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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • Yeah I agree I hate this kind of obstructive customer service

    I work as a software engineer on automated customer service systems like these, and boy let me tell you, obstruction is the name of the game. For example: don’t make the phone number too easy to find on the website because it will lead to too many calls. We nudge people toward the FAQ and such first so they can hopefully find their answer there. Then, we have chatbots like this which contain exactly the same information as the FAQ again. And only then might we offer you contact with a human.

    The essential problem is that support is a cost center, so cost savings is the name of the game. We optimize for metrics like:

    • “deflection” (number of calls averted because we pushed the user into automated tools instead)
    • “first call resolution” (percentage of issues resolved in one contact. How do we know if your issue is resolved? Simple, if you don’t contact us again we assume the issue is fixed)
    • “Average contact time” (pretty obvious, get the customer off the phone ASAP)

    If you manage to get on text chat with a human, typically they are handling two other conversations at the same time, that’s why they seem so absent all the time (and why companies love chat. Much cheaper than calling).

    I’m not saying we’re all diabolical here. There is a general agreement among everyone in the industry that we should help the customer as well as we possibly can. Indeed every CS manager will tell you how important we are to our brand image and NPS, how we strive to be the most customer-friendly company etc. etc.

    But the numbers don’t lie. If you look at the metrics that everyone actually optimizes for, it’s cost cost cost.




  • VW is good at making cars, but bad at software. They’ve had to delay the introduction of new models (Golf, ID.3) because of software issues. Rivian has sort of the opposite problem: their production lines sit still often because of problems in the supply chain.

    Volkswagen has the expertise to solve Rivian’s production and supplier problems, and the cash they will need to survive and develop some cheaper models (the EV market is stagnating right now for a lack of budget options, and Rivian only sells trucks and SUVs). And they’re hoping Rivian software engineers can help them fix their software woes.


  • Pretty much the perfect form factor in my opinion. Put the back seat down when you need to transport cargo, up for people. Really practical. If you want to do camping trips or road trips where you need to move four people with cargo, you can get one with a towing hook.

    The one thing it’s not great at in my experience is transporting babies around. There’s just not quite enough space for the car seat, stroller, two parents and assorted diapers and stuff. We can make it work, but it’s quite uncomfortable.



  • There is a saying in business: Under-Promise, Over-Perform, or Over-Deliver.

    SpaceX does the opposite of this.

    It literally doesn’t matter though: everyone and their mother are buying falcon 9 or heavy launches. SpaceX accounts for almost 90% of the world’s launched upmass. They are simply the cheapest most reliable option out there and it is not close. The only reason not to fly on a SpaceX rocket is national security or wanting to keep your own domestic launch industry alive.




  • sushibowl@feddit.nltoScience Memes@mander.xyzTough Trolly Choices
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    8 months ago

    It seems to me that, since the set of real numbers has a total ordering, I could fairly trivially construct some choice function like “the element closest to 0” that will work no matter how many elements you remove, without needing any fancy axioms.

    I don’t know what to do if the set is unordered though.





  • Honestly, I think it may be possible to build entire roads with enough crushed metal elements in the asphalt/concrete and a slight low power charge throughout the entire surface would be able to keep any vehicle battery at a steady charge.

    You might be underestimating how much power a car consumes while driving. For example, a Tesla model 3 has an efficiency of about 130 Wh/km in mild weather at highway speeds. Assuming that on the highway you’ll travel 100 km/h, that means you’ll use 130*100 = 13.000 Wh/h, a constant power draw of 13kW. That’s enough to power perhaps 8-12 houses on average.

    A km of road could have, let’s say, 200 cars on it (4 lanes, 20m per car). That means you’d need to pump about 2.6 megawatts of power into every kilometer of road to keep them all topped up.

    EDIT: fucked up math


  • Semmelweis discovered that a particular type of infection was much less likely to occur when doctors washed their hands with chlorinated lime water between doing an autopsy and examining a patient. However he did not know why or how this worked, and did not discover microorganisms (which were already observed by Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek some ~180 years earlier).



  • sushibowl@feddit.nltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worlddas bagel
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    8 months ago

    Another European here. Might be because I’m into baking but I don’t think a bagel should be classified as a roll. Bagels are boiled in water prior to baking which gives them a rather unique texture compared to rolls.

    Sadly most commercially available “bagels” are not actually produced in this way.


  • sushibowl@feddit.nltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worlddas bagel
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    8 months ago

    you’ll see the huge difference between what you get in supermarkets (even good ones with good bakeries like Lidl) and a proper bagel.

    I believe in large part this is because traditionally a bagel ought to be boiled in water and then baked in an oven. But to save labor costs, mass-produced bagels are often baked in a steam oven which doesn’t quite give the same chewy texture.

    Another factor is, they will generally partly bake them in the factory, then freeze them and ship them off to your supermarket which finishes them off before putting it on the shelf.