The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the General Post Office. A full postcode is known as a "postcode unit" and designates an area with several addresses or a single major delivery point.
Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less than truckload shipping carriers.
Sylvania's MOBIDIC, short for "MOBIle DIgital Computer", was a transistorized computer intended to store, sort and route information as one part of the United States Army's Fieldata concept. Fieldata aimed to automate the distribution of battlefield data in any form, ensuring the delivery of reports to the proper recipients regardless of the physical form they were sent or received. MOBIDIC was mounted in the trailer of a semi-trailer truck, while a second supplied power, allowing it to be moved about the battlefield. The Army referred to the system as the AN/MYK-1, or AN/MYK-2 for the dual-CPU version, Sylvania later offered a commercial version of the S 9400.
A Postal Index Number (PIN), or sometimes redundantly a PIN code, refers to a six-digit code in the Indian postal code system used by India Post.
A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier, sometimes colloquially known as a postie, is an employee of a post office or postal service, who delivers mail and parcel post to residences and businesses. The term "mail carrier" came to be used as a gender-neutral substitute for "mailman" soon after women began performing the job. In the Royal Mail, the official name changed from "letter carrier" to "postman" in 1883, and "postwoman" has also been used for many years.
A flight service station (FSS) is an air traffic facility that provides information and services to aircraft pilots before, during, and after flights, but unlike air traffic control (ATC), is not responsible for giving instructions or clearances or providing separation. They do, however, relay clearances from ATC for departure or approaches. The people who communicate with pilots from an FSS are referred to as flight service specialists.
FedEx Express, formerly Federal Express, is a cargo airline based in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. In 2017, it was the world's largest airline in terms of freight tons flown and the world's ninth largest in terms of fleet size. It is the namesake and leading subsidiary of FedEx Corporation, delivering freight and packages to more than 375 destinations across all six continents each day.
Rural Free Delivery (RFD) is a service that began in the United States in the late 19th century to deliver mail directly to rural farm families. Prior to RFD, individuals living in remote homesteads had to pick up mail themselves at sometimes distant post offices or pay private carriers for delivery. RFD became a political football, with politicians promising it to voters and using it themselves to reach voters.
Less-than-truckload shipping or less than load (LTL) is the transportation of relatively small freight. The alternatives to LTL carriers are parcel carriers or full truckload carriers. Parcel carriers usually handle small packages and freight that can be broken down into units less than 150 pounds (68 kg). Full truckload carriers move freight that is loaded into a semi-trailer. Semi-trailers are typically between 26 and 53 feet and require a substantial amount of freight to make such transportation economical.
Customer Configuration Updating (CCU) is a software development method for structuring the process of providing customers with new versions of products and updates production. This method is developed by researchers of the Utrecht University.
Rural letter carriers are United States Postal Service and Canada Post employees who deliver mail in what are traditionally considered rural and suburban areas of the United States and Canada. Before Rural Free Delivery (RFD), rural Americans and Canadians were required to go to a post office to get their mail.
The BvS 10 is an All Terrain Armoured Vehicle produced by BAE Systems Land Systems Hägglunds of Sweden. This vehicle, referred to as the All Terrain Vehicle (protected) - ATV(P) or Viking by the UK forces, was originally developed as a collaboration between industry - Hägglunds Vehicle AB - and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on behalf of the Royal Marines.
Postcodes in Australia are used to more efficiently sort and route mail within the Australian postal system. Postcodes in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, before the country. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by Australia Post, Australia's national postal service. Postcodes are published in booklets available from post offices or online from the Australia Post website.
Mail sorting refers to the methods by which postal systems determine how and where to route mail for delivery. Once accomplished by hand, mail sorting is now largely automated through the aid of specialized machines. The first widely adopted mail sorting machine was the Transorma, first made operational in Rotterdam in 1930.
Ferranti Canada's Route Reference Computer was the first computerized mail sorter system, delivered to the Canadian Post Office in January 1957. In spite of a promising start and a great deal of international attention, spiraling costs and a change in government led to the project being canceled later that year. Technical developments pioneered for the Route Reference Computer were put to good use by Ferranti in several projects that followed over the next decade.
Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time and, when releasing the software, doing so manually. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software with greater speed and frequency. The approach helps reduce the cost, time, and risk of delivering changes by allowing for more incremental updates to applications in production. A straightforward and repeatable deployment process is important for continuous delivery.
The Textron TAPV is an armoured car currently in use by the Canadian Army. It is essentially a heavier armoured upgrade of the M1117 Armoured Security Vehicle, developed for use by the military police of the US Armed Forces.
The Oshkosh M1070 is a U.S. Army tank transporter tractor unit. In current service in A0 and A1 configurations, the M1070 is coupled to a DRS Technologies M1000 semi-trailer. The primary purpose of this combination is the transport of the M1 Abrams tank.
