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The Cybertruck is not brutalist

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61–70 of 187 posts

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#61
post #3

It's also more subtly curved than most people give it credit for. I know a guy that is creating 3D models of the truck for some people that want to simulate it in simulated wind-tunnel. He was flabbergasted at how much they could keep the straight looking form while also smuggling in critical curvatures here and there to stop eddy currents from forming.

I'm guessing you mean turbulent eddies (which form in a fluid) rather than eddy currents (which form inside metals subjected to changing magnetic fields). In any case, it's impossible to stop eddy currents from forming. Any car, even if it's as slippery as a LMP1 prototype, will generate lots of turbulent eddies. The question is, how bad will the drag coefficient be. And that's a question you won't be able to answer…

Ah yes, sorry. You're right. I'm so used to thinking about computers that I flummoxed the two.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#62

Brutalist or not, it’s not real. That car as shown will absolutely not pass crash testing, European homologation and pedestrian impact, both issues with it being 1/8” stainless steel panels (separate discussion how those make no damn sense!). It has no mirrors, or wipers. What has been shown is a roughly drawn concept. Anyone that thinks they’re going to get exactly that and exactly for $40,000 hasn’t been around the…

I know nothing about cars, but I've been wondering how anything remotely resembling what was shown could pass a crash test. It's going to have to be radically transformed, so why bother even showing a design at this point?

My company has been through crash about three times at a million dollars a pop. I’m 99% certain that “truck” as shown will not pass.

Not even getting in to ped impact.

There is no way 1/8” steel panels will cut it. There will need to be some thin panels and some serious crumple zone going on “under the hood”.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#63
post #8

As a person with personal interest in visual arts I never have seen the appeal of appearance of many popular "great looking" cars of today's variety. Even muscle cars and luxury models. Cars up to 70's and 80's were really nice and aesthetically pleasing, and I find the Elon Musk's vision to be really nice and refreshing. It might be that I'm partial to science fiction in general, but I really would like to see this…

"As a person with personal interest in visual arts" With all due respects, isn't this an entirely meaningless saying? Everyone has an interest in aesthetics and visual appeal, and has a subjective opinion on what they find appealing. We are a social species so invariably people infect each other's opinion so we have trends and movements towards/from opinions, but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this…

> but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this.

Why is everyone's opinion equal? When building a bridge, is the opinion of a civil engineer equal to that of a cook? No, clearly not - but we only recognize this because the effects of building faulty bridges are obvious and immediately noticeable, whereas the effects of cultural ignorance are far more subtle and wide-reaching.

The fields of art and aesthetics have a long, complex history and have been studied and written upon by thousands of intelligent scholars, designers, artists, philosophers, and religious figures. Unfortunately, the default opinion among society today (which you yourself are echoing) is just a sort of ignorant relativism - everyone's opinion on art (and anything else that isn't 'practical') has the same value and the topic is fundamentally just a popularity contest.

Worse yet, this opinion wasn't arrived at by carefully considering all the approaches to art and choosing subjectivity as the best option, which it may actually be (but that isn't my point.) Instead, it was arrived at by simple ignorance.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you mean turbulent eddies (which form in a fluid) rather than eddy currents (which form inside metals subjected to changing magnetic fields). In any case, it's impossible to stop eddy currents from forming. Any car, even if it's as slippery as a LMP1 prototype, will generate lots of turbulent eddies. The question is, how bad will the drag coefficient be. And that's a question you won't be able to answer…

Ah yes, sorry. You're right. I'm so used to thinking about computers that I flummoxed the two.

Did you mean confused, not flummoxed?

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#65
post #3

It's also more subtly curved than most people give it credit for. I know a guy that is creating 3D models of the truck for some people that want to simulate it in simulated wind-tunnel. He was flabbergasted at how much they could keep the straight looking form while also smuggling in critical curvatures here and there to stop eddy currents from forming.

I'm guessing you mean turbulent eddies (which form in a fluid) rather than eddy currents (which form inside metals subjected to changing magnetic fields). In any case, it's impossible to stop eddy currents from forming. Any car, even if it's as slippery as a LMP1 prototype, will generate lots of turbulent eddies. The question is, how bad will the drag coefficient be. And that's a question you won't be able to answer…

Did you mean turbulent eddies, rather than eddy currents?

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#66

Brutalist philosophy always sounds cool with its honesty and showing of how it works. But then you look at what it actually produces and it's usually, you know, brutal. If brutalist architects could just find it in their hearts to make their buildings have nice shapes along with all the other properties, maybe they wouldn't be so reviled.

Sure, for being trapped underground, it's not so bad.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#67

Brutalist or not, it’s not real. That car as shown will absolutely not pass crash testing, European homologation and pedestrian impact, both issues with it being 1/8” stainless steel panels (separate discussion how those make no damn sense!). It has no mirrors, or wipers. What has been shown is a roughly drawn concept. Anyone that thinks they’re going to get exactly that and exactly for $40,000 hasn’t been around the…

The lack of physical mirrors is an issue (at the moment) for US homologation, but wouldn't be for EU regulations.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As a person with personal interest in visual arts" With all due respects, isn't this an entirely meaningless saying? Everyone has an interest in aesthetics and visual appeal, and has a subjective opinion on what they find appealing. We are a social species so invariably people infect each other's opinion so we have trends and movements towards/from opinions, but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this…

> but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this. Why is everyone's opinion equal? When building a bridge, is the opinion of a civil engineer equal to that of a cook? No, clearly not - but we only recognize this because the effects of building faulty bridges are obvious and immediately noticeable, whereas the effects of cultural ignorance are far more subtle and wide-reaching. The fields of art and aesthe…

It's not about practicality. A Formula 1 car or high-performance sailboat has no practical value, but I trust engineers far more than kindergartners about Formula 1 or yacht design. On the other hand, I've seen gifted kindergartners draw things which I thought were pretty good -- on par with some respected artists.

It's about having real-world validation. Anyone can have an opinion about art and literature. If your opinion happens to mirror the opinions of English department academics -- just clever enough to be a new twist, but not so brilliant as to go outside of the culture -- you can get a position as a scholar, and keep writing papers within a mutual appreciation society of academics all thinking roughly the same thoughts. Eventually, the whole crew goes down one rabbithole or other.

A group of thousands of self-supporting, mutually reaffirming "intelligent scholars, designers, artists, philosophers, and religious figures" doesn't make that opinion any more right or valid than my own.

On the other hand, if an engineer can make the fastest sailboat, that's external real-world validation that they got something right.

As a subtle point, I'll trust the opinion of filmmakers who receive public acclaim (external validation). I'll trust the opinion of filmmakers of niche artistic films a lot less. That is to say, I'll trust them about the technical aspects (what aperture means, or how to edit a video), but not about the artistic aspects: how you use film as a medium for communication, expression, and so on. A big part of communication and art is understanding the audience, and they haven't demonstrated they can do that, at least outside of their own clique.

Re: The Cybertruck is not brutalist

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As a person with personal interest in visual arts" With all due respects, isn't this an entirely meaningless saying? Everyone has an interest in aesthetics and visual appeal, and has a subjective opinion on what they find appealing. We are a social species so invariably people infect each other's opinion so we have trends and movements towards/from opinions, but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this…

> but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this. Why is everyone's opinion equal? When building a bridge, is the opinion of a civil engineer equal to that of a cook? No, clearly not - but we only recognize this because the effects of building faulty bridges are obvious and immediately noticeable, whereas the effects of cultural ignorance are far more subtle and wide-reaching. The fields of art and aesthe…

You take position of authority, criticize, but you are not educating.

> The fields of art and aesthetics have a long, complex history and have been studied and written upon by thousands of intelligent scholars, designers, artists, philosophers, and religious figures.

So, let me ask you, why should I care?

I care about design e.g. "The Design of Everyday Things": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY96hTb8WgI

But what is it about aesthetics that is not subjective?

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