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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#211

Post by kardos »

astrodust wrote: post #163
throwaway2016a wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that video goes WAY too far. The tunnels in that video are absurd. I give way better odds of him actually sending people to Mars than building that absurd tunnel system. But he might succeed at something somewhere in between the tunnel he is boring in his parking lot and the video. Context: I lived in Boston during much of the Big Dig. Large tunnel projects scare the heck out of me as a tax payer.

If he wants to get into the tunnelling business and start bidding on these "big dig" projects in various cities, I think he'll find some success. His engineering aptitude, his ability to think around problems, that's gotten him to where he is today. If he retreats from this and builds some kind of pneumatic tube system to transport goods, people, or whatever, he still might have a chance of a win. Those systems have…

Maybe he can use something that isn't concrete

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#212

Post by djsumdog »

ShannonAlther wrote: post #184
pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

> But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Depending on the specific location, there may very well be. Underground tunnels are vulnerable to earthquake-inflicted damage, for instance, and you would want to avoid repair as much as possible. Similarly, there may be environmental or conservatory reasons not to build tunnels, or reasons related to cost, or obstacles not yet encountered (th…

Just look at the Big Dig. One small mistake (using the wrong glue or fasteners) can put the safety of the entire safety into question.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#213

Post by gjkood »

stanmancan wrote: post #187
tuacker wrote: post #117

I feel like everything Elon Musk undertakes with his companies is just one huge Mars Beta Test. - SpaceX: Obvious, got to get to space somehow - Tesla: Build cars/machines to run on something that is guaranteed to exist on Mars (the sun) vs. Oil - Gigafactory: How to build batteries 101 - Solar roof: While Earths environment may not be as harsh as Mars you still learn something, and improve solar panel production in…

I've always enjoyed this theory. Just one guy figuring out how to take over a planet; no big deal.

Obligatory Pinky and the Brain reference.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/every-single-pinky-and-the-brain-pla...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#214

Post by ShannonAlther »

cbisnett wrote: post #205
ShannonAlther wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Depending on the specific location, there may very well be. Underground tunnels are vulnerable to earthquake-inflicted damage, for instance, and you would want to avoid repair as much as possible. Similarly, there may be environmental or conservatory reasons not to build tunnels, or reasons related to cost, or obstacles not yet encountered (th…

This is Elon's response to a Twitter users similar comment about earthquakes. I don't know enough about physics to say if he's just throwing things out there or if he already did some research. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/824300186834898945

Mmm, so I spoke too soon on that front. In my defense, I've said this a lot to people who are advocates of Hyperloop construction (vacuum tubes are far too easily ruptured to be used in conjunction with transportation), but Musk is correct.

Are subways targets for terrorism the same way that airports are?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#215

Post by djsumdog »

contravariant wrote: post #154
pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

>But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Well, unless you count damage to whatever happens to be in the way of the tunnel and buildings on top of tunnel. This might be more of a problem in Europe than in the U.S. though.

Look at the Seattle viaduct replacement problem. Bertha came to a standstill for years due to engineers not taking care of a well pipe they thought they removed.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#217

Post by BurningFrog »

placeybordeaux wrote: post #155
tuacker wrote: post #117

I feel like everything Elon Musk undertakes with his companies is just one huge Mars Beta Test. - SpaceX: Obvious, got to get to space somehow - Tesla: Build cars/machines to run on something that is guaranteed to exist on Mars (the sun) vs. Oil - Gigafactory: How to build batteries 101 - Solar roof: While Earths environment may not be as harsh as Mars you still learn something, and improve solar panel production in…

We'll have to look seriously at living underground on mars. It won't protect us from solar rays on the surface. One of the cheaper ways to protect yourself is to put a layer of rock inbetween you and the sun.

Is the main radiation danger the Sun or the background "cosmic" radiation?

I've been assuming the latter, but I realize now that I don't actually know.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#218

Post by Houshalter »

City streets have more than enough space for fast transpiration. We just don't use them efficiently. Congestion is a tragedy of the commons. It could be trivially solved by putting a high tax on cars using city streets. Then the only vehicles on the street would be those that transport multiple people or valuable goods. And they would have free reign with minimal congestion. (Also maybe put an extra tax on nonelectric vehicles, because there's much less justification for using them in a city.)

If you are willing to build entirely new infrastructure, like this project, there is so much you can do. The main reason self driving cars are taking so long is because they have to be able to do everything a human driver can do. Which is very hard. If you build tracks and sensors into the road itself, it could be much easier. You could have a city filled with fleets of small automated electric people movers.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#219

Post by djsumdog »

kolinko wrote: post #204
Tiktaalik wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because cars, which are relatively wasteful spacewise, create negative externalities on the public transportation by causing congestion, which resultantly makes public transportation less efficient.

Not an issue in automated underground systems really.

Yes it is. Cars don't even begin to match the capacity of trains. Look at London or Singapore where trains arrive less than a minute apart at peak hour. Many of London's trains are autonomous and all of Singapore trains are fully autonomous. There is no way individual cars could even come close to matching that kind of people-moving ability.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#220

Post by MattRix »

Fricken wrote: post #191
ythn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to edit the video so you see a pedestrian falling down the shaft and breaking their neck

There's a sidewalk I walk down, it's quite narrow and runs along a shoulderless road with a steady stream of cars whizzing by at 50 miles an hour. I think to myself 'how much more or less dangerous is this than walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon? One misstep and I'm toast. One misstep from one of those cars and I'm toast.' We have a hardwired respect for heights, but at no time in our evolutionary history did…

Reminds me of this image: http://i.imgur.com/mE7uGoA.jpg
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