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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

#271

Post by IncRnd »

iudqnolq wrote: post #235
IncRnd wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look up the word bureaucrat. It was used correctly in the article.

A mayor isn't a bureaucrat by most definitions. Webster: Bureaucrat: A member of a bureaucracy Bureaucracy: a large group of people who are involved in running a government but who are not elected https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucracy

Your definition from websters is called "the essential meaning" and is literally not the dictionary definition. It is very similar to using definitions from what google returns at the top of a search page - kind of useful but not the same as the definition of the word.

Look below that in the next section. There you will find the definition of bureaucracy. That section is called "Full Definition of bureaucracy"

  1a: a body of nonelected government officials
  b: an administrative policy-making group
  2: government characterized by specialization of functions,
  adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority
  3: a system of administration marked by officialism, red
  tape, and proliferation

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

ncmncm wrote: post #257
IncRnd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the definition of the word bureaucrat, which was absolutely used in a fair manner to describe the person who caused this issue. Reason 4 of the cause is what you should rail against: "This rule was created, and I am not making this up, because it was decided that higher stacks were not sufficiently aesthetically pleasing."

And, what do you imagine are the odds that the person charged with enforcing the rule also made the rule?

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by cwp »

kelnos wrote: post #260
mig39 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prince Rupert is also physically closer to Asia (saves 2-3 days of sailing time), and has very little other sea traffic. The rail line is also expanding, and has very little non-port traffic. The port itself is protected by geography, and is one of the deepest natural harbours in the world. It's a neat place! Well, except for being one of the rainiest cities in Canada. Edit: If you're interested in this kind of thing…

To me, you're raising the question of: why are ports in locations like Long Beach and LA (and SF/Oakland)? They seem like terrible locations for ports. There's a lot of coastline on the western US. Why pick places where land is astronomically expensive, and transportation options aren't great? One reason I can think of is availability of labor, but how many people does it take to run a good-sized port? Not saying we…

Well, to be fair, San Francisco Bay is one of the best natural harbors on the West Coast, and very close to some of the most productive agricultural land in the world. It's a great place for a port, or it was until the NIMBYs showed up. I don't know LA, but I bet it's similar.

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

#274

Post by Strom »

justinator wrote: post #73
otterley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the solution proves effective, will you change your mind, or will you simply remain forever outraged that you didn't like how the story was told?

Well, we can talk about dropping atomic bombs on Japan during WWII if you want. The discussion isn't going to be a very simple one.

Referencing the atomic bomb in this context is also manipulation. You're trying to evoke emotion, as opposed to arguing your point with boring facts.

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

#275

Post by elzbardico »

krisoft wrote: post #93

> There was a rule in the Port of Los Angeles saying you could only stack shipping containers two containers high. This is incorrect. There was a zoning rule which affected truck yards in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Truck yards. Not the port itself. As stated in the linked tweets actually. But if you don't believe that you can just google an image of the Port of Los Angeles from let's say 2019 and count how high the…

Ok, a fair point. But in the end is the same thing: stupid public worker bureaucrats exerting their petty, ignorant power like the Gods they think they are.

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

#276

Post by [deleted] »

revel wrote: post #186
p1mrx wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the limit had always been 6 instead of 2, wouldn't we have (1) smaller truck yards, and (2) the same problem with no easy solution?

You can go to any port town in the US and you will see containers stacked up like tiny towns. The equipment to move the containers is usually the bottleneck not the yard space.

[deleted]

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

#277

Post by monocasa »

clairity wrote: post #223
dragontamer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Because we pay our politicians terribly low compared to other leadership positions. Our best leaders have gone to Facebook / Google to make better ads. It makes no sense for a 18-year-old going into college to study political theo…

$180K puts you well within the top 20% in income. pay is not the problem. in fact, trying to solve politician quality by increasing pay would likely worsen the problem by misaligning incentives even more. also the assumption that the best and the brightest are managers at tech companies is amusingly naive.

That's for a literal federal Senator. Even mayors don't make near that in the general case.

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

#278

Post by mek6800d2 »

elzbardico wrote: post #275
krisoft wrote: post #93

> There was a rule in the Port of Los Angeles saying you could only stack shipping containers two containers high. This is incorrect. There was a zoning rule which affected truck yards in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Truck yards. Not the port itself. As stated in the linked tweets actually. But if you don't believe that you can just google an image of the Port of Los Angeles from let's say 2019 and count how high the…

Ok, a fair point. But in the end is the same thing: stupid public worker bureaucrats exerting their petty, ignorant power like the Gods they think they are.

Unrelated to the trailer issue, but everyday we should thank our lucky stars that there's no such thing as "stupid private sector bureaucrats exerting their petty, ignorant power like the Gods they think they are."

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

#279

Post by OldHand2018 »

cwp wrote: post #273
kelnos wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, you're raising the question of: why are ports in locations like Long Beach and LA (and SF/Oakland)? They seem like terrible locations for ports. There's a lot of coastline on the western US. Why pick places where land is astronomically expensive, and transportation options aren't great? One reason I can think of is availability of labor, but how many people does it take to run a good-sized port? Not saying we…

Well, to be fair, San Francisco Bay is one of the best natural harbors on the West Coast, and very close to some of the most productive agricultural land in the world. It's a great place for a port, or it was until the NIMBYs showed up. I don't know LA, but I bet it's similar.

LA was never a good natural harbor - in fact I think it was pretty terrible. But they had a lot of cattle hides to export, so ships came, which built up the city, so more ships came, and on and on and on until it was worth building the port facilities:

> The fourteenth of August (in the year 1834) was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim, on her voyage from Boston, round Cape Horn, to the Western coast of North America.

> What brought us into such a place, we could not conceive. No sooner had we come to anchor, than the slip-rope, and the other preparations for southeasters, were got ready; and there was reason enough for it, for we lay exposed to every wind that could blow, except the northerly winds, and they came over a flat country with a rake of more than a league of water.

> I also learned, to my surprise, that the desolate-looking place we were in furnished more hides than any port on the coast. It was the only port for a distance of eighty miles, and about thirty miles in the interior was a fine plane country, filled with herds of cattle, in the centre of which was the Pueblo de los Angeles,– the largest town in California,– and several of the wealthiest missions; to all of which San Pedro was the seaport.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4277

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

#280

Post by ethbr0 »

SilasX wrote: post #258
ethbr0 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct. The article was imprecise with its terminology. Most people who aren't familiar with trucking understand a tractor-trailer as a single vehicle, because that's what they usually see on the road. When in reality it's exactly what the phrase describes: a tractor (or cab, or engine and steering and driver) + a trailer (or chassis + whatever it's hauling). The entire idea of modern over-the-road trucking i…

>Most people who aren't familiar with trucking understand a tractor-trailer as a single vehicle, because that's what they usually see on the road. Heh, I was noticing myself that it was kind of hard to follow because the domain ontology (what entities exist and how they relate) wasn't make explicit (like I just did with the previous parenthetical). Would have helped to know that a chassis and container-free trailer a…

Granted, Twitter virality definitely has a certain TED-ness about it: boil everything down to a simple model system, that makes everyone listening feel smart, and end on an optimistic note, without mentioning any intractable nuances.
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