
Unhappy Truckers and Other Algorithmic Problems - bdon
http://nautil.us/issue/3/in-transit/unhappy-truckers-and-other-algorithmic-problems
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aptwebapps
Nice article. I would love to know more details about some of the specific
examples, though. Like this one:

 _Yellow Freight used to have some 700 “end of lines,” Powell says, which are
sorting terminals where cargo is transferred to its end customers. Powell
developed a model that delivered a counterintuitive message: Trucks were
traveling farther to get to the customer with so many terminals. Today, he
says, Yellow Freight has 400 end of lines. “That was the right number,” he
says._

I can understand 400 endpoints being more efficient for some overall process,
but I have a hard time seeing how it could reduce miles travelled without some
sort of unmentioned complexity (like sending stuff to the wrong endpoints
through confusion). Or maybe it includes miles driven taking stuff to the
endpoints in the first place? That I could see.

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cinquemb
All of this makes me wonder: will business be the first to adapt to self
driving vehicles, as opposed to passengers? or are there still significant
legal barricades to impede either one now?

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msrpotus
Of course, you still need someone to actually make the delivery; even a self-
driving car can't really give a person a package.

At least, not yet.

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NicoJuicy
Actually, delivering a package is nothing more then someone who walks in the
truck and using a QR-Code (smartphone) as authentication.

Or just let them put a NFC sticker on their smartphone to automate it more..

(Explanation is simple, execution is something else though)

PS. The only problem i really see, is making deliveries in snow (can't detect
the road).

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shawabawa3
> The only problem i really see, is making deliveries in snow (can't detect
> the road).

Surely they can use sonar/radar to see the road through the snow?

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NicoJuicy
Not really, it's one of the problems (so i've read) Google's automated car is
still struggling to handle.

Road, Bicycle part of the road, road marks, ...

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dyeje
This was a really quality article. I wish I saw more stuff of this quality
posted on here. Definitely checking this site out more.

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drostie
The only problem is MIT's news office; "roughly speaking, P is a set of
relatively easy problems, NP is a set of incredibly hard problems, and if
they’re equal, then a large number of computer science problems that seem to
be incredibly hard are actually relatively easy." (It's wrong first because P
⊆ NP and second because it doesn't tell you what's really at stake here.)

I think you could instead say "Roughly speaking, P is a set of easy-looking
problems, while NP is a set of problems which can be solved the hard way, by a
brute-force search. If they're equal, then every brute-force-able problem is
hiding some much easier solution." You could also add a sentence like, "Most
computer scientists believe that this is wrong -- that sometimes you can't
really improve on a brute-force search. But nobody knows how to prove that
negative, it seems to require understanding everything which computers can
possibly do."

In one paragraph you _can_ explain the gist of P = NP, I think, to a lay
audience. I guess many of them might not know what a brute-force solution is,
but you might replace it above with "trying all the combinations" or so. (Hat
tip to Scott Aaronson for an essential element of this explanation.)

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jmduke
While I think your definition is apt, I think you vastly overestimate the
number of people who grasp the phrase 'brute-force search.'

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rmc
People understand what "try all the possible combinations"

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StavrosK
means.

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jules
Something doesn't add up here. The article says:

> For each mile saved, per driver, per year, UPS saves $30 million.

Then at the end it says:

> As for UPS, Santilli notes that a driver in Gettysburg, Pa. is now driving
> nearly 25 miles less per day, from an original route of more than 150 miles
> down to 126 miles—with the same number of stops.

So they are saving $30 million * 25 * 365 = $274 billion per year. However,
UPS' revenue is only $53 billion. What gives? Is this driver in Gettysburg
saving a very atypical number of miles, and the average number of miles saved
with this system per driver per day is way less? It's a bit disappointing that
they left the actual savings out of the article.

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StavrosK
> For each mile saved, per driver, per year, UPS saves $30 million.

Err, there's no way _a single mile per year_ costs them $30 million. Looks
like the $30m figure is the total savings, unless they're using gold, single-
use robots that burn gold to push the gold trucks.

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jules
They did say _per driver_. It's still a high number of course, but I don't see
how you can read that differently? UPS has around 400,000 employees, so if
200,000 of those are drivers that number becomes $150 per mile saved. Still
way too high, but not single use golden robots high.

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maxerickson
I think the goal has to be to read what it doesn't say.

The most sensible interpretation I can come up with is saving 1 route mile for
each driver for a year (that is, chopping 365 miles off the work of one
driver). That puts the per mile savings right around $0.40.

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jules
Alright, so it should have said:

> For each mile saved, per driver, per _day_ , UPS saves $30 million per
> _year_.

That would put the total savings at $750 million per year, assuming that
Gettysburg driver is typical.

