Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations • Hacker News Board

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#481

Post by eecc » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

noirbot wrote: post #470

antoinebalaine wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. This right here is the voice of common sense. With fossil fuel-supply contracting in the coming decades and over-spread cities' infrastructures being impossible to navigate without transportation, the US will have no choice but to turn to rail. It's just a matter of "when", not "if".

Isn't the problem with rail that it's nearly impossible to build new rail lines? Especially in a way that isn't destructive to the environment? I'm all for rail in general, but it feels like the same environmentalist push that wants to get away from trucks is also the force that's going to block putting fairly environmentally damaging train lines all over the American west.

Yeah, you won’t get animals randomly wandering on the tracks if you lay them over concrete bridge structures, costs a tad more also in terms of concrete production emissions but you can offset that by running the trains on renewables throughout their lifetime

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#482

Post by epistasis » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #232

epistasis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a lot of people want to be in an area, but you want an area with fewer people, why should your single vote override everybody else's desires? Simply move elsewhere, as nobody has the right to interfere with the free association of others.

Why should people who don't live there now get a vote?

If I'm making a software product in a specific product area, do I get to keep out other people from ever making that product?

If a ship sinks at sea, and there's a deserted island nearby, does the first passenger on the ship that arrives on the island get to claim it and prevent anybody else from stepping onto the island? Do all those other people on the ship get a vote on who can step onto the island even if they were not there first?

Does owning a piece of property give you the right to veto a particular person purchasing the neighboring property because you don't want then next door?

We as a society have set up a bunch of rules as for how much control people get when they "purchase" property. It's not a single thing, it's actually a bundle of rights, and we have chosen a particular bundle, and that bundle can be changed, and has changed, over time. Zoning is a century old invention.

The idea that a single land owner in an area can block the sale of land to others is considered ridiculous by most. But how much more ridiculous is it then saying that somebody else can't build apartments on their land, particularly in areas where lack of housing has caused massive homelessness and and skyrocketing of housing prices.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#483

Post by noirbot » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

eecc wrote: post #481

noirbot wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the problem with rail that it's nearly impossible to build new rail lines? Especially in a way that isn't destructive to the environment? I'm all for rail in general, but it feels like the same environmentalist push that wants to get away from trucks is also the force that's going to block putting fairly environmentally damaging train lines all over the American west.

Yeah, you won’t get animals randomly wandering on the tracks if you lay them over concrete bridge structures, costs a tad more also in terms of concrete production emissions but you can offset that by running the trains on renewables throughout their lifetime

Sure - there's answers to a lot of it, but you're still talking about having to acquire a ton of land that's likely in the middle of nowhere and putting in a big construction project. It's not too dissimilar to the sort of work that's required, and the risks associated with, adding new oil pipelines, and those have been a complete mess of corruption and environmental and land-rights protests.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#484

Post by ars » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

test6554 wrote: post #464

CalChris wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty. That isn't actually the important question or rather important problem. The storage yards are currently stacked X x Y x 2 and now they need to be re-stacked into something like X x (Y / 2) x 4 to free up space for more empties but that re-stacking has to happen from the edges. That will take a little time.

A couple strategic gaps between the stacks could make this process go much faster. The short-sighted lack of these gaps could make things slow going.

You only need a single lane free. You start on one side of the yard, and stack it to 6, then work your way across the yard building rows.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#485

Post by pixl97 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

Jolter wrote: post #212

pixl97 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much upshifting in jobs has occurred? Before the pandemic we talked about unfilled jobs looking for computer programmers and other higher paid positions. How many people moved from 'social' jobs to ones that required more skills but pay more?

You mean all those underemployed software engineers and all the trained programmers forced to wait tables because they couldn’t get a programming job? That is not how I remember the world in 2019.

You took that the wrong way. Software engineers moved up. I've gotten 2 promotions since the pandemic started. I'm talking about people shifting industries in to ones that have been short staffed, like programming, and leaving the crap jobs behind.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#486

Post by Consultant32452 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

jpgvm wrote: post #462

Consultant32452 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't manufacturing vs manufacturing. It's putting an empty container on a ship that is already going somewhere vs clawing tons of raw material out of the Earth, processing the raw material, manufacturing a container, transporting the container.

Sure but you asked if they are subsidizing them, the answer is no. Is it cheaper than waiting to load empty containers? It could be depending on the incentives, even if those short-term incentives are damaging to long term prospects you would be surprised how short-term most businesses think. Biggest influencing factor I can think of right now is that many importers/exporters are willing to pay exorbitant fees to get…

You've hinted at what I'm trying to understand. What incentives are actually in place that are impacting this behavior? My hypothesis was that the CCP decided it's going to flood the world market with containers by subsidizing them. Maybe that's not what is going on, fine. But what specifically is happening? It sounds like maybe you don't know either.

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#487

Post by baybal2 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #477

baybal2 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that doesn't happen, how many of them will get bank loans to get them out of this mess? I think you have just affirmed what I have said. USA is world's biggest, but an extremely fragile economy which is full of businesspeople too used to bailouts from a caring government. It's a bigger miracle it never seen major crisises from "encounter with reality" before. > We truly are talking about a Lehman Brothers scale…

This isn't just Xmas gifts, it's servers, routers, hard drives, you name it, stuff that's vital for businesses. We have long delays for much of our IT infrastructure at my company due to this.

Well, bad for you to place trust in these people!

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#488

Post by smileysteve » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #463

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but this isn't necessarily the best example. In this case, frankly part of this issue had to be resolved by relaxing strict zoning laws that weren't allowing space to be used in a way that the market demanded (offloading empty chassis). Such a measure falls under deregulation/free-market/small-government. The other measures proposed (forcing railroads, national guards etc) are of course of a differe…

Those 2-high zoning laws aren't new, are they? Presumably the port would've architected its systems to work within all sorts of constraints, come they from physics, or business, or regulation. The fact that one of them can easily be relaxed is immaterial to their failure to account for it in the first place.

Presumably, the regulation had reasoning. Likely unsightfulness. But also likely danger.

Will the port's insurer cover damages when a 3 or 4 high stack falls?

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#489

Post by lumost » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

eecc wrote: post #420

jandrese wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter thread said that the crackdown on illegal immigrants hit the California trucking industry hard since so many companies were using undocumented drivers to cut down on their costs.

Ah well, I guess that’s a nice opportunity to quote and paraphrase the meme: if you can’t make a profit while paying a living wage, the problem is not with minimum wage but with your business model.

Arguably this is more true in shipping than other disciplines. There are great economies of scale in shipping, and drivers/operators will be required regardless of wage. importing goods from low-cost areas, transporting goods with underpaid workers, and selling them in minimum wage stores doesn't seem like a great business model.

Do shoes need to cost $20 or do the workers need to be paid $20/hr to afford $60 locally produced shoes?

Re: Long Beach has temporarily suspended container stacking limitations

#490

Post by yblu » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #293

* Own the bottleneck of your business. * The most capital intensive process of your business should be the bottleneck. * When you find a bottleneck not of your making, overwhelm it.

> The most capital intensive process of your business should be the bottleneck.

Can you explain what this means? You find the bottleneck, then invest the most capital to improve it? Or whatever you're investing the most is the bottleneck? Or something else?