Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Postal Codes

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by filmmaker/podcaster Justin Decloux ('The Important Cinema Club' podcast, 'No Such Thing As A Bad Movie' podcast) and comedian/podcaster Matt Kirshen ('Probably Science' podcast, The Jim Jefferies Show) for a look at why postal codes are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Hey folks, this is episode number 49 of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating 4-9, and I can confirm one week from today, when episode 50 comes out, every patron will get sent a piece of digital art from artist Adam Koford, who's done amazing poster work for a bunch of people. You'll get that poster as digital art. It will celebrate all 50 episodes. I've always wanted that episode to feel like a party. I am thrilled we already got the celebration together. We already have that art-based celebration locked in. And if you're hearing this 49th episode right when it hits the free feed,

you are in the final week of the membership drive, seven days to go or less. So please consider making this the week you do it, the week you dive in and join this ever-expanding community. That's the last plug for the drive. Thanks so much for listening to that and to this show in general. Head to sifpod.fun to join in before episode 50, because in the meantime, here's episode 49. Because in the meantime, here's episode 49. Postal codes. Known for being places.

Famous for being numbers. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why postal codes are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there folks, welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Matt Kirshen returns to this podcast. You heard him on the episode about Nobel Prizes. Matt is a stand-up comedian and a TV comedy writer, and he co-hosts a tremendous podcast with the great Andy Wood. That podcast is called

Probably Science. I'm also joined by a new guest. He's another podcaster. He's also a filmmaker. Justin DeClew co-hosts the podcast No Such Thing as a Bad Movie. He also co-hosts the podcast The Important Cinema Club. I am so glad Justin and Matt are here to talk postal codes with me. And speaking of that, I've gathered all of our zip codes, and in Justin's case, his postal code, and I've used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Justin recorded this on the traditional land of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, Mississauga, and Wendat peoples. Acknowledge Justin recorded this on the traditional land of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, Mississauga, and Wendat peoples. Acknowledge Matt recorded this on the traditional

land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about Postal Codes. Postal Codes is the top patron pick for the month of June. Many thanks to Maria del Rosario Arguello for that great idea. Also, extra thank you to Caroline Gaston for some, you know, helpful suggestions on keeping this international. Because I'm originally from the United States, where we have zip codes as our postal code system. Also, there is a richer and better show out there if this is about all the postal code systems, right? Not just the US. We will not cover all of them in detail, but here's how I've approached this. I've booked guests with roots in the UK and in Canada, and then I've researched beyond those

so we can tackle Australia quite a bit, and also so we can tackle the Republic of Ireland quite a bit. And kind of right away in the takeaways, this episode explores the general situation of postal codes all across the world. And that last thing is what I think makes it truly global. At least one big takeaway on this show applies to your postal code system wherever you are. And I hope you enjoy hearing about all of it. So please sit back or sit in front of your calendar, making a reminder to do a letter to Santa this winter. More about that in the bonus.

Either way, here's this main episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Justin DeGlue and Matt Kirshen. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Justin, Matt, thank you so much for being here and doing this. And on every episode, I start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about postal codes? Well, I can start. Like many children that grew up, sending mail and, by consequence, postal code was very scary to me.

I thought that if I sent it out, it's just written, like, in a pen. And then I put it in a mailbox and it gets to where it's going. What if it gets lost? It'll be lost forever. And the postal code I later learned was the thing that was like, this is the general area. Even if you get the name wrong, even if you get it like, you know, close, but not quite. The postal code will direct them in the right place. And that was kind of a balm on my mind anytime i had to send a letter wow i can't say i have thought nearly as deeply about it as justin has

many sleepless nights i can tell you i've lived in both britain and in america where you have two different systems and the uk one is a lot more specific that's the only thing i can tell you the uk postal code is like drilled down to i think like half a street whereas really whereas the american zip code is just like ah vaguely i can also tell you this by the way i think the uk postal service does sort of pride itself on if you screw up one bit of it we'll still at least make an attempt to try and find where this letter is meant to go and there's they're like detectives they're like we will deliver this package and there's always uh you know there's a i think once every five years or so there's some there's some like quirky human interest

fun story that crops up in the newspapers that's something like someone wrote a letter to someone they met on holiday that was addressed to Margaret in the Red House or whatever. And some picture of a postman or postwoman and then just like, hey, we found them. But I can tell you on the other side of things in America, I live in Los Angeles and last

year, I don't know, actually it was two years, I've written off the last year. Two years ago when we got engaged, some family members tried to send some cards through one of those you know like i think it was like moon pig or one of those services where you just you know you don't manually send the card you sort of you do it on the line and then it sort of sends the card off you said moon pig as if me and alex are like yes of course moon pig we are aware we don't know moon pig it is a company where

you can send greeters cards of various sorts to to people and you know like a physical card it's yeah like rather than an e-card it actually it prints out a card and then posts it to someone now if it doesn't have like the faces of relatives like dancing on animated figures i don't want any i i have a suspicion they might do that as well but that was oh no was that jib jab i don't know yeah it's jib jab it's still around i'm shocked every time i receive one i i won't lie when that first came out that was mind-blowing technology because i mean that was like your head at but just on an on a dancing elf what a world. And he's skiing and he's doing stuff. Oh, this is amazing.

You know, if you defrosted someone who'd crash-landed their World War I plane into the ice and then show them that, I mean, that would be... He's like, Moon Pig, the future is now. But I can tell you, I had made a mistake and given my family my new address where we live together, but with the zip code from my old apartment, which is, I'm going to say like five miles or

less than five miles away. I've cycled between the two places. Like when I was moving places, I actually had, you know, rather than my bike didn't fit in my car very easily. So I just thought, well, I'll just cycle between the two. And it was about 15 minute bike ride. And I'm not a fast cyclist. That gives you an idea of the distances involved. And the car just never arrived. Like that was, that was enough. Like the wrong zip code,

but with the correct every other part of the address. And I can tell you that there is only one street by this name in Los Angeles. And that was still, that was still like, well, we have no way. There is no way possibly to solve this mystery. So all we can do is burn this card. Yeah, it went into like the giant furnace they have

of like cards, parcels, no bounce backs. I mean, for me in the United States, there's only one zip code. It's 90210. Every kid when they were on the internet knew if you had to fill something out. And it's like, you can only do this if you're from the United States. You put in 90210 and you make to fill something out, and it's like, you can only do this if you're from the United States.

You put in 90210 and you make up an address. Yeah. It's like, they're important. There's only one zip code is 90210. There's only one possible briefcase combination code, and that's 007. There it is. Do people actually put that as a briefcase code? Are they like, I am so cool, and they open it up?

There's no way anyone's going to crack this mystery. Yeah. No, only a very stupid person would do that. Click, click, click. I mean, a person who click, click, click, click would make that click changing it, changing it really fast. Whoa, Alex has like a bunch of briefcase in front of him while we're recording. I didn't even notice until now. Yeah.

I'm ready to split at a moment's notice. I'm out of here. Yeah. This, this whole podcast has a very, very strict time limit. And that is, uh,

yeah, that is due to the bomb that he, uh, he sets going at the beginning of every episode. We're all like handcuffed to briefcases. And he's like, if you do well, there'll be a hint through the zip codes.

We talk about what the code will be to open those briefcases and get the bombs off. Yeah. And thank you both for helping me cover a lot of countries because with your experience and Justin in Canada and Matt from the UK, no single podcast can do every country on Earth, but we've got a set of them. I feel good. It's good. Canada, US, UK. Those are all the countries, right? Yeah.

The three kinds of place. Because also I did a membership drive for this show, and then I was mailing people cards and stickers, and I sent them to more countries than that. And anything that wasn't the US, I was doing a lot of Googling of like, okay, how does this postcode work? And how do I not mess it up? And I was like child Justin. I was like, I can't fail this postcode work? And how do I not mess it up? And I was like,

child Justin, I was like, I can't fail at this code. I have to get it right. I have to ship packages too. And sometimes I'll look and I'll be like, in the Netherlands, is there like an extra line for something? Which one is the village? Which one is the country? I don't know. Shakily putting it into the mailbox. Like, goodbye. I may never see you again. Yeah. So they're all different, and I'm glad we can cover a lot of them. And it won't just be those three countries I mentioned that we're talking about. But on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic

is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called Every Sum You Take statistics and this week that's in a segment called every sum you take to do do do do do numeral you make do do do do do do aggregate you break every stat you take i'll be counting you i'm glad you did the like do do do so we could all stay on beat when we're like singing at home as well. That went on substantially longer than I was expecting. What would you do if you like launched into like another chorus and a verse and just sang the whole song? Yeah, it's just like a minute, two minutes later, it's still okay.

You see, we just have to sit there awkwardly while he's just. And he changed like all the lyrics too. Like he spent a week rewriting it like this weird old novelty song. Right. There's stuff about your lives and you're like, that's too much research. Please. Like way too personal. It's like, Justin, I remember on your 11th birthday, you sent a letter.

It's not even like in the same song you just mixed a bunch of songs together and you're wearing blue shorts how does he even know this I knew I shouldn't have put up that teddy bear Alex sent me in the office well uh thank you to Steven the Lesser for that suggestion.

We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to Sip Pot on Twitter or to Sip Pot at gmail.com. And it's a huge numbers and stats section this week because a lot of postal codes are numerical. And there's a lot of them to talk about. And the first number here is 41,692. And 41,692 is the number of zip codes in the United States. That's according to the USPS.

They have just a website with a bunch of stats about themselves. I feel that I'm like, is that too much or not enough? Yeah, kind of both, I think. We'll talk about other countries that go way under or over. Yeah. Yeah, I'm disappointed to find out that it's not 99,999. Yeah. Like they just ran to the end of the numbers?

Yeah. True. We know it's going to be five digits, so we'll just cover every blade of grass in America with a zip code. I was hoping it'd be 90210, 9,000. Yeah, that's the end one that's the end of that that's where it ends that's why the show is called that do you think there's anybody out there that like knows every postal code and knows exactly like what it represents like an ancient powerful

postal worker yeah or you know someone who has a lot of time on their hands and really wants to impress people at parties. Like, what's your postal code? Oh, I know exactly where you live. There's this and this and this. It's like, oh, okay. But I also like, Alex, your idea of the wizened postal worker, like sitting and he has like scrolls and he had to remember them all because no computer could do it for him. Yeah, he was carrying us as a United States.

He was taking care of it. And now. Yeah. When you look down at the sand, there's only one set of footsteps. it for him yeah he was carrying us as a as a united states he was taking care of it and now yeah when you look down at the sand there's only one set of footsteps it's the guy that knew all 41 000 postal codes he was carrying it through he's like and the steps are in three seven eight six one your code whatever Those were the last words he ever said. But also the one thing, and I think some people know this, especially if they've moved around the U.S., but even though it's impossible to just mentally know where a zip code is, they kind of run east to west by numbers. So the low end is 00501 in Holtzville, New York. And then the high end is 99950 in Ketchikan, Alaska. Those aren't the endpoints of the country, but they in general, the numbers go that way.

Yeah, I was gonna say it's like, oh, yeah, that New York, that's that's the garbage of the United States. That's why we put you on the low end. And Ketchikan is full self-actualization, top of the pyramid. Like, yeah, good for them. Keep it up. Yeah, everyone is like hovering through the air and stuff like that. That brings us to a next number here for the number section of 12345. And 12345 is a real zip code. It was created as a unique zip code

for a giant headquarters and plant for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. And it turns out many postal systems, including the US, a large institution can request their own postal code and get one. Really? They'll have it custom made because they get so much mail. Huh.

Huh. Yeah. Why would you want, like, a custom postal code, though? Like, what specific... It's just a bunch of numbers, right? Oh, and I think... It just looks cool. Just something to show off about at parties.

Right. Yeah, I pick my postal code. You, like, show the tattoo you have on your arm. Yeah. It's my birthday. Right. arm like yeah it's my birthday right yeah and i think it's custom not in like the the vanity license plate sense where you spell something or whatever it's more just like we need our own like we just need to possess one so the the mail is easy and if we're gonna have one why not have

it be one two three four five yeah you're like i want one two three four five like you can't have it sorry take it it's like i want. You don't know who you're messaging. Like, what organizations are, like, big enough, I guess Amazon, to, like, demand a postal code? Yeah, I guess it turns out the main reason is internal revenue service offices for tax collection. Oh. And that's, so that's why, like, that Holtzville, New York lowest one is an IRS office. Like, there's a bunch of, it's all so the government can get its money. Yeah, it is the garbage of the country.

We got it. Do you guys have... Because in Canada, if you send a letter to Santa Claus, the postal code is like, ho, ho, ho. So it's like H0, H0, H0. Is there anything like that? Is there a specific one that you would send it to?

I'm sure if you do send it through that, it just goes into a big incinerator anyway, but I the idea of like that funny postal code are there any like funny ones you can think of we'll actually we'll talk all about santa letters in the bonus show that's the whole thing and canada's the best okay yeah they're amazing is uh well then let's save that thought but i do want to know whether the ho ho ho postcode was that intentional or was that just a lucky coincidence it would be hilarious if it was a lucky coincidence they're like oh my god we just landed on this and it used to be something else i mean is there a postal code i i don't want to you know go into patreon content but that spell that spells boobs because that's like a funny number right oh oh yeah does anyone who lives at

58008 yeah exactly i mean I have to Google it right now. Alex is like quickly searching right now. Oh, so there is no 80885. All right. I'm making a giant organization. There's no 80885, but is there 58008? So it's the upside down boobs. Yeah, there you go. But is there 5-8-0-0-8? So it's the upside down boobs.

Yeah, there you go. And to be clear, my source is an IMDb trivia page for a Simpsons episode. But it does say, because it's the first thing I Googled, it does say that the town of Barney, North Dakota is 5-8-0-0-8. So they have done the calculator version of flipping it upside down, getting there. Yeah, people laugh every time they it upside down and getting there. Yeah. People laugh every time they put that down on an envelope. Like, they're the happiest town in the country. Yeah.

Well, and the next number here is four, because that is the number of digits in an Australian postcode. Their postcodes are just four digits, and it's all numbers. It feels very, like, sudden when you say it that way.'re like just four just four right five seems like a postal code four not enough that's that's too small but also then you've go to my sister lives in australia and i so i did know that because her address has a four at the end but um but also when you real australia has i think it's i think it's under 25 million people, but also it's mostly... Desert? Yeah, well, there's like five or six cities that have most of the country.

So it's like, all right, so there's only four postal codes. That's why we only need four numbers. Yeah. The rest is like, ah, the desert there, I guess. You know, the big one, the smaller one. That is a good question, though, because there must be some... Everywhere must have a code so there must be some in australia there must be like some codes that are a small section of sydney that contains thousands of people and then there must be

like a code that can that is hundreds of square miles that has like a couple of houses maybe and uh and some kind of research station a hundred feral cats and that's it yeah right yeah oh yeah that's the feral cats uh corner that's uh the postal code for the feral cats yeah wait in the uk matt do are there letters in your postal code there are so so the way the postal code works in britain is two letters then a number number, then, in fact, sometimes two numbers. All right, I'm already lost. Wait, what? So the way it works is...

Abort, abort. So, like, I used to live... One of the places I used to live was N103AG, and the N10 is... The N means North London, 10 means it's the 10th zone out in north london and then the 3ag the last letter and two and sorry number and two letters that's just like divided into zones what city or major town is it within the sort of catchment area of and that's the first two letters

or first letter or two letters so like london is divided up into a bunch of different ones because it's so big so there's like n and w wc like west central south southeast whatever but most other places would just be like one letter or two letters for like bristol birmingham uh edinburgh whatever and then a number to show what zone out from there it is so like i think ed1 is central edinburgh and then like e5 will be like a certain distance out from Edinburgh. And then that zone will be divided into little sub zones and that will be basically drilled down to. I don't know how many houses per street it is, but it's like, you know, it'll be somewhere. It'll be like an area, half of a street. See, in Canada, I'm sure there's a system close to that.

But I was just going to say it's a letter and then a number and then a letter and then a number which is how you get the ho ho that's how you get the ho ho ho and I also think like American and maybe Australian listeners might be surprised by the whole letters in a postal code thing at all

I didn't really know about it until I think I was an adult because you just don't come across it within the U.S. or within Australia. You're like, what is this foreign place I have to mail something to? There's letters in the postal code. And I think the letters also, I think it lets them do a ton of combinations, because the next number here is the approximate number of postcodes in the United Kingdom. And according to the royal mail in 2016 there were approximately 1.8 million right holy moly which is so they can get intensely specific

with a postal code as far as that goes and then the number for canada and this is more of a loose number because it's from a private company that says they have a database but the number for canada is over 875,000 different postal codes. So that's a lot of coverage. Like I said, like one post... By the way, I was wrong. Edinburgh is EH rather than ED. I just looked it up.

I didn't want to misinform your listeners. Oh, man. People were like screaming when you were saying that. I know. People were already like... There's some Scottish listeners who already drafted their angry email. So you can delete that now.

Just flipping their desks over. But yeah, you can... Just your house number and the postcode is enough to identify where you live if you if needs be the british one it can be six to eight characters there's a space in the middle and then the canadian one it's specifically three letters three numbers alternating so they're just like making it up as they go along they're like ah we can have 15 why not yeah we need to make some more so the six to eight the reason is that the the city or town is either one or two letters so like north london is just n but edinburgh is eh yeah uh and then you can and then the number straight after that is either

if it's one of the central ones it'll be like one two three but it could be as much as like you know like i said i used to live in n10 so that was while australia is like we get four we just get four that's it yeah yeah australia has basically a pin number for an atm it's like it was my thing done that's it oh no it's 1007 again yeah who would have that pin number driving to an atm driving over i love knowing that with the british postal codes you can kind of know somebody's neighborhood from that code that's amazing yeah and with the with the canadian ones my understanding is it's it's sort of like the u.s where you just get an east to west gist from it because the first letter you get like a gist so So like mine starts with M.

So you know that like people are in like the M section. Yeah, of Ontario. Around you, which we recently had to do because when they were giving COVID vaccines, they're like, oh, all of these M's can get their first vaccine. And I was like looking and I'm like, ah, mine's not there.

I'm surrounded by people that can get it. Interesting. Yeah, and it's apparently it's a all the way in the atlantic and then y in the yukon territory and the other letters in between just that first letter does canada have the equivalent of the phrase postcode lottery no what does that mean which is it's an expression in the uk that's used to mean things like uh depending on where you depending on where you live and this is something obviously that's universal to most countries that um depending on where you live your your services are varied like you know if you you might have better schools or better hospitals but the expression for that that

often gets used in the press is the postcode lottery oh so like you live in the rich area of town yeah exactly you live in e8 three you get this kind of school but if you live in e8 four you only have access to this kind of school or vice versa. I don't know if that's much of a lottery. It's more like, yeah, you know, generational wealth most of the time. Right. I mean, it'd be great if you just moved somewhere and you were like, yeah, I got a good postal code just randomly. But it's like, no, I have the money and i bought this i bought the postal code well and that's fascinating to identify with your your postal code so much too because i think in

the u.s it's i think we identify more with our area codes if it's anything there's somebody from my hometown who they made their twitter bio location the 630 which was our area code for the phones but like no one that like identifying with that is more of a thing than than our i think our zip codes here that that is yeah that's a good point i've seen quite a few i know quite a few people who have things like tattoos of their hometown uh phone code the three numbers what if it changes it could like split up oh yes it could, it could. That's true. The next number here springs from the British postal system. It's the year 1917. Because before there was a full postal code system in the UK, there were a few postal districts in the big cities, starting with London.

And in the year 1917, the British Royal mail system introduced postal districts for the large uk city of dublin because dublin at the time was in the uk ireland was part of the uk but they did this in 1917 ireland almost immediately becomes independent and then once they were independent yeah it was like the next year if my memory is correct did they do it because they didn't want postal codes they're like this is the last straw postal codes wait am i wrong about that fact as well was it eight was it 1918 that was it 1920 i think i've got i've got 1919 but i think there were demonstrations before that and i feel like the writing was on the wall of of ireland would like out and then, meanwhile, was like, here's a bunch of systems for mail. You know, it was a very strange timing for this action in Dublin.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. The War of Independence was 1919 to 1921. You were very close. Very close. I should have known that. But yeah. And so then they the Royal Mail tried to put postal districts into Dublin's mail in 1917.

Ireland's immediately independent. And then from there, they kind of kept those postal zones, but the Irish mail system just didn't really adopt that after that. They were like, okay, Britain, forget it. So were they like, no, we don't need postal codes. We're just going to go our own way. We've created symbols to represent different districts. So we're good. No need for numbers. created symbols to represent different districts. So we're good. No need for numbers. Yeah, kind of. Well, it leads us into our first takeaway of the main episode. Here we go into takeaway number one. Your national postal code system might be obsolete unless you live in Ireland. Oh, no. There's two things here. And one of them is that Ireland in 2015 introduced

like a new way of doing postal codes that the rest of the world maybe should catch up to. I don't know if they like it, but it's more advanced. I am on the edge of my seat to know what this is. Yeah, it's a it's a system called air codes, which is spelled E-I-R-C-O-D-E. codes which is spelled e-i-r-c-o-d-e uh like the the oh air as in the the country rather than air as in the uh yeah part of that isn't the ground yeah i checked i checked the pronunciation in like an irish news video and i i kept hearing it as like airpods but that's just my dumb american uh hearing of it no i think the pronunciation is pretty much the same. But yeah, and so until 2015 and partly from breaking away from the UK, the

Republic of Ireland did not have a postal code system. They just had you write down the street and the city and hopefully it gets there. They figure it out. That is such a righteous decision. They're like, we're breaking off with the UK. This postal code they tried to introduce, we're never adopting it.

Yeah. Ever. No, no. All the ideas were bad from them. Yes, we're out. Yeah, that's right. And so in 2015, they used like the modern technology we have. They use computers and the internet and everything else.

And they said, okay, this is a brand new air code system. They sent a piece of mail to every address in ireland to tell them their air code and the way the system works is that every address in all of ireland has its own air code so every location in all of ireland has its own postal code now so wait a minute so it's like every building has their own number, like an address, if you will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'm quite grasping it at this point. Yeah, it's according to Liam Duggan, who was an official with the consortium that developed it, quote, each air code can be mapped to show its precise location anywhere in the country. Each air code can be mapped to show its precise location anywhere in the country.

And then as of 2016, with Google Maps, you can just type in the air code and get the address in Ireland, wherever it is. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, like, I could type an address, like, I don't know, 17 Rush Home, and then boom, it would show up. Now you can type another address, and that will also give you that building. yeah that's right yeah so it's just two addresses yeah it's like a it's a smart code uh is what they're calling it according to irish communications minister pat rabbit and maybe matt matt could does this make sense to you um i i'm i i'm still i'm still stuck on the name pat rabbit me too i almost didn't want to say it it's distracting uh yeah listen he loves carrots he's always making trouble in the garden because ireland has had like this huge tech boom in the last few decades yeah where a bunch of tech

companies moved over to ireland that's where uh you know a lot of their income has come from in the last 20 30 years and they're trying to make a big leap because like according to quartz there was no system before 2015 also 35 percent of houses in the country had didn't have a unique name or number according to the government wow and there are also there are also a lot of anecdotes in this quartz article of irish people receiving a piece of mail that just has their name on it and like there's no street address or nothing like just the system is handmade enough before this that people were like oh that guy okay yeah we can do

that and and brought it to them okay so so this air code is also just you know a regular number for houses that didn't have one yeah yeah and it's a sequence of several letters and numbers it's unique for every address and okay okay this makes a little bit more sense now i'm following yeah it's a leap i could i've never quite worked out what the deal is with this part of this but america has five digit zip codes but also sometimes you get a longer zip code that some when you put your address oh yeah we don't talk about those those are like devil's you don't want to go there don't want to say it especially three times in the mirror because boy you're gonna have trouble but like i i think i the U.S. Postal Service does have a kind of more drilled down specific code number for areas in the U.S.

That's right. It has like the kind of general, it'll be like 90210-4145. Yeah, it's called a zip plus four. And the situation is the first three numbers of a zip code are the general area. The fourth and fifth numbers are a more specific area. And then that plus four is a specific mail route or a specific side of the street or some other element of the physical last delivery of the mail. And they tried to get everybody to start using all nine numbers and Americans just refused. So large businesses do it, but just enough Americans refused to do it that they gave up.

So everyone has one of these plus fours, but lots of people don't use them. Wait, when did they try to implement the plus four? In the 80s. Okay. Yeah, because every so often if I'm putting my details into a website, like to buy something or some kind of admin website, every so often if i'm putting my details into a website like to buy something or you know some kind of admin website and i'll put in my my address like my street address number and then the zip code and then it'll say like uh do you actually mean uh like uh 9029 dash whatever the number is and then i just have to kind of go like yeah okay probably yeah yeah i have no way to

correct you on this so i'm just going to assume that's right yeah you said they tried to bring it in the 80s did they bring back mr zip the zip code mascot and he had like a backwards baseball cap and he was on like a skateboard and the america was like i will have none of this have you heard of this guy matt oh i thought you were entirely inventing a thing right then and i was impressed no when they uh i'm still impressed but for different reasons the postal code they have they brought this mascot character called mr zip which was just like if you look him up it looks like his back is broken and it's like arms and legs are out like this so when when i started this podcast the first episode is about u.s post offices

and partly to celebrate doing it i purchased a mr zip t Zip t-shirt. I have a Mr. Zip t-shirt at home. I'm not wearing it right now. Sorry. But yeah, he's weird and great. Yeah. And we'll talk about him a little later. And like for a while, if you got stamps in the States and you peel the stamp off, Mr. Zip would be like looking at you underneath the stamp being like, better use that zip coat.

He's always like running a little bit. He's always like, he's like the Heisman Trophy sort of. He's always like, ah, I'm up to stuff you know yeah but also like from justin's description like he's fun but also carries a threat oh yeah definitely definitely like he has a he has a sight he can like he's just committed a crime that's why he's running away which is like arms out like this and he's like i'm coming for you if you don't write that zip code i i only really know of him because in the episode of the simpsons where um they lose the rights to itchy and scratchy they win the rights back and get a bunch of money by proving that mr zip was a ripoff of manic mailman which is another stick figure guy that's right yeah so uh yeah but mr zip will live in our hearts i wonder if

there's mr zip tattoos out there he's got a little hat too like he's a train conductor i'm very sure there must be yeah i'm searching right now mr zip tattoos oh definitely there's multiple that came out oh no ah he looks even more horrifying than I remember. He has a big head and no neck, and it looks like he's smelling the envelope that he's holding in his hands. Yeah. Yeah. We'll come back to him a little bit later.

I want to do one last thing with the air codes, which is that it's this seven-character thing, and the US zip plus four is kind of a good touchstone. It's just enough characters where you can get really really specific but part of the reason air codes exist is that because of the internet and also satellites and and our ability to like globally position things there's an idea out there that now postal codes are obsolete you kind of you kind of don't need that you can just tell a computer the general geographic area this is in, and it will calculate where it needs to be routed. And like postal codes

are a less exact version of that from the past. And there's also a great thing Matt sent me when he heard about this topic, which is an app called What3Words, which has geocoded the entire earth in a way that we could like we don't need to have postal codes anymore we're done with it i think it was originally a guy who promoted concerts and he wanted a more accurate way to tell like the load-in crew exactly where like the gate is for the for the bands rather than the uh yeah rather than having to describe it but this can now also be used in places around the world that don't necessarily have clear road systems and so on. He spoke to some mathematician who worked out that

you only need three words to divide the entire world into... Is it square meter grids? Or is it like... How big is each grid? Yeah, and Matt, I should have told you we were diving into this today, but i pulled up their site and and it's every square is three meters on each side which is you know a little less than 10 feet three meters okay three meters by three meters so that's really quite specific for just and so it'll just be sort of three random

seeming words it'll be like uh you know uh potato bluff cabinet or whatever and that those three words are enough to right narrow down to not even like where which house but like which part of the house uh i would love to be able to write that like on letters like i'll send it to the potato bluff cabinet uh geo numbers please yeah a lot of the concert promoters is refusing to like make me an app so the band start on time and we don don't have to sit there for 45 minutes. He's like, no, no, I don't want that. I just want the geocode thing. But it's also great for things like music festivals

or if you're having like a picnic in the park, well, like a birthday party in the park or whatever, rather than going like, all right, it's by the lake. It's in between the lake and the wood or next to the flag or whatever, you just go like, all right, now it's... I feel like big companies would rather like chip us instead. And it like oh just go near this person just look in the system we're always tracking them now that everybody's chipped yeah it it basically is that powerful like like and i'll we'll have linked the site for people to look at it because it's as matt described like

any building is a bunch of these squares like i looked up my apartment and it's several squares i looked up which square i'm taping in you know and the what three words people say you saw yourself like in the future you're like no yeah like your front door might be like donkey wallpaper satisfaction but like your bedroom is like not even just your bedroom like your bed well right is donkey wallpaper satisfaction yeah yeah it better be am i right hey i don't know what that means it doesn't even mean anything but it sounds dirty when you say it it did yeah yeah yeah and the what three words people say that their app is used daily in 193 countries, especially because they say that three quarters of the world's population doesn't have reliable mailing addresses.

So you can just use this. And they didn't need to send anyone any physical mail or a notice of it or anything. They took the earth, used the internet, and boom, they made it a grid. It's easy. Yeah. If you've got the app, I yeah if you've got the app i think if you've got the app loaded in your phone you don't even need to be connected to wi-fi like it can tell you the uh it could just use your gps and tell you where you are so if you you know let's

say you're you get lost while hiking in a bad signal area or you can find out exactly what three words you're in and then as long as you can get just just enough of a signal to send through a text yeah you can tell people exactly where you are to within a like three by three grid yeah and they can like rescue you i mean this seems like a great system but america will split up before they adopt it people won't do it or or it'll help like separatists will be like i have a square now goodbye the other 49 states yeah they're like i'm a robot flamethrower cartwheel that's my square and i will defend it to the death yeah i mean all of these words are great too like i'm looking at where i live and i just want to say it because it's fun to say but i'm not going to yeah but if you say

it then people can pinpoint literally know where i am yeah like powerfully dox yourself not even your house number they will know where you're the room you're currently recording in yeah yeah the predator drone listening to this will be like got it great oh no is this whole website made by some kind of like predatory organization that just wants to... Who also puts on concerts. Oh, man. Like one of them, I'll change some words. It's like donkey curvy waterboat. It's like these words, whoever picked them, they're great. They are very silly. Because I wanted to find an example that's not where I'm sitting. The square for part of New York City's City Hall building is Clip Apple's Leap. So that's not where i'm sitting uh the square for part of new york city city hall

building is clip apple's leap so that's it you can just have a meeting there i'm looking here at a park and it's hips allow womb like it feels like somebody made that up like as a joke that park that park is dirty don't go there yeah that's the nude park the closing option a lot of birthing you know uh yep all right off of that we're going to a short break followed by the big takeaways see you in a sec I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes.

I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace,

because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And then the the other thing with these future codes is even though they are like constructed in a better way than anything before, like the air code in Ireland, they're finding that people are kind of slow to adopt it. The Irish Times in 2017 found out that, among other things,

Ireland's National Postal Service is not yet using it for local deliveries. What? So when you say people, you actually mean the organization that brought it in? Yes. yes yeah the government who is meant to use it doesn't use it yeah they they pointed out that the government spent 38 million euros laying this out and so it's weird that the postal system isn't using it yet they're upset about that listen listen take mr zip out of mothballs, bring him back, Ireland. But like, actually, this brings us into the other main takeaway of the show. Takeaway number two. It's been difficult to get any countries on board with using postal codes, and for a couple reasons.

And the main stories here are the U.S. and Canada. And the U.S., one strategy they used to make zip codes what they are now is mr zip like they had to do the labor of cartoon characters and and psas and begging to to like get people to do this system is mr zip like please they're going to kill my family don't think they're gonna hurt me why would you just not put it it's so easy he tries every kind of tactic he tries begging cajoling threatening like what what has the what has the best like what persuades people the best is it like do we like angry mr zip like there's a test there's like they have like focus groups like does mr zip have the biggest uptick when you feel like he hates you or he loves you how buff does mr Mr. Zip need to be?

If he's ripped, is it like you want to trust him more? Or is he more wily, like an assassin? Is it like a slovenly Mr. Zip? That way people will buy into it more. It's like a cook. You don't want a thin cook. He probably doesn't enjoy what he eats then. Or is he sexy

do we try sex let's try we'll try sexy today and see if that has any kind of up to yeah let's see what he's zipping i mean i think mr zip people would buy into him if he had like a monocle and like a top hat it's like i want to be like mr zip look how refined he is like mr peanut ask rest in peace mr peanut i feel like if they had done like an animated children's cartoon with mr zip like he's going on adventures and like at the end he needs the zip code at the every at the end of every episode kids would be like oh yeah i get zip codes now um by the way this is a fun trivia question uh just vaguely vaguely on topic but on what eye does uh the the monopoly man wear his

monocle i don't know i thought it was just for show so he can switch them out do you know which eye i i know the answer do you do you want to take a guess uh left the answer is neither he does not have a monocle people just i knew that was the answer oh no well who's getting surprised all the time And dropping their monocle if not the Monopoly man Guys I have a lot of tattoos to change We should take this later The rest of the show

I'm covered in tattoos of him with a monocle You're like looking in the mirror Your big Monopoly man tattoo you have on your arm This is a huge disaster for me Oh no My Mr. mr zip is still okay monopoly man broken uh no yeah mr zip's good buff sexy mr zip of course sexy threatening you know it's like sexy but threatening but in a nice way. Like, you know. Yeah. Very market tested.

I would love if like Mr. Zip came back. You know, when they tried to introduce the plus four, but it's like not Mr. Zip. It's like his younger, cooler, like cousin or something like that. Like Scruff to McGruff the crime dog. He's like, hey, radical. You know what's better than just normal postcodes? Four more of them cowabunga you want to do whippets oh my god things got dark with um what was it's like a mr zip jr he's like uh mr zip's my father's name call me zip and mr zip he was a core part of we're mainly going to talk about the efforts of the U.S. and Canada to convince their populations to do a postal code.

But this cartoon character was one of the key ones in the U.S. They also, they fully implemented a zip code in the U.S. in 1963. That was when it rolled out. So, and, you know, in some people's lifetimes listening to this, that was when we started having them. Do you think like Mr. Zip in the commercials, he was like smoking? He's like, nothing goes better down smooth

than a cool zip code and a drag of my Lucky Strike cigarette. Like the Flintstones. You know what else doctors recommend? As one of these delicious Marlboros like mr zip is like crossing over with the flintstones and stuff like that he's like we're inventing the zip code barney sorry i'm just imagining like mr zip main like beetle mania it's like zip mania yeah people can't get enough of mr zip andip and then the original Mr. Zip develops a drinking problem and they just have to

quietly face him out and replace him and hope no one notices yeah with the character just called Zip it's like I remember Mr. Zip being different didn't he have a monocle or something oh no he never had a monocle just like the original Monopoly man that they kind of like phased out yeah he did

he had a monocle and a slightly sort of red complexion like al capish complexion on his face it was a different time and he wasn't allowed to drive we remember mr zip he was not allowed to try right that's why he's a letter carrier he had to give up the van. Poor guy. And with Mr. Zip and the other attempts they made, they were also hoping it would go smoothly because one of the big inspirations for U.S. postal codes was West Germany. West Germany as a country put in postal codes in 1961. They achieved 80% adoption within one year.

So people were like, we'll just do a West Germany. We'll do that. It's going to be great. And then it was a lot harder. Germans don't need some kind of cartoon mascot to persuade them. The equivalent German campaign was, we're using these postcodes now. Okay. No problem're, okay. No problem.

Sounds good. And so they did a cartoon campaign around Mr. Zip, the friendly zip code guy. They also created a band called The Swinging Six. And The Swinging Six made musical PSAs about zip codes. So there's, we'll link for people, there's this whole show that Swinging Six put on to promote them. And then despite all that promotion, it took a ton of federal effort to get people on board. According to John Kelly of the Washington Post, zip codes rolled out in 1963, but it took until the late 1960s for most Americans to start using them. Until then, people were like, I don't know, I could take or leave this.

I don't know. I mean, wouldn't the mail just bounce back? And once it starts to bounce back, you're like, oh, maybe I should start using zip codes because they're not going to accept it if I don't write them down. Yeah, I feel like every country needed to hit a tipping point with its postal codes where your mail stops getting delivered if you don't use them and at every country there's initially this like liminal period where you can just get away with it yeah yeah until they're like nope we just ripped your your letter up then i sent a video of us just ripping your letter up and send it back to you that's how you know you

didn't get it you didn't write that damn postal code on it. We've had the system We've had the system you've had the zip yeah If if you we've had decades of mr. Zip now, and if you don't know by now you're on your own We are burning your engagement cards. Yeah, mr. Zip you get a photo of him like destroying your letter at the door We're supposed to go yeah, they're like But we didn't cuz you didn't write that postal code down. Oh, I tried to warn you. I warned you on TV. I warned you in newspaper adverts. I warned you in your dreams. Remember your dreams when

I appeared to warn you? I warned you through song? There's a whole band. There was six Mr. Zips. The Zips. How much more? How much more does Mr. Zip have to do to do no there isn't a mrs. zip anymore you know mr. he sleeps in a race car bed every night can I borrow a zip code

Can I borrow a zip code? Yeah, just... Going around Springfield. You know what we landed on? It's just patheticness. Mr. Zip has no dignity. That's how we're going to get people to use zip codes. They're just embarrassed by him. They'd rather he leave.

So they'll just start using zip codes. Hey, I'm just going to keep showing up until you learn. Mr. Zip, have you been wearing the same clothes for weeks now? Who cares man? Who cares? Hey, hey, I tried to order new clothes, but someone didn't know how to send clothes properly through the

mail. Mr. Zip lives a all-mail based life If you don't write it, I can't get it I'm so hungry. You're not writing the zip code. Well, also, one more group that Mr. Zip would have yelled at is the White House, because there was an embarrassing stage of U.S. zip code adoption where

they started them in 1963. And then in June 1965, President Lyndon Johnson had to order federal agencies to start using zip codes, please, because they weren't doing it yet. And then from there, people found out that the White House stationery had the address, but not the zip code 20500. They skipped it. So the White House wasn't doing it. And then later on, when the next administration came under Richard Nixon, they also found out that Nixon was not using it. And then he had to start having people do it. Even the federal government was like, come on. Come on, man. Not doing this. There's only one way to solve this. Mr. Zip for president. He has a bit libertarian leanings, but listen,

it's the only way we're going to get to full zip code adoption. And then the other adoption story is Canada. And Canada is sort of a, it's a little bit of a different case because it's much more of a labor struggle thing. Because in the US, we won't go way into detail on it, but there's an amazing book called Undelivered by historian Philip F. Rubio. It's about the history of the USPS. And he talks about strikes they did in the 1970s to get a lot more rights and better wages. And then when zip codes came along, it was kind of too late for them to stop that mechanizing some of their job and eliminating a few postal jobs. But Canada,

they didn't start rolling out postal codes until 1971. And according to a bunch of sources, mainly the CBC here, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers openly boycotted the postal code system and battled it for years because they were afraid of it mechanizing, mail sorting, and removing some jobs. But then you had people at the post office actively sabotaging the postal code system because they didn't want it to be used, which is amazing. Oh, that's amazing. So how did they finally... They didn't crack down on the unions, did they, to finally get Canada to adopt the postal codes? Yeah, it's unclear. It definitely led to more negotiations to hopefully protect workers in other ways.

But the Canadian Union was basically agitating and threatening strikes from the start of postal codes in 1971 all the way into 1976. 1971 all the way into 1976. And there were things like the Canadian Union of Postal Workers spokesman, John Claude Perrault, who told reporters that the union was not opposed to progress, but quote, postal workers don't have the real right to negotiate the effect of automation. And then according to the CBC, Montreal postal workers started deliberately delaying any mail that had a postal code on it. They said, if you don't write a postal code, we'll put it through. And then a union leader there named Marcel Perrault openly told the press that they would, quote, take all means to give more rapid service to those who support us in this campaign, end quote. Like they told everybody, don't put a code on it we will not

help you we are mad about this system that effort was led by the evil mr piz oh like a bizarro like yeah like a mustache and like a quebec accent you again who needs postal codes don't even put addresses on it it's more work more jobs right mr zip he's a drunk not me i'm a cool guy and then they battle like in the last episode of an anime where they explode and they're both gone wait do they become like more powerful? They're all like, oh! And also the union was being smart, I think, because we'll link an amazing,

it's a piece of archival footage from the CBC from 1952. So this is 20 years before. And it's a Video Canada post made of an experimental mail sorting machine that they're very proud of. Is it like evil, though? Is it like it starts to like kill people and stuff like that? They're like, no automation. Right. But it's got like a chipper 50s announcer and he describes it as having a brain. He describes it as having a memory.

it as having a memory and the last line the last line of this like filmstrip thing is is this quote one machine doing the work of 500 human sorters and it never forgets it never forgets happiness pain sorrow want yes we built a machine to feel all human emotions? It wouldn't do a good job if it didn't feel pain. Yeah. And they had like, so the Canada Post people were like openly saying, we would really like to mechanize some jobs away. And so they struck. They were like, obviously we're going to sabotage this every way we can. Automation is terrible.

Soon just robots will be podcasting and making jokes and humans will be completelying and making jokes and humans will be completely out of the equation oh no we could be robots right now the person listening couldn't even know what if mr piz was a drunk why would he be a drunk but and canadian postal codes just were also really slow to take off by the the end of 1974, according to the Montreal Gazette, only 38.2% of Canadians were using them. So three years in, you know, maybe more than a third, not a lot more than a third were actually using them. And so in other countries, too, I'm sure there's a similar history of like, the government tried to do a postal code. And for one reason or another, people were like, I don't want to, or I want to fight for postal jobs or something about this bugs me. No way. Just any kind of change.

And they're like, no, thank you. Nope. Yeah. Don't want to do it. Any little extra effort. Yeah. You added an extra stair. I'm not going up that stairway anymore.

You have to carry me. Do it. And Mr. Zip is like, fine. And he uses his crazy cocaine energy. Oh man, Mr. Zip moved to like alcohol to cocaine. That's true. I'm sorry. Bad news. That's why he's always running. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Justin DeClew and to Matt Kirshen for letting me mine their backgrounds in Canada and in the UK, and then for bringing so much to the table beyond that.

Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is something we foreshadowed. We're talking about the weird and wonderful ways postal codes function for letters to Santa Claus. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of four dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring postal codes with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, your national postal code system might be obsolete unless you

live in Ireland. And takeaway number two, it's been difficult to get any countries on board with using postal codes for a couple different reasons. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Justin DeClew is a filmmaker. We'll have links about that. And then he's a podcaster. He co-hosts the podcast The Important Cinema Club, and he co-hosts the podcast No Such Thing as a Bad Movie. I particularly enjoyed the episode of that second show about the adventures of Ford Fairlane, because, you know, gotta explore the Diceman. And then Matt Kirshen is a stand-up comedian, TV comedy writer, and a tremendous podcaster. We'll have links to his stand-up videos. Also have a link for Probably Science, which is a wonderful podcast he makes with the great Andy Wood. I don't

know if you've heard the Nobel Prizes episode of this podcast with both Matt and Andy. You can hear them both exploring the latest headlines about science and, you know, with some skepticism in a good way. You can hear them doing that every week on Probably Science. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article from Quartz.com, it's called Ireland, is just now getting around to introducing postal codes, and that's by Kabir Chibber. Also linking an internet service, it's called What Three Words. Matt Kirshen is the one who gave me the tip on it, and it is just fascinating to see how that system can work, you know, for wherever you are in the entire world. And then a ton of Canadian sources in this episode. One of them is the CBC linking to their archives for a chilly reception for the postal code.

It's about workers boycotting the system in 1972. Also leads to links for the, you know, mechanical sorter video from the 1950s. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken, unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artists Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show.

And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.