[–] 1 point 5 hours ago

There's lots of delay causes. The trains have to be organized in a certain way for safety and stability, so it's rare to be able to have a perfect first in, last out arrangement. Heavy cars at the back and light cars at the front can cause a strongline derailment on curves. Heavy cars with little coupler dampening at the back and light cars with excessive damping at the front can cause a column buckling derailment on hard braking. Then there's weird slinky physics if dealing with slopes. And then from there, even after all that, it's not just an A to B trip. They stop, add cars, leave cars, send groups on other routes, etc. There's 30 cars going A to B, 40 cars going A to C, cars going B to D, C to A, F to J...

I don't really see much new concern with crossings. Trains already cross roads frequently at high speeds with no effective means of braking in time to avoid a collision. Urban/suburban crossings should already have gates. Rural crossings are hilariously unguarded. I'm not even sure if they all have lights, let alone gates. I'd actually see a benefit to the increased crossing frequency coupled with decreased crossing times. Many collisions are the result of people fearing having to wait at the gate for 5+ minutes as a huge train crosses, so they race across to beat the train. Obviously, people will still try to beat the drone in the same way they accelerate through yellow lights, but maybe they'd be a little less inclined to do so. So, regrettably, the network already gets disrupted frequently. Railroads are very efficient at clearing incidents to reopen the track once all evidence is collected. Trains drive by while wrecked cars and spills are still there.

For one of my local crossings, there's a weekly 10 minute crossing event. The train pulls through a road crossing, stops, reverses down a siding to pick up/drop off 2 cars, then forwards away, all while blocking the crossing of a major road. Seems like a good cooperative way to still service one of those few remaining sidings without making car drivers irate at trains.

I'm not saying this is a valid business plan, but I'm failing to see how this is an "obvious" failure. They of course want to advertise as completely independent drones, but it'd be neat to be able to join a regular consist and get released to only drive itself the last mile.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Only the major yards are gravity-"powered" hump yards (the gravity does the sorting part, but a locomotive still has to push the consist up from the other side as they're decoupled). Most yards, the smaller yards trying to serve the last mile, are flat and require manual sorting with a locomotive, and often while blocking the rail line to all other traffic. Plus, they often can't sort the cars into the ideal shipping order because of dynamics in the train. One of the worst ways to order the cars is with autoracks (automobile carriers) up front and tank or steel coil cars at the back. Autoracks are very light in comparison and have long-stroke draft gear (coupler cushioning). Just slamming the brakes can cause a derailment with that arrangement with column buckling of the train. Or worse, lots of cars only ever get loaded in one direction, such as autoracks and tanks, so they're empty and even lighter on their return trip. They have to sort heavier cars towards the front or else they risk stringline derailment on curves while pulling.

    Yes, we're aware they need to do the first 99 miles to get to the last mile problem. The problem with rail, as defined by the market, is that trucks do the whole 100. And while yes, the majority of consumer goods rail traffic spent 2 months on the water, the majority of containers were not ordered for the end user or final sales point. They're warehoused at distribution centers, waiting to refill other DC's needs. Even Amazon is running full intermodal container trains across the country. It also completely ignores the vast amount of domestic/continental raw goods such as oil, lumber, vehicles, metals, trash, scrap, grain, plastic pellets, lethal chemicals, coal, and, apparently, orange juice.

    And I say this as someone that votes for trains. PSR does not solve much. It's a buzzword for hostile takeovers by investment companies that have no intent on improving infrastructure. It brought some improved shipping status decades later than every other mode of carrier.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 days ago

    The local government or utility may be able to help. Several lights in my area have shutter shades on them that help control sideways/upwards light and keep the beam focused on the ground. It's called "light intrusion" when someone else shine slight into your property

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  • [–] 2 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    👉 Sprinkling them in 👉👈 text to mark ✅ normals words in weird 🕶️ ways adding absolutely nothing ❗❗ to the context? Absolutely not ❌❌

    Using them to just give an emotion through a face? Eh, also not 😒

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago

    Because that's not what hydrogen fuel cells do. Yes, you could make a hydrogen ICE car, but that's not a fuel cell car. Fuel cell cars use supplied hydrogen run through a grid to combine with atmospheric oxygen and make electricity and drive electric motors. I had the same misunderstanding for like a decade. Hydrogen is nowhere near energy-dense enough to be feasible as an ICE fuel

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Sometimes it's the easiest way to get a particular toppings group. Like a "mushroom burger" comes with Swiss, bacon, sautéed onions, and some sauce, or you can build your own for 10% more than getting a pre-built mushroom burger, minus the mushrooms. Plus, when you and-then an order, there's a high chance they'll miss something.

    I mean, my local place asks me every time if I want to add peanut butter to my burger. I'd also expect modification to be more and more frequent with the prevalence of touchescreens allowing customers to highly customize items. I don't see modifying as a big deal, within reason. Not just for burgers, obviously.

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  • [–] 36 points 1 week ago

    The study found that people who drank a little had, on average, better health than those that abstained entirely. The study failed to mention that a notable portion of those that abstain were abstaining due to health reasons. As in, their health was already bad and was the reason they chose not (or were not allowed) to drink. But, of course, the alcohol industry ran with the first part and has been pushing it ever since. Once you reduce the abstinent group to only those freely abstaining, the average health for the dry subjects is back in the lead.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Thanks for the actual tips. It feels like this will just kill my hobby/craft desires if I have to do all this vetting for basic shit to avoid Amazon but not pay extra for poor selection from the local store. I'll see, I guess. I suppose I could just braid my own weeds instead of crafting big things. That's still free and local, right?

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    It's certainly a topic of interest to me, but I'd like to avoid the "spaceship pyramid" levels of conspiracy and the meatless text-to-speech summaries that will inevitably appear in my suggested feed(s). I thought I'd find it by now, given my feed has plenty of planes. I know it's a distraction, but I may as well be entertained while I continue waiting for the yanks to release the real files we're asking for.

     

    I'm afraid AI has surpassed me, as I still can't draw hands. Seriously though, I miss doodling all through school. I don't know where that free creativity has gone, but I'm working to bring it back. Some early jobs left me in a dark rut, but I've settled into a decent job, a career even, and feel a certain mental calm and freedom trickling in.

    I was aiming for something resembling a pose often struck by St Michael in depictions of him defeating demons. I don't have a goal for the actual identity of the figure, nor what they're doing. Ultimately, I want it to be triumphing over something. The end goal is to explore ideas for a tattoo. It already worked beautifully once, where I took a crude drawing to an artist with a style I liked, then watched them bring it to life with more talent and their own flair. I picked the elements, laid the composure, and outsourced the details to an amazing artist. What better meaning to a tattoo than "I basically made this"? With any luck, lightning will strike twice... Or more.

    crude marker drawing/outline of a humanoid figure standing in a mild lunge, holding a spear
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