Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 378 posts

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#171

Post by DangitBobby »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
GMoromisato wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. No one can predict the future, and it's absolutely possible that orbital datacenters will fail (either for technology or business reasons). But: 1. Without a time machine, we cannot be certain. 2. If forced to choose, I would rather root for their success and be wrong than root for their failure and be right.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. When I started my own business, everyone thought it was doomed to failure. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, all of them. Except my dad. He believed in me, though he had no idea what I was doing. Musk is in good company with the crazy people who build the first tunnel under the Thames, the nuts who laid the first transatlantic people, the moro…

A bit strange that you started you comment with the exact same sentence as the previous commenter.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#172

Post by DangitBobby »

GMoromisato wrote: post #128
grosswait wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s revisit this comment in 5 years. I’m not convinced HN critics know more about this than SpaceX does.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. No one can predict the future, and it's absolutely possible that orbital datacenters will fail (either for technology or business reasons). But: 1. Without a time machine, we cannot be certain. 2. If forced to choose, I would rather root for their success and be wrong than root for their failure and be right.

Unless SpaceX knows something about thermodynamics that no one else knows, we can be pretty fucking sure that they have an incompetent mouthpiece or they are committing securities fraud.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#173

Post by SR2Z »

massysett wrote: post #154

This article is but one example of a tiresome genre: the paean to the supposed glory days of aviation. Passengers dressed up, dined on caviar, and smoked cigarettes. Stewardesses were sexy, and liquor flowed in the expansive 747 lounge. These pieces then bemoan today’s bus of the sky, with the unwashed masses donning sweatpants and dragging screaming toddlers who leave orange Goldfish crumbs in the seat cracks. I am…

I think the context that's missing from this discussion is just how long the 747 was in service. When it was new, pilots didn't directly control the engines - a flight engineer did. There were no moving maps and navigation was done with radio beacons and pilotage (of course, this required lots of fiddling with knobs and a notepad). There were no flight envelope protections, and we knew next to nothing about the dangers of rocketing across the ocean at Mach 0.9. The first encounter between a jetliner and volcanic ash was a 747; despite all four engines flaming out and the whole plane being wreathed in St. Elmo's fire, the pilots were able to safely restart all of them and nobody got hurt. People who love this jet love it because they see the problems it solved and how it kept on rising to the occasion as the world changed around it.

I'm not going to pay 2x ticket prices to keep it alive either, but it is terribly romantic. If human beings are allowed to fall in love with machines this one is as good as any.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#174

Post by stephen_g »

Animats wrote: post #107
sidewndr46 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an odd version of the story. My understanding is Boeing designed lots of military aircraft, not all reached production. The 747 is the result of some of that design work.

That was also said about the B-707, which was supposed to have some parts commonality with their KC-135 Stratotanker built for the USAF. But as development progressed, the airliner and the tanker diverged. The B-747 went through a similar process. Boeing was proposing a big cargo aircraft to the USAF (the CX-HLS), but that was never built. Lockheed got the C-5 contract instead, which satisfied the USAF's need for a r…

It still does happen though, so not totally wishful thinking - but it seems to go the other way, commercial to miliary e.g. like the KC-30A tanker which are converted from standard commercial A330-200s (and as I understand the new version will be from A330neos).

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#175

Post by AnimalMuppet »

WalterBright wrote: post #148
jquery wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting thing about SpaceX is how it convinced a lot of otherwise sober people that data centers in space was a $50 septillion addressable market. You might laugh and think I’m joking but a lot of people seriously fell for the nonsense in the public filing, which should’ve been a one way ticket to SEC jail.

When the first transcontinental railroad was proposed and being built, it was beset with controversy and skepticism. But when it opened, it exceeded the wildest expectations of its most optimistic boosters. It transformed the country overnight. A similar thing happened with the first transatlantic cable.

The Union Pacific Railroad (the eastern half of the transcontinental railroad) also caused the financial crisis of 1873 (due to construction costs and various corruption and bribery around financing them). It then went bankrupt in 1893.

So, yes, it transformed the country. That didn't necessarily benefit the stockholders and bondholders.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#176

Post by GMoromisato »

DangitBobby wrote: post #171
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. When I started my own business, everyone thought it was doomed to failure. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, all of them. Except my dad. He believed in me, though he had no idea what I was doing. Musk is in good company with the crazy people who build the first tunnel under the Thames, the nuts who laid the first transatlantic people, the moro…

A bit strange that you started you comment with the exact same sentence as the previous commenter.

They're just quoting it but typo'ed the >

I was confused at first too.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#177

Post by Aloha »

massysett wrote: post #154

This article is but one example of a tiresome genre: the paean to the supposed glory days of aviation. Passengers dressed up, dined on caviar, and smoked cigarettes. Stewardesses were sexy, and liquor flowed in the expansive 747 lounge. These pieces then bemoan today’s bus of the sky, with the unwashed masses donning sweatpants and dragging screaming toddlers who leave orange Goldfish crumbs in the seat cracks. I am…

We would all have been better off if Boeing had replaced the 737 with the 757 as intended. Its quieter, more comfortable, and a better aircraft all around.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#178

Post by cindyllm »

PaulHoule wrote: post #136
wat10000 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve flown on a wide variety of planes, and never found any difference in comfort from the plane itself. It’s all about the seats.

The 737 is noticeably louder than other planes on the ground and in the passenger cabin and especially for the pilot. 787/A350 and the A220 have a higher cabin pressure and better air quality that helps you feel better. It could be that most of my wide body experience was going over the Atlantic on 747s in the 1990s and a few times circa 2012 flying 767s on the JFK-LAX route which felt luxurious. As I see it, I’d rat…

[dead]

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#179

Post by GMoromisato »

DangitBobby wrote: post #172
GMoromisato wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. No one can predict the future, and it's absolutely possible that orbital datacenters will fail (either for technology or business reasons). But: 1. Without a time machine, we cannot be certain. 2. If forced to choose, I would rather root for their success and be wrong than root for their failure and be right.

Unless SpaceX knows something about thermodynamics that no one else knows, we can be pretty fucking sure that they have an incompetent mouthpiece or they are committing securities fraud.

I'm not sure I get it. Obviously, computers can work in space--a Starlink satellite is basically a computer with a radio attached. Satellites use radiators for cooling without violating any laws of physics.

I assume you think that SpaceX will never be able to build/deploy a radiator big enough? But that's not a physics/thermodynamics question, that's an engineering question. And I think SpaceX has some pretty good engineers.

Help me out and tell me how you can be so sure it will never work.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#180

Post by duskwuff »

stephen_g wrote: post #163
massysett wrote: post #154

This article is but one example of a tiresome genre: the paean to the supposed glory days of aviation. Passengers dressed up, dined on caviar, and smoked cigarettes. Stewardesses were sexy, and liquor flowed in the expansive 747 lounge. These pieces then bemoan today’s bus of the sky, with the unwashed masses donning sweatpants and dragging screaming toddlers who leave orange Goldfish crumbs in the seat cracks. I am…

For the money things have actually got better. If you pay the equivalent (adjusted for inflation or compared to wages) of what they were paying back then for an international flight, you're in first class and on a good airline that's hugely better than anything from the 'golden age'. Even business class is cheaper and (again on good airlines) is better than what people had then - the planes are quieter, the seats lie…

Air travel has also become ~100x safer on a per-passenger basis:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/aviation-fatalities-per-m...

Post reply on HN