XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science
From: rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com
Bernard Peek wrote
> Chrysi Cat wrote
>> J. Clarke wrote
>>> Bernard Peek wrote
>>>> J. Clarke wrote
>>>>>> No, I'm using a pod for a single delivery. A pod is closer to an
>>>>>> envelope than it is to a vehicle.
>>>>> An envelope doesn't have wheels, an engine, or a control system. Or
>>>>> are you just using the word "pod" to refer to what is currently called
>>>>> a "box"? If so, how does your "pod" system change anything?
>>>> A pod doesn't have any of those either.
>>>> There's no reason in principle that a pod couldn't be the size of a box
>>>> or an envelope. While we're replacing the transport industry it's not
>>>> much more effort to replace the postal services too.
>>> I'm sorry, but calling a box a "pod" doesn't change anything at all.
>> Unless I _really_ miss Bernard's meaning here (and God/dess, I hope I do,
>> because if I'm right his ideas are scarier even than I was originally
>> thinking of):
> You're very close. I've refined the concept a bit in my own mind and so I
> think it's time for a more detailed explanation of my current thinking.
Yes it is.
> I started out thinking of a replacement for the domestic car. As I've
> thought about it more I realised that the same technology that could do
> that could do more. In fact what I am now considering is a way to
> streamline and automate generic logistics tasks. Moving a person is the
> same class of problem as moving a letter.
I'm not convinced, particularly with people who choose to
just get out of the house, go for a drive, do some shopping,
or just go out for a meal or down the pub for a bit etc.
No pod service will ever be able to replace that sort of thing.
But a robot car will, so it is more likely to be accepted than your
pod system, quite apart from the massive problem with the pod
system, the immense infrastructure cost involved with that approach.
>> Everything is in its little pod. Your 'home' itself may be a pod. The
>> only things that ever move on the streets are crawler-chassis of varying
>> speeds, with a manipulating arm to pick up a pod and install it atop the
>> crawler. Everything is somehow point-to-poing despite the fact that he's
>> now turned every transportation event, whether living or inanimate, into
>> cargo shipping and as FedEx can attest, that's best done via
>> hub-and-spoke, which his system doesn't seem to be. If you order a single
>> unit of milk, it gets packed at the farm, never sees a warehouse, and is
>> delivered to your door--
>> apparently with nothing else in the shipment.
> If you want a gallon of milk you send out a software agent to tender for
> the supply of a gallon of milk, stipulating your requirement for either
> low cost or fast delivery. If you specify fast delivery Bezos dairies will
> offer to deliver it from their nearby hub. Your agent holds an auction and
> Bezos dairies might bid lowest. It will be dropped into a priority queue
> at the dairy, packed in a standard-size insulated box and sent out. From
> the dairy it goes to your local hub and then gets packed on a robotic
> crawler vehicle that's scheduled to go past your door. On its way past it
> drops off your milk and at the same time picks up any mail you have ready
> for collection. If there's a passenger waiting it will offer them a
> suitable sized empty pod to travel in. Probably some standard multiple of
> the simple cubic-foot pod.
> A standard pod holding a cubic foot would cover most people's mail
> requirements and their fresh food requirements because it only needs to
> deliver what you have ordered since the last Bezos Logistics crawler went
> past ten minutes ago.
> Incidentally you could stipulate low price rather than fast delivery for
> your milk in which case Bezos dairies would probably offer milk left over
> from yesterday, selling it cheap rather than having to pay to dump it.
Sure, but that still need the immense infrastructure to be paid
for for it to work. Robot cars don't, people can buy them when
they decide they like them better than normal car and they just
use the existing infrastructure better than normal cars do,
particularly with the door to door delivery of the humans etc.
>> Yeah, he'd _need_ all retail and commercial buildings gone in order to
>> make room for all the extra roadspace/railspace all the
>> crawlers-including-what-we-now-call-train-flatcars would need.
> Just a bit more on my comment that retail businesses are doomed.
I don't believe it myself. Retail has been with us for millennia
now and I can't see it going away any time soon, if only because
for some its about their only real human interaction, even if its
only a pub or coffee etc and for some shopping is that.
> Retail is going to look very different in five years time when even more
> of our shopping is done online.
More, certainly. But I doubt we will see any substantial effect
on supermarkets in just 5 years, or even 10. Just because for
some its just easier to visit the shop than to do it online with
the sort of thing that is a minor purchase for them, the stuff
they consume every day food wise etc.
> Retail establishments will stop being places to shop and start to become
> showrooms.
I doubt it with supermarkets and fresh food shops.
> Manufacturers will pay showrooms to carry their products.
They already do with supermarkets.
> Customers will select what they want and order it for delivery.
I doubt most will do that even with say cars.
People like me will, but the general public won't.
They already do that with major domestic appliances
like washing machines etc, but they still mostly do want
to see one in the flesh and have it delivered and installed.
> It will take a while for this model to reach grocery stores
I doubt it ever will in the sense of seeing none of those left.
I doubt we will even see a significant reduction in
the number of major supermarkets any decade soon.
> but it's already working for some high technology manufacturers.
Sure, and I hardly ever buy high tech stuff in person
anymore, just do that when I need it now and the
month it takes to come from china isnt acceptable.
> The need for personal vehicles will go down as the need to carry groceries
> back from the shops declines.
Certainly if more go for telecommuting those who currently
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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