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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#681

Post by 19eightyfour »

Theodores wrote: post #597
cbhl wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think they experimented with these coring designs at some point.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#682

Post by 19eightyfour »

tim333 wrote: post #591
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…

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.

Sure, ridiculing such information is easy, especially when you describe it as you have, emphasizing the easiest targets for ridicule. If your intent was to ridicule the information, I get your comment makes sense. But, IMHO, that's not a very substantive contribution for HN. IMHO, it would have been more worthwhile to highlight the less-easy-to-ridicule aspects of the page, such as the quotes from, and discussion about, the Los Alamos patents for NTBM. Please don't interpret this as an attack on you, I'm just trying to rightly do the information justice, encourage substantive discussion. Also, to point out that if your goal is to discover useful information, then it does not work to discredit the valid content of a comment or page, by measuring all its info by the standard of the easiest to ridicule parts.

Finally, from my point of view, getting your ridicule feedback hurts because my aim is to contribute to substantive discussion here, and I don't want to feel discouraged from posting something substantive because it might also have info that could be cherrypicked for ridicule, then letting me feel like I wasted my effort contributing because the info was later unfairly presented. I don't want to feel like I have to do extra work "defending" the original effort to contribute, against such ridicule. So, please, before you rush to ridicule something, really take a look to see if there is substantive content there, and refrain from misrepresenting it, thanks.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#683

Post by Altay- »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

This 'boring company' is one of the worst ideas ever.

The intelligent criticisms I have read of this concept don't claim that it "won't work" or that it isn't possible.

Its just a really bad solution to a problem we have at least a dozen other, easier, cheaper, simpler solutions for already.

Imagine we wanted to go to the moon, but the shuttle and all its parts had to be made of platinum. We also have to make sure all the astronauts have at least a 40 BMI and will bring everything they currently own with them. It might still be possible, but its stupid.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#684

Post by sigi45 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

There is often enough a clear understanding why something is stupid.

Freaking solar roadways got 2 Million and more. A City payed them 500k to install that stuff. It is not hard to calculate the stupidity of this. Especially of a couple who is doing this in a garage. There is a reason why big companies are not doing it. It has to make sense and money.

This video above looks nice but if you think just a step back, it is probably 1000x cheaper and a much better solution to make the existing streets automaticly drivable instead. How much does it cost to build this? How much does it cost to build automatic driving into every car who wanna use a highway which is only accessible to automatic driving?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#685

Post by zardo »

mozumder wrote: post #604
mcbutterbunz wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain how he messed this one up?

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…

>Because you are now more dependent on private cars for transport.

The video shows an electric rail system, that isn't incompatible with moving larger numbers of people. Look at the high occupancy car at :47.

>If people can't sit next to random strangers on the subway or on the bus, they should be seen as dysfunctional and sociopathic.

Mental illness is probably not going to disappear any time soon. Viewing them hatefully isn't going to get them to like riding the bus. It's just going to make you a hateful person.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#686

Post by wonderwonder »

mozumder wrote: post #604
mcbutterbunz wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain how he messed this one up?

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…

I really don't think cars are going away any time soon for several reasons. Cars offer individuals far more freedom, go anywhere when you want. Also people live in rural areas, I'm not going to wait 3 hours for a bus to take me to my mom's house in the country, I'll just drive. In addition there is probably not a bus that goes there.

People go shopping, they don't want to carry on $200 worth of groceries onto public transportation.

Finally people have kids. Kids require a plethora of specialized items including car seats. I dont want to put my kid in a car seat a prior kid just urinated in. Kid's are also messy and require snacks and water bottles.

People who can afford it are going to take cars. I hope The Boring Company is a rousing success.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#687

Post by mozumder »

wonderwonder wrote: post #686
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…

I really don't think cars are going away any time soon for several reasons. Cars offer individuals far more freedom, go anywhere when you want. Also people live in rural areas, I'm not going to wait 3 hours for a bus to take me to my mom's house in the country, I'll just drive. In addition there is probably not a bus that goes there. People go shopping, they don't want to carry on $200 worth of groceries onto public…

We're talking about LA, not rural areas.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#688

Post by ceejayoz »

Robotbeat wrote: post #540
ceejayoz wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ongoing maintenance of tens of thousands of sliding doors, elevators, and retracting fences sounds like a biggie to me.

Every subway contains a whole bunch of sliding doors that open and close every single stop.

Yes, and they frequently need repair and maintenance.

Now imagine having tens of thousands of subway cars instead of a couple hundred.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#689

Post by jackshepherd »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

The play on words in the name is used also used by a charity: Well Boring, who digs wells in rural Africa. The fact that we, as a species, have failed to deal with challenges like providing global simple access to water, make me think that a project like this is unrealistic in many ways.

Post-war London tried something similar, a futuristic vision of pedestrian walkways ("pedways") to separate people from the traffic. This failed, for various practical reasons, and you can see the remnants of the experiment throughout parts of London to this day.

This scheme would come at an unimaginable cost, surely changing planning laws to create less car-centric cities is a more realistic approach to the problem?

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#690

Post by mdekkers »

jodrellblank wrote: post #498
darawk wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Hyperloop was supposed to be a revolutionary form of transport, turns out it was overblown. He didn't launch the Hyperloop, though. He explicitly said he wasn't personally going to pursue it, he was just putting the idea out there. You can't put the fact that it hasn't yet been implemented (even though there are people working on it) on him. I've seen no evidence that the concept is infeasible, or poorly though…

It is infeasible, if it's going to be vacuum, for a pile of practical and safety reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk Maybe it will pivot into something not-as-originally-hyped by the same name.

What a terrible video. "I can't imagine anybody can make this work, so it is absolutely impossible"
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