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Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

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Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#101

Post by throwaway2037 »

teachrdan wrote: post #27
next_xibalba wrote: post #23

I'm generally pretty gung ho about tech adoption. Nuclear? Yes! LLMs everywhere? Let's try it! Crypto? OK... give it a go! Self driving cars? Heck yeah! But I really, really don't want drones flying over my house, polluting the already noisy soundscape, etc. This just strikes me as a terrible idea.

My dream is that an increase in drones would lead to a decrease in vehicular deliveries, to the point that there would be a net decrease in noise. But in my heart of hearts I am certain the convenience of drone delivery -- and an absence of sufficient regulation -- would lead to a drastic net increase in noise instead.

Electric trucks are nearly silent. Drones are much louder in my experience. Do I misunderstand your comment?

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#102

Post by protocolture »

Show me the line lmao. You see these rural cowboys stringing 1 - 2 cores over a long distance, I have seen them just going right through or even resting on trees.

The solution is probably a dial before you dig style registry that corresponds to an altitude floor, but I honestly doubt the ability of rural telco to meet that requirement.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#103

Post by throwawaylaptop »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #97
throwawaylaptop wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really consider how much energy it takes to levitate an 80lb drone while flying across town, compared to how much energy it takes to roll an 8000lb van across town (even ignoring the fact that the van might deliver 100 packages while making it's way across town).

You raise an interesting point about energy per delivery. In you example, which one is lower per package? I assume the electric truck.

Considering the distance from one delivery to the next in a van is short, and the warehouse to town distance is split via a hundred packages, it just has to be the electric van. Maybe things will make more sense if the drone can carry 20 lightweight packages. But even then you gotta wonder how much energy it takes to hover/fight gravity the entirety of the trip.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#104

Post by [deleted] »

riotnrrd wrote: post #38

I used to work in perception for autonomous aerial vehicles and horizontal wires were the hardest common object to avoid. Traditional stereo won't help you localize them -- wires are thin so even mere detection can be hard, and one portion of a wire looks much like another so feature matching fails resulting in bad or no depth estimates -- and LIDAR sacrifices resolution for weight and power consumption (which both h…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#105

Post by teachrdan »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #101
teachrdan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dream is that an increase in drones would lead to a decrease in vehicular deliveries, to the point that there would be a net decrease in noise. But in my heart of hearts I am certain the convenience of drone delivery -- and an absence of sufficient regulation -- would lead to a drastic net increase in noise instead.

Electric trucks are nearly silent. Drones are much louder in my experience. Do I misunderstand your comment?

Assume a silent drone that never cuts internet cable.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#108

Post by ggreer »

throwawaylaptop wrote: post #75
ggreer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A truck travels a greater distance to deliver those 500 packages to the same locations, as it must take roads instead of flying in a straight line. And roads are much more likely to have people on them than a random patch of ground. Also the truck weighs several tons. The weight requires more energy to move stuff around, and has more kinetic energy than an 80lb drone.

You should really consider how much energy it takes to levitate an 80lb drone while flying across town, compared to how much energy it takes to roll an 8000lb van across town (even ignoring the fact that the van might deliver 100 packages while making it's way across town).

An 8,000lb van will be using fossil fuels and emit particulates from tire and brake dust. Unless it was incredibly efficient and electricity for the drones was coming from coal plants, the van would emit more pollution.

But the biggest harm is people getting hit by vehicles. Delivery drones are much smaller and don't spend nearly as much time near people. Since drones can deliver stuff more quickly than large vans, they also substitute for individuals driving to a store to pick something up. So the total risk to pedestrians is even less than you might expect from eliminating many van deliveries.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#109

Post by ynab6 »

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #45

I'm sure this will sound a bit whack to some of the sorts on here but honestly, who cares? I was at the principal engineers offsite summit in scenic Cle Ellum when they supposedly announced prime Air. I know, I know, what the f** ever, but there was something very ominous and significant at this unveiling. If this were my demo and my unveiling, I would have had a drone pick up a package at one side of the auditorium…

Like Jesus before him: they hated him, for he told them the truth.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#110

Post by LogicFailsMe »

ynab6 wrote: post #109
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #45

I'm sure this will sound a bit whack to some of the sorts on here but honestly, who cares? I was at the principal engineers offsite summit in scenic Cle Ellum when they supposedly announced prime Air. I know, I know, what the f** ever, but there was something very ominous and significant at this unveiling. If this were my demo and my unveiling, I would have had a drone pick up a package at one side of the auditorium…

Like Jesus before him: they hated him, for he told them the truth.

In tech, no one is Jesus but many are John the Baptist.
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