to drop off outgoing

by Rebelgecko

4/25/2025 at 3:56:34 PM

Your doorstep. You just leave it there and they pick it up.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 4:44:38 PM

> house

I can't afford a house ($2M+ where I live), so I don't have one of those mailboxes. My apartment complex doesn't have a visible USPS pickup anywhere that I know of.

If you meant those inverted U shaped things that look like they are from WW2 (maybe WW1?), I forgot about those, but somehow I never know how frequently they are checked ... there is no indicator about when they were last opened and I wonder whether the mailman might just forget about a couple of them in odd parts of town, which is why I always feel more "secure" dropping it at a USPS.

I was once walking down the street when I saw a presumably-GenZ person who thought they were a trash can and casually dumped trash in it so there's also that concern, if everyone is using them as trash cans now ...

by dheera

4/24/2025 at 6:22:55 PM

>My apartment complex doesn't have a visible USPS pickup anywhere that I know of.

They usually a slot or little door for outgoing letters, if your package was larger than that, sometimes you can leave them at the 'office' of your complex if they have one. But yeah, in your case, going to an actual post office might have been the solution if you don't trust the street mailboxes.

by Suppafly

4/25/2025 at 3:57:57 PM

Even if you are in rural Alaska or something, drop boxes are checked on a rigid schedule as part of the mail delivery route. They’re reliable.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 4:52:47 PM

Most are picked up daily at a scheduled time.

by Spooky23

4/24/2025 at 12:43:50 PM

> But I guess younger people and particularly those in tech may genuinely never need a reason

I don't think it's just a age/generation thing though. I'm one year older than my wife, but I grew up in Sweden in the 90s, she grew up in Peru. Somehow, sending/receiving letters was something I've done multiple times growing up, but she never did, and wasn't until we were living together in Spain in the 2010s that she for the first time in her life sent a letter via the street mailboxes. She's not in tech either, if that matters, while I am.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 12:52:34 PM

Probably because in our countries (I'm also from S.America) the reliability of the post office is questionable at best, so it wasn't something I ever really used.

by rafaelm

4/24/2025 at 1:14:00 PM

In most/all of Europe, letter volumes are reducing but they're still used. Even where email is common, letters are usually possible.

In your country,

- how do you get a new bank card, when the current one expires?

- how are you informed about a change like a price increase for electricity?

- how do you pay for electricity? (Knowing how much to pay, when etc) What about an elderly person?

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 2:03:32 PM

You physically go to the bank.

The electricity company has their own employees to deliver paper monthly statements to all their customers, they can attach other communications if needed.

My bank has a connection to the electricity company, and can look up in realtime what my open balance is, which you can view and pay in the banking app. You can also pay it in cash at various offices (e.g. Western Union) around the city.

You can also just give the electricity company permission to automatically take it out of your account every month (ppl don't trust the electricity company to get the amount correct, so folks don't usually do this. I do this for the water bill though).

(this is my experience living in Ecuador for 10 years, I'm from the Netherlands, most of this is weird to me :)

by warp

4/24/2025 at 4:26:20 PM

Three weeks ago I was part of a comment thread on this very site, where people were wondering why banks still had buildings for people to go in to.

by genewitch

4/24/2025 at 4:33:07 PM

In some countries, it is somewhat of a question "why" though. For example, banks in Sweden stopped carrying cash, and AFAIK (at least when I lived there) you interact with them either online or via the telephone, even cards are sent your home address instead of being picked up the branch and so on.

Contrast to where I live now (Spain) where I can still go to the bank to deposit/withdraw money, so the use case for the branch/building/office is kind of obvious.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 11:24:16 PM

Yes, there are few reasons to go to a Swedish bank branch, and they've been closing branches, too. Almost everything is done online - really goes for most things in Sweden, not just banks.

You don't even visit a branch to become a customer as long as you have an account with some other bank, which gives you BankID, a digital ID/signature system that's ubiquitous in Sweden. I have accounts with three Swedish banks. Of those, one doesn't have physical locations to visit, and a second I never visited. It's surely been ten years since I went to the third, my main bank, in person, and the branch office I went to closed years ago. Looking it up, my main bank only has one office left in the city, it's only open for three hours a day and requires a prior appointment for any services.

Cash is only handled by a few bank branches (not all banks) and even then by prior booking - cash has been pretty much gone from society for a while now. Your card gets sent to you by postal mail. If you need to talk to someone at the bank, they'll suggest telephone or video calls, and will only see you in person as a last resort. Safe deposit boxes have also been largely discontinued as a service.

by ACS_Solver

4/24/2025 at 2:04:49 PM

There are multiple ways to receive letters. Having a mailman delivering it directly to your house is usually the rich area's way to handle it. The lower version of this is to let people check with the post office themselves. If it's fancy, you have at least your personal postbox there, or you will have to ask office-workers which then depends on their working time. And outside of this, there are other ways to use other locations and people, not directly affiliated with the postal service for delivering letters. Pubs and other shops are often such locations, or in really poor areas the village chief will receive them, and then handle distribution.

But it should be noted, except the physical objects, those letters can be also replaced with other means of communication. Just calling people via phone is common, or nowadays sending an email will also do the job. In my country we have a working and reliable postal system, but companies are still replacing letters with digital communication as far as laws allow it. Payments are also running automatically, so the bills are more informative and for taxes.

by slightwinder

4/24/2025 at 2:07:36 PM

> - how do you get a new bank card, when the current one expires?

The bank sends it through mail but they warn you that if it doesn't arrive within 2 weeks you should go in person to the bank to retrieve it. Depending on where you live there's a 50/50 chance that it never arrives through mail so you just wait 2 weeks and go to the bank.

> - how are you informed about a change like a price increase for electricity?

Email. Or the news channel for elderly people (if the increase is too big). If the increase is small that's a fact of life, everyone just expects it to increase a bit every 2 or 3 months.

> - how do you pay for electricity? (Knowing how much to pay, when etc) What about an elderly person?

Website or bank app. There are physical places that take cash payments and do the online process for you, elderly people generally use those.

by longlonglonglon

4/24/2025 at 1:40:44 PM

To answer your questions: receiving letters is easy, companies know how to do it. Sending letters is not common for the public.

by sdf4j

4/24/2025 at 3:18:58 PM

I'm from a similar country and would never have thought about using snail mail for anything you've mentioned.

For bank cards you go to their branch and get a new one from a person who works there, or by interacting with a terminal which prints your name on a blank card and spits it out. Some banks deliver them to your home address by courier service and hand them over in person, and they're not "elite" or special by any means.

Utilities are paid through online/mobile banking, there are many alternatives and it takes maybe 10 seconds. Even my 70-something year old relatives use them. Some even older ones rely on help from others, or to go physical bank branches and pay there (which wastes a lot of time of everyone waiting in line to be serviced — I don't personally know anyone who does that, but have seen it a couple of times).

Price increases? Local news, or you can subscribe to receive them by email. Or just check in the online banking app when it's time to make another payment, it's all there.

by homebrewer

4/24/2025 at 3:33:52 PM

Am Estonian, and from your list only the first one is with physical mail, though more and more people use virtual cards / Apple Pay instead of even owning a physical card. We can also withdraw cash from an ATM using Apple Pay, no need for a card.

As for price changes regarding utilities (or really, anything) we get an e-mail from the service provider or from the landlord (who then gets an e-mail from the service provider). We also pay for utilities via an online bank transfer or automated subscription to the service provider or to the landlord via a bank transfer (who then pays via an online bank transfer or has an automated subscription).

Elderly people set up automatic subscription services in their local bank branch or by calling the bank, I have not heard of a single elderly person using mail to pay for anything.

by askonomm

4/24/2025 at 6:18:09 PM

I'm in the UK where we do have a generally very reliable postal service, but of those three, it's only the bank card that involves a physical letter for me - and even then I have no idea where my bank cards even are because I just use contactless via my phone/watch nowadays.

My electricity payment is direct debit - though I can pay manually via the app if I wish. The app has the amount on it, and they notify of service changes via the app and email. I suppose that if I ignored the electronic notifications they'd eventually send me a letter.

Even if you do get your statements by post, basically nobody here would pay for it by mail. If you really hate computers, you can pay over the phone, or set up a direct debit by phone/letter, or use a "PayPoint" - which includes most corner shops, supermarkets and post offices. It's also quite common for elderly people to just have one of their younger relatives manage it all for them.

by cameronh90

4/24/2025 at 1:57:07 PM

Danish Post will soon terminate general mail delivery due to low need.

https://apnews.com/article/postnord-denmark-postal-service-m...

To our questions from Germany:

- by Post, but I can imagine this changing as payment via phone/watch/... is spreading and I can imagine banks willing to reduce cost, making physical cards an paid extra.

- on my contract via e-mail and the energy company's website. There are paper based contracts available, though.

- In Germany/Europe SEPA wire transfers work well for that and are being used for decades, even with online banking being wide spread in the 90ies. (Pre Internet via BTX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildschirmtext )

by johannes1234321

4/24/2025 at 1:39:00 PM

All of these examples are about receiving though.

by tranceylc

4/24/2025 at 1:50:52 PM

Yes, but that's still dependent on the reliability of the post office.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 12:55:30 PM

Sending physical mail is one thing. I no longer consider myself "digital native" after reading this:

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes, printing the address would have taken less time

by 3np

4/24/2025 at 1:38:24 PM

I grew up pre-smartphone (pre-Web, partially, even) and even through college probably half my total output for school was hand written (friggin' blue book exams, LOL)

Some time last year, when trying to write something by hand and finding it alien and awkward, it occurred to me that for probably something like 15 years, and maybe more, I've perhaps not written more than a hundred words (signatures aside) by hand per year.

I have kids, so nearly all those words are on the stupid forms they constantly make you re-fill-out from scratch for no apparent reason at doctor's offices. If not for that, it'd be even lower. Some years I bet I was under 50. I go months without writing more than two or three words, total.

by alabastervlog

4/24/2025 at 2:26:16 PM

Even digital natives are using pens with their smartphones and tablets these days. It's just a choice now whether you use them. Though, not sure whether kids these days are still learning it in school.

by slightwinder

4/24/2025 at 12:53:32 PM

The paper size and foreign stamps make sense, but I must say the inability to use a pen surprised me a little more.

by remram

4/24/2025 at 1:03:30 PM

I'm not an American and I did write letters in my country of origin as a kid, but one thing that annoys me about US-style envelopes to this day is that they have no lines for address - you're just expected to line text up on your own correctly. If you're used to writing on lined paper because that's the standard in your country (including envelopes!), it can be frustrating.

The envelopes I'm used to look like this: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B5...

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:22:15 PM

> one thing that annoys me about US-style envelopes to this day is that they have no lines for address

I'm an American and I've used envelopes that have lines to write addresses on. I used to see them every now and then. In fact, I have about half a box sitting in my filing cabinet next to me that I probably haven't used for years.

Many envelopes don't have the lines, though.

by rascul

4/24/2025 at 4:14:02 PM

>you're just expected to line text up on your own correctly.

It only has to be lined up well enough to be read by a human, they don't reject them just because it's sloppy or not lined up correctly.

by Suppafly

4/25/2025 at 8:10:40 AM

Yes, I know. It still offends my aesthetic sensibilities. ~

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:48:04 PM

In the UK at school in the 90s we were taught how to write a letter including addressing and stamping the envelope. It's quite strange to see it done "wrong" like in the OP. You're supposed to have the first line of the address centred vertically, leaving the top half for stamps. At least they got the stamps on the correct (right) side, though. I've seen a lot worse.

by globular-toast

4/24/2025 at 7:25:55 PM

I wouldn't say it's that different from how the Royal Mail currently recommend one write the address:

https://help.royalmail.com/personal/s/article/How-to-address...

My father writes the address staggered; that is, each subsequent line being indented a centimetre or so relative to the previous line. Were you taught to stagger the address at your school in the 90s?

by seabass-labrax

4/24/2025 at 9:21:53 PM

Yes, I was taught to do it staggered, but I think this was dying out at the time and I believe that by the time I wrote any letters of my own I didn't do the staggering. My theory is it's because of the prevalence of printed labels. I haven't seen it for a long time now.

Now that I'm reminiscing a bit, it was also fairly common at the time for people to order a batch of sender labels that they could affix to the envelope. My grandparents had particularly distinctive golden metallic labels which meant you could instantly tell who it was from (if you didn't already recognise the handwriting).

by globular-toast

4/24/2025 at 1:24:01 PM

We have envelopes like that, too, but they're not all that common.

by thesuitonym

4/24/2025 at 1:08:00 PM

Do they still say Министерство связи СССР ?

by cormorant

4/24/2025 at 2:46:20 PM

They did for a few years after USSR was gone, as they were still going through old supplies.

AFAIK modern Russian ones just say "Почта России", but the overall design is retained, including pre-labelled lines for various parts of address.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:16:24 PM

Being unaware of paper sizes is baffling to me - where I live, letter and legal paper are common but I’m entirely aware of ISO216 paper sizes.

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 2:34:45 PM

One time at my old job I was trying to load the printer, and I said something like "Oh shoot, these are oversized sheets; I need the 8.5x11."

My coworker looked at me like I was crazy. "The what?"

"The normal printer paper, the 8.5 by 11 inch paper"

"Why do you know the exact size of printer paper??"

I did not know how to respond to this question.

by oxguy3

4/24/2025 at 2:53:23 PM

Whenever someone questions what you know, the correct answer is “why don’t you?” - I will not be trivia-shamed!

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 3:27:48 PM

Ha, I'm trying to remember where I learned that as well. I know we covered it in drafting where we learned an 8.5x11 A paper is half a sheet of 11x17 B paper which is half a sheet of 17x22 C paper, and so on. But I thought I knew the size of A paper long before that, and that it was common knowledge, though I can't think of where or why I would have needed to know. Then again I also know that legal paper is 8.5x14 even though I have never had to use it.

by pavon

4/24/2025 at 4:50:01 PM

Grade school for me - teachers would say "8.5x11" instead of "letter size" or even just "printer paper." I don't know why they did it, and I assume it's for the same reason that I say it too. It's probably what their teachers said to them!

by omegaham

4/25/2025 at 4:01:47 PM

Because that’s the size of the paper.

by adastra22

4/24/2025 at 1:24:09 PM

In a country using ISO paper, national paper sizes of one of the few places not using this standard are obscure.

I've never seen it in any office or stationary shop in Europe. It's available online, at a premium.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 1:48:33 PM

They're not just uncommon, they're not used at all. You will only see US legal in the UK if an American company/person sends it to you, how often do you think that happens? I've had it maybe once or twice, but you could easily never see it, especially people born ~this century growing up with less paper of any size anyway.

by OJFord

4/24/2025 at 1:27:59 PM

Odd take. It seems perfectly natural that the country using different sizes from everybody else would be aware of that fact, but that a country using the same size as 95% of the world might not know about the weirdo sizes used by those 5%.

by remram

4/24/2025 at 1:43:09 PM

Fair but if you’re going to diss, at least be aware it’s not just one country :) (I’ve never lived in the country you’re thinking of, and all the countries I’ve lived in use non-ISO216 paper sizes).

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 1:34:57 PM

I live in Italy and I've never seen a normal "office" paper sheet which is not A4.

by reddalo

4/24/2025 at 2:35:58 PM

The problem is that the rest of the world is not aware of US sizes.

Thus HP printers continually displaying "PC LOAD LETTER" on printers outside the US dealing with documents generated by people in the US.

by rswail

4/24/2025 at 3:21:58 PM

I never realized that “LETTER” in that error referred to paper size—no printer I’ve had has actually given that error, so I only ever heard about it through oblique references to Office Space and such. It makes so much more sense now…

by BalinKing

4/24/2025 at 4:19:09 PM

The 'PC' part is paper cassette, it's the printer literally telling you to load letter sized paper into the paper cassette, but everyone acts like it's some mysterious message that's impossible to figure out.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 5:01:20 PM

Well, PC also means Personal Computer, and letter also means element of alphabet, so it's not like there isn't room for confusion

by nullhole

4/24/2025 at 6:45:13 PM

Sounds impossible if you didn't read the manual. Who reads manuals?

by immibis

4/24/2025 at 2:54:35 PM

On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :)

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 4:20:54 PM

>On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :)

Only if there is an issue with the rollers or something and it can't feed the paper from the paper cassette. No one ever wants to read the manuals or do basic troubleshooting though. Hell newer ones have a menu on them that will walk you through each of the troubleshooting steps, but people would rather put a post-it on it saying it's broken.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 4:54:19 PM

I was joking :)

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 4:34:34 PM

Could be PC LOAD LEGAL if your document is really weird.

by toast0

4/24/2025 at 1:44:30 PM

It's one thing to know that the US, Canada and the Philippines don't use the same paper sizes as the other 190 countries in the world; it's quite another to be given a physical example for the first time in your life.

by cjs_ac

4/24/2025 at 4:54:49 PM

You missed at least one other country that uses “US” paper sizes.

by loloquwowndueo

4/25/2025 at 1:31:52 PM

Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of.

For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).

by swores

4/25/2025 at 3:41:36 PM

There are more Letter countries than just those four. Nicely covered with the “I could be wrong” though.

by loloquwowndueo

4/25/2025 at 3:45:16 PM

Last time I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you at least thought your comment was worth posting, now I assume you're just a troll and am blocking so I won't see your comments again.

by swores

4/25/2025 at 4:39:30 PM

What’s more trollish than telling someone “I’m blocking you because you’re a troll”? If you’re going to block me just block me, don’t owe any explanations to me.

You’re so funny heheh

by loloquwowndueo

4/24/2025 at 1:50:04 PM

It's exceedingly rare to encounter US paper sizes in the UK and I expect the rest of Europe too. I've only received these from two places: the FSF and Donald Knuth.

by globular-toast

4/24/2025 at 1:25:13 PM

True, any page oriented software like LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, will show you US Letter sizes and US Letter Envelope sizes and you may have messed up with printing on wrong size... but as other posters say, maybe this days nobody prints on real paper anymore...

by n3storm

4/24/2025 at 1:52:13 PM

They all default to ISO sizes for me.

If I format the page size, Libreoffice does offer "Letter" and "Legal". GIMP shows them as "US Letter" and "US Legal" but again they're not the default.

It wouldn't surprise me if most non-US users hadn't seen them at all, and certainly not that they don't realise the US uses a different size.

by btasker

4/25/2025 at 8:14:08 AM

It's still problematic the other way around - you try to print that PDF on A4, but it's formatted for US Letter.

In most cases it still doesn't matter, either because software defaults to scaling to fit, or else because the margins are large enough that it works out even if printed in true size. But sometimes stars align and then you learn about those weird paper sizes.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:46:00 PM

I wrote a letter to a friend last year. It was the first time in probably well over a decade I had used a pen for more than just scribbled notes or doodling. I made a ton of mistakes and I wasted at least a dozen sheets of paper rewriting it. Seems it's one of those skills that deteriorates without frequent practice, at least for me.

by Gnuke

4/24/2025 at 4:22:25 PM

> I made a ton of mistakes and I wasted at least a dozen sheets of paper rewriting it. Seems it's one of those skills that deteriorates without frequent practice, at least for me.

Back in the old days when people still wrote by hand, they also made mistakes, but just scribbled them out and kept going. Starting over was only necessary with doing something special.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 1:39:47 PM

Yeah that's crazy. I use pens to doodle designs or write little recipes or Kanban cards or index cards for what's inside a box... The author maybe does all that by typewriter?

by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF

4/24/2025 at 2:34:32 PM

Or they do it all digital, or don't even do it at all. Label printers and note-apps are very popular with IT-people.

by slightwinder

4/24/2025 at 2:12:02 PM

Disappointed that International Reply Coupons are no longer a thing too! I used one back in the 1980s to write to the authors of the Power C compiler[1] in the US about a bug (yes, a bug report by mail). I enclosed an IRC in case they wanted to reply. They were kind enough to write back, and didn't use the IRC (but sent it back). They did however include a floppy disk with the fixed compiler, which was nice of them.

[1] Still around: http://mixsoftware.com/product/powerc.htm

by rwmj

4/25/2025 at 7:14:54 AM

I still use them for ham radio QSL cards. They work everywhere that is a member of the Universal Postal Union (nearly all are). You can buy them online from Swiss Post. They will mail them for free.

https://shop.post.ch/en/packing-sending/sending-letters/regi...

by relistan

4/24/2025 at 2:09:21 PM

I have a roll of Forever stamps, purchased years ago. I don't even remember why, specifically, I purchased them. In theory, I could post a letter on my deathbed (I'm Generation X, so it's not that far off) and be assured that the delivery fee is covered by the cost of one stamp. Unfortunately, most of the people I would wish to correspond with will also be deceased at that time. So …

I leave it to y'all to monkey-knife-fight for the rest of the roll.

by drivingmenuts

4/24/2025 at 5:42:20 PM

I think the strangest part is that it had been years since they had used a pen.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 6:45:57 PM

Keeping a pad of paper at your computer is one of those underrated things. You'd think the computer can record information just like the paper, and it can, but psychology is weird.

by immibis

4/24/2025 at 6:54:42 PM

Agreed. Grabbing a pen and a post-it is faster for me than opening a text document, and a pad of paper allows me to format and diagram things freely.

The post-its can be sorted, stacked, moved, stuck to pertinent notebook pages, altered, and ultimately recycled when they are no longer relevant. It's much freer than a document on a phone or computer, where it can still be a pain to move information from one domain to another.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 5:45:28 PM

I don't send letters by post but I often need to send packages by post. Perhaps it's returning some merchandise where the merchant didn't have free shipping. Perhaps it's shipping a security key to a close friend so I can have offsite backup of a key. When I moved, I got rid of my book collection by asking friends which books they wanted and I shipped it to them (media mail is cheap).

It's efficient to transmit information over the internet, but it's still essential to send physical items by post. When I visit USPS branches, I always see plenty of people mailing packages.

by kccqzy

4/24/2025 at 1:13:23 PM

Sending mail being a challenging or difficult thing does come across as odd to me, being in Canada and born in the late 90s. Sure I haven't mailed a letter in a couple years, but when I do the main hassle is just finding where I put my stamps. I can however understand that finding return postage would be a hassle; I'm not sure why the UK and Canada (amongst others) don't do IRCs anymore.

It's also much easier these days to find out how to correctly format an address for a given destination. (At least for alphabet-based languages; I recently tried to decipher a Korean address in a business park and got nowhere fast.)

by 0xTJ

4/24/2025 at 1:47:10 PM

Sending international postage in my country (South Africa) is not a very reliable process, so couriers and email are used quite heavily here instead. Its not necessarily an age thing.

by liampulles

4/24/2025 at 8:46:09 PM

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes, printing the address would have taken less time.

Sometimes I cut out my address from a bill and tape that on as my return address. I know it’s formatted right.

I’d definitely do the same on a “self”-addressed stamped envelope that I need returned.

by Scoundreller

4/24/2025 at 1:43:25 PM

Honestly, sending letters is increasingly alien: I rarely send one letter per year. This year I have sent two, only because I am trying to contact an incredibly old-fashioned directorate of the German government that doesn't seem to have an email address.

The stamps I have, I bought years ago - by now, they don't cover current letter prices. I wind up putting too much postage on the letters, because I'm not going to go buy even more stamps that I probably won't need...

by bradley13

4/25/2025 at 10:33:39 AM

> it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author.

Indeed.

The author also seems unaware that a 1991 document could not contain a Web address because the world wide web did not exist yet. They guess it is because it is not widely available. That astonished me.

by lproven

4/25/2025 at 6:42:37 AM

I mean, yes it reads a little awkward, but not too long ago I had misplaced the stack of envelopes + stamps I keep in my desk drawer and I needed to send something by snail mail (hey, remember that term?) and yeah. I am not someone who takes notes on paper, so I'm holding a pen only about once a week (the years quoted in the article sounds weird even to me) and it was a bit of a task (the whole sending, this time, not the writing). Bonus points for trying to use up old stamps when they're constantly changing the needed amount every couple years - so I usually need to put about 3 stamps even for local postage. But I guess that's just because I'm cheap and don't want to buy "new" code stamps when I have about 20 EUR in old stamps I can still use up.

Always interesting discussions with my wife who works in an office where paper mail, fax machines, and signing things on paper all happen multiple times every single day.

by wink

4/25/2025 at 9:13:32 PM

Man. I am generation-X, from a time when teachers would take the kids to a local post office and teach them how to send a letter and a telegram. And yet, while I have a vague idea of how could I send a letter nowadays, I would have absolutely no idea of how to send postage for the international return.

by elzbardico

4/24/2025 at 9:30:45 PM

As far as I know there are still some things you have to post in the UK, like sending your cut up old driver's licence to the DVLA and maybe you still have to post your V5 when you sell a car. OP might not own a car or drive, though, so who knows?

by globular-toast

4/25/2025 at 9:54:47 AM

V5Cs have been online for 3-4 years now.

You still have to send back your cut up old driver's license, though I have my doubts that someone is sat there checking and cross referencing each one they receive.

by desas

4/24/2025 at 12:49:41 PM

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes...

Wow -- I mean, sure, I don't use a pen that often, but I'm sure I hand-write something at least once a month...

by gwd

4/24/2025 at 5:50:33 PM

This thread is more interesting to me than the article itself. I am the complete opposite. I always have a pen in my pocket along with a really small (2"x3") notebook, and I absolutely use it all the time.

Personally, I find pen and a memo pad much handier than a phone. There is no unlocking, searching, or loading. And I can write much faster than tap a little screen keyboard. Even more importantly, on my memo pad there are no notifications to completely sidetrack my lizard brain.

But aside from the practical, it is also just such a nice change of pace to use analog technologies when I can. I use my computer and write software all day. It's good to get a break sometimes.

by sudobash1

4/24/2025 at 1:01:58 PM

I'm at the point where the only things I handwrite are gift labels and holiday cards. Maybe an occasional doctor's office form, but those are increasingly digital.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 2:06:51 PM

I recently was in an awkward situation when ordering my new passport. Most times I got to sign some papers I have some signature which is a few waves, not forming many letters. In the passport office the clerk told me they can't recognize any enough letters in there, so I had to do multiple attempts till they were happy ... now my passport got a signature I won't be able to replicate ever.

(I do some handwriting for notes taking, but that's some writing based on block letters, not script as in a signature)

by johannes1234321

4/25/2025 at 8:16:37 AM

This is a very strange requirement, to be honest. E.g. what about foreigners whose native script is not the same, so their (pre-existing) signature is unparseable to that clerk anyway?

FWIW I have a signature that is barely recognizable as my two initials, and I have never had it rejected on such grounds in the five different countries (using two different scripts) I've had to sign documents using it.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 4:27:30 PM

>now my passport got a signature I won't be able to replicate ever

I'm not sure I could ever prove I am who I say I am using my signature. My wife signs my name most of the time when it's necessary for a check or a health form for the kids or whatever. Whenever I go to vote, I try to sneak a look at their copy of the form to see how I signed it when I registered. I think my credit union has one 'on file' for me, but I'm sure it's nothing like how I actually sign my name and is from ~25 years ago.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 1:31:33 PM

Genuinely curious, I don't write anything long by hand, but do you not jot down disposable information with frequency, or date food, or anything like that? I date food we put in the fridge/freezer. I jot down something like a phone number if I am redirected. I have to give my pet medication occasionally and I use a post-it to track so the household can know. Like I said, I'm not writing anything even as long as a card, but I use a pen multiple times a week, and essentially daily. I know a lot of people use their phones for this stuff (and I do too), and maybe I'm an old person now for not using my phone for all of that.

by mcgrath_sh

4/24/2025 at 1:38:07 PM

I use a text file in my phone for notes.

I don't have roommates, but if I did we'd probably use a whiteboard for tracking errands and schedules.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 2:02:02 PM

> I date food we put in the fridge/freezer

What date are you putting on the food? Every packaging here in Spain (and Europe I assume) has both the production date and "best before" dates printed on them from the factory, and stuff that doesn't have packaging you know if they're bad by looking/smelling/tasting.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 4:18:21 PM

I batch cook and freeze meals, and some of them look similar (sauce and chicken vs sauce and pork) and I want to eat the older stuff first. There are also some products that are recommended to be disposed of within X days of opening, which fall well before their best by date.

by mcgrath_sh

4/24/2025 at 10:55:14 PM

When I batch cook meals, I then eat them over the next few days until either it's done or it's been too long for that meal. Then I batch cook something else. I usually don't have multiple batches on the go.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 11:40:04 PM

So you just eat the same meal over and over again until you run out?

by philwelch

4/25/2025 at 10:14:46 AM

Pretty much. I'll have the same meal 2-3 days then cook the next.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 5:00:39 PM

Unopened, a jar of pasta sauce is good basically indefinitely, but as soon as you actually open the jar the clock starts ticking. We don't make enough pasta at a time to use a full jar, (and in fact will usually use a small fraction of the jar) so I write the date that I opened the jar on the lid to plan its use a little better. "Hey, better find a use for this sauce, it's going to go bad eventually."

by omegaham

4/25/2025 at 9:47:37 AM

When freezing something you made or something unfrozen you won't be able to finish before its expiration date, it's good to write the date on it as well as what it is when it's not immediately obvious (for example... frozen duck fat and coconut oil look pretty much the same, and they don't smell anything when frozen).

by seszett

4/24/2025 at 3:21:31 PM

Food that's not prepackaged. e.g., I recently threw out a container of eggs that had been in my freezer for about two years because my hens were laying so much faster than we could consume, that we had dozens of extras.

I also label things like the date I install a new HVAC filter, or how much to cut off on a piece of lumber, etc.

by HeyLaughingBoy

4/24/2025 at 4:04:10 PM

I was unaware that it was safe to freeze eggs.

by stevetron

4/24/2025 at 6:56:47 PM

Why would you think it wasn't?

by HeyLaughingBoy

4/24/2025 at 2:18:18 PM

This is handy if you're doing things like separating a package into portions for your fridge for near term use and freezer for long term storage. Such as the large packages from Costco/Sam's Club.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 2:38:50 PM

When I open milk, I write the date on the cap to help keep track of how long it'll remain good.

by spiffytech

4/24/2025 at 3:31:49 PM

My method is that I assume it's gone bad when it tastes sour.

by wongarsu

4/24/2025 at 4:02:33 PM

I throw away bread when the green fuzzy stuff on it no longer tastes good.

by stevetron

4/24/2025 at 4:22:31 PM

I can taste the mold in bread before it's grown big enough to become visible.

For most foods evolution has graced us with the ability to see, smell or taste any issues well before they actually become a problem. There are some things you have to look out for like botulism or salmonella, but for simple foods like bread and milk there isn't much point in taking precautions

by wongarsu

4/24/2025 at 3:45:19 PM

Yeah, no need to write anything down when you already have a detector built-in in your body called "nose+tongue" (well, at least for milk).

by hk__2

4/24/2025 at 3:40:36 PM

Much easier to just drink enough so there is no chance of that happening.

But then I am in UK where milk is easily obtained in 2 pint or less packages and is all long term - over a week. It is harder to gat 4 int or gallon containers which I think are more common in the US.

by pasc1878

4/24/2025 at 4:07:46 PM

In the US, the way milk is sold, is that larger amounts cost less. In other words, the 1/2-gallon container, buy two of those, and it costs significantly more than a single 1-gallon container. It gets even worse for quarts. But I seldom buy in the 1-gallon container as it will generally spoil before I've used it all, so there isn't any savings there for me.

by stevetron

4/24/2025 at 4:30:22 PM

>In other words, the 1/2-gallon container, buy two of those, and it costs significantly more than a single 1-gallon container.

Except sometimes the 1/2 gallons will be randomly on sale where you can get like 3 of them for the price of a gallon. Milk economics makes no sense to me. But yeah, it's usually cheaper to buy more than you need and just throw it out if you don't use it, as is the American way.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 4:56:37 PM

Inversely, I've also seen promotions where the gallon is heavily featured in the ads, and they're selling the half gallon for full price. Neat, you're paying extra to get less milk!

by omegaham

4/25/2025 at 4:04:40 PM

It also usually sours I think? You can still use that for pancakes or something... not sure because I’m too lazy and throw it away myself.

by notpushkin

4/24/2025 at 1:27:05 PM

Think the last time I used a pen is about 8-9 years ago when I had to sign something to buy my home. Notes and stuff I just write on my phone or computer and I don't see what else I'd use a pen for.

by xaitv

4/24/2025 at 1:54:52 PM

I tried for a while to do the whole "notebook life" thing that was really trendy to blog about some years back, but found I never had the notebook I wanted on-hand (even if I was just using one notebook...) or forgot to grab a pen or can't find a pen et c. Then making it possible to find anything in them requires more effort afterward.

What do I have on me basically all the time? My phone.

I've done everything in Apple Notes for years now, and it's so much less hassle, and actually works for me. I just make sure to include words I might use to search for a note, when writing a new note. Search does the rest. I can and sometimes do organize things into directories, but usually it's kinda wasted effort. Search is enough.

Meanwhile, the few dozen pages scattered across four or five notebooks that I generated in that brief kick remain, passively, a pain in the ass. I've carted them through two moves, meaning to digitize them, because when I remember they exist and browse I'm like "oh yeah, that was a good idea!" but, out of sight out of mind and when I stumble across them I'm always in the middle of doing other, more important shit.

by alabastervlog

4/24/2025 at 1:34:02 PM

Wow, I use a pen nearly every day. Sometimes I deliberately get a pen or pencil and paper rather than a phone. I was doing some home improvements in my attic, and I would often need to jot down a measurement so I could cut wood etc. I did this once or twice on my phone and realized it's much easier to do this with a pencil and small notepad.

In what is perhaps the most ironic blend of high and low tech, I wrote my own software to build grocery lists, which I then print and use a pen to cross items off as I shop. This is by far the most efficient vs trying to faff about with some mobile solution.

by massysett

4/24/2025 at 2:01:31 PM

Apple Reminders has native grocery lists now. The collaboration feature (a household can keep just one shared grocery list) and auto-categorizing by store section are serious time and frustration savers. No "oh shit, I left the list at home", no "I could go to the grocery store while I'm out, if we need anything... but the list's at home...", no manually organizing the list, no grocery-list-by-text. It's so nice, saves far more time than any faff it introduces (I'd agree that without the collaboration and auto-categorizing, grocery lists on phones would be more trouble than they're worth)

(I know other apps have also done it, but having it on a built-in is really handy and it works well)

by alabastervlog

4/24/2025 at 6:44:47 PM

I prefer an app for grocery lists since it can be managed with a single hand while shopping - no need to stop in the middle of an aisle to pull out a pencil and cross something off, nor to print anything out before heading to the store, for that matter. Plus, I won't have to re-sync the list with what remain on the physical list at the end of the trip.

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 7:49:15 PM

My software is highly idiosyncratic. I input recipes for the week, and it adds ingredients to the shopping list, but only some ingredients. Other staple ingredients are things we keep in standard inventory and these go on the shopping list periodically rather than on demand.

UNIX is a friendly environment for me to write my own software like this. Phones are hostile, they’re more like appliances. Pair up UNIX with old-school peripherals like printers and I’m in business.

But yeah I love my phone for its appliance-like uses.

by massysett

4/24/2025 at 1:04:06 PM

I can't even remember the last time I've used a pen for anything other than writing a check.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:15:23 PM

You don’t even write down temporary notes? Or doodle geometry when coding UI?

by jrmg

4/24/2025 at 1:27:13 PM

I use a text editor for notes. I do have a drawing tablet for digital art but that's not really the same as a pen or pencil.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 2:40:05 PM

Yep, exactly so.

For notes especially I find the digital version preferable because it is automatically archived, searchable, and readily accessible across all my devices.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:47:57 PM

I probably write a check every 5 years, and each time I need to ask someone how to do it, because the checks are slightly different compared to the country I grew up in.

by gwd

4/24/2025 at 1:10:08 PM

I've never written a check in my life.

by maccard

4/24/2025 at 2:39:24 PM

This is very much an American thing. And it's only a thing because our banks don't offer a truly universal and no-fee equivalent of easily transferring money between accounts across bank boundaries.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:40:22 PM

How do you pay for things above a few thousand dollars? I guess if you don't ever buy a pricey car or own a home you wouldn't need it.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 2:07:27 PM

Electronic transfer through online banking, or a debit card (may well be followed with a call from the bank to verify, though it's years since I've done this).

Visa's debit card limit on Denmark seems to be 100,000 DKK, roughly 13,000€. There's no limit with the national system, Dankort.

by Symbiote

4/24/2025 at 1:50:08 PM

Not the person you're replying to, but the bank payment system in Europe is waaaay better than the US; nearly all four- and low-five-digit sums in the last 20 years I've paid for with bank transfer.

by gwd

4/24/2025 at 2:35:23 PM

Credit Card, Debit Card, or Bank Transfer.

Faster payments [0] is pretty much instant. Some banks have lower limits, and CHAPS[1] is same day and unlimited. I used faster payments for buying a car, and for paying a house deposit. My bank transferred my mortgage via CHAPS.

[0] https://www.starlingbank.com/resources/banking/guide-to-fast... [1] https://www.hsbc.co.uk/current-accounts/what-is-a-chaps-paym...

by maccard

4/24/2025 at 5:01:52 PM

Many people in Switzerland love to buy used cars with cash, even if they cost a few thousands.

(But we can also just scan the QR code of the recipient's bank account with the e-banking app and initiate a transfer that way.)

by dbrgn

4/24/2025 at 1:51:46 PM

You paid for your home with cheques?

by Gnuke

4/24/2025 at 4:54:21 PM

wire transfer, or walk into the bank and have them create a cashier's check

and a normal check is the same as an ACH transfer, so I will do the ACH transfer

or lawyer's escrow

and every other larger transfer has been cryptocurrency in my life, its been over a decade of that unlimited amount, zero scrutiny, 24/7/365 option

(I've tried various other country's and international system transfers, and the convenience is completely over-embellished, and limited to small amounts at best. and yes, I'm talking about instant SEPA in European banks. A lot of people don't have balances in crypto currency so it would just be more inconvenient for them to get into that system)

but the only time I'm personally using checks are because a new employer's HR system wants me to write VOID on a physical one, and I've opted to photoshopping a template with my account number and routing number, because checks are the same as an ACH transfer, and they could have just asked me to copy and paste those numbers into a input field

by yieldcrv

4/24/2025 at 10:57:23 PM

There was a time that printed checks had to use special laser toner called MICR Toner that was magnetic so the magneto readers could machine read the check bottoms routing and account numbers, but that went away when the Fed just ran it all as ACH/ electronically and optically scanned checks around the time mobile deposit and well after OCR became a thing. Last I checked the rule was still present in the statues.

by schlauerfox

4/24/2025 at 1:10:44 PM

I can't remember the last time I wrote a check, but I use pens pretty regularly.

by lolinder

4/24/2025 at 1:41:15 PM

Not even a whiteboard marker?

I'm in the US so I use permanent marker to write my lawyers phone number on my arm before protests

by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF

4/24/2025 at 3:14:32 PM

That would only work if the phone system in El Salvador is operating.

by bregma

4/24/2025 at 3:59:38 PM

As a Brit, the concept of "My lawyer" is slightly unfamiliar. The average Brit doesn't "have a lawyer"; they would only find a lawyer if they had a specific need, eg being accused of a crime or wanting to write a contract etc.

And yet as far as I can tell, most middle class Americans seem to refer to "their lawyer". Do you pay a monthly fee? Are they a criminal defence lawyer, or something broader? How often do you talk to them? How do you find them?

by Alex-Programs

4/25/2025 at 1:55:00 AM

The average American does not have a "my lawyer" either. Not sure where you're getting "most middle class Americans" from unless you're extrapolating from pop culture. I think it's common in movies and TV dramas for characters to refer to "my lawyer" in situations in which there is contact with law enforcement.

by richardfontana

4/24/2025 at 8:08:33 PM

> most middle class Americans seem to refer to "their lawyer"

I've only run into this among the so-called "upper middle class" here (e.g., physicians making $500K+/yr) and even then it's pretty rare.

by acuozzo

4/24/2025 at 7:33:46 PM

Not an American but have been involved in lots of US legal things for a charity. Generally "their lawyer" refers to a lawyer (solicitor in British usage) who is 'on retainer', which means that the client either pays a monthly fee to secure the lawyer's availability, or has a deposit with the lawyer which will be drawn from if legal assistance is needed.

Funnily enough, Americans do not use the term solicitor; that's reserved for lawyers working for the government!

by seabass-labrax

4/25/2025 at 2:02:56 AM

> Funnily enough, Americans do not use the term solicitor; that's reserved for lawyers working for the government!

It is certainly a rare term in American English. I associate it with the probably now-archaic "NO SOLICITORS" signs, which used to be commonly used in an effort to ward off door-to-door salesmen and such. The specialized usage you are referring to is the use in titles of certain important government lawyers (I'm only aware of this in the federal government). The most famous is the Solicitor General, which is an appointed official in the Department of Justice whose job is mainly to argue on behalf of the government before the US Supreme Court.

by richardfontana

4/25/2025 at 12:16:03 AM

It's not normal for Americans to just have a lawyer ahead of time. But then again it's also not normal for most Americans to routinely get themselves arrested at "protests". So if you're going to engage in activities that are likely to get you into legal trouble, you might find yourself a criminal defense attorney ahead of time. In particular, organized "protests" often have legal assistance from sympathetic lawyers.

It is possible to have an attorney on retainer though, either as a consequence of having hired that attorney in the past or as part of a subscription service.

by philwelch

4/24/2025 at 2:41:04 PM

Whiteboard brainstorming is an interesting scenario that I haven't considered, but even then I'd have to say no because I've been fully remote for a while now.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:09:38 PM

Well, there's my minimum of once per month :)

by cormorant

4/25/2025 at 3:49:47 AM

I'm not sure if I go one day without writing something.

For my blog, I can usually go straight to typing, but for my bigger projects I start by writing out any ideas, research, etc. I find that writing stuff helps me recall it later, even if I don't actually read the notes. It's especially helpful for big blobs of interconnected ideas.

by ryukoposting

4/24/2025 at 1:35:22 PM

My hand writing got rusty and awkward until I read that writing something by hand is shown to strengthen one's memory and recollection. It definitely seems to be the case for me and has made me much more organised.

Now I journal on a paper notebook, take daily notes on a whiteboard and I'm rediscovering index cards for long term storage, but I wish real life had a search function.

If I had an automated scanning + OCR + convert to Org system, I would never use a text editor for notes ever again.

by sph

4/24/2025 at 3:43:33 PM

Try using a tablet with hand written notes. There are programs (or even applications that replace the popup keyboard ) that will convert your writing into computer text.

I think that gives the improved retention plus easy filing of the result and if your writing is like mine the ability to actually read what you wrote a year before.

by pasc1878

4/24/2025 at 4:24:58 PM

>but I'm sure I hand-write something at least once a month..

I'm sure I do too, but I couldn't actually tell you what I used it for. Probably to cross items off a shopping list or sign my name on something. Actually we got a new car and I needed to sign the form at the DMV to get license plates, so I guess that was it.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 1:33:53 PM

He's also obviously not used to write/type letters... The whole thing is quite awful.

Schools used to teach this a minimum but they no longer do. It was also standard to learn that for job hunting but, again, I don't think many people apply for jobs by post nowadays although it can still be useful to know how to write a formal cover letter.

by mytailorisrich

4/24/2025 at 2:20:47 PM

These days most candidates use AI generated cover letters.

by dharmab

4/24/2025 at 6:47:20 PM

Good thing I got ahead of the curve by never reading them

by SpaceNoodled

4/24/2025 at 1:25:50 PM

There will soon be many people who never learn how to write, only type

by daedrdev

4/24/2025 at 2:06:18 PM

And many, many more people who never learn how to write or type, only to tap a phone screen!

by mort96

4/24/2025 at 2:43:23 PM

And many many more people that will just say it or think it.

by rswail

4/24/2025 at 1:45:46 PM

Wow wow wow, look at mr bestseller over here!

by brnt

4/25/2025 at 1:07:52 PM

Funny how the later generations of IT people often have poor penmanship.

I'm old enough to remember penmanship in school, but I was into computers from a young age so my penmanship ended up just as bad as author.

I did improve it a lot by getting a penpal through reddit. We communicated for a year and change, and during this time I went through the process of learning to be patient and write my letters slowly so they were legible.

It hurt my hand a lot to write a whole letter and I felt like I had said about as much as I have in this comment, but with time I became faster and faster.

Now probably 10 years later I still take a greater care when I write, ensuring each letter is legible.

by INTPenis

4/24/2025 at 1:34:28 PM

That reminds me on the time the FSF moved, they changed their address, and the open source product I worked on had to change their address in the license notices in our product:

https://github.com/moritz/otrs/commit/e845575e1848fd0124fb8d...

And of course, as happens more often, this issue was raised to us by Debian developers, who care a great deal about 'correctness'

by roywashere

4/24/2025 at 2:46:24 PM

The FSF offices have moved again if you weren't aware. The new address is

Free Software Foundation 31 Milk Street, # 960789 Boston, MA 02196 USA

https://www.fsf.org/about/contact/mailing

by craniumslows

4/24/2025 at 5:13:34 PM

In Gnulib we distribute and use the license with just a link to <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/> [1]. I would just use that.

Many GNU projects use a rule that will fail 'make distcheck' when it sees an address in the sources [2].

[1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/commit/?id=bf31... [2] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/commit/?id=086c...

by collinfunk

4/25/2025 at 2:48:46 AM

Hmm, I wonder if there is a linter somewhere for copyright notice and license grant smells.

Made a note to add an fsf-address check to check-all-the-things.

by pabs3

4/24/2025 at 12:52:46 PM

This was written in 2022. Do people still know how to postal-mail things? Asking as the acquisition of envelope, paper and stamps read like a new adventure for the author.

I make a practice of sending (picture) postcards to each of my descendants, when i arrive at a new place. It is a very rare occasion when I can find them, even rarer for the vendor to know what they are. Once the vendor was insisting that a flash card (smallish, lined cards for taking notes) was indeed a postcard. Sadly, I often have to buy them at the airport on arrival.

by WaitWaitWha

4/24/2025 at 1:08:36 PM

What places don't have postcards? Whenever I go to places in the UK, tourist tat shops will often have hundreds of them in every flavour of souvenir

by voidUpdate

4/24/2025 at 3:02:58 PM

It seems to be a cultural thing. As an European I am used to find postcards in every town, but when I went to Singapore I had a hard time procuring them. None of the souvenir shops had them, and when I asked the employees they often looked at me as if I were some kind of strange animal. I finally found a small, dusty selection in the darkest corner of a huge department store.

by alberto-m

4/24/2025 at 3:53:56 PM

I always like to buy a postcard.

Occasionally actually post them before I leave a place (ideally soon after I arrive).

Generally they arrive substantially after I get back.

by philipwhiuk

4/24/2025 at 7:40:30 PM

Yep, same path. Arrive, get cards ASAP, usually as I walk out of the airport, give it to the hotel concierge the next morning. They will often stamp and drop it in the mail for me.

It is so much fun to watch my spawns showing me the cards they got with strange stamps and neat pictures of far away lands. I address them individually, so there are plenty to write, still fun.

by WaitWaitWha

4/24/2025 at 12:57:18 PM

> flash card (smallish, lined cards for taking notes)

These are called “index cards” in the US, although you can certainly use them to make flash cards if you want. Source: Am old enough to have used index cards unironically.

by munchler

4/24/2025 at 5:47:04 PM

my flash cards all store at least 32 GB of data but are so tiny I keep losing them.

by NelsonMinar

4/24/2025 at 1:43:14 PM

I know how to send mail but it's like doing taxes, I'm afraid I'll get something wrong and not find out until I'm in trouble for it

I'm probably younger than you by quite a bit.. no descendents, no time to travel, not allowed in many countries or US states anyway

by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF

4/24/2025 at 5:53:43 PM

Yes! Check out Postcrossing, where you can sign up to send and receive postcards to random people. :)

https://www.postcrossing.com/

by radnor

4/24/2025 at 4:36:12 PM

>Asking as the acquisition of envelope, paper and stamps read like a new adventure for the author.

I can pretty much guarantee it'd be an adventure for my teen, nearly adult, children.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 3:18:54 PM

> After a few weeks of waiting, I eventually received the ‘African Daisy global forever vert pair’ stamp which was round! I should have noticed that the seller sent me the item using stamps at a much lower denomination that those I had ordered. Oh well.

Wild that so many commenters don't see the satire dripping from the post. Is it just a UK thing to never take things at face value?

by crmi

4/24/2025 at 9:08:52 PM

I’m surprised this stamp seller didn’t cover half the envelope in 5 cent stamps.

That’s what I usually get on the envelopes from stamp sellers: decades old stamps from the “bad investment” portions from stamp collectors.

by Scoundreller

4/25/2025 at 10:35:37 AM

I used to order fragrance samples on eBay, The first order I received from them had a 10 1/2 pence stamp attached. I was perplexed as the half pence (ha'penny, pronounced HAPE-KNEE) coin had been discontinued in 1984, 30 years ago at the time, and I'd only seen them in an old collection of coins from my parents. Also the portrait of the Queen (I'm from the UK) was a bit outdated.

I contacted the seller and it turned out her husband was a stamp collector and gave her his low value cast-offs to use as postage. I found it amazing that 30+ year old stamps were still valid. It's only recently they've become invalid postage as now stamps require a barcode.

Also I used to get items delivered to my office, and the office manager's husband was a stamp collector, so she used to ask to keep the stamps I got (I used to order electronic components from all over the world) so this completed the philatelist cycle.

Another old currency anecdote. I used to work on the checkouts at a supermarket in Cambridge circa 2009 and at least two times we'd get visiting academics from the USA who had studied in the UK years before and they'd try to pay with currency they'd had from the time, except it was the awesome old pre-decimal money (We switched to decimal in 1971). I found it quaint that they thought it was still valid and thought to bring it with them.

by changadera

4/24/2025 at 4:56:15 PM

I don't think that's satire. A wry observation perhaps.

by Luc

4/24/2025 at 5:05:01 PM

I don't understand the satire, can you explain?

We can't see the full set of "lower denomination" stamps on the letter, but I'm not 100% sure it's actually lower denomination. The sender of the stamps seems to be using the "2 domestic forevers + some amount of cents = 1 global forever" formula. I think the UK sender didn't need to include _two_ global forevers.

by returningfory2

4/24/2025 at 5:11:06 PM

Indeed, the formula is correct. Wikipedia maintains a list of historic Forever pricing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_posta...

From the blog, the letter from California was dated April 2022, at which point the rates were domestic = $0.58 and global = $1.30. So the California sender correctly attached two domestics valued at $1.16 total plus an additional $0.14 to make $1.30.

by returningfory2

4/24/2025 at 6:00:33 PM

> I think the UK sender didn't need to include _two_ global forevers.

It would be hard to know that ahead of time though. The global forever stamp is good for letters up to 1oz which can be as little as 4 US letter pages. It took the FSF 5 double-sided pages. Granted, it looks like lightweight paper & the post office doesn't seem to be very picky about this. But I think sending two forever stamps was being on the safe side.

by sudobash1

4/24/2025 at 6:16:07 PM

Good point!

by returningfory2

4/24/2025 at 8:53:56 PM

I think quoting that part alone, didn't make it clear I was referring to the whole article.

>...... "Oh Well."

May have been more apt.

Is eBay really anyones first thought when looking for a (non-collector) stamp to (actually) mail?

Perhaps he should have picked up a few £1 coins on eBay, use them to purchase some stamps from the post office?...

by crmi

4/25/2025 at 8:42:46 AM

But, again, he was in the UK buying US stamps, so that the FSF could mail their answer back to him from the US. I don't think UK post offices supply all the world's stamps, buying that online from individuals who have them for sale makes some kind of sense, doesn't it?

I guess the a more "digital native" way would have been to first check if the USPS supports some kind of downloadable/printable stamping method, like QR codes or pre-bought labels (which, according to come early comment, they do).

by unwind

4/24/2025 at 9:09:35 PM

They needed US stamps.

by Scoundreller

4/24/2025 at 9:21:38 PM

I didn't see any request for a return envelope or stamp. Author decided to include them (unless I missed something).

by crmi

4/24/2025 at 10:57:26 PM

It seems like common courtesy for me. Given the FSF are providing that service out of altruism, and are not the ones who neglected to give OP the license in the first place, it's only appropriate to not impose upon them to go buy stamps to send an international letter.

by xp84

4/25/2025 at 7:54:28 AM

What about the paper, ink, labour involved? Why not slip $10 into envelope instead?

by crmi

4/25/2025 at 9:42:16 AM

De minimis. You only include the extra envelope so that you can write your own address on it. Postage is the only real expense.

by db48x

4/25/2025 at 6:25:57 AM

It's kinda charming when some old-school address or phone number, that perhaps few have used in a long time, still works.

Circa 2010, I bought a vintage Concept2 Model B rowing machine, made in the 1980s, and wanted to fix it up. The paper order form I found for parts was similar to those tiny order forms at the bottom of an ad in an old comic book, where you'd handwrite your return address, and it told you the address to mail it to, with your payment.

Somehow, not only did this address still reach them, but they were set up to fulfill parts orders this way, they actually had the parts for this decades-old model, and sent me the parts (for a pittance), and they tossed in a free service manual.

I already loved the product (from using it at gyms), and now I loved the company.

I wonder what percentage of 25 year-old URLs still work.

by neilv

4/24/2025 at 12:45:02 PM

I'm interested in hearing from someone at FSF (and I used to know someone, but I don't think he's there any more), who can tell us how often this has happened. I can't imagine it's a frequent occurrence.

by PaulRobinson

4/24/2025 at 4:33:11 PM

I love how small of a world this site is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43784538

by stusmall

4/24/2025 at 1:08:54 PM

As I implied in my top level comment, it should happen more often than it likely does. If you work on a commercial project with any GPL code ask your test group who has done that and when - if you don't see a lot of hands go up then your test group isn't doing their job. (if you are only automated tests, then I assume you have an automated test to send this letter and verify the response)

by bluGill

4/24/2025 at 1:44:13 PM

For April fools I should set up an API for sending postal mail as a service

by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF

4/24/2025 at 1:50:52 PM

https://docs.lob.com/#tag/Letters

by xoe26

4/24/2025 at 6:02:39 PM

I’m pretty sure that’s a common business use case.

by layer8

4/24/2025 at 12:54:11 PM

Yeah I sort of hoped it would cover that bit not just the author's foibles at writing a letter.

by philipwhiuk

4/24/2025 at 12:57:17 PM

The FSF has moved address at least once, and more recently, now closed their offices entirely. I wonder if the new owners of their old addresses will or did get confused by copy-of-GPL requests.

by pabs3

4/24/2025 at 1:06:19 PM

Postman probably just redirects, with a business or institution it's easy to just have the Post Office direct all mail addressed to "Free Software Foundation" to the current address.

by vinceguidry

4/24/2025 at 1:10:09 PM

For a few months. The post office will do it for anyone for a few months, but then they stop forwarding mail. Maybe businesses get that treatment longer, but when people move they only get a few months.

by bluGill

4/24/2025 at 1:38:31 PM

Standard mail forwarding is one year, and you can extend that for an additional 18 months. I don't know of any reasonable person who would call that "a few months"

by thesuitonym

4/24/2025 at 1:34:57 PM

Standard US Mail forwarding is 12 months and may be extended for a further 18 months.

by jen20

4/24/2025 at 1:31:31 PM

They don't have a current address to redirect to, they went completely virtual.

by pabs3

4/24/2025 at 2:58:41 PM

I used to work at the FSF and one of my jobs was replying to these letters. They would be so infrequent by 2008 that I think I handled less than 10 in my time there. I sent way more copies of books to prisoners who requested them, gave more tours of the office, etc. I also did some other stuff when I worked there but if you were to look at the FSF website today you might think I’m still there as pages often have the name of the person who created the page listed as the author still.

The FSF has moved a few times.

* 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge.

* 59 Temple Place, Boston

* 51 Franklin St, Boston

* 31 Milk Street, Boston

The first address wasn’t around for too long, but does still exist. It’s an office building above a bank in Central Square, Cambridge right above the Red Line stop.

The second address was around for a long, long time. A few years ago, the building was demolished and turned into a hotel. I don’t know if 59 Temple Place is still a valid address or not. For this one, I found many of most frequent places and filed bugs to get it updated. Greg K-H helped me update the kernel and many of the issues I opened got resolved with other projects. Worth noting too that the FSF had two different offices in the same building but mail would go to the building. Mail did forward from here to the next address for a while, but I’m not sure if it’ll forward again to the latest address.

51 Franklin St is just around the corner from 59 Temple Place. When they moved here, many staff were able to walk their stuff over to the new office. This one finally closed last year. I worked here my entire time at the FSF.

The final one is a PO Box but also around the corner from 51 Franklin St.

by mattl

4/24/2025 at 4:03:10 PM

I'd always wanted to see a physical copy of the $5,000.00 'Deluxe Distribution' -

https://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/16/gnu_bulletin_23....

> The FSF Deluxe Distribution contains the binaries and sources to hundreds of different programs including GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Debugger, the complete MIT X Window System, and the GNU utilities.

> You may choose one of these machines and operating systems: HP 9000 series 200, 300, 700, or 800 (4.3 BSD or HP-UX); RS/6000 (AIX); Sony NEWS 68k (4.3 BSD or NewsOS 4); Sun 3, 4, or SPARC (SunOS 4 or Solaris). If your machine or system is not listed, or if a specific program has not been ported to that machine, please call the FSF office at the phone number below or send e-mail to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu.

> The manuals included are one each of the Bison, Calc, Gawk, GNU C Compiler, GNU C Library, GNU Debugger, Flex, GNU Emacs Lisp Reference, Make, Texinfo, and Termcap manuals; six copies of the manual for GNU Emacs; and a packet of reference cards each for GNU Emacs, Calc, the GNU Debugger, Bison, and Flex.

> In addition to the printed and on-line documentation, every Deluxe Distribution includes a CD-ROM (in ISO 9660 format with Rock Ridge extensions) that contains sources of our software.

I wonder how many (if any?) were sold, it'd be an excellent museum piece.

by Thoreandan

4/24/2025 at 4:07:41 PM

By the time I joined in 2008, I don't think they were being offered anymore as IIRC the person locally who was handling the compiling and tape archiving didn't have access to the systems anymore.

by mattl

4/25/2025 at 9:42:31 AM

Debian also has a packaging lint rule telling people to update the FSF postal address. So much energy must be wasted in this. :-)

by Sesse__

4/25/2025 at 2:32:53 PM

What’s the alternative?

by mattl

4/25/2025 at 6:06:02 PM

Leave it alone, since it has no real effects?

by Sesse__

4/25/2025 at 6:24:16 PM

I think keeping the address up to date makes sense. At the same time the FSF should have gotten a PO BOX in 1985.

When I worked at Creative Commons we closed the office down there too and I got a PO BOX in Mountain View where the office was at the time and that seemed to work out okay.

by mattl

4/24/2025 at 12:41:23 PM

> The first thing that came to attention, the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm. I completely forgot that the US, Canada, and a few other countries don’t follow the standard international paper sizes, even though I had written about it earlier.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the US and some other countries decided to do things differently... As a European, I don't think I've ever seen something not A4 or A3/A4 in a professional context in my life, ever. Are US letter sizes what people use instead of A4 in a workplace for documents and such (seems confusing if so), and do printers sold in the US default to US letter sizes when printing? Or just happens to be something FSF only seem to be doing?

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 12:57:09 PM

Like most other weird things in US that pertain to measurements and units thereof, letter-sized paper predates the A-series standard (which originated in Germany). FWIW the latter didn't became an ISO standard until late 20th century.

Americans are just very obstinate about those things. It's like the Windows of metrology - backwards compatibility trumps everything else, even when you have utterly bonkers things like ounces vs fluid ounces.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:05:24 PM

>Americans are just very obstinate about those things.

It's not just obstinance, switching everything to metric in the US would likely cost billions (if not trillions) of dollars. And other countries that have made the switch have often ended up with weird Frankensystems of measurement, like the UK where they mix metric and imperial all the time (plus the weird UK-specific measurements they have like "stone", which is based on the pound).

by HideousKojima

4/24/2025 at 1:19:58 PM

Interestingly, it's actually codified in US law that the metric system is the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" -- however it wasn't a mandatory change so most industries didn't make the change, nor did the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat...

by mikeocool

4/24/2025 at 2:49:36 PM

Every single country in the world that is on metric today had to switch from something else at some point in the past. Why overfocus so much on UK when you have literally a hundred successful examples?

One does have to wonder what it is about Anglo countries specifically that makes it so difficult for them, though. Well, Canada at least has the excuse of being next door to US, with the resulting economic effects. For UK I'm pretty sure it's just about not being like "the Continent" at this point.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 6:39:27 PM

>Every single country in the world that is on metric today had to switch from something else at some point in the past. Why overfocus so much on UK when you have literally a hundred successful examples?

A huge percentage of those countries didn't have established industrial bases, infrastructure, etc. And also no educated general populace that needed reeducating. And often those countries were effectively forced into adopting metric through colonization and/or invasion.

by HideousKojima

4/25/2025 at 6:57:53 AM

Even then, that still leaves most of Europe.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:09:40 PM

Other countries switched. Short term pain for long term gain.

by andyferris

4/24/2025 at 1:39:56 PM

The trouble is there is just very little gain. It really just doesn't matter. All the systems are fine, they all work. If you come live here, you'll adjust after 2 years. If I moved to Europe, I would adjust in 2 years. Once in a blue moon you have to bother with converting units but c'est la vie. There's bigger things to worry about.

by coldpie

4/24/2025 at 2:51:47 PM

I've been living in US for 15 years now and I still can't remember which unit scales are factor-of-3 and which ones are factor-of-4. How many cups are there in a gallon? How many yards in a mile? I don't want to waste my brain cells on stuff like this, yet it comes up all the time in e.g. cooking, or using maps for navigation.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 6:33:35 PM

Two cups to a pint, two pints to a quart, four quarts to a gallon. That makes sixteen cups to a gallon. There are 5280 feet in a mile, and three feet to a yard, so that makes 1760 yards to a mile (if I did the math correctly in my head just now).

These are conversions I know off the top of my head, I didn't need to look them up. Which is the point the GP was making: it's not hard to memorize the handful of conversions you will encounter in everyday life. Most people living here did it as children and have never had to think about it since. That's why there's no actual gain for us to switch to metric units. On the other hand there would be quite a bit of pain as everyone had to adjust to estimating things in kilos vs pounds, grams vs cups (in recipes), and so on. So for the typical American, it is actually a net negative for the country to switch to the metric system. It isn't just stubbornness.

by bigstrat2003

4/24/2025 at 2:56:08 PM

Yeah, every system has pros & cons. I think the lack of an approximately-one-foot (30 cm) unit in metric is clumsy to work around, and I think degrees-C are too wide. We can argue about the details if you find it fun ("yards in a mile" does not come up all the time), but they're all evolved from hundreds of years of usage, and that means they all work fine at the end of the day.

by coldpie

4/24/2025 at 3:08:20 PM

> I think the lack of an approximately-one-foot (30 cm) unit in metric is clumsy to work around

What's clumsy about 30cm though? If you are working at scales where this level of precision is needed, you can just use cm throughout, and the beauty of metric is that even someone who has never had to do that before will know immediately how much it is because conversion to meters (or millimeters, or whatever the primary unit is in their usual applications) is so easy.

Similarly, I've heard similar sentiments expressed about lack of pound equivalent in metric. But in practice we just say "500 grams" etc (and for bonus points you get 400 grams, 300 grams etc).

Miles and yards are both used as units of distance, so conversion is obviously relevant. The only reason why "yards in a mile" doesn't come up all the time is because Americans work around it by subconsciously (?) avoiding any such cases where the conversion is non-trivial. E.g. a road sign in Europe might say "400 m", whereas in US a similar one will be "1/4 miles".

And "evolved from hundreds years of usage" generally means a lack of internal consistency, because most units originated a long time ago as a way to measure something very specific - in many cases, something completely irrelevant to most people using those units today. Nor did those units remain consistent through history - just look at how many definitions ounce has in US in different contexts, all of them historical! Or regular vs nautical vs survey mile. Even just cleaning up that mess would be a massive improvement.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 3:44:38 PM

> would be a massive improvement

This is where we disagree. It would be a small improvement at best. Most of what you're pointing out are the awkward corner cases that just don't come up or, like you said, we already have other solutions for. Outside of some specialties, pretty much no one needs to know how many cups are in a gallon or yards in a mile or what a nautical mile is. I don't know those things, and I somehow get by OK.

by coldpie

4/25/2025 at 10:55:58 AM

> All the systems are fine

This is not true and that's trivially verifiable.

No calculator, no references, no Google:

How many inches are in 5 and three-quarter miles?

How much does 5 & 3/4 gallons of water weigh?

by lproven

4/25/2025 at 4:07:07 PM

In what scenarios would I need to know the answers to those questions?

by coldpie

4/25/2025 at 1:05:34 AM

If you’re not the biggest, it matters alot.

by Spooky23

4/24/2025 at 1:33:47 PM

>Other countries switched.

Except they didn't actually, see my points about the UK (similar points apply to Canada).

by HideousKojima

4/24/2025 at 1:58:48 PM

Other countries than the UK and Canada exist.

by KolmogorovComp

4/24/2025 at 1:14:23 PM

It is a weird mix in the UK, distances are measured in miles, and speed limits are set in miles per hour, but fuel is sold in litres, for example.

People get very worked up about it too. People got very worked up about a government proposal to allow people to put imperial units on food in larger type than metric (at the moment it has to be metric larger - or at least the same size).

Everything in engineering and science has been entirely metric since the 80s.

by graemep

4/24/2025 at 1:38:54 PM

Distances in the UK are measured in miles and yards (or fractions of a mile). Google Maps gets this wrong and uses miles and feet. I don't think many people in the UK have a good intuition for how far 500ft is.

by mrob

4/24/2025 at 5:44:10 PM

Only road distances for cars are in miles and yards. The British railways continue to use chains (which are not used for any other ordinary activity) and non-road traffic is often in metres or kilometres as appropriate.

Some of those "Metric martyr" types, the kind of people who think anything which changed after they were 35 is an abomination, but somehow anything which changed ten years before they were born has never been any other way, will vandalize legal stuff which uses (in their opinion) the wrong units. So if you put a (legal and reasonable) 1.5km distance sign on a cycle route, but some car driver who thinks sane units are fascism sees it, they might smash it to pieces which is annoying.

There has been a very gradual lean towards sanity, after all my mother was taught decimal currency because it was forthcoming when she was at school, her parents had used a non-decimal currency system. When I was a teenager I still had coins which, though they were treated as their modern decimal value, if you read their faces had a non-decimal value printed on them, because it's too expensive to replace the currency when you switch.

When I was a child I would buy a quarter pound of sweets. At the turn of the century I'd ask for, and receive, 100 grams or 200 grams as I felt, but most customers would use pounds (although legally they'd be served in grams). These days everybody else would likely also ask in grams. So it's changing, it's just very slow.

by tialaramex

4/24/2025 at 2:59:50 PM

The whole yard vs feet thing is especially weird. Indeed, in US as well, feet are normally used to measure sizes - at scales where it's reasonable - while yards are normally used to measure distances. Even though the two units are in the same ballpark / order of magnitude. And yes, as you rightly point out, it means that few people can estimate distances in feet.

OTOH on road sings, US at least seems to be using miles alone consistently, so you end up with labels like "1 3/4 miles" every now and then, which I find to be difficult to parse quickly.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 3:37:23 PM

TomTom Amigo uses miles and yards. I think OSMAnd does too.

I tend to think in metres at that scale but a yard is near enough.

by graemep

4/24/2025 at 1:10:15 PM

Also, switching everything to metric is just not necessary. We already use the metric system all the time. We also use imperial.

by thesuitonym

4/24/2025 at 2:54:49 PM

Yes, so you have all the disadvantages and none of the advantages.

And sure, of course metric isn't necessary. You can also write all software in COBOL and PL/I. But over the long term, the convenience of having a self-consistent system based on a few simple principles rather than historical precedent adds up.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 4:01:13 PM

For the UK in practice it is only distance measurements that are non metric now. For some things like small liquid amounts we colloquially use imperial - pints - which differ from US pints. I think the actual official volume is the metric it is just you could say slang that keeps to pints.

Anything to do with STEM is metric.

by pasc1878

4/24/2025 at 5:28:27 PM

If you buy beer "loose" like at a bar it has to be sold in pints. Most people will have seen a "half" and anybody who likes stronger beers or goes to festivals where you taste different ones will know a "third" of a pint is also a legal amount of beer to sell. You would not want to try out a few different 8% stouts if they were sold only in whole pints, unless they're going to make it a multi-day event and provide somewhere for you to sleep it off.

Milk is also allowed to be sold in pints, traditionally glass bottle re-usable milk bottles were one pint.

It is also usual (but not legal) to sell a pint or a half of various soft drinks, in theory you should be sold these in some other way, I always say "large" or "small" but in practice ordinary people say "pint" and after all the staff will probably more or less fill a pint glass so, whatever.

Spirits (e.g. gin) are measured in either 25ml or 35ml shots. An establishment can choose either, post which one they picked and use that consistently. Why two seemingly unrelated sizes? Well, historically there were two different non-metric sizes permitted in law, and when the government legislated to make these SI units there were lobbyists demanding they allow this to continue despite the opportunity to rationalize.

As in the US, containers you purchase in a store are labelled, but here the labels must prominently show SI volume units and EU-style value metrics are required on shelf markings, so e.g. 10p per 100ml of Coke is a good price, maybe the Pepsi is on a deal for 9.5p per 100ml, the store's terrible own brand is 5p per 100ml. This EU strategy prevents people screwing with sizes to make you think you're getting a better deal, that cheaper bottle may look like a good idea but hey, it's 18p per 100ml, ah, it's slimmer in the middle which makes it actually much smaller than it looks.

by tialaramex

4/24/2025 at 4:58:26 PM

The UK uses metric for almost everything. Miles/mph for driving and pints in the pub are the only things that are always non-metric. Human height and weight are the only other thing that is often non-metric, and even then a lot of people will know their weight in kg rather than stone.

by ascorbic

4/24/2025 at 1:04:16 PM

We are not particularly obstinate, we just have no strong reason to change. Metric is already used in areas where it actually matters (e.g. STEM)

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 3:28:05 PM

> Metric is already used in areas where it actually matters (e.g. STEM)

Using French Revolutionary units doesn’t really matter in STEM, either: one can conduct science just as well in any units one wishes. One unit of measure is not more scientific than another. For example, degrees Kelvin and Rankine measure the same thing with different units. If anything, the Rankine degrees are more precise!

by eadmund

4/24/2025 at 3:57:48 PM

You shouldn't use degrees for Kelvin, it's an absolute unit, the degrees are needed for the relative units like Celsius.

Anyway, the French system isn't what people mean by "metric" in this context, they mean the SI system of units, and so in practice it's not so much that it wouldn't matter which you choose as that you don't have any option except SI.

If you wanted an independent system of units you'd need to do a lot of expensive metrication, and in practice Americans are too cheap for that, so the US "customary" units are just aliases for so-and-so-much amount of some SI unit, they aren't actually independent at all.

The reason people focus on metric is that for everyday people that's the part which jumps out as more intuitive. All these nice powers of 10, very tidy.

by tialaramex

4/24/2025 at 3:54:22 PM

However the abbreviation is STEM. For S and especiually M you can do in different units.

For T&E it really matters see NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter and the need for heroics in the Gimli glider.

You need to keep to the same unit.

by pasc1878

4/24/2025 at 5:36:44 PM

> For T&E it really matters see NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter and the need for heroics in the Gimli glider.

> You need to keep to the same unit.

Completely agreed. You’ll get similar issues if you have one set of parts using m/s and others using km/hr.

And you’ll avoid those issues with any standard, whether it’s m/s, knots or mph. The important thing is to have a standard.

by eadmund

4/25/2025 at 11:47:08 AM

It's useful in STEM because SI units are often straightforwardly defined in terms of one another, it substantially reduces the amount of arbitrary constants you need in your equations, making them a lot easier to work with.

by rcxdude

4/24/2025 at 12:43:47 PM

It’s US standard. Hence the infamous default PC LOAD LETTER message on HP printers that made zero sense to anyone outside the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_LOAD_LETTER

by robin_reala

4/24/2025 at 2:07:59 PM

That's implying it made sense to people in the US...

by crazygringo

4/24/2025 at 1:30:19 PM

PC isn't Personal Computer, it's Paper Cartridge.

That's the missing link for Americans.

by bombcar

4/24/2025 at 12:49:23 PM

Nearly everything in the US uses letter, legal (letter but longer), or tabloid (double width letter, to be folded over).

Much to my surprise, a random check of a US-based office supply company shows that they do have A4 in stock -- at a price about 40% higher than letter-sized.

by dsr_

4/24/2025 at 2:46:45 PM

Don't forget my favorite size, "statement". This is half of letter size. Sometimes used for small statements, sometimes used as letter folded.

Hacker News users may be familiar with Julia Evans (http://jvns.ca) who creates technology zines that work in both A4 and Letter sizes, folded in half.

by codazoda

4/24/2025 at 1:11:07 PM

I used to work at Kodak and they had an industrial printer division in my building. They would go through pallet-fulls of A4 for their testing. Only place Ive seen it in use in a business setting in the US.

by kevin_thibedeau

4/25/2025 at 3:37:21 PM

> legal (letter but longer)

Why are two slightly different standards needed? Does legal really need to print "just a little bit more" text than others? If so, why not just use that one for everything?

by Aardwolf

4/24/2025 at 1:15:43 PM

> legal (letter but longer)

This one surprised me quite a bit. I think most people have A4/letter-sized folders. Why does anyone think that papers slightly longer than those folders are a good idea?

by owl57

4/24/2025 at 1:31:19 PM

Legal size folders exist and are widely used by people who use ... legal size paper.

Legal folders can be great to be able to print letter-sized things on, then you have an area at the bottom to write notes and stuff.

by bombcar

4/25/2025 at 3:41:53 AM

> Legal size folders exist and are widely used by people who use ... legal size paper.

Sure. But I didn't know I use legal size paper or even what it is before I asked the apartment complex to print the lease agreement, and it didn't fit in their own folder with the other move in papers. In my rank of weirdness discovered upon moving to the US, this is at about the same level as the different ounces.

by owl57

4/24/2025 at 6:31:28 PM

I'm just about old enough to remember (in the UK) foolscap paper, an imperial size also a bit longer than A4. You never see it any more (at least I don't) but foolscap sized box-files are still readily available. I guess a slightly bigger box than you need is not usually a problem.

by cannam

4/24/2025 at 11:13:25 PM

Huh, this explains why some of my older teachers would call a4 pads as foolscap pads. I guess the paper size had been updated by the time I got to school, but their terminology wasn't.

by Macha

4/24/2025 at 7:11:14 PM

Foolscap is just half an inch below legal - and I bet having a box a bit larger than what you're putting in is a selling point, not a hindrance.

by bombcar

4/24/2025 at 9:41:17 PM

Many filing cabinets in the US are also sized so you can put letter sized folders in one way, or rotate the folders 90 degrees and legal sized folders will fit correctly.

by alexjm

4/24/2025 at 1:05:56 PM

And by “nearly everything”, I've never personally seen or used printer or copier paper that wasn't letter or legal. I know it exists, but I've never, not once, bought or used it.

by kstrauser

4/24/2025 at 1:02:15 PM

> seems confusing if so

It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Just like you didn’t know standards other than A4 exist, Americans don’t think about the fact that standards other than 8.5x11 inches (I.e. letter) exist. All printers, binders, folders, hole punchers, etc. are made with letter size paper in mind, and most people unless they are involved in business with other countries have never encountered an A4 sheet of paper in their lives and probably have no idea other standards exist.

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 1:11:42 PM

A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information:

A0 is 1 square meter

An to An+1 means cutting the paper along the middle of the longer edge

Each An has the same aspect ratio

Those are pretty useful properties and precisely define the dimensions of A4.

by echoangle

4/24/2025 at 1:42:09 PM

Not sure where you got “random format” from the comments, but we (U.S.) also use a very precise method for defining the size of paper, which is 8.5x11 and legal as 8.5x14. For the US, both are sized to fit in the same standard envelopes. I’ve never thought, “boy, I really need half this sheet length-wise but made shorter to keep the same aspect ratio for this situation”, so while I can understand why that could make sense when creating an international standard, it isn’t more or less random or more/less precise than any other basis. Our basis simply evolved naturally from our system of measurement and our needs with countries we traded most closely, rather than as an international standard based on a different system of measurement that needed to be shared among numerous countries situated closely together.

by therealpygon

4/24/2025 at 1:16:45 PM

True, but I don’t understand why this would make letter size confusing to Americans. European office workers are not sitting around marveling at the mathematical elegance of the definition of A series paper. It just doesn’t matter in daily life.

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 4:10:27 PM

> It just doesn’t matter in daily life.

Like a lot of mathematics it does matter in your daily life but you actually just don't think about it because of course this works - unless you're an American and so no it doesn't.

The A-series paper sizes mean everything scales very naturally. Poster? Pamphlet? It's just the same ratios again but bigger or smaller. There is a single design where this works, and that's why the A-series exists, you can't just pick anything, only this works.

by tialaramex

4/24/2025 at 7:21:53 PM

Can you explain concretely why it matters in daily life that I can cut the paper posters are printed on in half several times to wind up with paper of the size that letters are printed on, and that these have the same aspect ratio? Why would I ever want to do that / why should I care that it's possible?

I'm not trying to be combative; I genuinely don't know.

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 10:53:25 PM

Not the paper, the stuff on the paper scales the same. Want a large poster and then also handbills to give out? They're identical. Got 15 full size sheets of colour information but now want to turn it into a pocket handout ? No problem, it's the same thing but smaller.

This feels obvious - of course it works like that, until your paper sizes aren't using this ratio (which the US ones don't) and then the frustration is apparent.

by tialaramex

4/24/2025 at 11:16:41 PM

Isn't the important part here just using a consistent aspect ratio?

Like the fact that the aspect ratio chosen allows manufacturers to just use one base sheet and then subdivide it into smaller page sizes is convenient for manufacturers, but it's not a necessary property for scaling the contents of the page.

by Macha

4/25/2025 at 5:20:18 AM

Sort of. For scaling something to different paper sizes, the constant aspect ratio is the important part. But the subdivision property is also important for a few reasons. Take booklet printing as an example. You need a paper size that's twice as wide as the normal paper size to print that on (so Ledger/Tabloid for booklet printing Letter pages). But ideally you'd want this larger paper size to have the same aspect ratio, so you could scale up something like a poster to it. The only aspect ratio that works for is 1:√2.

Same for printing two copies per page (2-up). With a 1:√2 ratio, you can perfectly fit two copies of something side-by-side on the same paper size. This was incredibly common back when I was at school, where A4 worksheets were printed 2-up on A4 paper so that each individual one was A5 in size (half the area, √2/2 the length). With A4, you then just chop the printed pages in half and the worksheet fits perfectly. With any other aspect ratio, either there'd be wasted space due to the different aspect ratio of the chopped-in-half paper to the original, or you'd have to print 4-up on larger paper and chop it into quarters. The 1:√2 aspect ratio of ISO paper sizes means you can just chop a page in half and get the same aspect ratio, and that's useful to people doing printing, not just manufacturers.

by Aaron2222

4/25/2025 at 12:41:23 AM

Having the halving property for each step means you can easily create booklets by getting paper one size larger and pinning it together in the middle. That’s pretty useful.

by echoangle

4/25/2025 at 10:04:33 AM

Here in the US we just print posters at whatever size we want. We don’t have to rely on someone to have standardized the sizes of posters. Large–format printers often go up to eight feet wide, so you can print something as big as a wall if you want (and as long as you like, because they print on a _roll_ of paper instead of a sheet). Computers have made elegant ratios irrelevant.

But if you really think it’s important, then you can consider a series of sizes like tabloid, letter, and memo to be equivalent to A3, A4, and A5. Each is exactly half the area of the previous, and can be had by dividing the larger size in half along the longer side.

by db48x

4/25/2025 at 3:46:27 PM

> But if you really think it’s important, then you can consider a series of sizes like tabloid, letter, and memo to be equivalent to A3, A4, and A5.

This seems like you entirely missed the thread? The whole point is that this actually works for the A-series and in your made up US series it can't work because the ratio is wrong.

by tialaramex

4/25/2025 at 8:56:45 PM

These are not made up sizes. They are standard paper sizes available in any store. Most ordinary househole printers won’t actually print on tabloid, and some won’t print on memo, but all copiers (and multifunction scanner/printers) can copy two letter pages and print them side by side, scaled down to memo size, on a single sheet letter of paper. It’s just a button you press, or maybe a checkbox you check, or whatever. It’s not magic.

by db48x

4/26/2025 at 1:24:27 AM

The sizes aren't what I said you'd made up. The series is, because of course this doesn't work properly with your scheme:

Let's try, start with 216 x 279 Letter and we'll scale that so we can fit two on the 279 long side, so they're just under 140mm wide now, memo size, but um, when we do that the scaled down pages are only 180mm high, even though they've got 216mm - there's a huge amount of empty white space wasted (at the top, or the bottom, or both) and that's because this ratio does not work.

by tialaramex

4/26/2025 at 7:27:05 AM

But nobody cares, they do it anyway. Or they did when making paper copies was more common. In practice we just read a PDF on a screen.

Plus the copiers are a bit more clever than you give them credit for. Instead of scaling the whole page down they put a bounding box around the actual content on the pages, to exclude the margins, and then scale that down to fit. The size of the margins changes slightly but not enough that anybody cares. This is especially true when you’re copying a bound book because there’s a really big margin in the middle to accommodate the binding. You don’t need that any more once you’ve printed the pages on a single sheet of paper.

by db48x

4/24/2025 at 2:54:45 PM

Not only that but C envelope sizes match the A size. So an A4 piece of paper fits a C4 envelope flat.

A4 folded in half (size of an A5) fits in a C5 envelope.

An ISO standard that makes sense and isn't based on different professions like "letter" vs "legal" vs "folio" and other US sizes.

But also the reason that, for example, screens have 80 columns, (also related to punch cards), but that was about the width of a "letter" page at 10cpi.

by rswail

4/24/2025 at 1:16:15 PM

Why is this useful if you want to write a letter?

by ElevenLathe

4/24/2025 at 1:19:59 PM

For a normal letter, it probably doesn’t matter. But it’s useful in general and doesn’t make it worse for writing letters, so it’s still better to use than a specific letter format with worse properties.

by echoangle

4/24/2025 at 3:30:17 PM

> A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information …

You can derive letter paper with two pieces of information: 8½ and 11. Just having a laugh, of course — I do admire the A/B series, even if I wish that they were based on a square yard :-)

by eadmund

4/24/2025 at 1:11:21 PM

> It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be?

Well, A4 (and variants) are not Europe-specific formats, it's the formats most of the world except some few countries (including the US) use, so I'd say it's slightly more surprising than the other way around.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 1:18:36 PM

Right, but why does that make letter size confusing?

Even if every other country in the world used A4, the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border. And in reality, Canada and Mexico also use letter so the border thing doesn’t apply.

So why should letter confuse us just because other people use something else?

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 1:27:14 PM

> Right, but why does that make letter size confusing?

That's the part I initially quoted; "the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm"

The author isn't from North America, so they had forgotten the format was different, so they got confused when they assumed it would have been A4 like the rest of the world, but it wasn't.

> the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border

Or, as in the case of the author, they live outside of North American and send/receive letters to/from North America.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 12:51:08 PM

There's a map of ANSI vs ISO paper size usage around the world which crops up on Reddit occasionally: https://reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/19dswr4

I can guess why the Philippines uses ANSI sizes. But Chile?

by gnfargbl

4/24/2025 at 12:48:40 PM

Yes, in the USA letter size is the standard. A3,4 don't exist. It isn't confusing because I would guess that more than half of all people in the USA don't even know that letter size isn't the standard everywhere. I was probably in my late 20s before I found out that Europe doesn't use the same size paper as we in the USA do. I can remember exactly once that I encountered it in the wild (I was at a conference and someone from Europe had some handouts).

by jccalhoun

4/24/2025 at 1:34:09 PM

The European sizes exist in the USA if you want them, you just have to order them from a print shop or supplier.

Or you can get whatever you want - I wanted B4 paper to print a booklet (or B3 maybe) and I just bought a ream that was larger and had a print shop slice it down to B4. My US laser printer was fine printing onto B4.

by bombcar

4/24/2025 at 1:07:15 PM

[flagged]

by jillyboel

4/24/2025 at 1:08:59 PM

No, letter is used throughout North America and in parts of South America.

by umanwizard

4/24/2025 at 1:12:23 PM

[flagged]

by jillyboel

4/24/2025 at 1:18:34 PM

It really isn’t such a big deal. Switching to A4 would mean replacing every single binder, folio, cover, and clip in the country, and for what? A slightly taller sheet of paper? US printers can already print A4 if necessary without any issue.

by rafram

4/24/2025 at 4:05:44 PM

I think the UK has done that - I have foolscap and letter folder from the 70s. And no we did not replace every binder, folio etc.

We just bought new ones when needed.

by pasc1878

4/24/2025 at 4:09:36 PM

[flagged]

by jillyboel

4/24/2025 at 4:23:34 PM

This is just obnoxious. If you really do live in a much, much better country, then why don’t you get offline and enjoy it instead of spending your time trying to convince Americans that theirs is so much worse?

by rafram

4/24/2025 at 4:27:04 PM

[flagged]

by jillyboel

4/24/2025 at 1:30:39 PM

Look, there's plenty of things to complain about with regards to the US - especially these days. But getting upset about US citizens not using all the same standards in their daily lives as many other places is just silly. --It's like complaining about the UK and a relatively small number of countries that chose to drive on the left instead of the right. Could they change? Sure. Are they likely to change? Seems pretty unlikely.

by tallanvor

4/24/2025 at 4:35:32 PM

> But getting upset about US citizens not using all the same standards in their daily lives as many other places is just silly

Good thing it wasn't a complaint then, just questions from someone who doesn't know how it works across the pond :) And it seems to be the story of someone outside of North America trying to interact with the North American standards, not some internal confusion between internal states or whatnot.

by diggan

4/24/2025 at 12:55:15 PM

How is this "confusing"? I don't think I've ever thought about paper size a single time in my life.

by sanderjd

4/24/2025 at 12:59:09 PM

I think GP is referring to the name - "letter" implies that it's the standard paper size used for writing letters specifically, as opposed to printed documents (of course, in US it's really both).

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:05:54 PM

I’d guess that nomenclature originates in the world where every small US Main Street had a stationary store carrying all manner of paper sizes and stocks for diverse purposes—none of which involved use in anything more sophisticated than a typewriter.

One particular “standard” that sticks out in my memory was “math paper”, which I recall as being unbleached, about 5” x 8”, and used pervasively in primary education (at least in New England) into the 1990’s.

by twoodfin

4/24/2025 at 2:48:35 PM

Oh... I don't really see why "letter" is a more confusing way to describe a paper size than "A4"...

My general point is just that I'm surprised so many people seem to notice and care about paper size in general. I've just never thought about this at all.

by sanderjd

4/24/2025 at 3:51:56 PM

Well, "A4" doesn't imply anything about the intended use. The format of the name also implies that there is A3, A5 etc, both of which aren't all that uncommon either.

But, yes, for most people it doesn't really matter - you go to the store, you buy paper, you shove it into your printer, and it mostly just works. However, it's also not all that hard to run into situations where things break. E.g. most PDFs originating from US are rendered for Letter size paper, which means that printing them outside of US generally requires setting "fit size" rather than "original" to ensure that nothing gets clipped. Vice versa also happens, but because US is so culturally dominant, Americans rarely run into that particular issue.

by int_19h

4/24/2025 at 1:53:38 PM

> Are US letter sizes what people use instead of A4 in a workplace for documents and such (seems confusing if so)

Yes, it is just our standard like A4 is yours. When you pull a paper out of the pack it is A4 when we pull it out it is ANSI A, commonly known a US Letter size. Instead of 8.27”x11.69”, we use 8.5”x11”. We also commonly use US Legal size, which is 8.5”x14”. Slightly longer and can fit in the same envelope.

> do printers sold in the US default to US letter sizes when printing?

Yes. However all of our printers can do all sizes since our paper is slightly larger, while an A4 specific printer couldn’t print a US letter.

by therealpygon

4/25/2025 at 1:30:26 PM

I don't think I ever had a A4 printer that could not also print Letter. It is almost certainly the exact same models that they also sell in the US, but with just some bit flipped in the firmware to change the default paper size.

My current printer, like most printers I believe, can be configured to print custom sizes. The maximum is something like 9 or 9.5 inches wide IIRC, and the length can be set much longer.

by 2mlWQbCK

4/24/2025 at 2:57:55 PM

Except pretty much all printer drivers these days can down convert from letter to A4.

Margins on left/right might be skinnier, but length wise US letter fits.

by rswail

4/25/2025 at 12:49:52 AM

Since they are talking about physical paper size, I assume they meant that an A4 printer that physically only takes A4 sized paper would not be able to print on letter paper stock, as its physically too big to fit. I can print any size onto a business card too with down converting and messing with margins.

by pests

4/24/2025 at 12:47:01 PM

Yes all paper is usually letter. It's close to A4, so you don't usually need to reformat documents to print on one or the other. Most printers take A4 and US letter and adapt automatically.

A4 is readily available in the US but not commonly used.

The main problem is that if you cut it in half, you get a really silly sizes (too narrow) instead of A5.

by remram

4/24/2025 at 12:55:06 PM

> Most printers take A4 and US letter and adapt automatically

I found out that they do not automatically adapt to JIS sizes. My wife’s work once had a printer that somehow got configured to use JIS, I assume JB5. It then refused to print on US Letter, but as printers are wont to do, didn’t produce any useful error message, nor relay this information to the computer. It just wouldn’t print. I only discovered this (because if you work in tech, you must know how to fix printers, right?) by laboriously scrolling through every menu on the tiny LCD screen, and finding that the paper settings were incorrect.

by sgarland

4/24/2025 at 1:04:46 PM

> if you work in tech, you must know how to fix printers, right?

You kid, but it turns out the assumption was correct in this case. I suppose the truth is that by working in tech, you are likely very methodical and rely on deduction, which are both essential in fixing printer issues.

by frutiger

4/24/2025 at 1:32:03 PM

Yes, but that’s the annoying part. So many tech problems that people encounter can be trivially solved with a quick web search, poking at menus until you find something promising, or a combination thereof. I remember helping my mom over the phone to troubleshoot something on her iPhone – at the time, I had an Android, so everything was foreign to me, but I was able to deduce where a given setting might exist, and figured out whatever the problem was.

I don’t know when or why this skill declined, but it’s upsetting.

by sgarland

4/25/2025 at 10:08:10 AM

Yea, it’s like people’s brains turn off. They can read menus at restaurants, but refuse to do so when confronted with a printer or whatever.

by db48x

4/24/2025 at 12:50:22 PM

It's the standard here in the USA. The other standard is the US Legal at 8.5 inches by 14 inches (216 mm by 356 mm). This is what is used in court settings (hence the name) but also things like paper mortgage statements will typically come printed on that. That is much similar to your A4 size.

I am familiar with A4, A5 and such. But I think that fewer and fewer people are. It's just not something used every day.

As a side note, most of the big important house bills and statements I still insist on receiving via US mail for protection reasons. There is a risk if I only had them emailed to me that my wife would not have access. If I were to suddenly die, I don't want my wife with our kids to miss a critical bill. By having them show up at the house in physical form provides a bit of defense in depth here.

by rietta

4/24/2025 at 12:45:20 PM

It’s a US thing and most printers in the US default to it. You would be hard pressed to find someone who knows what A4 is.

Letter size is 8-1/2 x 11 inches by US standards.

by jodaco

4/24/2025 at 1:34:45 PM

I've found that many Americans know what A4 is - that "weird European size that doesn't print right".

by bombcar

4/24/2025 at 12:44:44 PM

> do printers sold in the US default to US letter sizes when printing? Or just happens to be something FSF only seem to be doing?

Yes, the default printing paper for US is US Letter. I prefer to use my computers with US English language, and macOS defaults to US Letter as print and page size when you use US English as the default language.

Moreover, I had a ream of US Letter paper in the past, given me by our neighbor (I live in a A4 country, so it's that "odd" size).

by bayindirh

4/24/2025 at 1:09:58 PM

It's a pretty good paper size standard. Fold A4 in half and you get A5. Put two A4s side by side and that's an A3 size.

by dizhn

4/24/2025 at 12:48:59 PM

Oh no, it’s worse.

8.5 x 11” is US Letter, or 215.9 x 279.4 mm. We also have US Legal, which as the name implies, is frequently used by legal professions. I have no idea why. It is 8.5 x 14”, or 215.9 x 355.6 mm. Finally, we have US Tabloid (I guess used for small newspapers?), which is 11 x 17”, or 279.4 x 431.8 mm.

And yes, our printers default to US Letter. The line from the movie Office Space: “PC Load Letter? WTF does that mean?” is the printer’s cryptic way of saying “Load Letter-sized paper into the Paper Cassette.”

EDIT: there are are apparently more US-specific sizes I was unaware of, which you can view and compare with others on this site: https://papersizes.io/us/

by sgarland

4/24/2025 at 9:14:44 PM

I once was reading a software license, and deep inside it there was a promise: who has read till this place will get a certain prise. I emailed them, they kind of confirmed that I am eligible for the prise. But it was a far away city, so I never went to claim it.

by avodonosov

4/24/2025 at 4:40:13 PM

If you never pick up a pen to sign a birthday card, thank you note, or wedding album, that's a symptom you are too isolated!

by samspot

4/24/2025 at 1:06:41 PM

A few countries I'll be visiting this summer still sell International Reply Coupons. It might be interesting to pick some up and see how difficult it is to exchange them. Would a PostNL point even know what to do with one?

by terinjokes

4/25/2025 at 6:59:16 AM

As a ham radio operator who still likes paper QSL cards, I’ve bought international reply coupons from Swiss Post because they still sell them and you can order them online (I live in Ireland but here they no longer sell them). Any postal service that is a member of the Universal Postal Union (nearly all of them are AFAICT) is obliged to accept them. They work in most places.

by relistan

4/24/2025 at 1:07:15 PM

Perhaps the FSF got confused about which license the author was referring to, or perhaps they intentionally mailed back GPL v3 — this isn't the first time they haven't been generous.

In the old days when they released GPL v3, Linus Torvalds considered it "not the same license at all". He felt betrayed because the FSF "try to sneak in these new (tivoization) rules and try to force everybody to upgrade". People could fork the Kernel and relicense the fork in a way that prevented him from merging their improvements upstream. He referred to the FSF's move as "dishonest", "sneaky" and "immoral" and decided he would "never have anything to do with the FSF again".

https://youtu.be/PaKIZ7gJlRU

by maxloh

4/24/2025 at 1:17:07 PM

> Perhaps the FSF got confused about which license the author was referring to

When no version is specified in the request, returning the latest version seems like a reasonable thing to do.

by coldpie

4/24/2025 at 1:35:34 PM

IMO, the correct response would be "Hey we have version 1, 2, and 3 of this license, all of them have been attached. Please make sure which one you were talking about".

by maxloh

4/24/2025 at 1:43:09 PM

That would also be reasonable, sure. Triple the cost though!

by coldpie

4/24/2025 at 12:54:49 PM

Different addresses are stated in different copies of the license. https://opensource.org/license/gpl-2-0 has: "59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA"

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt has no postal address.

https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-2.0-only.html has "51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA" in red italics, and says: " Text in red is replaceable (see Matching Guidelines B.3.4). License or exception text will match to the text for the specified identifier if it includes a permitted variant of this replaceable text. The permitted variants can be found in the corresponding regular expression as shown in title text visible by hovering over the red text."

Which in turn says: "can be replaced with the pattern .{54,64}" (that is, any string between 54-64 characters long).

by cormorant

4/24/2025 at 3:04:50 PM

Exploring implications of an absolute physical address. FSF basically claimed a physical "domain name" and no future organizations will be able to reside in that address. FSF can move out and ask USPS to do a 301 Moved Permanently or 308 Permanent Redirect.

by low_tech_punk

4/24/2025 at 3:29:28 PM

At my first job, we'd occasionally have old people showing up to pay their water bill (with checks, of course!) because 20 years previously, the local water utility occupied the same building that we were in. They were generally pretty upset because we had no idea where the water company was and they were paying in person because the bill was late, and their water could potentially be shut off.

by HeyLaughingBoy

4/24/2025 at 3:06:45 PM

they actually did move in the meantime :-) [1]

Can this redirection be forever?

> no future organizations will be able to reside in that address

You are supposed to put the name, no? "Some Organization, <old address>" would unambiguously refer to the new org.

[1] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-office-closing-party

by jraph

4/24/2025 at 3:09:16 PM

ask USPS to do a 301 Moved Permanently or 308 Permanent Redirect.

The USPS doesn't honor either 301 or 308. As someone who moves just about every year, and fills out the paperwork to get my 301s and 308s for free, instead of paying a third-party service, I can tell you that the 301/308 at USPS is only good for one year.

To get around this, I used to use a 305: Use Proxy, but then my UPS Store of choice closed, and I was back to 301/308 land.

by reaperducer

4/24/2025 at 9:46:15 PM

is the owner of the address a perpetual owner of the GPL? Example: - Step 1: Create evil Corporation - Step 2: Buy that address - Step 3: Create a new GPL, still GPL but technically a new version. This can make sure the sole owner of the claimed IP (remove the FSF of course). - Step 4: Sell your updated license to anyone that'd want to go around previous GPL.

by renecito

4/25/2025 at 4:44:28 AM

> Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years;

I wonder if this was just rhetorical flourish? Are there really people who never ever use a pen?

I barely ever handwrite anything but there are still crosswords and the occasional form to fill in.

by stevage

4/25/2025 at 12:03:59 AM

Looks like no other comment dwells on the fact that FSF was based in Boston.

I heard that Boston was a small hub for tech companies back in the 90s (which is is much less true these days), which might explain this.

by rs186

4/25/2025 at 12:28:26 AM

FSF was founded by Richard Stallman, who was a Harvard student and worked at the MIT AI Lab.

by philwelch

4/25/2025 at 2:39:08 PM

man, seeing folks still dealing with mailing letters for code gets me every time - crazy how much the basics trip people up after a few years online. you think well ever really get rid of physical addresses or is this just another forever headache?

by gitroom

4/25/2025 at 2:46:05 PM

Why should we get rid of physical addresses? It's not really relevant for letters anymore, but people still need to go to places. Deliveries of goods are a bigger thing than ever before.

I can imagine that in the future a company doesn't need to have a physical address to be registered. But we already have that too, PO boxes and addresses where you can register your company without having an office here.

by andix

4/24/2025 at 1:44:09 PM

It would be a perfect story for the "Dull Men Center" or alike :D

by sinuhe69

4/24/2025 at 10:33:33 PM

Tangentially related: I've always wanted to write a hello the address that they show during the opening credits of MST3K. Has anyone tried?

by AxEy

4/25/2025 at 6:02:26 AM

the building seems to have 4 floors only

https://www.google.com/maps/place/51+Franklin+St,+Boston,+MA...

by srott

4/24/2025 at 1:50:09 PM

I am impressed that the FSF has kept up the same office / mailing address for 32 years at the time the article was written!

by rietta

4/25/2025 at 4:05:43 PM

It's an "I wrote a letter" blog post - which I suppose may be novel for some in today's audience.

TLDR: To save space, some old GPLv2 software didn't include the full license text, instead just a short notice with an address you can contact to obtain it. Blogger did so (glad the address still worked after 30+ years), included return postage (some nifty US stamps bought off eBay), but the reply received was version 3 instead. So they did so again, and received the correct version.

by rkagerer

4/24/2025 at 12:57:10 PM

> as I haven’t used a pen in several years

Lol this is a bit ridiculous but a fun blogpost!

by yapyap

4/24/2025 at 12:32:16 PM

(2022)

by froh

4/24/2025 at 10:33:49 PM

Why would you do this, the text is available online!

by pcbmaker20

4/24/2025 at 2:48:49 PM

Sure but, on the other hand, this was overly kind of him.

by yukiAkita

4/24/2025 at 1:46:34 PM

Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years;

Really??

by martopix

4/24/2025 at 7:03:15 PM

Dude wastes the FSFs time, complains about wrong license without telling them the one he wanted. Then complains again that he needs to recover from the HORROR of using the postal service that was a deliberate, POINTLESS CHOICE. Gets fame on Hacker News for it.

YAY!

by ray023

4/24/2025 at 9:29:54 PM

This was such a laugh!

I have to wonder if the whole exercise was a prime example of a brit "taking the piss" 8-)

> the US, Canada, and a few other countries don’t follow the standard international paper sizes, even though I had written about it earlier

I literally laughed out loud at this 8-)

And the outrageous expectation of obtaining... stamps!

It was just too funny.

For unfamiliar muricans: The success, according to british cultural standards, in the humiliation of the intended victim is increased, when the victim replies while being completely unaware that they are actually being mocked.

by johnea

4/24/2025 at 5:39:36 PM

“Writing the address on the envelope was awkward, as I haven’t used a pen in several years; it took a few attempts and some wasted envelopes”

by supportengineer

4/24/2025 at 1:49:00 PM

I think these licenses are incredibly useful.

I have a really, really dumb question.

Why don't we have more licenses and contracts like this? Do we just need to set up a foundation that drafts them and makes them freely available to use?

Like, for instance, "Hi, Mark - we'd like to offer you a job here at our daycare, but first we need you to look over this contract and sign it."

This contract says, roughly, that if there's an accusation of sexual abuse against children that it will go to a mediator who has final say, and if they say it was a credible accusation, that Mark immediately loses his job, and can never work anywhere that uses this same contract, ever again. Sorry, you lost your chance to work with kids. It sucks that it might have been a false accusation, but our kids are just far too important to trust to the existing systems.

Guess what? Churches should follow a similar license. Letting priests or pastors move from town to town, abusing kids? That was completely bonkers insane. And I feel like a contract like this (and a registry, and etc.) could have helped. If people forced their daycares and churches to accept a license like this.

Another one, "Hi, Greg. We understand we'd like your endorsement from our political party? Sounds good, here's a contract for you..."

It says, among other things, that if Greg switches political parties that he must resign from office. Sorry. He's welcome to run again, but he can't stay in office on our votes.

Like, shouldn't we have more contracts like this?

by VikingCoder

4/24/2025 at 3:15:58 PM

> and if they say it was a credible accusation, [...], but our kids are just far too important to trust to the existing systems.

You mean dropping some hard earned human right like Presumption of Innocence?

You may think it doesn't apply to you, but the landlords and HOA can add a similar clause, because children must be safe at home too. And every software company may add the same clause because they (may) have a game division and children must be safe online too. And ...

Suddenly, any accusation that a non-professional fake-judge says is "credible" makes you an outcast of society.

by gus_massa

4/24/2025 at 2:16:19 PM

If I follow correctly, then yes I agree that having more widely used standard licenses/contracts would be nice. One of my crazy legal fantasies is that all EULAs have to go through a central government authority that pushes back on new ones, because one of the things I love about FOSS is that there's only a handful of common licenses, so you can reasonably read them once and then just see them and know what you're getting. I don't need to re-read the GPL every time I use a new piece of software using it, because I already know what it says.

To a specific point, though,

> Guess what? Churches should follow a similar license. Letting priests or pastors move from town to town, abusing kids? That was completely bonkers insane. And I feel like a contract like this (and a registry, and etc.) could have helped. If people forced their daycares and churches to accept a license like this.

Er, yes, that does sound bonkers; where are you that every school, church, and daycare isn't already doing a background check on every single person working there?

by yjftsjthsd-h

4/24/2025 at 3:59:00 PM

> Er, yes, that does sound bonkers; where are you that every school, church, and daycare isn't already doing a background check on every single person working there?

Someone has to be convicted for something to show up on their background check, yes?

by VikingCoder

4/24/2025 at 3:35:40 PM

Contracts are negotiable. Don’t like the numbers in paragraph twelve? Can’t agree to forfeit one of the rights listed in appendix G? Redline it and see what they say.

EULA, TOS, and Docusign have mostly forced people to forget their right to negotiate contracts because all they let you do is agree to the terms offered. So it seems natural today that people just want standard contracts for everything.

Lazyweb: what’s that story about the guy who redlined his credit card contract and the bank accepted it?

by skeltoac

4/25/2025 at 7:18:53 PM

A lot of your use cases are already met by professional certifications and licenses. For example to run or work at a daycare in my state you have to have a license and part of the licensure process is a background check. That’s a much better system already because there’s already a state agency in charge of managing and revoking the license and as edge cases arise they don’t require re-negotiation.

by throwaway173738

4/24/2025 at 2:18:02 PM

I could imagine a judge holding a contract to resign from office void as contrary to public policy (on the basis of the intuition that elected representatives shouldn't have their continuance in office subject to random contracts with third parties lest this interfere with their service to the public.)

by equinoxnemesis

4/24/2025 at 3:10:02 PM

> Like, shouldn't we have more contracts like this?

So... like a social scorecard that's easily manipulated?

No.

by inetknght

4/24/2025 at 4:37:49 PM

>Like, shouldn't we have more contracts like this?

We have tons of them, they are written by lawyers.

by Suppafly

4/24/2025 at 7:57:00 PM

I wish they were standardized and freely available.

by VikingCoder

4/25/2025 at 4:08:38 PM

You can get books of them, but standardization mostly doesn't work because every situation is different enough that it can't be standardized enough.

by Suppafly