Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR • Hacker News Board

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#31

Post by glandium » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 7:48 AM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #28

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

It's unfortunate that most people are first exposed to rock climbing by watching videos of free soloing. It really distorts your perception of the sport. It's no surprise, of course. Free soloing is pretty much the most riveting thing you could watch on a screen, whereas every other form of climbing is frankly quite boring to watch if you don't know the sport intimately. Mostly, it's people pushing their own personal…

The Free Solo movie gives enough context, IMO. (it was hard to watch for me though)

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#32

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 7:50 AM UTC

carabiner wrote: post #14

hit8run wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today a bunch of drones would be sufficient I guess?

Prohibited in Yosemite, maybe all National Parks. This doesn't stop everyone though.

It’s possible to get a filming permit for one. There is a drone shot near the end of Free Solo.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#33

Post by amelius » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 8:12 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

Survivor bias.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#34

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

salty_biscuits wrote: post #24

aeonik wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He climbs all these routes with a rope dozens to hundreds of times before free soloing them. The routes that he free soloes are also considered relatively easy to intermediate in skill level, well within his skill level. The really incredible part of his free soloes is just how long his body can last. It's Olympic levels of endurance.

5.12d is pretty hard. Seems beyond intermediate to me (but maybe I'm just soft).

Absolutely, it's not just pretty hard, it's pretty damn hard. Most climbers will never climb this hard (maybe ~1-5% of climbers reach this grade with lots of practice and training).

Even fewer will get to a point where they might conceivably flash or onsight 5.12d (I doubt there are more than 10,000 people alive who would consider free soloing 5.12d at all, and I don't think anyone else has free soloed a 5.12d big wall route.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#35

Post by rurban » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 8:28 AM UTC

I refused to watch this, after having watched Honnold's Free Solo. Suicidal

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#36

Post by vjaswal » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 8:37 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

Maybe it was in the Free Solo movie or other interviews, but I thought he said that his route during Free Solo was a difficulty level of about 7/10 for him. So he was comfortable enough that it was not the hardest climb for him; after a ton of practice on that route, with ropes, of course.

So to be statistical about it, the difficulty level for him was at the edge of 1 standard deviation of the mean of his capability. Maybe that's enough margin that he could detect when he's really in trouble.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#37

Post by misotakacs » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 9:12 AM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #27

eternityforest wrote: post #25

I would never in a million years want to do this, but it must be pretty amazing to be able to do something with that degree of reliability. There's only one thing that I can start doing and be reasonably sure I'll succeed, and that's coding, and only because there is a defined process to follow that is resistant to basic errors, because it's so highly mutable and mistakes can be fixed individually without starting ov…

Do you drive a car? Ride a bike in traffic? One false move and you are dead. You, like most people, are probably competent at these things that would be very risky but for your skill.

As a climber, I don't think it's comparable. The death rate among notorious soloists (as compared to rate among people who bike in traffic every day) agrees here.

Each bad move on a solo is death. For driving, biking in traffic, it has to be a series of bad circumstances to mean death.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#38

Post by mittermayr » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 9:23 AM UTC

daenz wrote: post #9

skilled wrote: post #8

The people who made the film did an exceptional job. My palms were producing buckets of sweat just from watching.

How they filmed "Free Solo"[0] was also pretty incredible. They had to assemble world class videographers who were also world class climbers. As you can imagine, it's a very small group of people! 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtnjRoDa71Y

Watching it, I always felt for the guys filming, less about Alex. He's on his own, and he is the only one in control of his fate. Yet, they're all scattered around at various angles, potentially filming their friend fall without having any chance to help or intervene. It must be such a tense time to help out filming there. Their risk aversion is much better calibrated to it all, but seeing how most of these breath-taking record-breaking attempts are covered on camera so widely now, it can only be a matter of time until it happens.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#39

Post by Vinnl » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 9:24 AM UTC

> available exclusively on Meta Quest VR headsets

I'm afraid this is going to be our future. There's web standards and VR browsers that allows us to enter any VR experience using your preferred device, but like Podcasts, there's a lot of effort to create silos that companies can act as a monopolist in.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#40

Post by rjh29 » Fri, Mar 04, 2022, 9:26 AM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #39

> available exclusively on Meta Quest VR headsets I'm afraid this is going to be our future. There's web standards and VR browsers that allows us to enter any VR experience using your preferred device, but like Podcasts, there's a lot of effort to create silos that companies can act as a monopolist in.

'Future' is an odd term, console game exclusivity has been a fact of life for 40+ years.