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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#671

Post by Reason077 »

irfanka wrote: post #666
Reason077 wrote: post #662

Why the "pods"? Wouldn't it make more sense for self-driving electric vehicles (which can safely maintain separations from other traffic and travel at high speed on a narrow track) to use their own propulsion? Apparently the concept behind The Boring Company is to reduce the cost of tunnelling, but surely the "pods" would add a great deal of cost to this system.

Because not all vehicles are self driving.

They will be, though. It's reasonable to restrict tunnel access to appropriately equipped vehicles. Why jump through expensive hoops to support classic cars which can still use surface streets anyway?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#672

Post by cryptarch »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #668
cryptarch wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only economical in very dense urban areas, though. I live in the Netherlands which is a very densely populated country, and anywhere outside the city center or early/late on the day, the busses go every 30 minutes or hourly. At night there are barely any options, esp. between 2 and 6 AM.

Sure, but in areas that aren't densely populated, you don't have the same traffic problems, so why do you need it?

>> The only scalable transit solution is mass public transit.

This is the idea I was responding to. I think cars are mostly practical in suburbs and rural areas (I live in a city and basically only bike and walk), mass transit isn't the best solution for all personal transit.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#673

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

david927 wrote: post #614
soufron wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody is trying to invent shit and make things better. It's true from your waiter at your restaurant who will try to find a way to be more amiable to you, or it's true from the public researchers who just invented the artificial utero when they're being paid nips and wont become billionaires out of their invention. This is not Atlas Shrugged. This is the real world.

You're missing the point: This isn't simply about those who are trying to make things better, which is truly many people and is wonderful. This is that subset that go down road others have abandoned or won't go down because the solution is "known to definitely not be down that road." Those people get flack -- they really do. Despite the inundation of aphorisms all over Facebook and LinkedIn belaboring the concept of…

This particular example is not like other inventions though.

We know we can create lifts that do underground and then connect entry points and exit points by tunnel networks. We already have very miniature things like this.

What the video shows is a vast network of underground tunnels with a tram system for personal vehicles and some public transit connecting different points in the city or connecting other cities. I can kinda see why you might do this and it sounds like a fun ride.

But even a layman can see this is going to be incredibly expensive and you have to wonder why would build this ahead of other types of mass transit. I'd like to see a business plan. Until then, I'm a sceptic.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#674

Post by frik »

This looks totally like a copy cat of old school books about electric cars and the future.

So nothing special at all, people had such visions for some decades.

Funny thing is projects like "Hyperloop", "Boring Company", etc all are already tried many decades ago in various places around the word, just marketed under a different name e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#675

Post by squi »

axlprose wrote: post #566
lojack wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree with you. I'd expect most of the users of this site would actually do a pretty good job identifying risks. The delusional part is probably assuming Elon Musk hasn't already thought through these risks, along with plenty more we aren't thinking of.

And here we have one of the most reasonable answers in this thread. It's not about the utility of identifying risks, it's the plausibility of someone as knowledgeable as Musk putting his money and name on the line without having already considered a lot of the things some random group of strangers on an online forum would've thought up in a couple hours. On the contrary, it seems more likely that Musk would've not on…

> [...] the plausibility of someone as knowledgeable as Musk putting his money and name on the line without having already considered a lot of the things [...] Musk would've not only thought about risks already for more than a couple hours, but that he would've consulted a lot of domain experts about such things before even deciding to take on such a project.

Three months ago, after the Bloomberg feature was released, he literally said that they had no idea what they were doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPzpugrbwBE&feature=youtu.be...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#676

Post by aaron-lebo »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #673
david927 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point: This isn't simply about those who are trying to make things better, which is truly many people and is wonderful. This is that subset that go down road others have abandoned or won't go down because the solution is "known to definitely not be down that road." Those people get flack -- they really do. Despite the inundation of aphorisms all over Facebook and LinkedIn belaboring the concept of…

This particular example is not like other inventions though. We know we can create lifts that do underground and then connect entry points and exit points by tunnel networks. We already have very miniature things like this. What the video shows is a vast network of underground tunnels with a tram system for personal vehicles and some public transit connecting different points in the city or connecting other cities. I…

Definitely. Musk is not immune from the same socio-political factors everyone else faces.

The problems of zoning alone make this a massive undertaking. Much of the counter-criticism in this thread is misdirected. Very few people are doubting Musk's technical ability to pull this off, they are suggesting it worn't work for practical reasons. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand those, just have to have lived in a city, or simply lived.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#677

Post by aaron-lebo »

simonh wrote: post #612
aaron-lebo wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism is the sign of a healthy society. If someone is afraid of criticism or doesn't want to take it, then they are only hurting their own work. That's not to say Musk is guilty of that, but his fans could accept it. If we didn't have critics we'd still have kings with divine right. This seems like an exaggeration, but it's really just to say that we need people to look at things critically. I haven't collected a…

Remind me, what does the NS at the beginning of class names in the OSX frameworks stand for again? It's on the tip of my tongue. The technology Jobs believed in and developed at NeXT really did dominate the industry. It's in the phone I'm typing this on right now.

Completely fair (and cool!), but the use of nextstep at Apple is really a side-effect of NeXT failing to be what Steve wanted it to be (a competitor to Apple or simply successful).

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#678

Post by ksec »

avn2109 wrote: post #178
phamilton wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the entire point of The Boring Company. It's way more expensive than anyone expects. That's the problem they are trying to solve. The entire goal is "serious advances in rock boring techniques". That may be a lofty goal, but at least the message I got is that it is the one they want to reach.

>> "(personal opinion: there are none coming)" Former tunnel boring engineer here. There is a ton of room for innovation around tunnel boring machines built by the major manufacturers (primarily Herrenknecht and Robbins), around reliability, durability, ease of serviceability etc. I cannot emphasize enough how modern TBM's require an unbelievable amount of engineering attention, repair labor, spare parts infrastructu…

Precisely this. Most people are focusing on the wrong issues, whether it should be tunnelling cars and not Subway trains etc. That is like arguing SpaceX is putting humans on Rocket and not Satellite.

If Elon could make tunnelling 10x faster, requires much less Human labour and reusable, this will dramatically cut down the cost of building SubWay, or other underground Networks. I am not sure if such tech could be used to build like a underground Shopping Mall in Cities. But if we could build a Walk way under every Car Road would be great for urban cities.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#679

Post by hnnsj »

terryf wrote: post #611
mozumder wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you are now more dependent on private cars for transport. Why would you use this instead of a system where you take a neighborhood bus to the local transit station & shopping center where you can pick up a light rail to the closest subway station, where you take the express train downtown to the high-speed rail station, where you take that to visit the next state for the day? No cars, and you can sit and read…

> Why would you use this instead of a system where you take a neighborhood bus to the local transit station & shopping center where you can pick up a light rail to the closest subway station, where you take the express train downtown to the high-speed rail station, where you take that to visit the next state for the day? No cars, and you can sit and read a book or take a nap or enjoy the view if you wanted to. I'll t…

What about the effort of finding parking spaces (and the effects those large parking spaces have on urban environments), actually having to concentrate on driving, having to keep in mind to bring the car home again, fueling (or charging), servicing your car, etc etc. I find there are a lot of inconveniences related to having a car, even without considering the huge effects of congestion, real estate, climate change, air and noise pollution, etc etc.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#680

Post by lopespm »

I have profound respect of Musk's perseverance and courage to tackle difficult problems, coupled with a great vision of the future. This project however, as it was presented, strikes me as a bit off the mark.

I lived in a dense city with good public transportation and good bike and pedestrian lanes. To get around the city and its surroundings, I would mostly use my bike. It was incredibly fast to find a parking spot and to get from point A to point B. Other times, I would use the integrated public transport system (bus/train/tram) if wanted to go somewhere further in less time. I had options, flexibility and much more freedom than I would if I used/owned a car. Not only that, but my quality of life was way higher than that in the suburbs. Not having a car made a huge difference: more physical activity, less monetary burdens and the piece of mind acquired by not thinking about its maintenance and care.

This takes me to my second point: passenger cars are mostly useful in sparse areas, like the suburbs. In dense areas it makes less sense to have a personal cocoon for transportation. Although the boring company's tunnels are underground, that same energy and investment would be better suited in a public transport alternative, like a subway. This subway would transport people and their bikes, and this could serve as a push for the street level pedestrian, bike and public transport infrastructures to get better.

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