• Future Construction

    From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Wed Sep 7 13:41:08 2022
    On 9/7/22 08:37, Moondog wrote:

    On NPR I heard an interview with a sci-fi writer who wrote a
    story about a young man from a poor little town in Mexico
    reading about job opportunities in Mexico city.
    ...
    It turns out the other operator is working out of Pakistan and
    the loader operator is from Australia. Nobody running
    equipment is from the place they are working.

    Very cool concept... that said, latency is a real thing and I can see
    that scenario playing out with some very serious injuries and death over time... you won't be "real time" ... you'll need to program paths, and
    have time windows for clear site times. Since there will still need to
    be people on-site.

    If you look at current high-rise construction in the middle east with floors/pods built offsite and assembled onsite, that is probably a more reasonable division of labor. Those pods can be built/shipped from many different spots around the world, and if design and construction can
    target global projects at once, the same technique can be used much more broadly.

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were
    "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a
    person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.
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  • From Arelor@VERT/PALANT to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 8 04:12:55 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Wed Sep 07 2022 01:41 pm

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.

    That sounds close to Surrogates, in which people lived in control pods at home and operated Androids who did everything for them. People didn't do the groceries, the Androids did. Since Androids were controled by a synaptic connection, for them it was just like beng there, but if the Android was accidentally ran over, or suffered an industrial accident, the human in charge was safe.

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 8 10:26:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Wed Sep 07 2022 01:41 pm

    On 9/7/22 08:37, Moondog wrote:

    On NPR I heard an interview with a sci-fi writer who wrote a
    story about a young man from a poor little town in Mexico
    reading about job opportunities in Mexico city.
    ...
    It turns out the other operator is working out of Pakistan and
    the loader operator is from Australia. Nobody running
    equipment is from the place they are working.

    Very cool concept... that said, latency is a real thing and I can see
    that scenario playing out with some very serious injuries and death over time... you won't be "real time" ... you'll need to program paths, and
    have time windows for clear site times. Since there will still need to
    be people on-site.

    If you look at current high-rise construction in the middle east with floors/pods built offsite and assembled onsite, that is probably a more reasonable division of labor. Those pods can be built/shipped from many different spots around the world, and if design and construction can
    target global projects at once, the same technique can be used much more broadly.

    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for dangerous
    jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body. The main story included people actually swapping in place of physical transportation,
    but I don't know how well that would actually work.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com


    Yeha, the latency and dropped packets would mess things up. i get the impression the story was about taking outsourcing of labor from lower wage nations to an extreme. Programming and call processing has been done for decades in other countries. it freaked me out when i heard some fast food chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Arelor on Thu Sep 8 19:59:16 2022
    On 9/8/22 02:12, Arelor wrote:
    I remember another scifi movie, where construction workers were
    "transported" into a "Joe" body... basically, they had tech to copy
    a person's mind and transport that into another body... so for
    dangerous jobs, the person wouldn't have to risk their own body.
    The main story included people actually swapping in place of
    physical transportation, but I don't know how well that would
    actually work.

    That sounds close to Surrogates, in which people lived in control
    pods at home and operated Androids who did everything for them.
    People didn't do the groceries, the Androids did. Since Androids
    were controled by a synaptic connection, for them it was just like
    beng there, but if the Android was accidentally ran over, or
    suffered an industrial accident, the human in charge was safe.

    It is Xchange - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242150/
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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    þ Synchronet þ Roughneck BBS - roughneckbbs.com
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Thu Sep 8 20:07:38 2022
    On 9/8/22 07:26, Moondog wrote:

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    Really depends... if the connection, noise filtering and audio is good
    as well as the person on the other end being a better than average
    listener, it's entirely possible to have an order taker that is better
    than what any given location could have and provide broader coverage
    than said dedicated person. You can have 50 order takers that are
    better covering 60-80+ locations with the dead time between orders to.

    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than
    average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking
    ability for custom orders.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Moondog on Fri Sep 9 08:44:03 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 08 2022 10:26 am

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    This is the first time I've heard of that.. How would that work? The call center would then have to be in contact with the local restaurant. I'm wondering what the point is of even doing that? I can't imagine it would cost less to do that than to just have a local employee at the drive-thru taking orders? Having a remote call center for that seems like it would be a fairly convoluted setup..

    Nightfox

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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Fri Sep 9 11:18:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Thu Sep 08 2022 08:07 pm

    On 9/8/22 07:26, Moondog wrote:

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from y phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a waste in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, India

    Really depends... if the connection, noise filtering and audio is good
    as well as the person on the other end being a better than average
    listener, it's entirely possible to have an order taker that is better
    than what any given location could have and provide broader coverage
    than said dedicated person. You can have 50 order takers that are
    better covering 60-80+ locations with the dead time between orders to.

    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than
    average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking ability for custom orders.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com


    Agreed. I guess I'm thinking old school like the engineers that didn't see
    an IC as a single module, but see it as several hundred good transistors, and one or two bad ones. Either way the two or three are not serviceable.

    I grew up witthe concept of local and long distance calling, and the telco would
    rape you over long distance calls. From that point of view it seems wasteful even though it's not.

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up, chances
    are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    ---
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  • From esc@VERT/MONTEREY to Tracker1 on Fri Sep 9 12:05:00 2022
    I'd rather it were native language speakers, again with better than average listening and comprehension as well as sufficient order taking ability for custom orders.

    I'd rather pull humans out of the service loop entirely. Customer enters in exactly what they want via an app and a machine builds the order precisely.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/11 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Nightfox on Fri Sep 9 20:18:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to Moondog on Fri Sep 09 2022 08:44 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: Moondog to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 08 2022 10:26 am

    it freaked me out when i heard some fast food
    chains have their drive throughs forwarded to a call centers in another country. In a way, it's not much different than ordering your food from your phone and picking it up at the drive through. it seems like a wast in bandwidth to have someone in Calcutta take your order in Chesterton, Indiana.

    This is the first time I've heard of that.. How would that work? The call t have a local employee at the drive-thru taking orders? Having a remote ca

    Nightfox


    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you order from phone app then
    go through drive thru lane.

    ---
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 13:57:07 2022
    On 9/9/22 08:18, Moondog wrote:

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up,
    chances are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    That assumes the app actually lets you order something how you want it.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 14:22:58 2022
    On 9/10/22 11:43, Nightfox wrote:
    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a
    few places. it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a
    fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier
    for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru.
    We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take
    orders.

    It depends... those order kiosks are pretty costly, saw a 42" touch
    display one at a McD's on my last road trip. And I don't think it would
    work well in a drive through scenario.

    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available,
    to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee
    costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a
    single employee at a single location... now scale that to
    hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month

    1000 locations = $8m/month

    Remote employees costing half as much, covering up to 3 locations per employee..

    $8m / 2 / 3 = ~$1.4m/month

    Just saved the company $6.6m a month... And that's assuming locations
    are only open 16 hrs a day. And it doesn't preclude research that would completely replace employees in the longer term.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 23:19:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Nightfox to MRO on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:43 am

    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    A call center in Mumbai takes your order, then routes it to the
    smash box screen by the drive thru window and cook station. Food is >> made and delivered to drive thru window. Works the same way if you >> order from phone app then

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few plac it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a fast food rest take orders.

    Nightfox

    That's what probably cancelled that project. This spring they were testing employees taking orders from home, then routing the orders to the smashboxes.
    if the data connection is robust enough, it doesn't matter who takes your order. It's all about doing it cheaper and pocketing extra money.

    ---
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Sun Sep 11 12:35:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 01:57 pm

    On 9/9/22 08:18, Moondog wrote:

    The best resolution is the phone app. If your order is screwed up, chances are you were the one who keyed the special order wrong.

    That assumes the app actually lets you order something how you want it.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    Isn't that the issue why items get screwed up through the drive thru already?

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Sun Sep 11 12:42:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Nightfox on Sat Sep 10 2022 02:22 pm

    On 9/10/22 11:43, Nightfox wrote:
    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a
    few places. it's just testing, though.

    That seems like an overly complicated way to take orders at a
    fast food restaurant. I'd think it would be cheaper and easier
    for them to set up an order kiosk or something at the drive thru.
    We might also be able to set up an automated voice system to take
    orders.

    It depends... those order kiosks are pretty costly, saw a 42" touch
    display one at a McD's on my last road trip. And I don't think it would work well in a drive through scenario.

    How much is it to use the internet connection already likely available,
    to a cheap computer and operator that costs half what a US employee
    costs... Now that single employee can cover 1.5-3x as many orders as a single employee at a single location... now scale that to
    hundreds/thousands of locations... you've now saved millions a month.

    Single employee/location * 2 shifts = ~$8000/month

    1000 locations = $8m/month

    Remote employees costing half as much, covering up to 3 locations per employee..

    $8m / 2 / 3 = ~$1.4m/month

    Just saved the company $6.6m a month... And that's assuming locations
    are only open 16 hrs a day. And it doesn't preclude research that would completely replace employees in the longer term.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    The call center stuff was tried well before phone apps really took off. Last time I drove through a drive thru, they asked if I used the app and picking
    up, or making an order right there?

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Arelor on Mon Sep 12 23:51:00 2022
    Re: Future Construction
    By: Arelor to MRO on Mon Sep 12 2022 05:20 pm

    Re: Future Construction
    By: MRO to Moondog on Sat Sep 10 2022 11:29 am

    so who is doing this? because i do not know of any popular one in the that uses it.

    so i looked on the internet and mcdonalds is testing this in a few places ---

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always end up hir people with accents so hard to understand it gives a very bad image to the firm.

    --
    gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken


    I used to watch a tech show, I think it was called Geek Nation when TechTV
    was still around. They did a story on three Indian workers who were pursuing
    a call center career. One place would interview you over a phone before hiring. The person would be in a little room with a phone, and the
    interviewer would be in the next room. They would be graded on their english skills and if they were technically skilled but lacked in the language department, they would be sent to a language school that several call centers used. Depending on the country and regions they were to service, they would teach slang and common references as well as smooth out their accent.
    Another candidate went through a similar course, except they would assist in cultural education. For example, if they were training to serve US
    customers, they would be required to locate states ont he map, identify which cities are in which states, and keep abreast of US news and events. While the first two schools concentrated on a neutral midwest US type accent, the thrid place would teach how to speak in a convincing accent of the region you are se rving. The reporter spoke with the instructor and some of the top students, and they were surprisingly good. They also had to learn culture and "sical studies", because a word out of place or slang used wrong would distract the customer, possibly creating feelings they are being deceived while the intent was to make them comfortable. For example, they would be given flash cards with pictures of people or items, and say what they are. A student training for a US call center was given a picture of a flashlight, and he responded
    with "torch." When shown a picture of Devil's Tower, he said Ayer's rock.

    In my personal opinion, I would be happy if they went to the school to learn how to speak in a neutral dialect.

    ---
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  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Arelor on Wed Sep 21 21:11:38 2022
    On 9/12/22 15:20, Arelor wrote:

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an
    offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always
    end up hiring people with accents so hard to understand it gives
    a very bad image to the firm.

    Shouldn't need to offshore at all... as I mentioned in another response
    with back of the napkin level math. You should easily be able to have
    one person be able to take 3x the number of orders or more when busy.
    There's a lot of down time between one person's order and another's most
    of the time... that can be spent taking an order from someone at another location.

    Mix in some general AI listening for "ready" and it could be slightly improved.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com
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  • From Moondog@VERT/CAVEBBS to Tracker1 on Thu Sep 22 09:54:00 2022
    Re: Re: Future Construction
    By: Tracker1 to Arelor on Wed Sep 21 2022 09:11 pm

    On 9/12/22 15:20, Arelor wrote:

    I'd rather place my orders via a machine than deal with an
    offshored remote worker.

    At least in Spain, when they offshore remote workers, they always
    end up hiring people with accents so hard to understand it gives
    a very bad image to the firm.

    Shouldn't need to offshore at all... as I mentioned in another response
    with back of the napkin level math. You should easily be able to have
    one person be able to take 3x the number of orders or more when busy. There's a lot of down time between one person's order and another's most
    of the time... that can be spent taking an order from someone at another location.

    Mix in some general AI listening for "ready" and it could be slightly improved.
    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1@roughneckbbs.com

    In order to receive more orders, some drive thru's add a second lane and
    order board. That keeps them busy enough if all there's one pay window and th e pickup window only handles food. Some places have three windows, and the
    the first two handle payments, and sometimes drinks.

    ---
    þ Synchronet þ The Cave BBS - Since 1992 - cavebbs.homeip.net
  • From Tracker1@VERT/TRN to Moondog on Mon Sep 26 16:20:03 2022
    On 9/22/22 06:54, Moondog wrote:

    In order to receive more orders, some drive thru's add a second
    lane and order board. That keeps them busy enough if all there's
    one pay window and the pickup window only handles food. Some
    places have three windows, and the the first two handle payments,
    and sometimes drinks.

    It's looking like there are some designs (starting with taco bell) that actually has the restaurant kitchen above a drive through only setting
    with dumb waiters to ~6 drive through stations below. With extra
    waiting parking. Mostly to handle delivery services.

    Suggestions have been to do similar with ghost kitchens above in a
    similar way.
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