Honestly I think it looks great - the design screams "I care for pedestrian safety" and "I'm a nice person, and I don't need to compensate for anything, because I have great sex life."
Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
81–90 of 156 posts
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#82It was designed with the person who will operate it in mind and it's made in the USA. That means it looks fantastic to me.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
iPod was famously both though? The click-wheel was pretty unique and worked great to make an accessible UIx for the masses. It may have been somewhat limiting in edge cases, but for normal usage I don't recall anyone complaining about it outside of hardcore tech circles.
"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame" Seriously though, the iTunes integration and cross platform compatibility kind of sucked. It would have been much more useful if you could just mount it like a hard drive without special library management software. The click wheel was cool.
I think that making the iPod mount like a filesystem would have had significant impact on other aspects of the device.
There is no filesystem level abstraction over USB (or Firewire). So plugging in presents as a hard drive / block device, which then means it needs to have a filesystem. For "built-in" cross OS compatibility that means it would be have to be a FAT filesystem. If you change these decisions either a new filesystem or device driver would need to be installed for some machines.
Most devices that present a FAT filesystem when plugged in stop working like they do when unplugged. i.e. the device itself and the connected computer cannot access the data at the same time. For the iPod this would mean it wouldn't be possible to play music while syncing.
I think it might be possible to build a "fake" drive and FAT filesystem when plugged in, but it would take quite a bit of work and have lots of odd corner cases. For example, the user on the computer attempting to re-format the drive, perhaps with a different filesystem.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#84Say what you will about the Grumman LLV, but every one of them you see on the road today is at least 30 years old, and some could be pushing 40. (The similar-looking Ford-Utilimaster FFV is ~25 this year.) As uncomfortable as it must be to sit in one for hours on end (I never had the privilege myself) you've got to respect their longevity. Here's hoping these new trucks make it to the 2050s and beyond.
> every one of them you see on the road today is at least 30 years old, and some could be pushing 40.
Survivor bias: The ones you see are the ones that have survived. You don't see the junkyards full of failed trucks.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#85I wondered why other delivery companies use commercial vehicles instead of NGDVs or LLVs, and the answer is that commercial vehicles are more capable while being significantly cheaper. NGDVs cost $60,000 each, and that's for half of them being ICE vehicles and half EVs with a 70 mile range (35 miles if you use the heater). The ICE version gets 14.7 miles per gallon (8.6mpg if you turn on the air conditioning).[1] The…
Did you not read the article? The NGDVs aren't Sprinter vans, they're purpose made mail delivery vehicles, with ergonomics and cargo space setup for that, which makes a massive difference for the drivers, especially when it comes to repetitive motion injuries, which is a huge cost for USPS. Amazon went away from commercial vans to purpose made vehicles built by Rivian for many of the same reasons and they've been wid…
UPS brown trucks (they call them “cars” internally) are also custom made. They don’t even resell them when they are at EOL they crush them.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#86I wondered why other delivery companies use commercial vehicles instead of NGDVs or LLVs, and the answer is that commercial vehicles are more capable while being significantly cheaper. NGDVs cost $60,000 each, and that's for half of them being ICE vehicles and half EVs with a 70 mile range (35 miles if you use the heater). The ICE version gets 14.7 miles per gallon (8.6mpg if you turn on the air conditioning).[1] The…
How in the world is a mail carrier going to deliver mail in a huge esprinter, you going to have them open their door and climb out at every mailbox?
My point was that a much more capable vehicle could be purchased for a similar price. Depending on the use case, of course other commercial vehicles would make more sense. The smaller versions of the Ford Transit are a popular option among non-US postal services. And if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, they could have even smaller and cheaper options. (Though they'd have to deal with EPA and NHTSA rules to make them street legal.)
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#87I'm proud to have helped implement the brand new dedicated ERP system that is used to build these trucks. Nice to see the final product is hitting the streets.
I think you owe us some information to satisfy 'intellectual curiosity'! :)
I'll start: Why did they create a brand-new and why a dedicated ERP system? Didn't the manufacturer have an ERP system used for manufacturing other vehicles?
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#88I wondered why other delivery companies use commercial vehicles instead of NGDVs or LLVs, and the answer is that commercial vehicles are more capable while being significantly cheaper. NGDVs cost $60,000 each, and that's for half of them being ICE vehicles and half EVs with a 70 mile range (35 miles if you use the heater). The ICE version gets 14.7 miles per gallon (8.6mpg if you turn on the air conditioning).[1] The…
One key difference between USPS and UPS/Fedex is that USPS does not do freight, and they do a lot more lightweight items (i.e. letters), so cargo capacity is much less of a concern. The fact that junk mail is so common actually reduces the need for cargo capacity since their routes tend to be made long not because of physical volume/distance so much as dwell time (that is, if someone is using EDDM[0] to target a neig…
> Given that they are in residential areas (and thus, in proximity of kids playing outside) far more often than UPS/Fedex...
That isn't the case at all in my experience. In any neighborhood I've ever lived in, you see at least one van from each organization come through daily. And if anything, UPS and FedEx come through more than once per day sometimes, whereas USPS doesn't.
Per your earlier point about freight I can imagine that UPS/FedEx have a lower percentage of company traffic in residential areas than USPS does. But I find it difficult to imagine that the total number of trips to residential areas is lower for them. They simply have more non-residential traffic than USPS, not less residential traffic.
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
How in the world is a mail carrier going to deliver mail in a huge esprinter, you going to have them open their door and climb out at every mailbox?
My point was that a much more capable vehicle could be purchased for a similar price. Depending on the use case, of course other commercial vehicles would make more sense. The smaller versions of the Ford Transit are a popular option among non-US postal services. And if US Postal Service was willing to buy foreign vehicles, they could have even smaller and cheaper options. (Though they'd have to deal with EPA and NHT…
> My point was that a much more capable vehicle could be purchased for a similar price.
This leaps to a conclusion. Probably the documents are public - why did they choose this solution over off-the-shelf options? (No point in speculation; what is their actual analysis?)
Re: Yes, it ‘looks like a duck,’ but carriers like the new USPS mail truck
#90I've read so much knocking their appearance, which is so confusing to me. It's ultimately function over form in this case; who cares if you don't like how it looks? I can only dream that the visibility and safety of having features like such a low hood and large bumpers would be incorporated into other vehicles (i.e., every SUV ever).
Probably in the minority, but I actually like the look of them. I find so many modern car designs indistinguishable from each other. Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform.