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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#591

Post by tim333 »

19eightyfour wrote: post #461
athenot wrote: post #445

This looks really cool. However, boring through rock is the most expensive way to connect 2 places. It only makes sense if the land features or purchase value require it. Fundamentally, this is about short-circuiting the regular road network and establishing a managed packet network that can bypass congestion. Interestingly, that's also the value proposition of public transit, though it also runs into issues of cost,…

Regarding the boring expense, an NTBM[1] or subterrene[2], is said to be cheaper and faster. [1] http://www.sheepletv.com/nuclear-tunnel-boring-machines-swit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene My impression is the boring feasibility and costs will not be the limiter of a very cool tech like this happening, but a more boring practical cost, probably the "zoning" cost required to get compliance and permiss…

Cheaper? A nuclear machine that melts rock and probably doesn't exist?

I'm not convinced that the video you linked on sheepletv above the "underground alien bases" one is the most reliable info.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#592

Post by [deleted] »

nickjarboe wrote: post #567
mirimir wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. Well, suburbanization was a totally dumbass move. Maybe instead of building tunnels, we could be rebuilding cities. We could be designing them to be attractive enough that people would want to live there.

When a city in America is destroyed by a nuclear explosion, Americans will re-learn why suburbia was so popular. Hopefully this won't happen for a long time and we will have a good stretch of city living. I love cities, but having millions of people concentrated enough to be killed by a single device; this is very different world than the one humans evolved in.

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#593

Post by [deleted] »

nickjarboe wrote: post #567
mirimir wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. Well, suburbanization was a totally dumbass move. Maybe instead of building tunnels, we could be rebuilding cities. We could be designing them to be attractive enough that people would want to live there.

When a city in America is destroyed by a nuclear explosion, Americans will re-learn why suburbia was so popular. Hopefully this won't happen for a long time and we will have a good stretch of city living. I love cities, but having millions of people concentrated enough to be killed by a single device; this is very different world than the one humans evolved in.

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#594

Post by obmelvin »

nickjarboe wrote: post #567
mirimir wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. Well, suburbanization was a totally dumbass move. Maybe instead of building tunnels, we could be rebuilding cities. We could be designing them to be attractive enough that people would want to live there.

When a city in America is destroyed by a nuclear explosion, Americans will re-learn why suburbia was so popular. Hopefully this won't happen for a long time and we will have a good stretch of city living. I love cities, but having millions of people concentrated enough to be killed by a single device; this is very different world than the one humans evolved in.

That's such a terrible reason not to live in a city. I don't see how it is significantly more likely for only a single incident like that to happen. If we really have a catasophre or act of war it will likely effect larger regions than just a single city.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#595

Post by Malice »

tptacek wrote: post #318
kgu wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That disagrees with the Twitter thread you linked to, which claims: > Robert Moses weaponized Civil Engineering and Urban Planning to suppress marginalized communities. Engineering is always political. Words like "weaponized" and "suppress" suggest that Emily thinks Moses was ill-intentioned, not merely an ambitious guy who in his monomania happened to overlook some of the more sinister side-effects of his work.

I don't entirely agree with the Twitter thread, but it's also possible to "weaponize" and "suppress" because you think it's the right thing to do. Overly-influential people exerting their power to harm others in the interest of what they believe to be "right" is something that bothers me a lot about the power structure of our industry today. I don't think the comparison is at all unwarranted.

In what ways, specifically, is Elon exerting his power to harm others? Or have I misunderstood your comments?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#596

Post by robotresearcher »

tim333 wrote: post #590
rayiner wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers skew rational. They know that most ideas won't work. It's like aspiring actors or singers. Statistically, any given aspiring actors or singers won't become famous. The existence of Tom Cruise or Taylor Swift doesn't change that. Think about the dozen articles you read every day about some promising lab result or prototype that. How many of them do you ever hear about again? Meat-space engineering is hard. I…

NYC-London flights were a lie?

It was proven impossible in the late 1930s.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#597

Post by Theodores »

cbhl wrote: post #520
19eightyfour wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the boring expense, an NTBM[1] or subterrene[2], is said to be cheaper and faster. [1] http://www.sheepletv.com/nuclear-tunnel-boring-machines-swit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene My impression is the boring feasibility and costs will not be the limiter of a very cool tech like this happening, but a more boring practical cost, probably the "zoning" cost required to get compliance and permiss…

Considering the name of the company, maybe they have invented a radical new way to reduce boring costs?

When I am drilling holes for pipework I use some attachment to the power tool that drills one guide hole in the middle and a big pip-sized disk. The material inside that disk is not ground up to pieces, it comes out of the hole whole.

At the moment boring machines do not work like that, a conveyor belt of small pieces comes out. What if A380 fuselage sized pieces of rock came out instead and were conveyed off to the coast for coastal defence purposes, or even land reclamation? Carrying objects weighing thousands of tonnes to the sea is not simple but the amount of material excavated the hard way - ground to pieces first - would be significantly lower.

Maybe they have a 'coring machine' rather than a 'boring machine'?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#598

Post by tim333 »

While this looks very cool I'm not sure how the economics would work out. The UK-France channel tunnel for instance which transports cars fairly rapidly through a 31 mile tunnel cost $21 bn to build and the tickets aren't cheap (~£100 single) which works if the competition is a ferry but may not if it's just driving a bit. Maybe Musk will figure how to bring down the cost a few times.

I would have thought semi self driving cars platooning would be a cheaper and more practical way to beat the jams.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#599

Post by ensiferum »

whack wrote: post #382
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…

You're asking the wrong question. There are over a hundred million Americans who commute long distances in their car. Mostly because they live/work in areas that aren't dense enough to have good last-mile public transit, and they don't want to deal with transfers. You can lecture them all you want, but ultimately, these people aren't going to downgrade their lifestyle just to fit your ideas of engineering efficiency.…

Avoiding driving for ours in congestion would sound like an upgrade to me...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#600

Post by Veratyr »

athenot wrote: post #445

This looks really cool. However, boring through rock is the most expensive way to connect 2 places. It only makes sense if the land features or purchase value require it. Fundamentally, this is about short-circuiting the regular road network and establishing a managed packet network that can bypass congestion. Interestingly, that's also the value proposition of public transit, though it also runs into issues of cost,…

> But what if busses operated on their own dedicated network?

But if you're building a dedicated network in a major city, why on earth would you limit it to buses? Even with a dedicated network, I don't believe buses can be as fast, comfortable or quiet as rail.

I spent a lot of time in Melbourne, Australia and the trams there are fantastic. You can barely hear them when they're operating so they do a lot to decrease noise, they have a ton of standing room and are quite long, so they can carry a lot of people and I don't believe a bus can come close to the comfort of rail.

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