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Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

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Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#141

Post by Cthulhu_ »

duxup wrote: post #43

I wonder if it is possible to measure the volume of poorly discarded scooters and properly parked scooters and compare location to location. There is an area I visit often and it started with lots of poorly parked scooters but after a while ... I didn't see many. I don't know if folks just did a better job or if the company scooter shepherds (don't know what to call them) were cleaning them up effectively or what. On…

The company that owns these will know exactly where they are (or at least their last position); I don't believe they publish this data in the open, but they could be mandated to do so by local governments.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#142

Post by CPLX »

_fullpint wrote: post #13

Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…

How selfish of you. You should take more than 2 minutes and spend the time to throw them in a nearby body of water and solve the problem more permanently.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#143

Post by Cthulhu_ »

only4here wrote: post #68
stopnamingnuts wrote: post #28

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

I'm all for robots taking over the world, that is, if I get my tacos.

I mean it's a kind of lazy luxury predicted by e.g. the Jetsons, Wall-E, even Star Trek if you're being generous.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#144

Post by spatley »

elteto wrote: post #10
djohnston wrote: post #2

It would be awesome if delivery robots had a built-in road rage mechanism that turned them into battle bots.

“Your delivery is delayed, our robot was electrocuted by another robot from a competing delivery company. You are important to us and we are working hard to get your delivery to you ASAP.”

That is the most Snow Crash sentence ever outside of Snow Crash.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#145

Post by Robotbeat »

kijin wrote: post #131
Robotbeat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good idea. Innovation sometimes requires some additional provision of public goods. Seems like a good way to solve the problem!

Designated parking spaces are a good idea, but they should be paid for by companies that make a profit by renting out scooters. Not taxpayers. Public funding might be justified if the majority of scooters were owned by individual citizens with the right to vote on city affairs. Most rideshare companies, on the other hand, will simply siphon off public subsidies as additional profit to be taxed (or not) somewhere else…

Wait, why NOT have a public good paid by taxpayers? Just have a progressive taxation system.

A system where private companies effectively own these little spots would stifle innovation and competition (ie the big players would be the only ones with a chance of succeeding) as well as individual freedom.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#146

Post by peteradio »

josephcsible wrote: post #120
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the gp make the problem worse? Instead of gently moving them over to the side of the sidewalk, they toss it to the side of the sidewalk. End result is the same, they’re out of the way… Just a bit more rage maybe in the process.

By knocking them over, they're now wide enough to be in the way even on the side.

Toss them into a pile will make them more compact. Really it wouldn't take too long to clear a whole sidewalk of them, granted it might get more difficult once the pile gets to significant height. But I'm thinking 1 scooter toss every 2-5 seconds: 1 grunt grab, 2 grunt grab, 3 grunt grab etc, you can imagine it happening at a decent pace.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#147

Post by throwawaynay »

josephcsible wrote: post #102
steelframe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they should pity the human delivery workers who they are helping to put out of a job?

Until we're out of this labor shortage, reducing the number of unskilled jobs society needs is a good thing.

there is no labor shortage there is benefits and decent salaries shortage

the fact that nobody is volunteering to become a slave doesn't mean there is a labor shortage

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#148

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

netsharc wrote: post #37
_fullpint wrote: post #13

Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…

Someone, who for legal reasons is not me, has the idea to make stickers with strong glue and cheap paper (so they can't be ripped off in one go) to stick on top of the QR codes to these things. The sticker would have text that says "Sorry you can't use this scooter because the last rider parked like an idiot."

It’s a frustrating problem, but isn’t it better to not be a jerk?

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#149

Post by financetechbro »

fishtacos wrote: post #58
duxup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the we're all sympathetic to the idea that one person's carelessness creates an impossible problem for someone else. >Don't donate free labor to corporations. That's absurd, someone takes two seconds to move an object so someone else can get their food on time. That's just being a good human rather that sweating about "free labor to corporations" first.

>>That's absurd, someone takes two seconds to move an object so someone else can get their food on time. That's just being a good human rather that sweating about "free labor to corporations" first. Someone who can afford a robot delivery can afford a human delivery for an extra 50 cents, or learn from this situation to not use that company again because they use robots and robots... suck, or further incentivizes the…

People are not “50 cents” more expensive than robots…

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#150

Post by jakub_g »

reaperducer wrote: post #135
bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.) Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the ty…

What are "security robots" for the uninitiated?
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