#post offices

[blondebrainpowered]

Christmas rush at the Post Office package room on Van Buren Street Chicago, Illinois. December, 1929

[mudwerks]

(via Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start” | Ars Technica)

Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known "right from the very start of deployment," a Fujitsu executive told a public inquiry today.

"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division.

That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches....

... "You've had marriages fail, people commit suicide, an horrendous impact on people's lives," he said. "It's perfectly reasonable that the public should demand people are held to account and that should mean criminal prosecutions wherever possible." The UK government also has plans for a new law to "swiftly exonerate and compensate" people who were falsely convicted.

this is so fucked up

[ultralocal1]

Random post offices in watercolor. A good a way to learn as any, I guess.

[kecobe]

Old Post Office, Broadway and Park Row, Manhattan Berenice Abbott (American; 1898–1991) May 5, 1938 Gelatin silver print The New York Public Library, Wallach Division, Photography Collection

[sovietpostcards]

Post office in Polevskoy, Sverdlovsk oblast (USSR, 1970s)

[spyskrapbook]

“Mass Produced Post Offices for Minor Provincial Towns”, Italy [1978] _ Architects: Andrea Branzi and Clino T. Castelli. 

“Domus”, No.594, May 1979, pp. 25-32.

[providencepubliclibrary]

“With all of this feline indifference and general propensity for lazing around, it makes you wonder what on earth the city of Liège, Belgium, was thinking when they hired 37 cats to deliver the mail in the 1870s. Messages were fastened around the animals’ necks in waterproof bags so the citizens of Liège and surrounding villages could easily communicate with each other. ‘Unless the criminal class of dogs undertakes to waylay and rob the mail-cats, the messages will be delivered with rapidity and safety,’ The New York Times reported.

Safety? Maybe. Rapidity? Definitely not. Though one enterprising cat made it to his destination in less than five hours, the others took up to a day to deliver the mail to their own homes—it would seem the cats were not terribly interested in relaying messages in a timely fashion.” 

Courtesy Mental Floss. photo not related.