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March 25

CA and CA

What's Canada's closest equivalent to San Jose, California? TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 03:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want the largest city in northern Canada? Or something with a similar meaning like Saint-Joseph-de-Madawaska, New Brunswick? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:55, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or do you mean a city that's at the south end of a bay? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:34, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or a city more populous than its more famous neighbor? —Tamfang (talk) 04:59, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawa has a very similar city population, by number. 207.11.240.2 (talk) 11:15, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vancouver has some tech, a reasonable climate, and plenty of diversity. If they could find a way to double the homeless rate and triple the crime rate, it would be very similar to San Jose. I just checked, but I'm having trouble finding videos about people in Vancouver opting to leave their car windows down and trunk open so criminals can see that everything inside has already been stolen. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 12:16, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned this to a coworker and I was told that "The Good Doctor," which is set in San Jose, is filmed in Vancouver. I'm sure there are many other examples as I know Vancouver has been used as a standin for San Franciso, New York, Moscow, Mumbai, Tokyo, and many other cities. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 17:42, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You really need to clarify which, for you, are the most significant aspects in considering similarity. ‑‑Lambiam 12:25, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moose Factory, Ontario. --Trovatore (talk) 17:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC) [reply]

Not a lot of people know the way to Tuktoyaktuk. Clarityfiend (talk) 15:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

finding mailing date of a letter

I've just (in Monday's mail, March 24) received a letter (bank account notification) dated March 13 on the notice itself. That would mean 11 days in transit from New Jersey to California, not good. The upper right corner of the envelope sayss "Presorted first-class mail US postage permit # xxx" and there is no cancellation mark or Intelligent Mail barcode (IMBC) that I can see in visible light (I have a UV flashlight around here somewhere so will try that when I can). Any idea what is going on here and if there is a way to tell when the envelope was actually given to the USPS? I have another letter (different bank thing) that nominally also took a long time in transit, which does have an IMBC, but the IMBC article doesn't say anything about containing a date. It's pretty surrising though that postal pieces aren't marked by the USPS.

Generally, is there a sense that first class USPS mail has slowed down a lot? The other bank told me 5 to 7 business days and it really did take that long. I'm used to maybe 3 day delivery. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:96C0 (talk) 07:03, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I tried the UV light (365nm) and it doesn't show any markings on the envelope either. Still have to try the other envelope with the IMBC. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:96C0 (talk) 07:24, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem odd to me. On March 13, it is written. Sometime in the next 24 hours, it goes to the mail room. That is March 14. The bank is closed March 15, 16, and 17. On March 18, it is bundled up in outgoing mail and dropped at the post office. On March 19, it has been sorted and put in the mail. Standard 3 days for transfer covers March 20, 21, and 22. No mail goes out on March 23. On March 24 it is delivered. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 12:10, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do they still have mail rooms? That sounds so 1980s. What I would expect for a modern bank is this:

The bank writes a lot of letters. Most are entirely computer generated. Once a week, those letters are sent electronically to a printing company. The printing company forwards the letters to some of their printworks; for example, letters to the West Coast go via the Portland printworks and letters to the East Coast via the Syracuse printworks. The printworks, operating 24×7, print the letters, often (but not this time) including the proper barcodes or other sorting codes and put them in the envelopes (which they print too), all fully automatic. The letters are printed in sorted order, so no physical sorting is required. The printworks may even have letters from other senders, which all get sorted together electronically before printing. This truckload of letters, all sorted and from different senders, is delivered at the mail company's sorting centre. Sorting is easy now: just a single merge with all other mail, then splitting for separate distribution centres, where it's made ready for final delivery.

It seems plausible that for most of the 11 days transit the letter hadn't been printed yet. PiusImpavidus (talk) 14:46, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anecdotally, yes, USPS is getting slower. I had a packet of urgent paperwork show up 3 weeks after the sender called me to say it was in the mail; and I've had some issues with recurring checks (due the first of each month and mailed by my bank the 20th of the previous month) sometimes not showing up until as late as the 10th of the month (a decade ago I would have them mailed the 25th and they would always arrive on time). -- Avocado (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On 13 February I received a letter from the tax service in my country, dated 28 February. Their letters travel back in time.

I've no experience with the USPS. I do know that big senders sometimes make a deal with the mail company. Big senders can send enough mail for delivery on a single day that the distribution system gets overloaded. So, in exchange for a reduced fare, they agree that the mail company can hold the mail for a while (for some popular quarterly magazines even three weeks) to even out the load on the distribution system.

Lowering delivery frequency to increase the amount of mail per unit distance of street also reduces the travel time per piece of mail for the delivery person, increasing efficiency for the mail company. As the amount of mail is decreasing, such tricks get interesting.

Add to this the usual cost-cutting regardless of quality. It will backfire, but only after the CEO has left for her next job. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:47, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Distinct lineages of the same surname

In genealogy, what is the usual way of distinguishing (or labelling) between unrelated lineages of a single surname - say, in a situation when a particular John Smith, his parents, grandparents, etc. belong to a different lineage of Smiths, distinct from all other Smiths? I know that for nobility such distinction can be drawn via personal coats of arms (say, for Lipnicki it's Junosza coat of arms), but don't know other ways. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 17:17, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"I am Psmith, one of the Shropshire Psmiths." - P. G. Wodehouse in Psmith, Journalist (1915) 213.143.143.69 (talk) 15:01, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"The name's Twillie, Cuthbert J. Twillie, one of the old Back Bay Twillies." - W.C. Fields in My Litle Chickadee. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:17, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, if they are part of a noble or gentry family, the options would include their relationship to a particular peer/baronet or to a particular place (either as broad as a county, as above, or as narrow as a particular house). You might be able to say that a particular Howard is, for example, "of the Dukes of Norfolk" or "of the Howards of Castle Howard". Proteus (Talk) 12:49, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The families themselves, inasmuch as they feel a need to distinguish themselves from similarly surnamed families, can use any method that works for them, such as by a geographic origin, as in the examples in the above replies. In most cases families are not notable and its members generally cannot trace their ancestry back more than two or three generations, so a Mr. S. Holmes living in Baker Street, City of Westminster, may have no idea whether he is from the same family as a Mr. T. Holmes, Oxford Street, City of Westminster.

Interest in the genealogy of non-notable families is a relatively recent phenomenon, mainly exercised by amateur genealogist, themselves family members. When family trees of unrelated subjects that are namesakes are published (usually on the web), the families can be distinguished by the respective earliest members with this name in these trees. I do not think there is some specific agreed convention among professionals. ‑‑Lambiam 12:53, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]