Stop being moronic. Different transportation mediums exist for a reason. Trains in the US are currently suited for long haul transportation at which they excel at. We already tried running rail lines to warehouses and distribution centers and determined trucks were a better form of last mile transportation.
Do you think that no one at UPS, FedEx, Walmart or Amazon has ever looked at how much more efficient or what cost saving they could get if "only they had a rail line to their warehouses verse a road?"
What the discussion is looking at is making a micro improvement to what we have already tested as the better method of delivery, trucks in this case. Where the issue is coming about is we are trying to build autonomous actions into a hybrid roadway verse dedicating a portion of a roadway to autonomous driving. The article states the following:
"Trucking was supposed to be the ideal first application of autonomous driving. Freeways contain predictable, highly structured driving
scenarios"
When sharing the road with human drivers this statement makes no sense as all. Vehicle's are their own entities with no connection to each other outside of the road, signage and defined lanes.
Correct this is the best path forward. Night time is typically when there is less traffic and we should be able to at least utilize that for autonomous transportation between distribution centers. Then slowing keep upping the advancement as roads are repaired, replaced, etc. If you build a smart road for lets say just trucking, now you can map out the best places for distribution centers, similar to what UPS, Fedex figured out for air transportation and packages.
Its a bit ridiculous that in 2024 we have all these apps that tell you about accidents and obstructions but none that actually help re-direct traffic in a meaningful way. You have to hedge your bets on any "suggested" better route.
With smart roads department of transportation could get real analyze on crowded intersections, best place for future on/off ramps, access roads, etc. Traffic congestion and planning is usually an after thought when housing developments go up and then its a catch-up game.
One could argue traffic light was the first “smart” feature added to roads. Why do we continue to have costly high way accidents in 2024? Massive pile ups can be minimized and even avoided.
Unfortunately we didn't expand upon thinking about multiple intersections and their traffic lights being a network. We have fixed programming of lighting schedules that don't change unless a traffic survey is done. In most cases these are limited in their occurrences which doesn't reflect the dynamics of driving.
As an example I'm sure most people don't mind moving as long as they feel like they are getting somewhere. With the dynamics of traffic you could re-direct people to a different on/off ramp even though its further away to keep the same rate of speed for everyone. Maybe you send people down a different or parallel road for longer because it will get them there at the same time verses stop-and-go traffic because everyone wants to use the same or well-known road.
No. One form of transportation doesn't have to exist for everything. Rail is the long haul and trucking is the last mile.
Autonomous trucking should start out with its own dedicated part of the highway between distribution centers. We are trying to build autonomous driving to accommodate our current road structure which humans currently drive on. A dedicated / isolated lane with sensors, etc should be the start. Start small and then you can expand after getting feedback data. Everything is always so costly and unattainable because everyone wants to implement it with the current infrastructure but its not needed.
For reference we already do these types of dedicated lanes with ezpass express or HOV lanes.
I see a clear evolution (and career) path for Sysadmins here. From ssh-ing and rebooting machines to operating higher-level tools and influencing the business.
Is this what people think sysadmins and operations do all day? Any place i've worked with an operations team, they were the group deciding on datacenter sites, switches, routers, architecture, operating systems, configuration management, monitoring, services like DNS, dhcp, network security, access control, on-boarding / off-boarding, etc. If you weren't in operations you didn't deploy or make decisions on production changes. At a few other places this was split into an operations and infrastructure groups that worked closely together as they had to plan EOL replacement and new build-outs together.
"Wisdom arrives to anyone exposed to how systems behave. SRE shouldn’t rob developers this learning opportunity."
SRE has always seemed to just be a push for a dedicated sysadmin that can read/write code to support a specific application in production. As noted in the quote above, you can just replace SRE / developers with development / operations. Its the same circle all over again.
Lastly, on-call is just companies being cheap. For startups this might be a good initial solution but for anything that has to be online you should have 24/7, follow-the-sun support teams. This allows for teams to solve problems within their normal work day and not have someone up all night to fix a problem, brief everyone on the issue, and then if they are lucky have the next day off.
I'm going to be a bit pedantic and say fault and mistake are not equal in the message they convey. Hans says he has 'made a mistake' which is not the same as saying 'I'm at fault.' In the end it might be proven that you are at fault but until then all you know is that something went wrong, isn't working, etc.
I think that’s the kind of pedantry that is relevant in that case and in designing your product and customer support tree.
Friends of mine hearing him would say, He never says what the mistake is precisely, but there’s always the option that it was booking a flight with that airline.
I agree. If a part failed or broke unexpectantly it makes no sense to say it was `your fault` or `you made a mistake`. The goal is the solve the issue at hand and following the representative's instructions to either fix it or prove the item is defective is the easiest way to get there. If it was a mistake on your end you learned something new but I don't see any additional benefit by saying you made a mistake when you don't know what went wrong.
Any company I've worked for has a 60 - 90 day trial period as part of employment. Most that I've seen, never use it due to fear of being sued or it not really being a long enough period to assess how someone will work out.
Isn't this just a helpful tell though? If the interviewer isn't creative enough to speak off script in their field or the company doesn't allow a bit of flexibility in interviews what makes you think they would do interesting work?
Interviews where people just ask these filtering type questions signals to me that this is just another job. If you already have a job its not worth switching as it will just be more of the same. If I can't get into a some what interesting conversation with the interviewer and this is what the company has put forward as their representative, oh well. If my second call isn't with someone I would be working with or knowledgable in the field then whats the point of even talking to them. I interview quite a bit and the amount of phone calls some start-ups and companies want to have as part of the interview is insane. Most of the time the people doing the interviews would rather be doing something else.
"Fed delays have cost consumers hundreds of billions in overdraft fees, check-cashing fees and late fees, said Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution."
Why would banks be incentivized to speed up this process? They make money off the delay and get to blame the Federal government. Its the same reason a purchase can be done instantly but then it takes up-to (10) business days to be refunded. Banks and retailers make interest off the money they hold onto. Being able to make money off the refund is a probable reason why they are even offered. Otherwise it would be all-sales-final.
> Being able to make money off the refund is a probable reason why they are even offered.
I think you vastly overestimate the amount of interest a retailer can make on that money vs. the cost of processing the refund, potentially not being able to resell already unpacked goods etc.
Purchases and refunds are also cleared and settled exactly as quickly, i.e. usually on the next business day.
I don't know many businesses that would perform processes that don't make them money. Even if we use your example of next business day what happens on a Friday where the refund isn't processed until Monday or Tuesday? Is customer satisfaction really increased if you get their refund back to them in 3, 7 or 10 days?
In instances where you have to ship the defective product back. They don't send you an over-night, next day label to get the product back to them as soon as possible. They send it ground. So you paid for a product, you then wait for the product, you then call to get a refund, you ship it back, they receive and process and then you get refunded your original amount. That could be two weeks, even though your refund was settled next business day.
I'd be surprised if any retailer takes a loss with a refund that they can't send back to the manufacturer or write off.
It also seems that there isn't any set refund time limit and varies per state in the US.[1]
> Even if we use your example of next business day what happens on a Friday where the refund isn't processed until Monday or Tuesday?
The same thing that happens when you make a purchase on a Friday: It most likely gets posted to your account the following Monday. No clearing (or at least settlement) on the weekend goes both ways.
I'm specifically talking about refunds not purchases as in US only a few states have laws relating to returns and refunds.[1] Otherwise its left up to the retailer to set the policy. Most purchasers are not making large amounts of interest on their checking accounts compared to the balance amounts a business would carry. If no settlement happens on the weekends I can see a large advantage to a business holding one million dollars in refunds for two extra days before you complete or run the batch job of refunds.
When I make a purchase I don't get to decide when to run the batch job for it to post/settle. Retailers however can determine when they want to actually process refunds. What can a customer complain about when the posted refund shows up on the following Monday, Tuesday, Friday, two weeks later?
To further my point of retailers not being incentivized to process your refund quickly there was a small study done that delaying refunds had customers "re-spending" the refund before it had fulled settled.[2]
"Large companies and financial institutions also often "play the float" with larger sums for-profit—namely, the interest income they earn on an amount by speeding up its deposit into their accounts or slowing down a presentation for payment[1]."
IMF eLibrary with some example scenarios[2]. Granted they speak of most of the float data being analyzed with checks, it doesn't seem unreasonable to replace "check" with "credit card" transaction.
Do you think that no one at UPS, FedEx, Walmart or Amazon has ever looked at how much more efficient or what cost saving they could get if "only they had a rail line to their warehouses verse a road?"
What the discussion is looking at is making a micro improvement to what we have already tested as the better method of delivery, trucks in this case. Where the issue is coming about is we are trying to build autonomous actions into a hybrid roadway verse dedicating a portion of a roadway to autonomous driving. The article states the following:
When sharing the road with human drivers this statement makes no sense as all. Vehicle's are their own entities with no connection to each other outside of the road, signage and defined lanes.