Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Post office solves long lines by removing clocks

Cory Doctorow at 5:40 am Sat, Mar 3, 2007

— FEATURED —

Science

Making sense of the confusing Supreme Court DNA patent ruling

Book Review

The 'Geisters: spooky, scary novel

Science

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

Feature

The Snowden Principle

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
The US Post Office has removed clocks from 37,000 postal outlets in order to alleviate the problem of people feeling like they're waiting in line for two long. A clockless atmosphere will apparently encourage a state of meditative interest in the workings of the postal service, without distracting with the sense of time's fleeting passage. Consumerist's Meghann Marco nails it:
Um, correct us if we're wrong here but:

* People carry timepieces.

* The post office is not a casino. People aren't going to lose themselves in the fun and mail more letters than they'd originally intended.

Is this the best they can come up with?

Link

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle