Amazon Prime Air

Post by jessriedel » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 12:55 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #414

jessriedel wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point being made by the people who say a single killed dog could nix the program, in fact, it's the opposite. The point is that the public responds irrationally to new minute dangers like this. Commenters pointing this out aren't rooting for failure, and they're not making an argument about the danger. They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb.

> They're just observing that this thing has failure modes because people are dumb. Yeah, and people were damn scared of electricity when it was first introduced to the masses and many did not want it. Go forward 10, 20 years down the road and it was massively adopted. Of course there are always failure modes, but what's more critical to look at is, what's the benefit of this new technology, and will the benefits out…

Post by pantalaimon » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 2:17 AM UTC

lancewiggs wrote: post #240

Responses that I have not yet seen in the comments. 1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof. 2: We could not just set our delivery point up using a app on our smartphones (GPS wtc), but those phones could also broadcast over the various radios to the device and even use the camera to help the UAV navigat…

Post by eric_the_read » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 3:35 AM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #383

hnriot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox is for people that can't use rsync+git. For the unix-competent, it's not particularly difficult and we managed for many years with the previous tools, rsync+svn or even rsync+cvs

Yeah I really miss the good old days when I could take some pictures and all I had to do to send them to my mom was provision a server with a static IP address I could send her along with some links to rsync tutorials. Can't believe Dropbox had to come around and make everything so much harder...

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #397

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how Prime Air is any less safe or efficient than sending thousands of five-ton metal boxes barreling down residential streets. Here's the difference: there's a person directly controlling that five-ton metal box. Even if you assume that a) the person behind the wheel of a delivery truck is arguably more fallible than a drone following a flight plan and b) a company operating a drone will have the same p…

Suburban residential is very low-population-density, a few people per square mile, less during working hours. It wouldn't be hard to put a box next to your driveway where a copter could drop a package, and never get within a hundred feet of anybody. The real population density issue is downtown, during working hours. Even then folks are on the sidewalk or indoors. There's nobody on the roof for instance. Copters coul…

Post by ars_technician » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 6:20 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #587

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburban residential is very low-population-density, a few people per square mile, less during working hours. It wouldn't be hard to put a box next to your driveway where a copter could drop a package, and never get within a hundred feet of anybody. The real population density issue is downtown, during working hours. Even then folks are on the sidewalk or indoors. There's nobody on the roof for instance. Copters coul…

> Suburban residential is very low-population-density, a few people per square mile... It sounds like you're confusing "suburban residential" with "backwater rural." Census data[1] shows that there are a lot more people per square mile than you suggest. Even a small metropolitan area like Vernal, Utah, which has a population of just 25,224, has a population density of ~250 people per square mile. [1] http://www.censu…