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The Boring Company FAQ

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#441

Post by schiffern »

BurningFrog wrote: post #440
monk_e_boy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And cars more inefficiently in groups. When at lights, the first car pulls away, then the second, etc etc... There is a delay between each car which after 20 cars really adds up.

This doesn't apply to the centrally controlled car delivery system Musk is planning.

> This doesn't apply to the centrally controlled car delivery system Musk is planning.

How would that work? Now it's true that there won't be any delays caused by drivers not paying attention, but unless the cars will go 125 mph with only a couple meters of space between them (eep!) the cars will require a non-zero delay "off the line" to allow them to spread out as they gain speed.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#442

Post by [deleted] »

elif wrote: post #391
mabramo wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC, yes. During rush hour, the local subways come every 5 minutes at most. I think a safe estimate is about 15 trains every hour. The express subways are spaced out a little more, closer to 8 or 10 minutes, depending on the line.

peak of the most active system is not the same thing as "usual" here is LA for instance, about 10 minutes average during rush hour https://media.metro.net/documents/5a366ef8-2013-4d21-8e6d-e7...

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#443

Post by BurningFrog »

schiffern wrote: post #441
BurningFrog wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't apply to the centrally controlled car delivery system Musk is planning.

> This doesn't apply to the centrally controlled car delivery system Musk is planning. How would that work? Now it's true that there won't be any delays caused by drivers not paying attention, but unless the cars will go 125 mph with only a couple meters of space between them (eep!) the cars will require a non-zero delay "off the line" to allow them to spread out as they gain speed.

I don't think they need any space between them as long as they're on the same path. They're parked on centrally controlled carriages.

How fast they can fork and merge is more interesting, and I dare not have an opinion about that.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#444

Post by agumonkey »

cel1ne wrote: post #187
josephg wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then we should ask why don't we do that anyway? Sure. Why didn't we have electric cars before tesla? Why didn't Boeing or Lockheed Martin make reusable rockets? Alan Kay said something[1] recently that has been bouncing around my head for the past few days. He said that many people think darwinian processes (like the economy) optimize. "One my degrees is in molecular biology, and I can tell you, any biologist w…

Off topic: The more I think about organizations the more I they seem to be the key players preventing change to me. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing) Business says: We had this great idea, now let's freeze everything in time and let's make money of this snapshot forever, because who knows when we'll find gold again. Entertainment industry likes to do that especially.

Exactly. Also they become fat over time shifting the reality of costs.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#445

Post by [deleted] »

aedron wrote: post #234
prawn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got confidence in them too. I think internet commenters are far too quick to overlook the fact that Musk is not going to push forward a venture like this without loads of research from a team of really smart people. It's not like it's just the one Elon with a fantasy about tunnels. It'd start with a bunch of talented people brainstorming and then, early in the process, they'd surely be speaking with really knowl…

> Musk is not going to push forward a venture like this without loads of research from a team of really smart people. It's not like it's just the one Elon with a fantasy about tunnels. It'd start with a bunch of talented people brainstorming and then, early in the process, they'd surely be speaking with really knowledgeable people who know the industry and pitfalls. Actually, the story is that Musk made it up on a wh…

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#446

Post by logicallee »

SteveGregory wrote: post #431
logicallee wrote: post #322

> Since concrete production accounts for 4.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, there is no way this is even close to being correct. For a point of comparison, "Airlines account for about 2 percent of global emissions". just how much concrete does this guy think is being produced. come on. He probably misreported a figure that said concrete production accounts for 4.5% of all construction-related greenhouse ga…

Concrete production actually does have crazy CO2 emissions. Wikipedia says it's up to 5% globally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...

That's shocking. The Wikipedia page gives a 2002 reference (for the sentence you cite), so I guess in order of magnitude it must be correct.

It seems to say that the reason for this is that it must be heated to absolutely insane temperatures, which is, obviously, energy-intensive.

5% is huge though. I still have trouble believing it. I wish I could see a pie chart with the major sources of CO2 emissions. After things like cars, planes, factories, POWER GENERATION, etc, I would have thought those were the major ones.

if you Google "pie chart of co2 emissions" it's hard to see where just concrete fits in. Oh well.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#447

Post by [deleted] »

BurningFrog wrote: post #443
schiffern wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This doesn't apply to the centrally controlled car delivery system Musk is planning. How would that work? Now it's true that there won't be any delays caused by drivers not paying attention, but unless the cars will go 125 mph with only a couple meters of space between them (eep!) the cars will require a non-zero delay "off the line" to allow them to spread out as they gain speed.

I don't think they need any space between them as long as they're on the same path. They're parked on centrally controlled carriages. How fast they can fork and merge is more interesting, and I dare not have an opinion about that.

[deleted]

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#448

Post by bobsil1 »

Tepix wrote: post #315
bobsil1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tunnels are needed on Mars, as are EVs, batteries, solar and reusable methane rockets. Mars atmosphere is too thin for heavy aircraft.

It just occured to me that to use something like Hyperloop on Mars you don't even need a closed tube... it'd be like a normal (airtight) train.

Yup. 0.6% Earth pressure.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#449

Post by theoh »

Retric wrote: post #355
theoh wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a paper out there with the title "Cognition is not computation; evolution is not optimization". I haven't read it! I'm not sure you are accepting the basic principle, which is that evolution is not in any way optimization (not that the evolutionary process is not "optimized"). See something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisherian_runaway Also Giuseppe Longo's work on randomness as a cause of organization…

The important bit is evolution is not optimizing for things humans understand. If you say evolution is optimizing for more copies of your DNA fragments your closer to the truth than saying 'fitness' in larger contexts. Don't forget there is more biomass in single celled organisms than single celled organisms. In terms of 'fitness' that does not seem like progress.

Optimization implies "teleonomy", the idea that there's a goal toward which evolution is working, however obscure to us. The interesting question IMHO is whether such a goal exists, somehow expressed or implied by the laws of physics. Jeremy England's work on thermodynamic reasons for the emergence of configurations/mechanisms/organisms that are good at dissipating energy is an example of recent research that asks why we have these complex organisms at all, and tries to answer that question with pure physics.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#450

Post by solarengineer »

All of Elon's ideas and actions: tunnels, hyperloop, solar, AI, electric cars, space launches and travel - are useful for getting to other planets and settling there. The investigation and ideas can be proved out in parallel here on Earth, and then applied in other planets.
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