I think you are seriously overstating the problem... we already have a network of fueling stations everywhere that can distribute hydrogen instead of or in addition to gasoline.
No we do not. Not on the sort of scale needed to actually get the general public to actually buy hydrogen powered vehicles anyway. Converting existing gas stations is a HUGE expense with a difficult chicken and egg problem. No gas station is going to install a hydrogen pump without there first being hydrogen powered cars. Nobody is going to buy a hydrogen powered car until the fuel infrastructure is already available. So unless you plan to convince the government to subsidize the problem it just isn't going to happen. Ever. Especially given that there is NO standard for how to store hydrogen on vehicles. Some use compressed gas, others use various hydrocarbons or other chemicals, etc. There are a variety of ways to do it but until there is an agree upon or de-facto standard there is no point in financing the refueling infrastructure build out. This limits hydrogen to powering local fleets of vehicles for companies and maybe buses but little more.
I don't have anything against hydrogen as a fuel source but the reality of it is that the fueling infrastructure problem kills it dead before it can really ever get any traction. EVs have their flaws but the electric grid pretty much already reaches everywhere people already go and people can charge their cars at home 99% of the time in most cases. Electrons are identical so there is no need to agree on anything more than a common plug. The batteries can be wildly different and that has no effect on the fuel infrastructure needs.
Unfortunately, as soon as electric cars start going mainstream, they will easily consume all available production for decades - we can always build more battery production plants (and recycling - that's going to be a huge factor too), but the economies of scale will begin to diminish rapidly.
That could only be true if there was a limitation on some of the components. And even if your scenario did play out that's not actually a problem as far as grid utilization goes. We don't HAVE to use Li-Ion for grid applications if there is enough demand elsewhere (cars etc) to get to minimum efficient scale.
And it's not at all clear that there's enough lithium on the planet to satisfy the demand for a global conversion to EVs, especially if harvested in an ecologically responsible manner.
There is quite a lot of lithium according to the USGS. The problems for the next several decades will be most likely a series of short term shortages while we fully utilize existing sources and have to establish new mines which will take some time. We're not likely to exhaust Earth's supply for a long time to come but rather it will be a challenge to keep up with demand if it rises too quickly. A good sort of problem to have in a sense but a problem all the same.
Using Li-Ion batteris for the grid for now, as we're jump-starting the transition, does indeed make sense, but soon enough we're going to want batteries whose compromises have been optimized for grid applications
You understand my point then. In the short run using Li-Ion or similar batteries for grid applications has great utility (they work find for grid applications even if not optimal) in bringing the cost of batteries down. In the long run if we transition to some other chemistry better suited for static and grid applications then that's fine too. I'm not arguing that we need to only use Li-Ion but rather that using those batteries even for tasks where weight is not a pressing concern is fine for the next few decades if it helps bring costs down.
Heck, even lead-acid batteries are better suited to grid-scale applications than Li-Ion - They're cheaper for the same capacity, and can have a considerably longer working life, lowering the amortized cost even further.
Lead Acid batteries have some pretty big drawbacks too. They have FAR fewer cycles, the have discharge issues, they have efficiency issues, etc. They are cheap and they work well so you're quite right that they could see use in some grid applications.
They are just a "marketplace" or "re-seller". If you have any problems with something you have bought on Amazon . . . you need to chase down the supplier in China.
You are aware that Amazon sells their own branded good right? Fire tablets, Kindle, Amazon Basics, a variety of goods through Whole Foods, etc. They are definitively not just a reseller.
When I need my prescription refilled, I just text my pharmacist (my daughter) at Walgreens and tell her when I can be there to pick it up. She responds with an "OK" and tells me how much it will be. Doesn't everyone have a pharmacist in the family?
So you support your daughter - as you should. If my daughter was a pharmacist that's the route I'd go too. Hopefully your daughter isn't this asshat that works for Walgreens.
Amazon's delivery is so unreliable that I'd NEVER trust my health to it.
You admit in the previous sentence that you rely on a family member so please don't pretend to be objective here. I ordered nearly 200 deliveries last year and if there is a more reliable company for delivery of products purchased online than Amazon I sure haven't found them. And I doubt Amazon would deny someone their medications like pharmacists at Walgreens just did.
People on meds need their meds to be available when they need them, not when some driver decides to deliver them.
If you are ordering meds through the mail obviously you aren't concerned about getting them right this minute. If you need them quickly then go to your local pharmacy in person. I get mail order meds through my insurance plan all the time and it works fine.
I have had one Amazon item (battery charger) stolen by a USPS employee.
Exactly how is that Amazon's fault?
I know several pharmacies in the area that offer free delivery to your home. How can Amazon compete with something that is free AND reliable?
Umm by being free and reliable and cheaper than your local pharmacy. Duh..
Unless Amazon figures out how to make their shipping reliable again, I can't see this succeeding.
I buy stuff from Amazon several times a week and so do most of my co-workers (both for business and personal). If there is an online company that is more reliable out regarding deliveries I haven't found them. No they aren't perfect but they do a DAMN good job. If they didn't they wouldn't be as large as they are.
Most of the time people don't have a week-wide window for receipt of their drugs.
Let me guess, you aren't a Prime member right? Virtually everything I order arrives in 2 days or less and if it will take longer they tell you in advance. Amazon has this stuff figured out just fine. You seriously think that Amazon would treat drug deliveries the same as some random trinket? Come on. You don't have to like Amazon but don't pretend they are stupid or incompetent.
A car with a very lightweight collapsible frame -- so collapsible that it'd allow any occupants to be killed easily, imagine a car that practically disintegrates on impact -- is also the car least likely to kill someone it hits.
That has precisely nothing to do with the problems of navigating any vehicle safely which is the primary issue in driverless cars. The question is how to develop a car that can safely navigate around humans without involving humans in the process. The crash worthiness of a vehicle is an almost entirely separate issue.
Thank you for disclosing your bias up front. For the record I own shares in Amazon.
Kroger is growing. I wouldn't describe Kroger as desperate, but a well run business that is willing to change and evolve.
And I'm a customer of theirs and every indication I see indicates exactly the opposite. Just because they are making some profits right now doesn't make me optimistic about their future. Maybe they'll figure it out. Would benefit me if they did. But right now I really hate doing business with them because I can't depend on anything I buy from them that isn't in a box being of decent quality. Their produce is of wildly inconsistent quality and their meat counter is a roll of the dice too. Their staff in the checkout is unpleasant to deal with (many of them rather dumb) and slow. I can get boxed goods cheaper from Walmart and the stuff that isn't in a box is unpredictable. That's not a recipe for success in the long run.
Sears had the potential to be what Amazon is now. They had the warehouses, delivery network, and order processing capabilities. All they had to do was slap a customer friendly front end on the interface the people processing mail and phone orders used; then advertise it.
Ha! You think that was the problem Sears had? Sears lost out to Walmart and other competitors YEARS before Amazon became a serious threat. Walmart developed better logistics than Sears ever dreamed of decades ago. If success was just a matter of slapping a pretty front end on a website Amazon wouldn't be a thing. I'm an industrial engineer so I work in production and logistics. It's a hell of a lot harder than you are making it out to be.
Have you complained to corporate about the produce quality?
Yes and they don't give a shit. It's the only grocery store in town and they know it. The nearest competitor is a Walmart 6 miles away plus a few mom and pop specialty stores. But even when I've gone to Kroger's with more competition close by their produce (and meats) still aren't consistently good. We routinely get produce home that rots within a day or two (yes we're storing it properly) or that is tasteless. Just this week we bought some strawberries that had basically no taste. They were red and strawberry shaped but that's it. We've had squash that should last for a month or more on the counter turn out to be rotten inside. I don't care if the produce is pretty but I do care that it doesn't rot and that it actually has taste.
First, I never said it wouldn't be a crime. Most importantly, you are forgetting an extremely important legal concept- intent. In those cases, the perp INTENDED to do harm.
Involuntary Manslaughter is a felony where there was no intent to do harm. Intent is not always a consideration when there is a sufficient amount of negligence. If you drive drunk and kill or injure someone I'm sure you probably didn't mean to harm them but it's a felony all the same and rightly so. Intent does not always matter. Similarly I'm sure the drone pilots probably don't intend to do harm but when someone dies or someone's house burns down because their actions caused aircraft to be grounded for safety then they probably deserve some jail time for such reckless negligence.
When I was young, the smartly-uniformed milkman delivered all sorts of things up and down the garden path, and while he was doing that the bored horse moved the milk-float (some yards behind it) to align with the next house that had regular orders.
"When you were young"? Since milk delivery by horse hasn't happened since the 1940s I think you are making shit up or you are the only 80 year old on this site.
People forget what was possible in a less techno-mad world.
Just because they had cruder technology doesn't mean they were less enthusiastic about what they had.
You say "electric" and "battery" as if that electricity came from air. It does not, in most countries it comes from burning coal.
For now that is true. But you seem to be forgetting that with EVs we gain the option to change that fact. I can and have charged an EV from solar generated electricity. We use coal fired plants because 40 years ago that was the only realistic option in many places. Times have changed and our cars need to change with them. Internal combustion engines are a technological and environmental dead end. We've ridden that horse as far as it will take us. Time to switch to a fresh new ride.
So first we burn coal to generate electricity (with loses), then we transmit electricity (up to 40% of losses on power lines), then we charge the batteries (again some small loses), then we transform electricity into motion (again with loses).
Powerline loses are demonstrably no where close to what you claim. Loss rates are well under 10% and often under 5%. FAR more efficient than burning fossil fuels.
How about we burn fuel and we transform it directly into motion? (with loses of course, but much smaller).
What model of coal fired car do you drive?
EV cars are "green" only if you generate electricity from truly "green" sources (eg. hydrogeological or sun), and even then you have to ignore the insane amount of damage creation of batteries and solar panels does to environment.
A) At least with EVs you have the option to generate power from green sources. With ICEs you don't have that option. B) Your "insane amount of damage" claim is just preposterous in the face of the damage caused by fossil fuel production and consumption.
Not when you are burning diesel fuel from oil pumped out of the ground to manufacture it which is basically what happens in industrial scale farming. Ethanol production for fuel is mostly nothing more than a subsidy to farmers cloaked in a misleading lie about being eco friendly.
Hydrogen powered cars have annoyed me for years as I am convinced are not practical and mainly funded to muddy the waters around the development of pure EVs.
Certainly. They aren't a terrible idea but the fueling infrastructure problem alone pretty much dooms hydrogen fuel cells to power cars before they even get started. BEVs have their problems too but they have the one HUGE advantage that there already is a fuel infrastructure (the electric grid) in place. Needs some upgrades but we're not starting from scratch.
As much as I love Tesla I feel using Li-Ion batteries for grid storage is a bad idea as you don't have the same space/weight concerns for grid storage that you do in an EV and therefore such batteries are better deployed for EVs where they bring the most benefit.
The flaw in your logic there is that you are presuming using Li-Ion batteries in cars somehow precludes their use in grid applications. In reality optimal economic use of them almost requires multiple applications. To get the economies of scale for battery production you really need to try to meet as many use cases as you can to get the cost lower. This means making as many batteries as you can regardless of the end application because the battery doesn't care what device it is in. Putting batteries in a grid application actually in the long run will make the battery in your EV cost LESS because you have more units to amortize the fixed costs over.
A new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz's Greg Rau highlights another tool for our CO2 removal toolbox: splitting seawater to produce hydrogen gas for fuel while capturing CO2 with ocean chemistry.
So what? That's nifty and all but the obstacle to doing any of this is COST. It doesn't really matter what we can do if we cannot do it economically.
So give firefighting helicopters omnidirectional radio burst jammer, or a spoofer, or ultrasound emitters or any of the other anti-drone technology that doesn't require aiming.
Really? Because people fighting fires don't have enough to do already? Now they are supposed to jam drones that they might not even see to keep safe from jackasses who are endangering lives and property for casual amusement?
If the issue is bringing down a plane/helicopter at a fire scene, why stop at large fires? What about -- house fires, hostage situations,... ? That is, anywhere where news choppers (presumably approved) have to fly low over a scene.
You'll probably see that too in the future. There's going to be a lot of new laws written to deal with the problems caused by drones. I think this is just the tip of the spear on those.
Encouraging drone bloggers to make a big deal about this sort of thing would probably be a lot more effective.
That's important but you know as well as I do that there are too many self indulgent pricks who would just go do it anyway unless they can suffer actual consequences from their actions.
These are ACTUAL harm to people's lives.... mostly intentional violent crimes. Does flying a drone around and having it drift too close to a fire really seem to fit?
Yes it does. They have caused aircraft fighting the fire to crash or to divert from their missions (putting out fires) which can cost lives of firefighters and civilians as well as property. This isn't hypothetical. It's literally no different than forcing a fire engine in your town to divert therefore slowing response times. People die when that happens. If you have a legitimate need to fly a drone over a fire then coordinate that activity with the people fighting the fire and there is no problem. Otherwise you're just some jackass trying to amuse yourself and causing problems for others. Furthermore I don't think you appreciate how fast these fires can move. If you are close enough to fly most drones over the fire then you are in legitimate physical danger and might endanger others who have to rescue you from your stupidity.
By your logic- well, you are "endangering people's lives" by speeding, following too closely, jaywalking, drinking alcohol in public, running at a pool, or playing hockey, so those should be felonies?
In some cases those things are actually felonies. Don't believe me? Go ahead and drive a car through a school zone at 100 miles per hour while drinking in public and see if that doesn't land you some time behind bars.
Now, if you flew a drone in a way that ACTUALLY caused harm to someone, perhaps THAT would justify a felony.
By your logic attempted murder isn't a crime because no one was actually harmed.
With delivery vehicles, you only really have to worry about number 2). That should make the job significantly easier.
The majority of failure modes where a car kills its occupants also apply to killing individuals outside the vehicle. This includes vehicle to vehicle collisions, loss of control (traction), failure to recognize obstacles, insufficient time to react, other driver's unpredictable actions, and more. While you are correct that it does take some failure modes off the table, most of them still remain in some form or fashion.
You don't have to have some sort of AI "ethics" that has to judge whether to protect the people in the car or the people outside the car, it can always just "sacrifice itself".
That presumes it has sufficient situational awareness to make that possible. There is no evidence we have reached that happy state of affairs yet. Also bear in mind that people are not the only thing that need protecting. While lives should be paramount we don't need cars causing massive property damage either.
Limit them to say 30 km/h, just schedule the deliveries properly, and you reduce a lot of potential for accidents.
There isn't a single road in my town where the speed limit is as slow as 30km/h so all that would do is screw up traffic.
So testing things first with a safety driver seems pointless, i.e. it's basically development of the wrong type of vehicle.
Explain to me how you expect to develop a vehicle that can drive safely around humans before we've developed the robust logic and sensor systems to ensure they can drive more safely than a human. A vehicle that cannot keep itself safe reliably really shouldn't be on the road. Whether or not there is a human on board doesn't really change that fact. And since there isn't any way to actually test these devices safely around humans without having a human driver to step in when needed you need to account for that fact.
Starting this fall, Kroger will partner with driverless car company Nuro to deliver groceries using its autonomous vehicles.
Anyone want to take the bet that this is nothing more than a me-too promotional stunt by a company feeling threatened by Amazon combined with a startup with no revenue trying to make themselves seem bigger than they are? How exactly is Kroger going to make money doing this since groceries are not exactly a high margin business to begin with and now they have to split profits with another company on the delivery? And hands up if you have ever actually heard of this partner company Nuro before this article given that they were founded in 2016.
The grocery store in our town is a Kroger and they can't even get good quality produce reliably in their stores. Something they are supposed to be good at already but somehow can't seem to manage. Yet I'm supposed to believe they are going to be delivering my groceries via driverless cars which aren't even really a thing yet? Right....
Kroger is a lazy second rate grocery chain who is reacting to more clever companies in a desperate bid to stay alive and somehow relevant. They are big so they'll be around for a while but I think they are just slowly circling the drain. Honestly I wouldn't mourn the loss of Kroger for even a minute.
I do not have any of these devices and do not want them either, so I am ignorant as to their operational details; can a 'Fire Tablet' be turned completely off?
Sure. Plus if all else fails drain the battery. Hard for it to function without power. That wasn't my question however. My question is can the FUNCTIONALITY be turned off in software and reliably depended upon to remain in that state. If not then these devices can die in a fire. If I can turn the setting off then no biggie.
Amazon will dole packages out to the lowest bidder, and the only ones who will make money are those who consider their time to be worthless, thus becoming ex-parte slaves like Uber drivers already are.
"Slaves"? Really? Slave sort of implies you cannot quit and go do something else. Uber drivers aren't slaves either. Just because they are willing to working for crap wages doesn't mean they are obligated to continue to do so.
In reality Amazon will not be taking bids. They will set a flat rate (which will be aggressively cheap) and conditions to ensure service quality and it's up to the delivery company to make a profit. Honestly I have trouble seeing this working out well with high quality service but maybe they'll figure it out.
As long as I can turn that functionality off and rely on it to actually stay off then I guess that is ok. If Amazon insists on listening to everything I say no matter what I do then I won't be using their Fire device unless they are paying me a salary to do so.
It's what they want you to think, but nope. If it was actually mil-spec, they'd have said so.
Mil-spec doesn't mean anything to most general consumers. Saying "military grade" is the marketing BS for the same thing and it provides some legal cover in case some lawyer gets a burr in their saddle about it.
Ford can't say "mil-spec" unless there is actually a military spec that addresses the material in question, and the material actually meets that specification.
And as it happens there ARE military specifications for most materials including aluminum. I deal with them daily. Most metals have mil-spec options if you want them. In many cases they don't even cost extra. I deal in wire (copper mostly) that routinely has UL, mil-spec, and several other specifications attached to it. I sell products daily that I could say have "military grade copper" in them if I wanted to. Wouldn't mean much but it wouldn't be a lie either. Without looking I can almost guarantee you some amount of the aluminum that Ford uses happens to have a mil-spec on it.
And then, since no one can make money on it, no innovation occurs.
You seriously think no medical innovations come out of Europe or Japan or China or that companies there make no money on drugs or medical devices? If you think that then you'd be wildly wrong.
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I think you are seriously overstating the problem... we already have a network of fueling stations everywhere that can distribute hydrogen instead of or in addition to gasoline.
No we do not. Not on the sort of scale needed to actually get the general public to actually buy hydrogen powered vehicles anyway. Converting existing gas stations is a HUGE expense with a difficult chicken and egg problem. No gas station is going to install a hydrogen pump without there first being hydrogen powered cars. Nobody is going to buy a hydrogen powered car until the fuel infrastructure is already available. So unless you plan to convince the government to subsidize the problem it just isn't going to happen. Ever. Especially given that there is NO standard for how to store hydrogen on vehicles. Some use compressed gas, others use various hydrocarbons or other chemicals, etc. There are a variety of ways to do it but until there is an agree upon or de-facto standard there is no point in financing the refueling infrastructure build out. This limits hydrogen to powering local fleets of vehicles for companies and maybe buses but little more.
I don't have anything against hydrogen as a fuel source but the reality of it is that the fueling infrastructure problem kills it dead before it can really ever get any traction. EVs have their flaws but the electric grid pretty much already reaches everywhere people already go and people can charge their cars at home 99% of the time in most cases. Electrons are identical so there is no need to agree on anything more than a common plug. The batteries can be wildly different and that has no effect on the fuel infrastructure needs.
Unfortunately, as soon as electric cars start going mainstream, they will easily consume all available production for decades - we can always build more battery production plants (and recycling - that's going to be a huge factor too), but the economies of scale will begin to diminish rapidly.
That could only be true if there was a limitation on some of the components. And even if your scenario did play out that's not actually a problem as far as grid utilization goes. We don't HAVE to use Li-Ion for grid applications if there is enough demand elsewhere (cars etc) to get to minimum efficient scale.
And it's not at all clear that there's enough lithium on the planet to satisfy the demand for a global conversion to EVs, especially if harvested in an ecologically responsible manner.
There is quite a lot of lithium according to the USGS. The problems for the next several decades will be most likely a series of short term shortages while we fully utilize existing sources and have to establish new mines which will take some time. We're not likely to exhaust Earth's supply for a long time to come but rather it will be a challenge to keep up with demand if it rises too quickly. A good sort of problem to have in a sense but a problem all the same.
Using Li-Ion batteris for the grid for now, as we're jump-starting the transition, does indeed make sense, but soon enough we're going to want batteries whose compromises have been optimized for grid applications
You understand my point then. In the short run using Li-Ion or similar batteries for grid applications has great utility (they work find for grid applications even if not optimal) in bringing the cost of batteries down. In the long run if we transition to some other chemistry better suited for static and grid applications then that's fine too. I'm not arguing that we need to only use Li-Ion but rather that using those batteries even for tasks where weight is not a pressing concern is fine for the next few decades if it helps bring costs down.
Heck, even lead-acid batteries are better suited to grid-scale applications than Li-Ion - They're cheaper for the same capacity, and can have a considerably longer working life, lowering the amortized cost even further.
Lead Acid batteries have some pretty big drawbacks too. They have FAR fewer cycles, the have discharge issues, they have efficiency issues, etc. They are cheap and they work well so you're quite right that they could see use in some grid applications.
They are just a "marketplace" or "re-seller". If you have any problems with something you have bought on Amazon . . . you need to chase down the supplier in China.
You are aware that Amazon sells their own branded good right? Fire tablets, Kindle, Amazon Basics, a variety of goods through Whole Foods, etc. They are definitively not just a reseller.
When I need my prescription refilled, I just text my pharmacist (my daughter) at Walgreens and tell her when I can be there to pick it up. She responds with an "OK" and tells me how much it will be. Doesn't everyone have a pharmacist in the family?
So you support your daughter - as you should. If my daughter was a pharmacist that's the route I'd go too. Hopefully your daughter isn't this asshat that works for Walgreens.
Amazon's delivery is so unreliable that I'd NEVER trust my health to it.
You admit in the previous sentence that you rely on a family member so please don't pretend to be objective here. I ordered nearly 200 deliveries last year and if there is a more reliable company for delivery of products purchased online than Amazon I sure haven't found them. And I doubt Amazon would deny someone their medications like pharmacists at Walgreens just did.
People on meds need their meds to be available when they need them, not when some driver decides to deliver them.
If you are ordering meds through the mail obviously you aren't concerned about getting them right this minute. If you need them quickly then go to your local pharmacy in person. I get mail order meds through my insurance plan all the time and it works fine.
I have had one Amazon item (battery charger) stolen by a USPS employee.
Exactly how is that Amazon's fault?
I know several pharmacies in the area that offer free delivery to your home. How can Amazon compete with something that is free AND reliable?
Umm by being free and reliable and cheaper than your local pharmacy. Duh..
Unless Amazon figures out how to make their shipping reliable again, I can't see this succeeding.
I buy stuff from Amazon several times a week and so do most of my co-workers (both for business and personal). If there is an online company that is more reliable out regarding deliveries I haven't found them. No they aren't perfect but they do a DAMN good job. If they didn't they wouldn't be as large as they are.
Most of the time people don't have a week-wide window for receipt of their drugs.
Let me guess, you aren't a Prime member right? Virtually everything I order arrives in 2 days or less and if it will take longer they tell you in advance. Amazon has this stuff figured out just fine. You seriously think that Amazon would treat drug deliveries the same as some random trinket? Come on. You don't have to like Amazon but don't pretend they are stupid or incompetent.
A car with a very lightweight collapsible frame -- so collapsible that it'd allow any occupants to be killed easily, imagine a car that practically disintegrates on impact -- is also the car least likely to kill someone it hits.
That has precisely nothing to do with the problems of navigating any vehicle safely which is the primary issue in driverless cars. The question is how to develop a car that can safely navigate around humans without involving humans in the process. The crash worthiness of a vehicle is an almost entirely separate issue.
Kroger share holder here.
Thank you for disclosing your bias up front. For the record I own shares in Amazon.
Kroger is growing. I wouldn't describe Kroger as desperate, but a well run business that is willing to change and evolve.
And I'm a customer of theirs and every indication I see indicates exactly the opposite. Just because they are making some profits right now doesn't make me optimistic about their future. Maybe they'll figure it out. Would benefit me if they did. But right now I really hate doing business with them because I can't depend on anything I buy from them that isn't in a box being of decent quality. Their produce is of wildly inconsistent quality and their meat counter is a roll of the dice too. Their staff in the checkout is unpleasant to deal with (many of them rather dumb) and slow. I can get boxed goods cheaper from Walmart and the stuff that isn't in a box is unpredictable. That's not a recipe for success in the long run.
Sears had the potential to be what Amazon is now. They had the warehouses, delivery network, and order processing capabilities. All they had to do was slap a customer friendly front end on the interface the people processing mail and phone orders used; then advertise it.
Ha! You think that was the problem Sears had? Sears lost out to Walmart and other competitors YEARS before Amazon became a serious threat. Walmart developed better logistics than Sears ever dreamed of decades ago. If success was just a matter of slapping a pretty front end on a website Amazon wouldn't be a thing. I'm an industrial engineer so I work in production and logistics. It's a hell of a lot harder than you are making it out to be.
Have you complained to corporate about the produce quality?
Yes and they don't give a shit. It's the only grocery store in town and they know it. The nearest competitor is a Walmart 6 miles away plus a few mom and pop specialty stores. But even when I've gone to Kroger's with more competition close by their produce (and meats) still aren't consistently good. We routinely get produce home that rots within a day or two (yes we're storing it properly) or that is tasteless. Just this week we bought some strawberries that had basically no taste. They were red and strawberry shaped but that's it. We've had squash that should last for a month or more on the counter turn out to be rotten inside. I don't care if the produce is pretty but I do care that it doesn't rot and that it actually has taste.
Yes, because everybody in the whole world moved from horses to electric milk carts at exactly the same time you did.
And where exactly did milk get delivered by horse within the last 60 years?
First, I never said it wouldn't be a crime. Most importantly, you are forgetting an extremely important legal concept- intent. In those cases, the perp INTENDED to do harm.
Involuntary Manslaughter is a felony where there was no intent to do harm. Intent is not always a consideration when there is a sufficient amount of negligence. If you drive drunk and kill or injure someone I'm sure you probably didn't mean to harm them but it's a felony all the same and rightly so. Intent does not always matter. Similarly I'm sure the drone pilots probably don't intend to do harm but when someone dies or someone's house burns down because their actions caused aircraft to be grounded for safety then they probably deserve some jail time for such reckless negligence.
When I was young, the smartly-uniformed milkman delivered all sorts of things up and down the garden path, and while he was doing that the bored horse moved the milk-float (some yards behind it) to align with the next house that had regular orders.
"When you were young"? Since milk delivery by horse hasn't happened since the 1940s I think you are making shit up or you are the only 80 year old on this site.
People forget what was possible in a less techno-mad world.
Just because they had cruder technology doesn't mean they were less enthusiastic about what they had.
You say "electric" and "battery" as if that electricity came from air. It does not, in most countries it comes from burning coal.
For now that is true. But you seem to be forgetting that with EVs we gain the option to change that fact. I can and have charged an EV from solar generated electricity. We use coal fired plants because 40 years ago that was the only realistic option in many places. Times have changed and our cars need to change with them. Internal combustion engines are a technological and environmental dead end. We've ridden that horse as far as it will take us. Time to switch to a fresh new ride.
So first we burn coal to generate electricity (with loses), then we transmit electricity (up to 40% of losses on power lines), then we charge the batteries (again some small loses), then we transform electricity into motion (again with loses).
Powerline loses are demonstrably no where close to what you claim. Loss rates are well under 10% and often under 5%. FAR more efficient than burning fossil fuels.
How about we burn fuel and we transform it directly into motion? (with loses of course, but much smaller).
What model of coal fired car do you drive?
EV cars are "green" only if you generate electricity from truly "green" sources (eg. hydrogeological or sun), and even then you have to ignore the insane amount of damage creation of batteries and solar panels does to environment.
A) At least with EVs you have the option to generate power from green sources. With ICEs you don't have that option.
B) Your "insane amount of damage" claim is just preposterous in the face of the damage caused by fossil fuel production and consumption.
hence ethanol is carbon neutral.
Not when you are burning diesel fuel from oil pumped out of the ground to manufacture it which is basically what happens in industrial scale farming. Ethanol production for fuel is mostly nothing more than a subsidy to farmers cloaked in a misleading lie about being eco friendly.
Hydrogen powered cars have annoyed me for years as I am convinced are not practical and mainly funded to muddy the waters around the development of pure EVs.
Certainly. They aren't a terrible idea but the fueling infrastructure problem alone pretty much dooms hydrogen fuel cells to power cars before they even get started. BEVs have their problems too but they have the one HUGE advantage that there already is a fuel infrastructure (the electric grid) in place. Needs some upgrades but we're not starting from scratch.
As much as I love Tesla I feel using Li-Ion batteries for grid storage is a bad idea as you don't have the same space/weight concerns for grid storage that you do in an EV and therefore such batteries are better deployed for EVs where they bring the most benefit.
The flaw in your logic there is that you are presuming using Li-Ion batteries in cars somehow precludes their use in grid applications. In reality optimal economic use of them almost requires multiple applications. To get the economies of scale for battery production you really need to try to meet as many use cases as you can to get the cost lower. This means making as many batteries as you can regardless of the end application because the battery doesn't care what device it is in. Putting batteries in a grid application actually in the long run will make the battery in your EV cost LESS because you have more units to amortize the fixed costs over.
A new study led by the University of California, Santa Cruz's Greg Rau highlights another tool for our CO2 removal toolbox: splitting seawater to produce hydrogen gas for fuel while capturing CO2 with ocean chemistry.
So what? That's nifty and all but the obstacle to doing any of this is COST. It doesn't really matter what we can do if we cannot do it economically.
So give firefighting helicopters omnidirectional radio burst jammer, or a spoofer, or ultrasound emitters or any of the other anti-drone technology that doesn't require aiming.
Really? Because people fighting fires don't have enough to do already? Now they are supposed to jam drones that they might not even see to keep safe from jackasses who are endangering lives and property for casual amusement?
If the issue is bringing down a plane/helicopter at a fire scene, why stop at large fires? What about -- house fires, hostage situations, ... ? That is, anywhere where news choppers (presumably approved) have to fly low over a scene.
You'll probably see that too in the future. There's going to be a lot of new laws written to deal with the problems caused by drones. I think this is just the tip of the spear on those.
Encouraging drone bloggers to make a big deal about this sort of thing would probably be a lot more effective.
That's important but you know as well as I do that there are too many self indulgent pricks who would just go do it anyway unless they can suffer actual consequences from their actions.
These are ACTUAL harm to people's lives.... mostly intentional violent crimes. Does flying a drone around and having it drift too close to a fire really seem to fit?
Yes it does. They have caused aircraft fighting the fire to crash or to divert from their missions (putting out fires) which can cost lives of firefighters and civilians as well as property. This isn't hypothetical. It's literally no different than forcing a fire engine in your town to divert therefore slowing response times. People die when that happens. If you have a legitimate need to fly a drone over a fire then coordinate that activity with the people fighting the fire and there is no problem. Otherwise you're just some jackass trying to amuse yourself and causing problems for others. Furthermore I don't think you appreciate how fast these fires can move. If you are close enough to fly most drones over the fire then you are in legitimate physical danger and might endanger others who have to rescue you from your stupidity.
By your logic- well, you are "endangering people's lives" by speeding, following too closely, jaywalking, drinking alcohol in public, running at a pool, or playing hockey, so those should be felonies?
In some cases those things are actually felonies. Don't believe me? Go ahead and drive a car through a school zone at 100 miles per hour while drinking in public and see if that doesn't land you some time behind bars.
Now, if you flew a drone in a way that ACTUALLY caused harm to someone, perhaps THAT would justify a felony.
By your logic attempted murder isn't a crime because no one was actually harmed.
With delivery vehicles, you only really have to worry about number 2). That should make the job significantly easier.
The majority of failure modes where a car kills its occupants also apply to killing individuals outside the vehicle. This includes vehicle to vehicle collisions, loss of control (traction), failure to recognize obstacles, insufficient time to react, other driver's unpredictable actions, and more. While you are correct that it does take some failure modes off the table, most of them still remain in some form or fashion.
You don't have to have some sort of AI "ethics" that has to judge whether to protect the people in the car or the people outside the car, it can always just "sacrifice itself".
That presumes it has sufficient situational awareness to make that possible. There is no evidence we have reached that happy state of affairs yet. Also bear in mind that people are not the only thing that need protecting. While lives should be paramount we don't need cars causing massive property damage either.
Limit them to say 30 km/h, just schedule the deliveries properly, and you reduce a lot of potential for accidents.
There isn't a single road in my town where the speed limit is as slow as 30km/h so all that would do is screw up traffic.
So testing things first with a safety driver seems pointless, i.e. it's basically development of the wrong type of vehicle.
Explain to me how you expect to develop a vehicle that can drive safely around humans before we've developed the robust logic and sensor systems to ensure they can drive more safely than a human. A vehicle that cannot keep itself safe reliably really shouldn't be on the road. Whether or not there is a human on board doesn't really change that fact. And since there isn't any way to actually test these devices safely around humans without having a human driver to step in when needed you need to account for that fact.
Starting this fall, Kroger will partner with driverless car company Nuro to deliver groceries using its autonomous vehicles.
Anyone want to take the bet that this is nothing more than a me-too promotional stunt by a company feeling threatened by Amazon combined with a startup with no revenue trying to make themselves seem bigger than they are? How exactly is Kroger going to make money doing this since groceries are not exactly a high margin business to begin with and now they have to split profits with another company on the delivery? And hands up if you have ever actually heard of this partner company Nuro before this article given that they were founded in 2016.
The grocery store in our town is a Kroger and they can't even get good quality produce reliably in their stores. Something they are supposed to be good at already but somehow can't seem to manage. Yet I'm supposed to believe they are going to be delivering my groceries via driverless cars which aren't even really a thing yet? Right....
Kroger is a lazy second rate grocery chain who is reacting to more clever companies in a desperate bid to stay alive and somehow relevant. They are big so they'll be around for a while but I think they are just slowly circling the drain. Honestly I wouldn't mourn the loss of Kroger for even a minute.
I do not have any of these devices and do not want them either, so I am ignorant as to their operational details; can a 'Fire Tablet' be turned completely off?
Sure. Plus if all else fails drain the battery. Hard for it to function without power. That wasn't my question however. My question is can the FUNCTIONALITY be turned off in software and reliably depended upon to remain in that state. If not then these devices can die in a fire. If I can turn the setting off then no biggie.
Amazon will dole packages out to the lowest bidder, and the only ones who will make money are those who consider their time to be worthless, thus becoming ex-parte slaves like Uber drivers already are.
"Slaves"? Really? Slave sort of implies you cannot quit and go do something else. Uber drivers aren't slaves either. Just because they are willing to working for crap wages doesn't mean they are obligated to continue to do so.
In reality Amazon will not be taking bids. They will set a flat rate (which will be aggressively cheap) and conditions to ensure service quality and it's up to the delivery company to make a profit. Honestly I have trouble seeing this working out well with high quality service but maybe they'll figure it out.
As long as I can turn that functionality off and rely on it to actually stay off then I guess that is ok. If Amazon insists on listening to everything I say no matter what I do then I won't be using their Fire device unless they are paying me a salary to do so.
It's what they want you to think, but nope. If it was actually mil-spec, they'd have said so.
Mil-spec doesn't mean anything to most general consumers. Saying "military grade" is the marketing BS for the same thing and it provides some legal cover in case some lawyer gets a burr in their saddle about it.
Ford can't say "mil-spec" unless there is actually a military spec that addresses the material in question, and the material actually meets that specification.
And as it happens there ARE military specifications for most materials including aluminum. I deal with them daily. Most metals have mil-spec options if you want them. In many cases they don't even cost extra. I deal in wire (copper mostly) that routinely has UL, mil-spec, and several other specifications attached to it. I sell products daily that I could say have "military grade copper" in them if I wanted to. Wouldn't mean much but it wouldn't be a lie either. Without looking I can almost guarantee you some amount of the aluminum that Ford uses happens to have a mil-spec on it.
And then, since no one can make money on it, no innovation occurs.
You seriously think no medical innovations come out of Europe or Japan or China or that companies there make no money on drugs or medical devices? If you think that then you'd be wildly wrong.