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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

Is it any different from Omaha Steaks shipping you some frozen steaks and burgers? As long as your box doesn't leak or smell, nobody at USPS is going to open it.

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Yes. Omaha Steaks conform to USDA regulations and are regulated under 55 Meats, rather than 52 Animals:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_011.htm

However, there is 349.23 Dry Ice, which applies to any package using it, whether meat or animal or other:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_027.htm#ep900096

Note that USPS also requires you to declare if a package contains Perishable or Hazardous goods, and label it clearly if it's being mailed under 52 Animals:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_004.htm

If you fail to do so, they can in theory fine you or have you arrested — especially for failing to declare dry ice, which falls under Hazard Class 9, the "miscellaneous" class:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_004.htm

"Anyone who mails, or causes to be mailed, a nonmailable or improperly packaged hazardous material can be subject to legal penalties (i.e., fines and/or imprisonment)"

and are regulated under 55 Meats, rather than 52 Animals

Talk about your "you must be fun at parties"; and this isn't necessarily directed at you, floatingatoll, but when I see comments like this I often wonder if it's a case of "memorizes USPS shipping rules for fun" or more likely "worked on a contract once where we had to codify USPS shipping rules into an application, so I don't have them memorized but sure as hell know where to look".

For example, I've written code for computers to consume for the vast majority of my career. But go ahead and ask me the finer points of cellophane manufacturing...please, I've been waiting years for it to come up in conversation.

The latter is closer than the former, but I’ve put in a lot of time reading postal regs and studying library classification over the years, so I can navigate their index pretty quickly, is all.

I would like to sign up for cellophane facts.

I, too, would like to hear stories about cellophane manufacturing.

Mike, you should hook up with The Prepared email newsletter and ask to be a guest author some week. They would be super excited to have you participate. :)

Man, tough crowd. One smart ass remark turns into writing a newsletter article. :-) In seriousness, I'll make an honest effort at seeing if I can come up enough interesting paragraphs, and then check The Prepared (a new one to me). Here's a preview of what I learned on my first day: cellophane is made from wood (which gets pulped, and broken down with nasty chemicals). I always assumed it was some kind of plastic. I was there to get them off that mainframe, but hung out with those on the floor when I could.

Depending on one's career path, though, I think we all collect little tidbits along the way that are way outside of the software craft. I was a partner in a consulting company back in the 90s, and we specialized in small-medium businesses. Anything from cellophane to auto body shops to mail-order jewelry (class rings and the like). It wasn't always interesting (see: mail-order jewelry), but my "TIL" moments were probably more frequent than any other time.

https://theprepared.org/newsletter-archive/2021-09-27

A post about cellophane would be perfect for this audience :)

Agreed -- I already subscribe to the Prepared and can vouch for their readers' acute interests in manufacturing technology.

To be honest, just dealing with this once can make you remember it for eternity.

For example, I know that if I want to declare a computer peripheral to the customs, there is a good chance to get the correct TARIC code in the chapter that literally starts with "Nuclear reactors"...

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