Mark of the Eagle is a series of webisodes sponsored by the USPS (Yes, you read that correctly; not the brown guys, but the United States Post Office) that emphasize the fact that they deliver…no matter what.
In the first episode, “a letter carrier discovers powerful forces lurking around the cubicles of an ordinary office building, he must find it in himself to overcome these forces and deliver… no matter what”:
There are three more episodes if you like what you see, and if you watch them on MarkOfTheEagle.com, you can even watch them in a widescreen YouTube player that I’ve never seen before, so check it out, and see what the mark is all about.
When one Mac modder found himself in possession of a well-worn PowerBook that was having some screen problems, he decided to breathe new life into it by turning it into a Mac desktop. (MacTop?)
Essentially, the case is made of two sheets of white acrylic, bolted together by socket countersunk screws. I’ve used 15mm chrome pipe as the four spacers between the acrylic sheet. The perforated steel was cut to my specifications by a very helpful chap found on eBay. Cutting the CD drive slot was a little tricky, as was drilling the power button hole, but once done they seem to function ok.
The trackpad now thinks the lid is closed thanks to a well placed magnet (so that it runs in external monitor mode) and the original laptop battery acts as an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), so it’s now quite the machine.
Future plans may include an overclocking now that extra space is available for a bigger heatsink, but as it is, the creator seems rather happy with his creation.
You handwrite an address on an envelope and attach a stamp to the outside, and a few days later your letter arrives exactly where it’s supposed to be.
So how does the USPS manage to handle 703 million pieces of mail per day?
Good Magazine has put together an impressive graphic representation of a comparison between FedEx, UPS, DHL and the USPS, and the numbers are staggering:
700,000 employees, $73 billion revenue, 37,000 post offices, and 216,000 vehicles, all to deliver you your bills, Netflix, and credit card offers.
