Monday

Memorial Day in the United States, so no mail delivery.

Tuesday

Mail

None.

Junk

• National Geographic Society renewal offer. As nice as the magazine is, I’ve let my subscription lapse, and I never read it enough to justify receiving it. I can always look through it when I’m enjoying some coffee at Barnes & Noble.
• PennySaver advertisements.
• Valpak coupons. I’m pretty sure I’ve never used one of these.

Wednesday

Mail

• Home owner association account statement and newsletter. I’d prefer receiving this via e-mail. The newsletter isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Junk

• RedPlum advertisements.
• Renewal statement for Martha Stewart Living, which Mrs. sirhc used to receive. We’ve let the subscription lapse, along with most others. Who has time to read all of this?

Thursday

Mail

None.

Junk

• Advertisement for the 17th USENIX Security Symposium. I suppose this could technically be considered mail, because I’m a member, but I’d rather they just sent me catalogs like this via e-mail.
• Advertising circular for Dixieline Home Centers.

Friday

Mail

• Proxy voting materials for one of the companies in my stock portfolio. As I cast my vote online, there’s also an option to receive these materials online, but it wasn’t working when I tried it.

Junk

• AAA travel guide. I’d prefer if this was sent on request. We aren’t likely to be taking a vacation for a while. Not only that, but as stated in the guide, all of these offers and more are available on their web site.
• United Mileage Plus credit card offer.
• Local advertisements from the San Diego Union Tribuine.

Saturday

Mail

• June 2008 issue of ;login:, the USENIX magazine.
• July & August 2008 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.
• June 9, 2008 issue of Time magazine.
• Membership packet from the Zoological Society of San Diego.
• Water bill. Now I can see if they have an online delivery option, too.

Junk

• Solicitation from a dentist in Solana Beach. Technically junk, but it’s one of the more creative solicitations I’ve seen. It’s a kind of welcome-to-the-neighborhood card with suggestions for things to do in the Solana Beach/Encinitas area and includes a coupon for a drink at Java Depot. So I felt he was at least worth linking, even though my dental work can be done at a mobile dentist who comes to my office.

I do feel like I’m receiving less mail overall. This week’s score of mail 7, junk 11, for a total of 18 pieces of postal mail, seems to support that feeling. Real mail this week made up 39% of what we found in the mail box. That’s still quite a bit of junk.

One of the reasons I’m so late in publishing this entry is my desire to create a pie chart that would visually document the ratios of mail and junk I’ve received during the past month. I finally got around to entering the data into a Google Docs spreadsheet. Unfortunately, I didn’t weight the results by true volume, so the resulting chart is slightly misleading, at least depending on how one wants to interpret the data. While real mail did make up a plurality of the total, the circulars were physically quite a bit more weighty (literally).

This experiment has caused me to become more aware of the pointlessness of so much of the mail I receive, even from entities with which I have a relationship. Ideally, there should be a box I can mark when joining to receive everything electronically.

I was chatting with a friend of mine about this experiment, and he gave me one good reason why he prefers paper mail. Accountability. Should he ever need to dispute something with his bank or a creditor, he has records at his disposal. Records that are not easily tampered with. I find this to be a compelling argument. Unfortunately, I lack the storage space in my house for such record keeping (let’s hear it for modern development in Southern California). Also, as a side-effect of living in San Diego County, my electronic records will better survive wildfires, should one ever hit us (we’re actually in a fairly well-protected area).

Not Junk

• Letter from the IRS explaining that I should expect my economic stimulus payment last week. It was direct deposited into my account on Thursday.
• Letter from the Toyota dealer informing me that my Avalon is likely due for its 125,000 mile minor service. They include a coupon, which is nice of them. Cheaper than Jiffy Lube.
• Urgent notice from Time magazine that my subscription requires renewal. This one is borderline. I deliberately cancelled my subscription, but I was a paying customer for several years.

Junk

• My non-partisan voter information guide, which recommends a full slate of Republicans. Strange.
• Store circulars from RedPlum. 35 pages. The grocery circulars are actually folded sideways, so they’re only half the number of real pages; however, they’re big enough to count double.

Tuesday

Mail

• 2008 summer schedule for REI’s Outdoor School.

Wednesday

Mail

• Confirmation letter from my credit union that one of my CDs has been automatically renewed.
• June issue of ZooNooz from the San Diego Zoological Society.

Junk

• One week pass to LA Fitness, with an offer to join for “less than $7 per week.” That’s not quite as good as the $24 per year I pay to 24 Hour Fitness.

Thursday

No mail!

Friday

Mail

• Membership renewal notice from KPBS, the local public radio station. I suspect if I were more diligent about renewing, I wouldn’t receive reminders in the mail.

Junk

• Local advertisements brought to me by the San Diego Union-Tribune. 37 pages. I may not take their newspaper, but they still find a way to send me their advertising.

Saturday

Mail

• Time magazine.
• June 2008 issue of The Costco Connection.
• Summer coupon book for Costco. Not a lot I’m interested in this time.

Junk

• Another vote recommendation guide.
• Advertisement for Cox digital cable. Their internet service is so bad I’m considering looking for an alternative. I’m certainly not about to pay them for digital cable, with an interface much, much worse than my TiVo systems.

That leaves me with 10 pieces of mail and 6 pieces of junk. I notice that not one piece of junk mail was a credit card offer. Maybe this experiment is working?

Monday and Tuesday

Mail

• Stages magazine from Fidelity. Right on the cover, they advertise going paperless. I hope this applies to the magazine as well as their statements.
• @UCSD, a magazine for alumni.

Junk

• Solicitation for some token amount of life insurance for Mrs. sirhc, through our credit union.
• Solicitation from AMVETS to leave donations on the doorstep for them to pick up. I’m pretty sure I get one of these every month, but this is the first time I’ve ever taken the time to determine what it is.
• Solicitation from a junk removal service. They even direct me to their web site. Gee, thanks.
• PennySaver and associated circulars (15 pages, not including the PennySaver and included CouponSaver).
• Local business circulars, from RedPlum, which is apparently a company that specializes in sending circulars. 41 pages.
• LEGO catalog. As awesome as this is to flip through, I can browse their web site just as easily.
• REI catalog. Same as the LEGO catalog.

The RedPlum circulars do include the weekly specials for Sprouts and Vons, which we do frequent (we also shop at my favorite store, Trader Joe’s). Both stores have their weekly specials on their web site, so there’s no problem losing the RedPlum circulars.

Wednesday and Thursday

Mail

• Results for Mrs. sirhc’s last ultrasound. It’s a girl!
• The June issue of San Diego Westways. Part of our AAA membership.
• The June issue of Parenting. Part of a free two issue trial, which Mrs. sirhc has already canceled.

Junk

• Invitation to join the IEEE Computer Society. I’m already a member of USENIX, SAGE, and LOPSA. I suppose I could throw in IEEE and ACM as well, but I’ll first see if work will pay for it. Of all the junk mail I get, I expect the computer societies to be paperless.
• Solicitation for AT&T’s internet, phone, and TV services. Junk, but with the quality of Cox’s internet service, I’m almost tempted.
• Another voting guide to instruct me which way I should vote on the issues. With a little more than two weeks until the election, I expect a lot more of this. My mistake, apparently, was not registering as a decline-to-state voter. I’ll remedy this after the election.
• Solicitation for a United Airlines credit card. I get this about once a month, both at home and at work. I guess they think I’ll eventually break down.
• Solicitation from UCSD’s Computer Science and Engineering department to support their tutoring program. This is what I get for registering for the tutor reunion (and then not going anyway).
• Catalog for Basset, which apparently sells furniture.

Friday

Mail

• Rebate check for my cell phone.
• Rebate check for Mrs. sirhc’s cell phone.

Junk

• Pre-approval notice from our credit union that I’m eligible for an auto loan.
• Pre-approval notice from our credit union that Mrs. sirhc is eligible for an auto loan.
• Local business circulars, consisting of 45 pages.

Normally, the pre-screened offers would bother me. However, we’re actually in the market for a new car right now. Not very green of me, I know.

Saturday

Mail

• Time magazine. Including the warning about my subscription expiring. Darn.

Junk

• Something called NC Magazine. There sure are a lot of community-oriented publications where we live now.
• Get1Free magazine. A coupon book that rarely contains anything I want.
• An informative reminder that I can save on Alamo car rentals because I’m a Costco member. Um, thanks.

Ratio of mail to junk for week 2 is 8:19. More than twice as much junk than mail. It’s a good thing I recycle.

Monday and Tuesday

We never got around to checking the mail on Monday, so the first two days of this week have been combined.

• New home survey from CIDR Systems. This is actually the second copy we’ve received, since I couldn’t be bothered to fill out the first one (they’re kind of annoying).
• Credit card offer from Southwest Airlines. Incidentally, I received this same offer at work. Two pieces of junk mail for the price of one.
• Credit card offer from Chase, advertising their “card factory,” whatever that is.
• Bill from American Express. This was mailed before I opted for paperless billing.
• Greeting card for Mrs. sirhc.
• Several grocery store circulars. I did, however, pull out the advertisements for Sprouts and Vons.
• PennySaver and associated circulars.
• California primary election sample ballots. Yes, we’re having another one this year. No, I don’t know why they couldn’t be combined into one.
• Costco coupon book.
• Postcard reminding me to spend my Costco credit card rebate. Of course, I have already done this, so the reminder is pointless.
• Advertisement for a local tanning salon.
• June 2008 issue of Linux Journal. I don’t intend to renew my subscription. I never get around to reading it anymore, and most of the articles end up on their web site anyway.
• Brochure for the 2008 USENIX Annual Technical Conference. Did I really need a hard copy of this?
• AAA offer to upgrade my membership. Just like last year, and the year before that, I’m not interested.

Wednesday

• Another greeting card for Mrs. sirhc. Well, we are expecting a baby, and Mother’s Day is this weekend.
• Our absentee ballots for that superfluous California primary election.
• Terms and conditions for my wireless phone protection plan.
• A neighbor’s advertisement for Ocean Enterprises. I wonder how much of my own mail ends up in my neighbors’ hands. Good thing I’m going paperless.
• Brochure for this year’s LinuxWorld conference. Yet another advertisement that could have been sent via e-mail. I expect better of technical conferences.

Thursday

• Workforce and community development course catalog from Palomar College.

Friday

• Circulars for local chain stores (Target, Rite-Aid, etc.).
• Advertisement for Discount Tires.
• Our “voting guide” for California’s upcoming primary election. I don’t know what I’d do without people sending me mail to tell me how I should vote.
• Solicitation to alumni to pledge money for UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. This was sent because I refused to pledge money to someone who cold-called me soliciting money.

Saturday

• Time magazine. I won’t be renewing my subscription after next month. It’s another magazine I no longer have time (ha ha) to read, and the articles all end up on the web site anyway.
• City news and recreation guide for the city of San Marcos. I’ll have to read through this to see if it’s something I want.
• Invitation to the Zoological Society of San Diego’s Member Appreciation Evening. I’ve been a member for a number of years, so I expect these things.
• Solicitation to become a member of the Birch Aquarium. Nice, but I’ll pass for now.

The first thing I’ve learned from this experiment is that it’s not as easy as I expected to distinguish the signal from the noise. Some pieces of mail—the credit card offers—are obviously junk. Some pieces of mail—the greeting cards—are obviously not junk. Others, such as the San Marcos recreation guide or the circulars for stores we actually shop at, are not so easy to classify. For the purposes of this experiment, I will classify them as junk, because they were unsolicited commercial mail. This, as some may recognize, is similar to the official definition of spam e-mail. That said, what was my signal to noise ratio?

We received 13 pieces of desired (or not so desired in the case of bills and ballots) mail and 15 pieces of junk mail. While these numbers may look close to equal, much of the junk mail was composed of circulars and brochures, which consist of much more paper than the typical desired piece of mail. Next week I may need to refine my measurement criteria by counting the number of unique advertisements in each circular.