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An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

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Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#241

Post by bluGill »

epistasis wrote: post #156
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Some talk about 'building a new port' as part of the solution. I'm thinking that's a decade project and $100B or some such? PoLA tried to expand for a decade and the impact statements got bogged down and nothing happened if I remember right (my sister-in-law was doing the math on the statements)

Yeah I'm not convinced as much by the new ports only being the solution. A big part of the reason that the SF Bay area and LA grew was because of the ports and the rail connections. Setting up a new port in, say, the area near Pismo Beach, might have slightly lower land costs, but it also has far lower value. All those warehouses, importers, all the network of knowledge and people and demand for imports, all the stuf…

some areas of coast line are naturally better for ports than others. You need the land to have deep water as close to the coast as you can. I don't know the geography of CA well enough to comment on Pismo Beach, but I wouldn't be surprised if it would be more expensive to open a port there than to buy land in LA.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#242

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

bluGill wrote: post #227
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read recently that there’s such a great demand for containers in Asia right now that empty containers which used to be sent to our farms to fill with agricultural products to sell in Asia are instead being sent back empty. Maybe the consensus is outdated?

Agriculture has been aware of this for a while. It is more complex than that. Loaded containers need to consider balance of this ship, and grain is typically denser/heavier than what came over (most goods come over with a lot of air), so ships need to be carefully loaded, while only empty containers are easier to load because it is easier to balance the ship. Making the above worse, even though containers are worth m…

No wonder companies that aim to optimize/disrupt shipping are hiring so many ML engineers!

Maybe if the containers themselves were autonomous and mobile, and could optimize their own value… there’s a Black Mirror episode somewhere in that.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#243

Post by mcguire »

kaesar14 wrote: post #116
erlapso wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the CEO has a different level of understanding of logistics compared to the major. They may be looking at the same port, but they see different things. The CEO saw bottlenecks like Neo sees the Matrix

Why doesn't the mayor of a city with one of America's most important ports call in experts like this the second trouble started? It was this easy and he never bothered to ask the experts?

What interaction does the mayor (or the administration) of a city normally have with the ports? I mean, beyond keeping an eye on the wear to road surfaces of port traffic.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#244

Post by bluGill »

skybrian wrote: post #98
johnklos wrote: post #82

Simple fix: stand containers on their ends. You'd fit a heck of a lot more even if you don't stack two high.

What sort of equipment do you suppose is needed to do that?

Containers are not made to be stacked on end like that and won't always support their own weight if stacked on end.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#245

Post by dragonwriter »

kaesar14 wrote: post #116
erlapso wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the CEO has a different level of understanding of logistics compared to the major. They may be looking at the same port, but they see different things. The CEO saw bottlenecks like Neo sees the Matrix

Why doesn't the mayor of a city with one of America's most important ports call in experts like this the second trouble started? It was this easy and he never bothered to ask the experts?

> Why doesn't the mayor of a city with one of America's most important ports call in experts like this the second trouble started?

(1) Because the Mayor of Long Beach is a primus inter pares legislator; as is the common for cities in California, Long Beach is a Council-Manager system, the chief executive is the appointed City Manager.

(2) But, anyhow, under the City Charter (basically, its Constitution) the harbor is actually governee by the Harbor Commission, anyway, which (like the city itself) also has appointed chief executive (the Executive Director),

So, the question should probably be “Why didn't the Executive Director of the Harbor Commission call in a experts like this..." (or, why aren’t the members and Executive Director of the Harbor Commission experts like this in the first place.)

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#246

Post by adolph »

whateveracct wrote: post #155
revel wrote: post #71

This article is ridiculous. "It's so easy but nobody expected it to happen!" Most of freight is run off spreadsheets and over the phone or by email. Flexport is built around digitization and optimization. Half of the appeal of their product is that it gives customers improved visibility! It's therefore not surprising that a local city mayor didn't realize he had the power to unclog the US traffic jam. Referring to hi…

> Referring to him diminutively as a bureaucrat is unfair. HNers have pretty much no understanding or respect for what it means to realistically be in public service. They treat the realities as unfortunate errors ripe for optimization.

> realities as unfortunate errors ripe for optimization

Yes, it is a deeply optimistic and progressive worldview. It's a real shame people don't respect the unimprovable world as it really is.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#247

Post by mcguire »

ciphol wrote: post #192
conductr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. LB residents don't want that, and limit of 2 has worked until now. Height restrictions are nearly universal in the US and this is not a California/Long Beach specific problem. Sure you can argue there the balance is too lopsided and limit of 2 is too restrictive for industry. I tend to believe a port town is an industrial town. If you live there, you should expect to see the industrial side. I grew up in Houston a…

Again, why should one LB resident get to decide what another LB business does? Just because this sort of restriction is common doesn't mean it's right.

I take it you would be fine with a hog feedlot moving in next to you?

(I grew up in the vicinity of cattle feedlots---they're nasty. Industrial chicken coops are worse. But hogs are a whole different order of magnitude of stank.)

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#248

Post by tuatoru »

bluGill wrote: post #220
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For us software developers, it seems like the shipping industry has the container equivalent of a memory leak (a "container leak" if you will). Then the stacking rule change is the equivalent of simply adding more memory to the system, it doesn't fix the problem, but it buys you some more time of normal system operation before the next out-of-memory crash. Hopefully they use this time they bought to work on an actual…

No, it isn't a leak as the containers are empty but not garbage. It is very common to allocate extra memory that isn't used - in garbage collected languages you often need to fight the garbage collector for maximum performance in specific ways - which means you will have empty objects just waiting to be filled. You will get around to them eventually, but for now they are just taking up memory. If you allocate more of…

Lol!

Continuing this analogy, what has happened is that the swap space for containers has filled, and it now has a form of compression applied to it, so that five containers can now be stored in the space where two could be beforehand.

(Edit: let's hope the swap space doesn't become encrypted.)

I wonder when the out-of-memory-killer process will start up? What would it look like--just not shipping anything to the US for a few months?

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#249

Post by ksdale »

ncmncm wrote: post #79
ksdale wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What new timebombs do you think he has installed, for example?

Did you read the tweets? He implies that it is a given that negative feedback is a problem, not a solution to problems.

It seems like maybe he confused positive and negative feedback? But if you think he's created a situation where positive feedback is going to cause massive problems down the line, I was interested in knowing specifically what you had in mind.

Re: An unexpected victory: container stacking at the port of Los Angeles

#250

Post by ncmncm »

CalChris wrote: post #188
ncmncm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to assume that the problem described is the problem faced. I bet we don't get a nice neat story about how changing stacking rules didn't actually solve the problem, and after a short time made it worse.

I completely agree. It is just too soon to tell. Moreover, this stacking rule won't change the port; it will change things in the City of Long Beach. I don't think it will make matters worse but I won't be surprised if it doesn't actually solve the problem. It just seems like a cheap+fast attempt at a solution which is good. There's a lot of narrative that's going into this discussion, an heroic visionary CEO, a bumb…

At least, they will have a lot of yards with empty containers stacked five high, when LB doesn't want that.

Then, once the yards are stacked high, if the inflow and outflow rate still do not match, the problem will remain, just with a lot of higher stacks.

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