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Is it common to believe that post codes don't start with zero? All of New England (ME, MA, NH, CT, RI, VT) have zero starting post codes. Plus apparently a part

Is it common to believe that post codes don't start with zero? All of New England (ME, MA, NH, CT, RI, VT) have zero starting post codes. Plus apparently a part of New Jersey. Map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code Also, since it brought up naval vessels, here's the addresses of all US Navy ships: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/lists/ship-fpo.asp http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/lists/ship-fpo.asp Anyways, the post office does a wonderful job delivering mail considering how complex addresses can be and how people can have messy handwriting. Also - You can have an address that doesn't map to a physical location that totally looks like it should (not just PO boxes). Consider RPIs address. http://rpinfo.rpi.edu/locateRPI.html http://rpinfo.rpi.edu/locateRPI.html "Correspondence to and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute uses the official address of 110 Eighth Street, Troy, NY 12180. This address serves as a mailing address only; you will not find a building with that number on 8th Street."

kalleboo 12y ago
> Is it common to believe that post codes don't start with zero? It may be less of an explicit belief and more of a case of "This looks like a number! Let's store it as a number!" which wipes out leading zeros.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  Gotcha! I understand now.
- ygra 12y ago
  Which also won't work with post codes that are not numeric. The UK has those, for example.
- AaronIG 12y ago
  Yea, this seems to be the case. I've had the leading zero stripped on a few occasions when receiving items at an FPO AE address (all APO/DPO/FPO AE zip codes start with a zero).
jkot 12y ago
Ireland usually does not use post codes :-)
mgkimsal 12y ago
I got in to an argument in school with my computer programming teacher. A BASIC course, we were having to design a system to accept an address, and I was treating my ZIP code as a string. IIRC, something like 50 INPUT "Your ZIP code?", ZIP$ Everything was reviewed via handwritten code and flowchart before we were allowed to type it in in the lab, and I was told "ZIP code is a number, but you're putting it in to a string, that's wrong, fix it". "But a ZIP code starting with 0 would then not have the 0 at the front when we show it back to the user" I said. "ZIP codes don't start with 0" Me: "Some do" Her: "No, they don't" I lived in Michigan, but was a huge infocom fan, and they were in MA, and had a leading 0 in their ZIP code. We argued about this for a good few minutes, and it wasn't until I brought in something the next day that demonstrated legit ZIP codes starting with 0 that I 'won'. Crap like this reinforced my distrust of authority and cynicism in life (for better or worse). EDIT: Anyone else remember the "New Zork Times" newsletter? :) EDIT 2: It wasn't until much later that I learned the ZIP code system we had wasn't actually completely formed until after she was at least a teen, if not a full adult - she simply wasn't exposed to stuff that I was earlier, it didn't really impact her, and she just assumed they were all numbers with no leading 0s. In some ways a minor point, but... it also taught me about stuff I took for granted not always having been there, even something as basic as addresses. Didn't really learn that until much later after that class.
- a3n 12y ago
  "I am the authority in these matters." " Why?" "Because I am in authority."
- ghaff 12y ago
  >EDIT: Anyone else remember the "New Zork Times" newsletter? :) Yep. I went to school with a bunch of the Infocom guys and was an unofficial beta tester for them at one point.
  - mgkimsal 12y ago
    did they have any clue how groundbreaking their stuff was at the time?
- 12y ago

kalleboo 12y ago

> Is it common to believe that post codes don't start with zero? It may be less of an explicit belief and more of a case of "This looks like a number! Let's store it as a number!" which wipes out leading zeros.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Gotcha! I understand now.
ygra 12y ago
Which also won't work with post codes that are not numeric. The UK has those, for example.
AaronIG 12y ago
Yea, this seems to be the case. I've had the leading zero stripped on a few occasions when receiving items at an FPO AE address (all APO/DPO/FPO AE zip codes start with a zero).

jkot 12y ago

Ireland usually does not use post codes :-)

mgkimsal 12y ago

I got in to an argument in school with my computer programming teacher. A BASIC course, we were having to design a system to accept an address, and I was treating my ZIP code as a string. IIRC, something like 50 INPUT "Your ZIP code?", ZIP$ Everything was reviewed via handwritten code and flowchart before we were allowed to type it in in the lab, and I was told "ZIP code is a number, but you're putting it in to a string, that's wrong, fix it". "But a ZIP code starting with 0 would then not have the 0 at the front when we show it back to the user" I said. "ZIP codes don't start with 0" Me: "Some do" Her: "No, they don't" I lived in Michigan, but was a huge infocom fan, and they were in MA, and had a leading 0 in their ZIP code. We argued about this for a good few minutes, and it wasn't until I brought in something the next day that demonstrated legit ZIP codes starting with 0 that I 'won'. Crap like this reinforced my distrust of authority and cynicism in life (for better or worse). EDIT: Anyone else remember the "New Zork Times" newsletter? :) EDIT 2: It wasn't until much later that I learned the ZIP code system we had wasn't actually completely formed until after she was at least a teen, if not a full adult - she simply wasn't exposed to stuff that I was earlier, it didn't really impact her, and she just assumed they were all numbers with no leading 0s. In some ways a minor point, but... it also taught me about stuff I took for granted not always having been there, even something as basic as addresses. Didn't really learn that until much later after that class.

a3n 12y ago
"I am the authority in these matters." " Why?" "Because I am in authority."
ghaff 12y ago
>EDIT: Anyone else remember the "New Zork Times" newsletter? :) Yep. I went to school with a bunch of the Infocom guys and was an unofficial beta tester for them at one point.
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  did they have any clue how groundbreaking their stuff was at the time?
12y ago