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by SlyShy 6070 days ago
Interesting. I wonder if dcurtis would mind describing some details of the operation. Is the postage being printed too, or are stamps being affixed some other way? And I guess someone is still delivering the mail to a box or post office--would that get annoying?
1 comments
dcurtis 6070 days ago
I had a beagleboard (beagleboard.org) sitting around in my closet, so I figured I should do something with it.

When you create a letter on Snail, the beagleboard pulls from the heroku database, formats the letter, prints it, and then sends me an email saying it's ready to be stuffed into an envelope.

(Well... sort of. In a perfect world, that is what would happen. Unfortunately, there are some bugs that I am still trying to work out.)

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barmstrong 6070 days ago
This was my biggest questions too, how much you were able to automate it. This seems like it would really only be viable if you could eliminate the human step as much as possible. Like, ideally, some sort of machine that printed, stamped, folded or put in some kind of envelope, and dropped it in a bucket of outgoing mail that the postman could play with.

If you can work ON the process instead of IN it then there is some potential for this to work on volume, but overall really cool idea, props!

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phreanix 6070 days ago
LOL that's precious, an email to notify you to send snailmail.
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jeremymcanally 6070 days ago
You should invest in a cheap trifold folder and an envelope/postage printer (or envelope tray for your existing, presumably laser, printer). That would cut down your operations time a lot if it gets popular.

Though, I think big, sooo probably not worth the cash.

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percept 6070 days ago
I've always wondered what Netflix does. Is their DVD handling/mailing a manual process?
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philwelch 6069 days ago
Pretty much, you can't trust users to send DVD's back in the mailing envelopes in any kind of reliable state (at all, one to an envelope, with the barcode facing out the window, with the correct disc in the correct slipcover, with the disc in any slipcover) so they have assembly lines of people to tear the envelopes open, check the right DVD is in the right slipcover, and so forth.
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percept 6069 days ago
Thanks. Is that posted somewhere? Is shipping out to customers more automated?

I always wonder about stuff like that.

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