[meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy increase!

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:04:35 +0100
Message-ID: <016b01cdfd81$eece7a10$cc6b6e30$_at_de>

True Mike!

Here you have a view of my office,
just before I switched from Sinclair ZX 81 to a Commodore 64.
http://kuerzer.de/homeoffice1983 *

Btw. do you know also this sudden and strange feeling, when you're watching
else excellent thrillers from the 1970s and early eighties, when then it
comes unavoidably to a scene playing in the police department? The desks!
They are empty! Only a lamp, sometimes a typewriter - some paper.. and such
strange wooden sticks...eeeehm so called "pencils", one or two black phones
with dial plates. A metal filing cabinet in the corner. A water dispenser.
Wastepaper basket. City map on the wall with pins. Coatrack.

Uh how could they live and work then?

And what shall the children think?
I guess for them it's the same feeling, like when we had watched Buster
Keaton, Fats Arbuckle, Ben Turpin movies...


Gosh are weeee oooold, Mike!

And now I'll calculate your bill,
Guess with what for an instrument?

With a Casio fx-100.
What a quality! It works still perfectly after 30 years.
That's what I call true sustainability!

Best!
Martin

*huh, nice recovery, look at the model in the centre,
Ahaaaa now we know, where the architects took the ideas for the Burj Khalifa
from!!


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Galactic Stone & Ironworks [mailto:meteoritemike at gmail.com]
Gesendet: Montag, 28. Januar 2013 18:35
An: Martin Altmann
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy
increase!

Hi Martin and List,

Oh I do remember the good old days. When important people carried beepers
and they were still dime payphones on every corner. I could fuel my gashog
Camaro at 83 cents a gallon and a pack of Marlboros was $1.75. A movie
ticket was $3. Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour at my first job. The
internet didn't yet exist and I downloaded software from dial-up BBS's at
300 baud. It would take all night, sometimes 8-10 hours, just to download a
game that took up two floppy disks.
One hiccup of line noise and the whole thing had to be scrapped and
re-downloaded. Rotary phone in the kitchen that had a long coiled cord that
could be stretched halfway across the house and through two doorways was
usually my "internet connection". The handset would be unplugged and the
cord plugged into the modem.

How many people remember the old IRC's? International Reply Coupons.
These were once standard fare when making small purchases from overseas
vendors - typically used when requesting a catalog to be mailed out.

An ever-dwindling number of dealers still use snail mail to send out
offerings, but it's a practice that is dying out. I still appreciate it
though and love receiving them.

And yes, yes, and yes - I want one of those Meteorite Super Trump card decks
before they are all gone. Send me a PayPal invoice. :)

Now, if this was 1986, I'd press "Send" and this email would take about 10
minutes to send, line by line. LOL. And it wasn't called "email" then, it
was simply a message.

Best regards,

MikeG

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On 1/28/13, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
> But, Mike, other things became remarkably cheap.
>
> Imagine, you'd have to do all your e-mail traffic in form of paper
letters,
> and if it's urgent to pay a.. a... a "telegram". full stop.
> Or to print your assortment lists and to send them by mail out.
> Oops sorry, to type them first by typewriter and to "hectograph" them
> (cool,
> my English dictionary hasn't that word anymore).
> Huh, we had then even extra-thin paper for airmail-letters.
>
> ...like it was common practice still far into the 1990s.
>
> If I would do so, I easily would pay 15-20k$ a year only for buying
stamps!
>
> Or, hihihi, do you remember the first cellular phones?
> These where you had still to carry a suitcase under the other arm?
> And where the people and we laughed so much about the cockalorums, when
> they
> ostentatiously screamed on the street in the handset: I'm just this moment
> walking on that and that road..
>
> Oops. Have to explain to the kiddies, why that was so funny:
> At those times then, the phone was at home. If you called somebody and a
> person was not answering, you knew that that person was not at home. And
if
> he answered, you hadn't to ask, where he is and what he's doing, because
> you
> knew, that he's home and is speaking on the phone.   Hence it was a
> zero-information.
> And dear children, so it is still today! It makes no sense to call or to
> send an SMS to ask, where the other would be at the moment or to report
> where you are.
> Because if you're waiting for someone, it doesn't help you to know,
whether
> he's in the supermarket, on a baseball field or on the road,
> Becauuuuuuuuuuse he comes, when he comes.  All other information is
> irrelevant.
>
> Would be interesting to know, with how many billions the private
> consumption
> could be risen,
> if people would stop sending these empty information, where they are at
the
> moment and what they are doing at the moment, wouldn't it?
>
> Alas,
> Children, we survived these old times, without problems.
> On contrary, it wasn't so stressing and stroboscopic like today.
>
> Today we suffered horrible deformations.
> Look at me, I get already impatient, because I'm waiting for Mike's
> decision
> for 12 hours only, although he is at the moment 10,000 miles away from me,
> and where we would have sent then letters forth and back for the same
> thing,
> which would have taken easily 3 weeks.
>
> Skol
> Martin
>
> PS: Iiiieeek!  German collectors have not only to pay import-VAT on the
> meteorites sent fom non-EU, but also on the postage! That's mean, cause in
> Germany buying stamps is VAT-free.
> Always those communists....
>
> (PPS: To Adam I say, make money not war, then it works also with the
> states-budget again ;-)
>
> PPS: By the way, I'm sitting at the moment in front of my computer and I'm
> typing this posting...  ;-)
>
>
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
> Galactic
> Stone & Ironworks
> Gesendet: Montag, 28. Januar 2013 16:12
> An: Adam Hupe
> Cc: Adam
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international =
> crazy
> increase!
>
> My local clerk gave me a heads-up about this hike last week.  It still
> sucks
> though.  Gripe +1.
>
> This is just another cost that dealers will have to pass along to
> collectors.
>
> A while back, I stopped using boxes to ship Riker displays.  Now I wrap
> them
> up in a double-layer of padding and put them into a bubble-mailer.  This
> saves several ounces on weight and a few dollars on postage.  There is a
> higher risk of breakage now, but thankfully none have been broken so far.
> I'll replace the occasional damaged one when the situation arises, so it's
> worth it to keep the overall costs down a bit.
>
> The international increase is the worst part.  I ship a lot of First Class
> International packages to places like Canada and the UK.  Some of these
> could be shipped for $4 or less.  Heck, a small bubble mailer to Canada
> often cost under $3 and was cheaper than sending the same package to
Hawaii
> or Alaska.  I guess that has changed now.  It's bad enough the customs
> short
> form now requires 10 minutes of standing in line for each package, and now
> this.
>
> Like Adam said - I recall the early days of Flat Rate shipping (not that
> long ago actually), and while the cost has gone up, the amount or quality
> of
> service paid for has not.  It's the same as most consumer goods or
services
> over the last decade - less for more.
>
> Best regards,
>
> MikeG
>
> --
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>
>
> On 1/28/13, Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> This is typical of USPS and Government in general.  Give absolutely no
>> warning of impending price or tax increases and make decisions at the
>> last
>> possible second.  There are going to be a lot of shocked taxpayers once
> they
>> realize all of the hidden tax increases in the Affordable Health Care
>> Act.
>> As far as shipping goes, USPS is famous for surprise increases.  I
> remember
>> 8 years ago when a small flat rate Priority Mail box cost only $2.80. It
> is
>> now exactly double at $5.60.
>>
>> How many people's salaries have doubled in the last 8 years?  The
> government
>> should learn to manage our money better instead of spending it like a
>> drunken gambler.   At least the gambler is spending his own money.  Most
> of
>> us are forced to live within our means!
>>
>> I can hear the complaining now from eBay buyers about the new shipping
> price
>> hike.  We go through this once or twice a year.
>>
>> Happy Shipping,
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Yinan Wang <veomega at gmail.com>
>> To: METEORITE LIST <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 12:15 AM
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy
>> increase!
>>
>> Hi List,
>>
>> This is more of a "OMG, did you see the prices" message, although it
>> is a subject that affects both meteorite sellers and buyers.
>>
>> For those not aware, the USPS raised it's prices on Sunday, while
>> domestically it didn't change by much, internationally it's an insane
>> price increase:
>>
>> https://www.usps.com/business/prices.htm
>>
>> So small flat rate priority international went from $16.95 to $23.95
>> (a 40% increase!). To Canada small flat rate went from $12.95 to
>> $19.95 (over 50%!).
>>
>> Even first class international starting price is now $6.55 and for
>> some places seem to have gone up 125%!
>>
>> Unfortunately, there's not much anyone can do, alternatives are few
>> and still fairly costly. Although, anyone with affordable shipping
>> suggestions, feel free to chime in.
>>
>> -Yinan Wang
>> ______________________________________________
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Received on Mon 28 Jan 2013 01:04:35 PM PST