Replacing bad systems with bad systems(seths.blog)
seths.blog
Replacing bad systems with bad systems
https://seths.blog/2023/04/replacing-bad-systems-with-bad-systems/
13 comments
> On a visit to Denmark I saw their simple system. You car has a plastic clock face mounted on the inside of the windshield.
This is common in several countries in Europe. Typically a white dial / black digits rotating inside a square blue disk [0].
In Belgium the streets where that metering system is used (but the city also uses other metering systems: it's on a street by street basis) have a little picture of that disk printed on the street at regular intervals. It's very common to have some streets where parking is totally free, others that use this plastic clock disk and yet others that use a more common metering system.
It's a thing to set your timer on your phone to 1h55 minutes, knowing you have 5 minutes left to go advance the disk by two hours (yup, cheating).
Another common one is that typically at night parking is allowed, so you park on monday evening and directly set the clock to 8am. So you're good until 10am.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=disque+de+stationnement
This is common in several countries in Europe. Typically a white dial / black digits rotating inside a square blue disk [0].
In Belgium the streets where that metering system is used (but the city also uses other metering systems: it's on a street by street basis) have a little picture of that disk printed on the street at regular intervals. It's very common to have some streets where parking is totally free, others that use this plastic clock disk and yet others that use a more common metering system.
It's a thing to set your timer on your phone to 1h55 minutes, knowing you have 5 minutes left to go advance the disk by two hours (yup, cheating).
Another common one is that typically at night parking is allowed, so you park on monday evening and directly set the clock to 8am. So you're good until 10am.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=disque+de+stationnement
Time to invent a little timer gizmo that fastens to the back of the windshield clock and advances it for you. ;)
Those exist: https://www.bol.com/nl/p/automatisch-roterende-blauwe-parkee...
They are of course illegal.
They are of course illegal.
Does it move in steps, or does it move continuously? Would be funny if it’s the latter and a parking inspector comes and while they are looking at the dial it is slowly turning around on its own.
For that matter, even if it only moves in steps you could still be unlucky in several ways. For example if the parking inspector is looking at it at the same time as it makes a big leap forward in time.
If the area is subject to multiple inspections every day then the parking inspector might also notice that the same car is sitting in the same spot between multiple inspection rounds over many hours. No amount of technologically advanced timers will help the cheater then.
Perhaps someone could also invent car paint that changes colour every hour :p and then hope the parking inspector and everyone else are not looking the moment the colour changes.
For that matter, even if it only moves in steps you could still be unlucky in several ways. For example if the parking inspector is looking at it at the same time as it makes a big leap forward in time.
If the area is subject to multiple inspections every day then the parking inspector might also notice that the same car is sitting in the same spot between multiple inspection rounds over many hours. No amount of technologically advanced timers will help the cheater then.
Perhaps someone could also invent car paint that changes colour every hour :p and then hope the parking inspector and everyone else are not looking the moment the colour changes.
> Perhaps someone could also invent car paint that changes colour every hour
That, also exists:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23540358/bmw-color-changin...
That, also exists:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23540358/bmw-color-changin...
To minimize the chance the parking inspector sees the clock advance, you probably just want to do it only once an hour or so.
I heard about this on Tom Scott's Lateral podcast recently.
This has already been done, but the person got caught and got a fine.
Sooooo, like a clock?
As others have pointed out, those discs are only for free time-limited parking in Denmark. Some places have parking meters. Those places often use a mixture of physical meters and the option to use an app. The physical meters aren't next to the parking spot, but rather nearby. They ask you to enter your number plate, and they only take payment cards (no cash).
The apps are similar, and you can use one of several apps, issued by several different private companies (who also maintain their own parking spaces). Some places, however, finding the nearest meter, or payment machine to be more accurate, can be a bit of a trek, so it's not super convenient, if you don't use the app, like me.
The apps are similar, and you can use one of several apps, issued by several different private companies (who also maintain their own parking spaces). Some places, however, finding the nearest meter, or payment machine to be more accurate, can be a bit of a trek, so it's not super convenient, if you don't use the app, like me.
No meters, no coin collection, no apps, no accounts, no personal data. Very simple and effective.
The objective of the meter is to raise revenue though
The objective of the meter is to raise revenue though
Typically the primary objective is to make sure there is turnover in parking spaces so that shops can thrive (that’s where the revenue is). That’s why big box stores in the burbs don’t need parking meters — they are captives — but also why the parking lots are so big.
I don’t believe parking revenue is that large, but I don’t really track it (feel free to surprise me). Just collecting and managing the fees is expensive, as the article specifies.
I don’t believe parking revenue is that large, but I don’t really track it (feel free to surprise me). Just collecting and managing the fees is expensive, as the article specifies.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2022/5/26/23143356/ch...
tl;dr if you can't read it due to GDPR:
>Parking meter revenues are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. With 61 years to go on the 75-year lease, Chicago Parking Meters LLC has now recouped its entire $1.16 billion investment, plus $502.5 million more.
tl;dr if you can't read it due to GDPR:
>Parking meter revenues are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. With 61 years to go on the 75-year lease, Chicago Parking Meters LLC has now recouped its entire $1.16 billion investment, plus $502.5 million more.
Not sure that's quite making the argument you think it is.
Gross revenue is roughly $12/resident/year, and that's not factoring in administrative costs, staffing, etc.
That's pretty small change.
Gross revenue is roughly $12/resident/year, and that's not factoring in administrative costs, staffing, etc.
That's pretty small change.
Who cares about per resident? That's $35 million in profit per year already (after paying off the contract). That's not nothing.
If admin costs and staffing come anywhere even close to that, the contractor is screwing up.
>Since 2009, CPM has invested $38 million to modernize the City’s on‐street parking, replacing 36,000 outdated single‐space, coin‐operated ‘meters’ with 4,700 state‐of‐the‐art pay stations that accept both credit and debit cards. In addition, CPM has established a refund option, a 24‐hour customer service center and a state‐of‐the‐art maintenance and repair process.
https://parkchicago.com/about/
So one year's profit investment into infra.
If admin costs and staffing come anywhere even close to that, the contractor is screwing up.
>Since 2009, CPM has invested $38 million to modernize the City’s on‐street parking, replacing 36,000 outdated single‐space, coin‐operated ‘meters’ with 4,700 state‐of‐the‐art pay stations that accept both credit and debit cards. In addition, CPM has established a refund option, a 24‐hour customer service center and a state‐of‐the‐art maintenance and repair process.
https://parkchicago.com/about/
So one year's profit investment into infra.
Not nothing, but it’s about 1/500th the city budget, which is over $16B/yr
The disc parking thing is mostly done in countries that are ok with the idea of taxing fuel as a proxy to charge for vehicle use.
We had that in France for a long time, but it seems it's no longer used in most places, although it still exists ("disque de stationnement": parking disc, see https://www.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/actualites/nouveau-dis... which says it's a European thing?)
In my town (small town near Paris), in some places downtown we have machines that scan the licence plates; first 30 minutes are free, and if you stay longer you get a ticket; everything is automated and doesn't involve anyone for enforcement.
And elsewhere in France there are parking machines where you pay using a credit/debit card and type in your licence plate, and there are patrol cars that scan all the plates and match them to those in the database with date/time, and if they have overstayed the ticket is sent automatically.
In my town (small town near Paris), in some places downtown we have machines that scan the licence plates; first 30 minutes are free, and if you stay longer you get a ticket; everything is automated and doesn't involve anyone for enforcement.
And elsewhere in France there are parking machines where you pay using a credit/debit card and type in your licence plate, and there are patrol cars that scan all the plates and match them to those in the database with date/time, and if they have overstayed the ticket is sent automatically.
The disks you are talking about needs to be purchased. If you are visiting you may find it hard to find an open spot selling those off business hours. It’s less convenient then coin operated parking meter.
What?
I think every car in Europe has this parking clock/disk.
If you do not have the clock, then piece of paper and written time is also OK.
I think every car in Europe has this parking clock/disk.
If you do not have the clock, then piece of paper and written time is also OK.
Europe is not just EU or Westen Europe. The system the op is talking about iirc is only for free parking, so it’s not even an alternative to a meter. It’s an alternative to a meter maid making rounds chalking wheels or scanning license plates.
I definitely rented a car in Switzerland before pandemic that did not have the disk and I had to buy it at some tourist info center.
I definitely rented a car in Switzerland before pandemic that did not have the disk and I had to buy it at some tourist info center.
Piece of paper? In Switzerland I got a fine because the paper clock was not 12cm in diameter but like 10
Here is a Wikipedia article about this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_parking
I love this sort of thing. What other overly-complex systems do we take for granted where a simple and robust solution has been possible the whole time?
(Yes, this particular design only works if your goal is to increase turnover for parking spaces, rather than to collect revenue for parking spaces. But a lot of the time that is the goal, and yet we use the design that collects revenue anyway.)
(Yes, this particular design only works if your goal is to increase turnover for parking spaces, rather than to collect revenue for parking spaces. But a lot of the time that is the goal, and yet we use the design that collects revenue anyway.)
This particular design also only works in a high-trust, high-honesty culture. The complexities of most systems like this are only there to disincentivize bad actors from taking advantage of the system, and as we all know, managing incentives is a difficult problem.
When most people do the right thing without being prompted, simple solutions are easy.
When most people do the right thing without being prompted, simple solutions are easy.
yeah many places, problem is no money for the gov :), the old coins were also fun.
But the new versions are easier for the governments. Here they have cars driving around with cameras automatically checking the license plates to see if you paid.
Then someone made a device that would form a network in all the cars using them to detect the cars in advance so you can quickly pay via your app, but the judge blocked them.
Humans being human
But the new versions are easier for the governments. Here they have cars driving around with cameras automatically checking the license plates to see if you paid.
Then someone made a device that would form a network in all the cars using them to detect the cars in advance so you can quickly pay via your app, but the judge blocked them.
Humans being human
What is meant by "current time"? The time zone that you're parking in?
Basically you point the disk at the time you parked your car and then you've got two hours before you need to move the car (or go advance the disk by two hours, which is not legal but which everybody does. Those that forget do get a fine).
Not exactly a very high-tech system ; )
Not exactly a very high-tech system ; )
Israel has or had a cute device, it looks like a digital kitchen timer and flashes the parking fare zone and current time, when you reach the maximum time or run out of credit it turns off. It can also enforce "no return" rules and you can end your stay by pressing a button when you return to the car.
It is just fiddly to input the fare zone on those cheap rubbery buttons and you do need to take it to a store occasionally to fill it up with credit. If you want to overstay you would need two of these devices, I don't know if they had any security to prevent that. I can't find any pictures so I guess smartphones and a central database have made them obsolete.
It is just fiddly to input the fare zone on those cheap rubbery buttons and you do need to take it to a store occasionally to fill it up with credit. If you want to overstay you would need two of these devices, I don't know if they had any security to prevent that. I can't find any pictures so I guess smartphones and a central database have made them obsolete.
No. Just set the hands to the time that you are parking.
Then anyone walking by can see the time that you parked the car
Then anyone walking by can see the time that you parked the car
His solution for a small government is to hand-roll a qr code system with integration into several payment gateways instead of going with any number of available pre-built solutions?
From someone that works with government payment systems, he has no idea how software, governments, or payments systems work.
From someone that works with government payment systems, he has no idea how software, governments, or payments systems work.
The post is from a marketing blog where he writes a blogpost every day. Probably he had to park at a parking meter that day and it prompted him to use parking meters as his blogpost subject for that day, and he just made up some words about them.
> he just made up some words about them
I’m not so sure about that. His blog is one of the most well-respected blogs out there.
Interesting chap.
https://seths.blog/about/
I’m not so sure about that. His blog is one of the most well-respected blogs out there.
Interesting chap.
https://seths.blog/about/
OK so you are using the guy's own blog, where he brags about being a hall-of-fame guerilla marketer, as evidence that his own blog is one of the most-respected blogs out there.
It's also possible that I've been reading his stuff for many years, and seen it referenced from a lot of different venues.
I'm not a marketer. His take on things isn't that big a deal to me, but he has come up with a lot of really good insights, over the years.
People on HN have been posting his stuff for at least five years: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=seths.blog
I'm not a marketer. His take on things isn't that big a deal to me, but he has come up with a lot of really good insights, over the years.
People on HN have been posting his stuff for at least five years: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=seths.blog
I agree with the blooger in theory but you are correct...In practice it's never going to be an option. My wife works for a large city on the east coast. They spend outrageous amounts on (pre-built) solutions. Made me want to start building appraisal software and golf with city-managers when I found out the annual license fee's city governments shill out for these boring app's.
> And a key benefit of distributed systems is that they improve over time. When you see something that can be made better, make it better.
It's not clear what point is being made here. A benefit of distributed systems over non-distributed (centralized?) systems? Why can't centralized systems improve over time?
It's not clear what point is being made here. A benefit of distributed systems over non-distributed (centralized?) systems? Why can't centralized systems improve over time?
The implicit message is that you control your instance of the distributed system. You don't necessarily have access to the centralized system, and if you do, it's unlikely you have push rights, so your ability to improve the system is bounded by what the owner wants.
> It's not clear what point is being made here. A benefit of distributed systems over non-distributed (centralized?) systems? Why can't centralized systems improve over time?
In practice distributed systems tend to fossilize much faster and almost all innovation is in centralized layers on top of them...
In practice distributed systems tend to fossilize much faster and almost all innovation is in centralized layers on top of them...
This article is #1 on the front page of hacker news right now, and to me it feels like a parody article of ones that hacker news likes.
Wouldn't you figure that business schools are supposed to prepare young students for jobs of the future, and one of the things they are supposed to do after they graduate is replace the bad systems that they find in those clueless old companies they end up working for that have only optimized their workflow for maybe one or two centuries at the most beforehand.
Another thing is that an institue of higher learning can be judged by how easily its graduates can get hired doing what they were trained to do, in other words they are meeting a real ongoing need.
So if you were going to try and assure the most opportunities for practitioners overall in the long run, would it really pay off the most to train students to replace bad systems with truly better or even "good" systems once and for all?
Another thing is that an institue of higher learning can be judged by how easily its graduates can get hired doing what they were trained to do, in other words they are meeting a real ongoing need.
So if you were going to try and assure the most opportunities for practitioners overall in the long run, would it really pay off the most to train students to replace bad systems with truly better or even "good" systems once and for all?
My city has replaced all the meters with pay-by-plate, either through the city’s app or using kerb-side pay stations that accept cash and cards. It works well, and enforcement can be done by plate recognition. It’s more convenient for users and cheaper for the city.
Here's another story from the parking meters corner of hacker news: "Chicago sold rights to 36k parking meters for $1.2B that generate $200M per year" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34988984
To me this feels very much like musings or mountain out of a molehill. Sometimes things do not need to be automated.
"Classic" parking meters are right next to the stop where parked, and the "heavy" coins, are right in the center console of my car so they are "handy".
Newer parking meters where a centralized ticketing system collects the coins, bills, or card payment then spits out a ticket or takes the license plate is just as convenient. This does require to walk to the meter.
Traveling around the world, the best solutions I found are the ones that do not require electronics by the parking person (e.g., cell phone, transponder), and take local currency, not just credit card. Walking 30m to a station to pay, get a ticket or enter license tag/plate numbers is perfectly acceptable.
"Classic" parking meters are right next to the stop where parked, and the "heavy" coins, are right in the center console of my car so they are "handy".
Newer parking meters where a centralized ticketing system collects the coins, bills, or card payment then spits out a ticket or takes the license plate is just as convenient. This does require to walk to the meter.
Traveling around the world, the best solutions I found are the ones that do not require electronics by the parking person (e.g., cell phone, transponder), and take local currency, not just credit card. Walking 30m to a station to pay, get a ticket or enter license tag/plate numbers is perfectly acceptable.
Agreed. Digital payments for parking are a solution looking for a problem. Keeping a bit of change in the center console is far less hassle than installing an app, setting up accounts/payment methods etc.
Our town has a new License Plate scanner based parking meter system at our main park, which took effect April 1. (Parking was previously free). It was an accidental discovery on the way out of the park that informed me I'd likely be getting a ticket. (I'd assumed there were parking wardens involved and actual tickets, and since we never left the car, we never actually parked... silly old me)
I went to the Town Hall and signed up for my resident pass (via QR code). I then talked to the Parks person to inquire/plead my case to avoid the ticket. He admitted that it was a new system, and he wasn't sure what would happen. (It's done my a 3rd party in Florida).
I'll be interesting to see if something shows up in the mail, or not, in a few weeks. Either way, I'll be checking back with the Parks person and let him know.
I went to the Town Hall and signed up for my resident pass (via QR code). I then talked to the Parks person to inquire/plead my case to avoid the ticket. He admitted that it was a new system, and he wasn't sure what would happen. (It's done my a 3rd party in Florida).
I'll be interesting to see if something shows up in the mail, or not, in a few weeks. Either way, I'll be checking back with the Parks person and let him know.
We pose for photographs because they are 2 dimensional snapshots in time of 3 dimensional moving life. If you take a random one, someone will have their eyes closed or someone's butt will block half your body. Sometimes it's good to not overthink things, governments suck at running payment systems and it's best to have vendors who know how to do it.
> The next time you pose for a photo, keep in mind that we pose for photos because the speed of an exposure used to be so long that if you didn’t pose, the photo was blurred. We changed the tech, but baked in the cultural expectation.
Interresting insight
Interresting insight
Interesting but not true. We pose because we want to look a certain way - a harmless vanity of smiling, presenting what we think is our best put-together appearance. Portrait and fashion photographers choreograph the poses of their subjects as well, as part of the process of creating an image that meets the expectations and needs of the audience. There's also the need to light the subject according to aesthetics, and because the lights don't move with the subject, we hold the subject still in relationship to the light. Another aesthetic choice relates to depth-of-field and the in-focus/out-of-focus planes, and again that's something that's easier done with the subject is still.
One could argue that certain static portrait poses are distantly derived from the look of portraits produced in the early days of photography, and that look is a cultural expectation. There's plenty of portrait photography that does not replicate 19th century stylistic elements.
One could argue that certain static portrait poses are distantly derived from the look of portraits produced in the early days of photography, and that look is a cultural expectation. There's plenty of portrait photography that does not replicate 19th century stylistic elements.
There's also portrait painting which predates any kind of photography by a LONG time and didn't have the necessary technological limitations to be frozen beyond "just let me look at you from a consistent angle again" periodically, yet still has "poses" for the sake of style/messaging/whatever.
That's a good point. Early photography absolutely copied the aesthetics of painting, to the point where painters like Édouard Manet decided maybe realism wasn't all that.
As a photo viewer, I for sure want the people posed for most group photos. I want to see their full faces. That doesn't happen for candid group shots.
Maybe people just prefer faces to backs of heads.
It's not really a cultural expectation, it takes some time for the photographer to actually hit the shutter so people who know they are about to be photographed freeze themselves to allow the photographer to get a "good" shot. It's not like if photographs were always instantaneous, there would only be candid shots of people not posing…
If the flash isn't on you can't really tell when the photographer actually takes a photo. I kinda miss that little light point & shoots would have.
Well that was content-free.
Are you sure? It could be that Seth got a parking ticket and the point of the article is that parking spaces should be free and open source spaces. You're free to read into the blog post your own ideas and then they might to become worth spreading like a virus from mind to mind. A locked down mind can't accept this though, and hence the point of the article may become masked to you.
Is that the actual point of parking meters? to prevent people from parking all day?
or is it just to prevent people from parking forever
or is it just to prevent people from parking forever
Nah, it's mostly just for money. And like all other systems there are advantages, disadvantages and circumventions.
Long time ago we had this huge parking building. They charged around $3 per hour, $10 for a whole day and $15 for a new ticket when you accidentaly lost your original. Didn't take long for people to figure out what to do if you wanted your car parked relatively safely for more than 1 day :)
Long time ago we had this huge parking building. They charged around $3 per hour, $10 for a whole day and $15 for a new ticket when you accidentaly lost your original. Didn't take long for people to figure out what to do if you wanted your car parked relatively safely for more than 1 day :)
It's definitely both.
My old apartment complex had run out of parking spaces, they then required everyone to register their vehicles or face towing. Around 20 cars were towed because the owners no longer even lived in the complex, or were just using it like a spare garage.
In downtown Orlando you see all the people who live "van life" or out of their car, they all park around 7pm when parking becomes free and then leave by 9am when it is pay for again.
Thankfully with the 3 hour limit, they are forced to move around, even if its just to other spots, its less convenient than other options.
My old apartment complex had run out of parking spaces, they then required everyone to register their vehicles or face towing. Around 20 cars were towed because the owners no longer even lived in the complex, or were just using it like a spare garage.
In downtown Orlando you see all the people who live "van life" or out of their car, they all park around 7pm when parking becomes free and then leave by 9am when it is pay for again.
Thankfully with the 3 hour limit, they are forced to move around, even if its just to other spots, its less convenient than other options.
36 blocked requests with uBlock Origin. shame on you Seth.
"I’m in the Guerrilla Marketing Hall of Fame, the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and,just recently, the plain old no-modifier Marketing Hall of Fame."
What a Chad. I wish I could learn even a tiny fraction of his unapologetic shamelessness. I want to call him my guru and travel many miles to study at his feet and receive his wisdom.
What a Chad. I wish I could learn even a tiny fraction of his unapologetic shamelessness. I want to call him my guru and travel many miles to study at his feet and receive his wisdom.
On a visit to Denmark I saw their simple system. You car has a plastic clock face mounted on the inside of the windshield. When you park, you set the clock hands to the current time. Parking enforcement then knows how long the car has been there. If you try to cheat and set a later time, and get caught, you get a fine. If you overstay the time limit, you get a fine.
No meters, no coin collection, no apps, no accounts, no personal data. Very simple and effective.