dsnuh

Do you have children? The flippant way you say that we should take the children away from their families makes me think not.

My experience is that the more off-brand the player, the more lenient it is with what it will play. I had a crap Lite-On that would play anything.

Trucks aren't just "sometimes preferred", they move far more tonnage than trains.

https://www.bts.gov/content/weight-shipments-transportation-...

Your evidence seems to contradict what you are saying. From your second link:

"A total of 3,986 people died in large truck crashes in 2016. Seventeen percent of these deaths were truck occupants, 66 percent were occupants of cars and other passenger vehicles, and 16 percent were pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists. The number of people who died in large truck crashes was 27 percent higher in 2016 than in 2009, when it was the lowest it has been since the collection of fatal crash data began in 1975. The number of truck occupants who died was 47 percent higher than in 2009."

My father is a retired truck driver, it'd be great to curse at each other sometime. :)

My understanding is that the industry (and maybe this has changed or was not good anecdata to begin with) is rife with gaming of the regulations, which in my opinion are already grueling. A human being, no matter how accustomed they are to driving, should not be asked to sit and drive down long mundane stretches of road at a high degree of alertness for 11 hours per day, multiple days per week. I understand that the new time tracking systems will reduce the ability to game the system, but I feel the fact that regulators are calling for these devices and driver awareness monitoring devices should be an indication that maybe we can find a solution that doesn't involve a human.

I'm not saying I think trains will disappear, if anything, it seems they would likely benfit from increased capacity in the intermodal system, allowing them to move more of the type of freight they are well suited for.

Which was worth more, the government funding of the interstate project, or the almost unchecked power and monopoly of the robber barons of the Gilded Age?

Thrift stores are a cheaper and very reliable alternative to Fry's, if you are ever looking for one. I've never not seen a CD/DVD player at a thrift store.

It would surprise me if another company didn't pick up the torch here. It sounds like Otto had a working demo of the technology. There's $800B+ on the table, someone is going to crack this market.

Yes, I am imagining something like this, with self driving electric tractor trailers being orchestrated at huge stations with solar collecting roofs along the transportation corridor. Inspection and maintenance could be performed by human workers if needed. If the trailer is destined within half the distance of the next station, the load is dropped, and a human driver does last mile(s) delivery.

Not sure how the context of what I said changes this? Yes, trains already exist and have existed much longer, and yet have obviously lost out to the truck.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not...

I think if you have a predictable accident, that's called negligence, and we have courts to deal with that.

Right, I never said they didn't. But the trucking industry is still by far the main mode of moving freight within the US.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-staggering-statistics-be...

I don't see any indication in the article that they are stopping due to technical challenges. They already demonstrated it on the road, so it seems they were well on their way. It appears this project is a victim of politics and legal action.

Why do you think we need to get to the level of top 10%-20% of commercial drivers? How do you come to that cutoff point? If we had automated trucks that could move freight 24/7 with even 5% better than average accident rates (for example) would be a huge win.

It is also checking brakes for functionality before you set out. There is an in-cab procedure too, not just a visual inspection. But I believe that both can be automated. The in-cab brake check is testing for certain pressures in the system under certain circumstances, and could be automated via software-hardware combo. The visual inspection could be done via a series of cameras under a bay the truck rolls over, with software to detect issues with the braking system components visually. Or either of these functions could be performed manually by a human at a waystation before the truck heads out on the (next leg of the) trip.

The trucking industry is many many times larger than the rail freight industry in America.

I'm saying if you limit the scope to tractor trailers hauling only 20/40 ft ISO shipping containers, then "loading/unloading" can also be done in an automated fashion. I'm saying that if you limit the problem space, and try to approach even just a single use case such as this on a major artery like I-40, I don't see any way you end up in a worse spot than human drivers.

And often surrounded by land I would wager the government owns, which could be used to build the transfer stations upon. Maybe even a susbsidised incentive to get companies on board, so they don't have to spend their own time and capital acquiring land.

Huh? I'm not saying they exist, just that it's not impossible for me to imagine these problems being solved or being minimized to a level that is no worse than current human driver would perform.

Trucking absolutely dwarfs the train industry in America.

I understand that the job encompasses other duties, my father is a retired truck driver. That said, my answer is "yes, I think they could, just as well, or better than any human".

You could have multiple cameras on the load using computer vision to detect movement. You could have weight sensors sending feedback to the system. I'm sure there are many ways to do this, and any of them would beat a human behind the wheel.

Even if this was only available on Interstate 40, I think you would make a lot of money. Trucking is something like $800B industry, and a lot of that flows on I-40.

Let's say we limit the application to just ISO compliant steel shipping container transport. It seems like we could apply much of the self balancing technology to trailer design to account for various load weights and distributions. Even without some redesign of the trailer, it's not too difficult for me to imagine software being better at controlling the truck than a human. The things that are difficult for humans to learn about driving a truck don't seem all that challenging, especially when given the limited problem space related to what is trying to be achieved with self-driving cars replacing all human transportation in cities.

I think 50 hours would get you across Interstate 40 nonstop. But you wouldn't need to have the trucks go all the way. Just have transfer stations every 500 miles or so where the truck transfers the trailer and recharges/refuels. Even if it was a manual process to transfer the trailer and refuel the truck, you would more than make up for stoppage time with human drivers.

There are already rules in place for human truck drivers that push the limits of what a human should be called upon to do for many hours at a time. Human truck drivers already have regular accidents due to fatigue. Replacing or augmenting long haul trucking can only be a positive.

Yeah, I don't understand why they aren't doing something like this. Seems like a no-brainer to have a number of staging facilities along major transport corridors that the self driving trucks deliver to, leaving the last X miles to human drivers. The truck unhitches, fuels up, picks up a new trailer, and is back on the highway in 30 minutes. You could have these operating 24/7, with human drivers picking up loads for delivery during human working hours.

You're right, I added an extra zero. It's one trillion numbers per issuer.

Credit card is 18 digits, which is where the 10^12 comes from.

At the child dentist I take my kids to, they call men "Dad" and women "Mom". For example, "Okay, Dad, we're here to get a check up for John today? Just fill out this form, Dad." It's awful and I hate it.

edit: I hate it for the same patronizing feeling you described. I love hearing my kids call me "Dad", not strangers.

There may be only a handful that are well known, but that doesn't mean that there aren't more possible issuer numbers available. The first six digits make up the issuer identifier, so there are 10^6 possible issuers.

Sure, it's not ipv6 level address space (2^128), but ~10,000,000,000,000,000 possible card numbers seems like it should last many lifetimes, especially if you consider that card numbers could be recycled/reassigned, and if we ever approached the point where running out of numbers was within imagination, we would come up with a new scheme that allowed for a few new digits. My guess is the credit card itself as a concept will be long gone before the numbers are all used up.