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The Boring Company FAQ

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#21

Post by theprop »

This is FANTASTIC! It's important to understand how massive the Earth is (even though it's a pinprick when compared to the sun). You can EASILY go 3-D or deep.

The deepest mines in the world are around 12,000 feet deep. This is about 6x the height of the tallest building in the world (2000 feet tall).

Imagine, thus, putting in a tunnel at what would be every 5th floor of a skyscraper and that you could fit 6 skyscrapers underground...that allows for approximately 150 stacked tunnels! Excessive of course but possible!

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#23

Post by zitterbewegung »

Does Elon wake up in the morning and say to himself "what kind of company should I make today that is both marketable and is achevable to increase my brand?". It seems like he is spreading himself too thin . Why not focus on Tesla QA or improving working conditions at his other engineering projects ?

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#24

Post by inetknght »

Building tunnels in California and LA is great and all. But I'd like to see him do it in Houston, honestly, where common knowledge (cough) says that you can't dig deep in Houston because it's a swamp.

Houston has, arguably, worse traffic than LA

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#25

Post by hilljgo »

theprop wrote: post #21

This is FANTASTIC! It's important to understand how massive the Earth is (even though it's a pinprick when compared to the sun). You can EASILY go 3-D or deep. The deepest mines in the world are around 12,000 feet deep. This is about 6x the height of the tallest building in the world (2000 feet tall). Imagine, thus, putting in a tunnel at what would be every 5th floor of a skyscraper and that you could fit 6 skyscrap…

What's an earthquake like when you are on the 12th (or is it -12?) floor of an underground building?

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#26

Post by blhack »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #23

Does Elon wake up in the morning and say to himself "what kind of company should I make today that is both marketable and is achevable to increase my brand?". It seems like he is spreading himself too thin . Why not focus on Tesla QA or improving working conditions at his other engineering projects ?

>Why not focus on Tesla QA or improving working conditions at his other engineering projects ?

Bluntly, because I would imagine because he realizes that he is going to die eventually, and has a limited amount of time to do the things he wants to do.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#27

Post by catmanjan »

theprop wrote: post #21

This is FANTASTIC! It's important to understand how massive the Earth is (even though it's a pinprick when compared to the sun). You can EASILY go 3-D or deep. The deepest mines in the world are around 12,000 feet deep. This is about 6x the height of the tallest building in the world (2000 feet tall). Imagine, thus, putting in a tunnel at what would be every 5th floor of a skyscraper and that you could fit 6 skyscrap…

I'm just imaging a 150 way 3-d lane merge at the other end :O

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#28

Post by gesman »

To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic takes just a mindshift from corporate decision makers to realize that physical presence of employees are not necessary for success.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#29

Post by tedsanders »

astrocat wrote: post #20
atarian wrote: post #3

I'd like to see more details about edge case scenarios. What happens if a sled gets stuck? What would be the procedure and response time for getting the right personnel down there? What failsafes are in place for disasters? What if the power grid went offline or there was a flood? How do you prevent human error? What if people left their gas vehicles on and there was a toxic level of carbon monoxide in the tunnels? W…

> I'd like to see more details about edge case scenarios. The thing is, we're all MUCH more comfortable with the danger we're familiar with, than the danger we're unfamiliar with. Imagine if planes were just being introduced today - what are the edge case scenarios? What happens if there's mechanical failure at 30,000 feet? What happens if there's turbulence, lightning, birds, volcanic ash? What happens if the pilot…

>I'm not saying the dangers of new tech aren't important - they're very important; but keep in mind that while the idea of suffocating after a crash or malfunction in a hyperloop tube/tunnel will feel significantly more perilous than any misfortune that may befall you on a plane simply because a plane's risks are now familiar.

Without understanding edge case scenarios, we cannot make claims like these. Maybe these tunnels really will be more perilous than planes. Or maybe not. The whole point of asking the 'what if' questions is to clarify these issues.

Airplanes have been studied intensely enough that we know the rates and modes of failure. It's worth pondering the same for new technologies as well.

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