2
0

New instalment of tech LARP. The Amazon worker replacement edition


 invite response                
2023 Oct 20, 1:46pm   1,684 views  34 comments

by Tenpoundbass   ➕follow (9)   💰tip   ignore  

So they dropped a video today that shows the reported Robots Amazon says they plan on using to replace their workers.
Well NO actually they did not say that, the actual report is they created these huge robots to perform Warehouse tasks. It's the media that's hyping it as the human replacements. Which that's all Amazon wants, to put the human employees and future employees on notice that they are replaceable.
I don't think these robots will ever do it, but let take a look at the video and see if you can spot what's wrong with this idea.


original link


Besides it just being a 20 second video, and in spite of the human over there very slowly feeding the tubs on the conveyor belt. The tubs don't even look like they have much of a load. Those Robots looks flimsy and clumsy, why do they need headlights on their eyes? The whole operation there looked slow and feeble. That was 20 seconds of a robot hobbling to a table, then hobbling back.

« First        Comments 11 - 34 of 34        Search these comments

11   RC2006   2023 Oct 21, 6:10am  

Lol I use to work on warehouse automation, that video is a joke. No good reason to make robots even remotely like humans that would be to complex, fragile, and costly to maintain.

https://youtu.be/SuD9gsaOqGc?si=VHwFHIDZUkrB4xZK
12   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 6:24am  

Tenpoundbass says

hich is what self driving cars need, not only do they need to be made out of space grade discrete circuits, the batteries will need be reimagined.


I think EV's are a dead end. They actually use more energy over their lifetime than an ICE engine does.
13   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 6:31am  

richwicks says

I think EV's are a dead end. They actually use more energy over their lifetime than an ICE engine does.

Agreed..

I think a small combustion engine, powering an electric generator directly with no batteries what so ever is viable.
When you consider, that you can get a generator that takes 5 gallons of gas, that can then run 4 to 5 hours.
Just imagine how far a car can travel in 4 to 5 hours, just on 5 gallons of gas.

I can see that setup going 300 to 400 miles on 5 gallons. That hasn't been done, because the greenies are so bent on force fucking the battery into every electric car. They are stupid with that. An electric car doesn't need a battery. The hybrid was the dumbest fucking idea of all.. Toyota should have ditched the battery, and put a 5 to 7 hp motor in the Prius, powering a generator, with a bank of capacitors between the electric motors and the generator, to give it the volts and amperage needed.
14   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 6:45am  

Tenpoundbass says

I think a small combustion engine, powering an electric generator directly with no batteries what so ever is viable.
When you consider, that you can get a generator that takes 5 gallons of gas, that can then run 4 to 5 hours.
Just imagine how far a car can travel in 4 to 5 hours, just on 5 gallons of gas.


No, this wouldn't be efficient. You have loss in generating the electricity, and then loss in consuming it.

The real problem is cars weigh too much and they produce too much drag in the air. Nearly every car would be more efficient if you drove it backwards.
15   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 7:39am  

The cars as we know it are so heavy because the components are heavy. Of course if you reduce the drive train to weigh only 1/3rd of what cars weight now, then the rest of the car can be lightweight as well. Cars also don't have to go faster than 40mph in a City setting. It could be done, it might not resemble what a car looks like today, but it doesn't have to.
16   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 7:43am  

RC2006 says

No good reason to make robots even remotely like humans that would be to complex, fragile, and costly to maintain.

Back to robot automation issues. The segment in that video that features the Lotus robot designed to reduce the unproductive walking a worker would do in a warehouse. What is the worker supposed to do while he's waiting for the Lotus robot to get back from being unloaded by the worker it went to bring a load to in the warehouse? I can see a scenario, where the worker on the receiving end of the Lotus binging the loaded bins, has four or five of them in queue waiting for him to empty them so they can return. In the meantime, there's four or five folks in the warehouse, waiting for their Lotus to return so they can place the items they already picked and are waiting for the Lotus. While the guy being bombarded by them is overwhelmed. He has the job that nobody wants and probably has the highest turn over or employees calling out for the day. While those other 4 or 5 employees has a prolific TicToc video collection.
17   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 7:51am  

Tenpoundbass says

The cars as we know it are so heavy because the components are heavy. Of course if you reduce the drive train to weigh only 1/3rd of what cars weight now, then the rest of the car can be lightweight as well. Cars also don't have to go faster than 40mph in a City setting. It could be done, it might not resemble what a car looks like today, but it doesn't have to.


Oh, I know. Check out this car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHXuoZ1KHdI

They have been "in development" forever. They were about to go to production, some asshole from GM was hired to run the company, he sunk it by demanding redesigns, like you could roll down the window. The entire vehicle is designed for optimal aerodynamic efficiency.

Gets 100 miles to the gallon equivalent, it's electric, but they had ICE versions I think as well. The ride is a little choppy because it's so light, that can be taken care of by electronics, it had real potential. They didn't care about what it looked like, they only cared about efficiency.

It can easily do 70 MPH, but it's probably more suited to city driving, and not highway.
18   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 7:53am  

Tenpoundbass says

Back to robot automation issues. The segment in that video that features the Lotus robot designed to reduce the unproductive walking a worker would do in a warehouse. What is the worker supposed to do while he's waiting for the Lotus robot to get back from being unloaded by the worker it went to bring a load to in the warehouse?


It's making the employee into a manager, directing several robots concurrently. The robots reduce the need for space in the warehouse, and increase productivity of human workers.
19   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 8:25am  

The robots are doing nothing but moving items placed in their bin from one location to another. The only thing they are replacing is a guy that would be pushing a handtruck or a dolly. There's hardly a million dollar value in replacing such a menial nonskilled task. Especially for something that will break and require costly maintenance. You're better off with a forklift operator.
It is still requiring humans, to reach, grab, remove, and place, then update the inventory and shipping in the ERP.
What they have done here is the equivalent of making an electric spoon for a cook.
That's slick but more a hinderance than a productivity booster.
20   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 8:34am  

richwicks says

Oh, I know. Check out this car:


Madness not what I have in mind at all. People are trying too hard to shoehorn what a space aged electric car should look like, into a working viable option.
If you have a light weight car designed to be efficient but not necessarily built for speed. It does NOT have to be arrow dynamic. The speed and force wont be there for the drag to be a major factor.

And everyone poopoos the idea that a gas powered generator can power an electric vehicle with all of their negativity. But in the meantime, every time the power goes out, I hear generators running for 5 hours straight powering people's essential household electrical needs.
21   HeadSet   2023 Oct 21, 9:50am  

Tenpoundbass says

When you consider, that you can get a generator that takes 5 gallons of gas, that can then run 4 to 5 hours.
Just imagine how far a car can travel in 4 to 5 hours, just on 5 gallons of gas.

A jobsite style generator that burns one gallon per hour will not generate enough electricity to power a car, any more than a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine can replace the engine in a Camry.
22   Ceffer   2023 Oct 21, 10:05am  

stereotomy says

I think the only reason they can keep trotting out spy glasses is that there are plenty of pseudos who wear fake glasses in the hope that people will then think that they're smart. I remember the fad back in the 80's - it was pathetic. The media doesn't help either, always slapping glasses on "scientists."

LOL! I imagine the 'wigs and glasses' and make up auditorium of CNN must be a sight. Every time I look at that CNN junk, it is designed to be dressered, powdered and rouged whores trying to look and speak like they are smarter than thou while they read their lies.
24   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 10:32am  

That generator is rated at powering that 5hp 3 phase electric motor at 1.3 hours per gallon.
25   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 10:50am  

Tenpoundbass says

Madness not what I have in mind at all. People are trying too hard to shoehorn what a space aged electric car should look like


No no no no - this wasn't designed to look like anything at all. It was designed to be optimal in an airstream. This is what a car designed to slide through the air with minimal air disturbance looks like. There might be some modifications to make it more visually appealing, but this was optimized to be efficient.

You end up with a teardrop shape for such a vehicle.

Tenpoundbass says

If you have a light weight car designed to be efficient but not necessarily built for speed. It does NOT have to be arrow dynamic. The speed and force wont be there for the drag to be a major factor.


The Aptera is designed for speed. If you don't care about speed at all, then it's just the motor you worry about.

Tenpoundbass says

And everyone poopoos the idea that a gas powered generator can power an electric vehicle with all of their negativity. But in the meantime, every time the power goes out, I hear generators running for 5 hours straight powering people's essential household electrical needs.


Well, I'm absolutely no expert in this area, but I know if you're going to be running a generator, there's loss, then you need to rectify the signal to DC, and there's loss there, then you need to discharge the batteries / ultra capacitors into a DC motor, and there's loss there.

It's POSSIBLE that at highway speeds, you'd be using minimal energy to keep it going, and you could have very good acceleration at lower speeds. You'd have to go through a bunch of research to find out if it would work. I know there are optimal speeds for a internal combustion engine for efficiency, but would running the engine at the speed offset all the other losses? I don't know.

The frustrating problem is, that with hybrids, they weren't designed to minimize energy consumption, they were designed so you had better acceleration with a crappier motor. I've talked to people that work for major car companies - they don't care about energy efficiency. It's literally the last thing on their mind. I was testing a DC fast charger with a prototype EV Jaguar, and the engineer totally didn't care about energy efficiency. The whole point, in his view, about EV's was the convenience of it. "What about having one in a winter climate?" I asked "Oh, the battery will just heat itself while it's idle, to be at the optimum temperature". The viewpoint of the people making these, at least in Detroit, is convenience. You never will have to go to the gas station again. You'll drive home, plug it in, drive to work, plug it in. The car is heated or cooled by the time you get into it to go to work. There is NO consideration about energy consumption involved.
26   HeadSet   2023 Oct 21, 11:57am  

Tenpoundbass says

That generator is rated at powering that 5hp 3 phase electric motor at 1.3 hours per gallon.

Street legal efficient small electric vehicles already exist:


https://www.clubcar.com/en-us/commercial/street-legal-vehicles/club-car-urban

They have the efficiency of direct drive yet still require much more than 5 hp and top out around 25 mph.

"Compressed air" can store energy for short burst, but the air tank has to be refilled. Anyone running air tools understands this concept. You cannot leverage 5 hp into enough power to run a car at highway speeds through any transfer mechanism, no matter how exotic. Not unless you do something like run that 5 hp engine compressor for several hours to fill a tank that can run the car for a few minutes at highway speed before the pressure runs out.
27   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 12:05pm  

richwicks says

You'll drive home, plug it in, drive to work, plug it in. The car is heated or cooled by the time you get into it to go to work. There is NO consideration about energy consumption involved.


SO let's look at the panel in your home. You may have a 150 to 200 amp service panel in your home. And then in that panel in a modern home. You have a double 50 amp breaker for the AC, then if you have one of them fancy new fangled tankless water heater, they need 3 60amp breakers, then your stove will have a double 30amp breaker, your kitchen has up to 5 20amp breakers, each appliance has to be on its own 20 amp circuit, and not including the GFI in the bathroom. Then the rest of your circuits up to another 12 15 amp breakers.

Now this is all code and will pass. But if you do the math and add up all of the amps on every breaker you have going there. You're way over your Service panel capacity. This is because you don't' run everything at once. That service coming in from the street, guess what? It's carrying current for a the 20 to 100 houses in your neighborhood, giving each one 150 to 200 amps each. But there's no way in hell it could ever support every house consuming even 50% of the potential power. That is why you get brownouts and blackouts, and your power company offers programs to incentivize you to use less power during peak hours.

I hope by now, you're smart enough to realize where I'm going with this.

Sure the few richer than the rest in the neighborhood, the early adopters, that got an electric car and had their charging station installed, they are all doing fine and dandy. But when everyone in the whole neighborhood, adopts electric cars and has their charging stations installed. Then at quitting time when every working person in that community gets home, at 5 to 6 pm and plugs their car into the chargers. Transformers will start blowing.

Condo buildings are already starting have problems. They allowed so many residents to install charging stations at their parking space. Now as more and more owners are starting to do the same. The incoming service is starting to melt and burning up the main building service mains.

DC power needs the power source close by, the bigger the wire needs to be, it gets to the point, you can't pull a fat enough wire to accommodate the needs for all of those charging stations. You need a power plant near by.

And yes I'm hyping unproven tech, but I'm not saying it's ready and provable. I'm saying I would rather hear about research in these areas rather than the proven nonstarter that electric vehicles are. I believe hydrogen powered cars are more viable as an option for the masses over EVs.
28   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 12:11pm  

HeadSet says


"Compressed air" can store energy for short burst, but the air tank has to be refilled. Anyone running air tools understands this concept. You cannot leverage 5 hp into enough power to run a car at highway speeds through any transfer mechanism, no matter how exotic. Not unless you do something like run that 5 hp engine compressor for several hours to fill a tank that can run the car for a few minutes at highway speed before the pressure runs out.


The compressor would be to provide torque to get the vehicle going, then the 5hp motor with what ever gear ratio set up you have in a transfer case can take over to keep the car at speed. It may even accelerate fine once the car has enough inertia to allow the electric motor to do it's job.
Your AC runs on a DC 3 phase motor. It needs a start capacitor to get the compressor turning, once that happens, the motor churns the AC compressor just fine. But it wont budge the compressor at a cold start.

My thing is about killing the battery and need to charge them in EVs. Keep Gasoline or any other fuel, but use it to run efficient small engines, rather than huge powertrains.
29   HeadSet   2023 Oct 21, 12:24pm  

Tenpoundbass says

The compressor would be to provide torque to get the vehicle going, then the 5hp motor with what ever gear ratio set up you have in a transfer case can take over to keep the car at speed. It may even accelerate fine once the car has enough inertia to allow the electric motor to do it's job.

I see. Not a bad idea. Porshe said that it only takes 15hp to keep a 911 cruising at 60 mph.
30   Tenpoundbass   2023 Oct 21, 1:32pm  

The electric motor I posted is capable of providing 1800 RPMs that's over 120mph.
The Air compressor gets the car going up to speed from a dead start. The motor can keep that speed constant. Then for highway acceleration you have an array of high powered Capacitors that fire in succession to provide acceleration once the wheels are moving. Though adding extra amperage to the motor to give it more power. Much like those AC start capacitors. As one discharges, the next one is already charged, and so on and on, by time it gets back to the first one it's fully charged again. Once up to speed the motor can handle keeping it going damn near 120mph only with that 5 hp motor.
31   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 3:13pm  

Tenpoundbass says

I believe hydrogen powered cars are more viable as an option for the masses over EVs.


Hydrogen is produced through a process called steam reformation using super heated water and natural gas. It's super expensive, but cheaper than if you make it by breaking water into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen isn't viable, at least yet.

Natural gas powered cars would be.
32   HeadSet   2023 Oct 21, 3:47pm  

richwicks says

Natural gas powered cars would be.

I have seen natural gas conversions since the 1970s. In the 1990s. Ford gave a fleet of natural gas powered Crown Vics to an Atlanta cab company to test. Virginia Natural Gas has converted all their pickup trucks to run on natural gas.
33   richwicks   2023 Oct 21, 8:27pm  

HeadSet says


richwicks says


Natural gas powered cars would be.

I have seen natural gas conversions since the 1970s. In the 1990s. Ford gave a fleet of natural gas powered Crown Vics to an Atlanta cab company to test. Virginia Natural Gas has converted all their pickup trucks to run on natural gas.



I don't believe they have the range that a conventional gas powered vehicle does, but they are cheap to run, and as I understand it (which may be in gross error), conversion from gas to natural gas is not too difficult or expensive and the engine can run on both fuels. I think it's regulations and taxation that prevents it.
34   AD   2023 Oct 21, 9:06pm  

Should invest to improve Amazon worker productivity such as better tools to do their job. This robot looks like R&D waste.

.

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions   gaiste