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The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

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Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#261

Post by swarnie_ »

growlist wrote: post #253
flexie wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting. This really shows the power of the English language. I am not French, I don't live in France, I don't speak French and I am not particularly interested in tunnels or rails. And probably that's why it's the first time I hear about this. But I am not American either, and I don't live there, but I have read about the expensive few mile extension of a subway line in the Upper East Side of Manhattan an…

Not just language though. The MSM in the UK has such a narrow range it's shocking - today's leading story on the news will often be something like the rapper Stormzy's latest completely predictable opinions about whatever, and then I'll turn over to Al Jazeera and find out there's thousands dead in Peru from flooding, civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa, etc. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that they e…

That really does depend where you get your news from. If you religious stick to the Daily Mail don't be shocked when its 90% Royals and Celebrities.

Something like BBC news world or The Times will generally cover the more important global events.

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#262

Post by growlist »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #256
growlist wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just language though. The MSM in the UK has such a narrow range it's shocking - today's leading story on the news will often be something like the rapper Stormzy's latest completely predictable opinions about whatever, and then I'll turn over to Al Jazeera and find out there's thousands dead in Peru from flooding, civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa, etc. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that they e…

To be fair, "civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa" is news in the same way that the tide going out is news. If you're upset about how predictable it is to hear about a rapper's opinions, you should be more upset about coverage of a war going on in Africa.

> To be fair, "civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa" is news in the same way that the tide going out is news.

Remarkably complacent view, and undermined by the fact that other channels will report on this stuff, but not the BBC. The point is firstly that the signal to noise used to be far higher in the UK - I've been watching it for 40 years - I know what I'm talking about - and secondly that it's extremely unlikely I'm going to learn anything new from Stormzy's poorly informed opinions. And yet the latter is prioritised over the former.

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#263

Post by growlist »

swarnie_ wrote: post #261
growlist wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just language though. The MSM in the UK has such a narrow range it's shocking - today's leading story on the news will often be something like the rapper Stormzy's latest completely predictable opinions about whatever, and then I'll turn over to Al Jazeera and find out there's thousands dead in Peru from flooding, civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa, etc. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that they e…

That really does depend where you get your news from. If you religious stick to the Daily Mail don't be shocked when its 90% Royals and Celebrities. Something like BBC news world or The Times will generally cover the more important global events.

I'm talking about BBC news.

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#264

Post by beerandt »

dv_dt wrote: post #48
mc3 wrote: post #41

ELI5... why is digging a tunnel tech news? Does Elon dig them faster or more cheaply or something? Otherwise do I submit this to HN? https://www.sydneymetro.info/tunnelling . I think tunnels are the future though for cities. But I'd prefer trains to be running in them, or roads that only allow electric public transport. Edit. In 1988 they started work on the Channel Tunnel UK to France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

I think this follows Elons pattern of being able to find areas where the fundamental technology has advanced and is available, but the integration and step up to a new level hasn't been invested in yet. I think the Boring company basically made more efficient custom built tunneling equipment.

Part of my Musk Hypothesis:

It's not where technology has advanced, per se, but where he can find a niche that provides an excuse to not be constrained by existing burdensome regulation, or where he can shape and use regulation as a competitive advantage. So far this has mostly been by advances in tech, but the tech isn't necessarily the key component to the formula.

In the case of the boring company, I suspect the initial plan was the same (a la hyperloop), but have 1) discovered hyperloop is not cost feasible, 2) discovered that the same skills for negotiating regulation is itself a major advantage in subsurface construction, and 3) can use the Elon marketing hype machine to overcome NIMBY opposition, whether that be publicly or via politically (whereas people generally view mega construction companies as untrustworthy, and these companies are unlikely to be able to sway public opinion, except by maybe buying politicians.)

It's sort of an Uber approach to dodging rules, but in markets that limit competition by being relatively capital and knowledge intensive.

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#265

Post by michaelbrooks »

mc3 wrote: post #41

ELI5... why is digging a tunnel tech news? Does Elon dig them faster or more cheaply or something? Otherwise do I submit this to HN? https://www.sydneymetro.info/tunnelling . I think tunnels are the future though for cities. But I'd prefer trains to be running in them, or roads that only allow electric public transport. Edit. In 1988 they started work on the Channel Tunnel UK to France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

If you want to see a working model of Elon's tunnel then take a look at this video[0]. He actually invited lots a bunch of people to test it out and give them an idea of how it'll all work.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3WR2VIUKqY

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#266

Post by pjkundert »

pjkundert wrote: post #140
thedrbrian wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes it a lot worse. You can fit a load of people on a subway train versus a model s or x

You’ve got the wrong perspective. From the perspective of the city, the ROI of a subway train is high. From the perspective of an individual, the ROI of using my own car in a tunnel, exactly when I want to, without parking, waiting, embarking, smelling the vagrants, disembarking, walking or getting a cab, ... Priceless!

Hey, everyone — I (fairly) accurately expressed the points of view of some participants in this equation. Why are you spanking me for that? Or... were you looking for an echo chamber here on HN?

Because if you keep downvoting every statement that you don’t agree with, that’s what you’ll soon have!

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#267

Post by Traster »

bluGill wrote: post #200
drcross wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are currently building their first prototype. It seems correct that you would build a few tunnels using conventional equipment to gain experience before setting your sights on improving the state of the art, or is there something I'm missing?

You are missing something: the companies that build tunnel boring machines already have engineers who know how to make the machines looking into the problem of making their designs better. It isn't clear that there is a significant improvement available. Rockets were a small enough niche that there were improvements possible if someone invested in them. It isn't clear if such improvements are even possible. (meaning…

Right, but existing boring machine manufacturers don't have an infinite money pile to burn through, so they can't afford to try all the things that TBC will be allowed to try simply because Silicon Valley will afford them a bottomless pit of cash (until the next recession).

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#268

Post by Traster »

kenneth wrote: post #246

The Boring Company's FAQ is actually pretty helpful in understanding why their approach is innovative. In short: Small autonomous vehicles instead of big subway cars means you can change the model from one of big stations with big heavy trains that must speed up and slow down constantly to let people in and out, to one with smaller pods that go directly from a specific origin to a destination, travels mostly entirely…

Sorry, maybe I'm missing something, but everything we know about urban planning is that large high capacity vehicles doing fixed routes are way more efficient than individual point to point travel. Cars aren't as efficient as busses, busses aren't as efficient as trains. Or to put it another way - using your logic everyone should just be flying in private jets.

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#269

Post by rusticpenn »

wcunning wrote: post #127
jacques_chester wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA's Second Avenue line in New York comes out to more than AU$2Bn per km, on my reckoning (US$2.6Bn/mile). It's the current world champion for expensive holes. The fact is that megaprojects basically never come in anywhere near their schedule or budget. That's because of a selection bias. When you crunch the numbers honestly, megaprojects come out as a terrible on a cost-benefit or ROI analysis. The ones that ge…

Megaprojects do come in near budget in many places. Not in the US for a number of reasons elucidated in this NYMag piece[0] by Josh Barro, whose takes I usually find surprisingly persuasive. [0] http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastructu...

Like the Berlin Airport

Re: The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is nearly 50% done

#270

Post by mbesto »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #242
mbesto wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Tesla's Gigfactory is a JV with Panasonic and partially funded by taxpayers. I'd say the largest value add about Elon Musk is his ability to create a reality distortion field to convince large swathes of people to follow his dream. I'm actually not being critical of Musk here. Jobs did this and you can see how transformative certain technologies have been as a result.

> And Tesla's Gigfactory is a JV with Panasonic and partially funded by taxpayers. What you don't seem to understand is that the battery tech's problems currently are not the chemical process or format of the cells, but the volume. The volume of cells that we are able to produce. This is a major bottleneck of electric cars. It is not just some minor problem, it is a great fundamental problem. This is also why tesla c…

> What you don't seem to understand is that the battery tech's problems currently are not the chemical process or format of the cells, but the volume.

> So no this is not only about vision, Tesla (whether Musk himself or his engineers) identified a real problem, and engineered a real solution - the gigafactory

So, Musk identified a problem (manufacturing batteries at scale), found a vendor with a solution (Panasonic) and sold it under the name Tesla.

Do you see my point now?

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