It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box • Hacker News Board

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#151

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 3:58 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #78

What many may not realize is that there's a thriving industry in sending passengers on planes for the sole purpose of them taking things from A to B. Years ago, you could get discounted flights to Europe where you couldn't check in any luggage. Why? That allowance was taken up by documents for various clients. This was usually quicker than any courier services at the time. I've had friends who worked in the oil and g…

> I've had friends who worked in the oil and gas industry. One story I was told was where parts were desperately needed to repair a drill bit on a gas platform. The best option? Someone would fly halfway around the world, drive to a particular factory, wait for the parts and then fly back.

This is normal in the IT industry. For high-value customers, vendors would be expected to fly in parts as needed. As just one example, I had a server flown in by a major reseller when the delivery service (UPS, IIRC) lost the original and the project was going to miss a critical deadline. HP's 6 hr CTR (call to repair) warranty guarantees your hardware will be restored within 6 hours of your call to support. It includes a local inventory of parts so that they can effectively replace the server if needed.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#152

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

deepspace wrote: post #51

Since I discovered the availability of anvils on Amazon, I have always wondered about the economics of shipping them. Right now, I can order a 66lb "Happybuy" anvil for $153 with free prime shipping. One assumes that the $153 includes the cost of shipping it all the way from China in the first place. For comparison, a similarly sized anvil from a reputable local dealer costs $949 plus tax and shipping at the lowest r…

Shipping is generally charged by volume, not by weight. Think of a ship at sea.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#153

Post by elihu » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

chiph wrote: post #10

radicality wrote: post #6

Semi related - a few months ago, while not fully sober, I was aimlessly browsing through Amazon and ended up owning a set of two 1.5inch cubes - one aluminium, one tungsten. It’s kind of a silly purchase considering it’s a lot of money for 2 metal cubes, but it’s honestly very impressive just how heavy that small cube is - both objectively, and when compared to the aluminium cube. Also makes for a great talking point…

When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5" cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will admit to wanting to experience their density for myself. [0] free Prime shipping for the win

I do a little TIG welding. The electrodes are made of mostly tungsten. (Tungsten is used for its high melting point. Lanthanum or some other elements are often added to raise the melting point somewhat.)

The electrodes aren't very big, but the density is definitely weird.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#154

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:05 AM UTC

Merad wrote: post #137

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that I haven't heard of small jets (fighters/jet trainers) being used for commercial courier services (although there are instances of military jets transporting organs for transplant, https://apnews.com/article/c1309c58720c78347c1ebbbade56d35d ). They can be privately owned and operated, are very fast, and tend to have hundreds of kilos of payload capacity.

Unless you have supercruise capability (which only four fighters in the world have) flying supersonic consumes and enormous amount of fuel, so flying any distance at supersonic speeds pretty much requires aerial refueling. IIRC you also need special permission to fly supersonic in US airspace. If you're limited to subsonic speeds then there's really no advantage provided by a fighter. Private jets can fly at similar…

> Private jets can fly at similar high subsonic speeds (0.9-0.95 mach or so) and are usually cheaper and more efficient to operate than fighter jets.

Thanks, those two items were the part I was missing. (I already assumed supersonic would be out for noise/ground damage reasons)

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#155

Post by elihu » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:09 AM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #21

chiph wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5" cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will admit to wanting to experience their density for myself. [0] free Prime shipping for the win

Tungsten doesn't seem especially heavy; it's a little less than gold.

Tungsten is 19.25, gold is 19.3, and osmium is 22.59 g/cm^3. Tungsten isn't quite the densest material around, but it's in the general ballpark.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#156

Post by elihu » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:16 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #26

halfdan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, but as a diver I will never touch them unless they look in proper shape and are the types wrapped in some other material. Some fishy dive centers will have the old style raw lead blocks..

You breath TEL whenever you go near an airport. That's a far more pressing concern than incidental exposure through contact. If that's your threshold you may as well isolate from zinc and copper too.

That generally applies to small airports. Single-engine planes often use leaded gas, but the big jets don't.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#157

Post by joemi » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #140

dang wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds awkward to me. The best way to shorten titles is to omit words - then you keep the prosody of the original. I've taken another crack at it. Now someone will complain about USPS being missing, but "flat rate" implies someone's rate, and it's not as if USPS is a misleading surprise. (Submitted title was "It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a USPS flat rate box". First edit was "It is…

An ode to @dang (fueled by three amazing strong coffees in Ginza and the first idle moments on the interwebs I've enjoyed in a long long time) HN: one of the last remaining Great Good Places of the Internet, a lone tavern in an iconic gateway town to the now not-so-wild west. Beyond the western borders of this little town, the tech gold rush has both expanded to epic proportions, affecting all the economies in the wo…

I thought there was one (or more?) other moderator, and it's not all just dang?

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#158

Post by kube-system » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

mananaysiempre wrote: post #93

paxys wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more due to safety and security requirements of the package than the economics or shipping itself. FedEx and UPS will be very happy to ship you something for a steep discount without any assumed liability, but there would be no takers for it. Providing a trusted chain of custody for the package all the way from point A to B is the real value add.

Well, “pay a dude to carry it onto and off a plane” is also a chain of custody arrangement of sorts, you just wouldn’t normally expect it to be cheaper than a company specializing in such.

It wouldn’t be if you regularly did it. But in emergency “work has halted” type of scenarios, you have plenty of labor standing around doing nothing already. And, they’ll take the task way more seriously than any courier would.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#159

Post by bitwize » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:19 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #78

What many may not realize is that there's a thriving industry in sending passengers on planes for the sole purpose of them taking things from A to B. Years ago, you could get discounted flights to Europe where you couldn't check in any luggage. Why? That allowance was taken up by documents for various clients. This was usually quicker than any courier services at the time. I've had friends who worked in the oil and g…

In the Amiga community we have the legend of "Joe Pillow". That was the name under which the airline seat was booked, that would hold the precious Amiga prototype that was used to demo the machine at CES '84.

Re: It is physically impossible to exceed the weight limit for a Small Flat Rate Box

#160

Post by iancmceachern » Sat, Apr 23, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #78

What many may not realize is that there's a thriving industry in sending passengers on planes for the sole purpose of them taking things from A to B. Years ago, you could get discounted flights to Europe where you couldn't check in any luggage. Why? That allowance was taken up by documents for various clients. This was usually quicker than any courier services at the time. I've had friends who worked in the oil and g…

I once worked on a project with a steep late delivery penalty. We had already scheduled a "hit shot" truck, which is a dedicated semi, usually a team of 2 drivers, that drives directly, no stops, to the destination. We had scheduled it and it was 3 or 4 days to get from Denver to NYC. We were late, frantically building and assembling hardware and so just weren't ready when the truck came. We shipped the large pieces, large empty stainless steel shells in a mostly empty truck. We then took the extra 2 days to assemble the rest of the hardware and air freighted it at $50k extra cost and 1 day to get there. Basically we bought 2 days on the project for $50k and just barely made our delivery deadline.