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The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

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Re: The Boring Company [video]

#391

Post by _jal »

nostromo wrote: post #162
pnathan wrote: post #85

This is very, very wasteful compared to actual mass transit. A subway network is much more effective at delivering people. If he's looking for mega-good, Musk would do significantly better to drop a full subway network. edit: tunnelling is a broadly solved problem. It's difficult, expensive, slow, etc. But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Musk might be able to drive some significan…

The video shows some sort of shuttle using the track. Those could be small busses or even public transport. http://imgur.com/a/Wv8YD In effect, this is a subway system. It's an underground rail system. The major difference is that you have a mixture of public and private passenger vehicles and smaller vehicles.

But... a subway for cars? This strikes me as significantly less efficient use of resources than everyone switching over to printing out their emails/IMs/photothings and faxing them to each other.

Edit: I mean, sure, great science fiction fun to think about!

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#392

Post by badosu »

djsumdog wrote: post #212
ShannonAlther wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there's no engineering reason why a hole in the ground can't happen. Depending on the specific location, there may very well be. Underground tunnels are vulnerable to earthquake-inflicted damage, for instance, and you would want to avoid repair as much as possible. Similarly, there may be environmental or conservatory reasons not to build tunnels, or reasons related to cost, or obstacles not yet encountered (th…

Just look at the Big Dig. One small mistake (using the wrong glue or fasteners) can put the safety of the entire safety into question.

Yes, see Pinheiros subway station accident as a good example:

http://oglobo.globo.com/fotos/2007/07/11/11_MHG_sp_metro4.jp... https://www.ita-aites.org/fr/news/download/383_4725e686e12d3...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#393

Post by aaron-lebo »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

edit: don't feel like arguing. Best of luck to Musk.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#394

Post by ryanwaggoner »

tptacek wrote: post #318
kgu wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That disagrees with the Twitter thread you linked to, which claims: > Robert Moses weaponized Civil Engineering and Urban Planning to suppress marginalized communities. Engineering is always political. Words like "weaponized" and "suppress" suggest that Emily thinks Moses was ill-intentioned, not merely an ambitious guy who in his monomania happened to overlook some of the more sinister side-effects of his work.

I don't entirely agree with the Twitter thread, but it's also possible to "weaponize" and "suppress" because you think it's the right thing to do. Overly-influential people exerting their power to harm others in the interest of what they believe to be "right" is something that bothers me a lot about the power structure of our industry today. I don't think the comparison is at all unwarranted.

it's also possible to "weaponize" and "suppress" because you think it's the right thing to do

How does that have anything to do with whether he was horrible? In general, people think they're doing the right thing. That doesn't mean they're not horrible.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#395

Post by acchow »

astrodust wrote: post #109
27182818284 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly though these same sentences came up around Teslas too. And battery production? And crash test safety? And coordination with NHTSA?

People made electric cars before Tesla and they'll make cars after. People made rockets before SpaceX and they'll make them after. He's cut component costs on the Tesla by maybe 70%. On the SpaceX project it's more like 80% compared to the highest cost competitor. Both of these are huge achievements. The problem with tunnels is they're not cars, not rockets, not anything like he's ever done before. If he had a functi…

I really, really hope I get to see you eat your words in 30 years.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#396

Post by ryanwaggoner »

avn2109 wrote: post #178
phamilton wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the entire point of The Boring Company. It's way more expensive than anyone expects. That's the problem they are trying to solve. The entire goal is "serious advances in rock boring techniques". That may be a lofty goal, but at least the message I got is that it is the one they want to reach.

>> "(personal opinion: there are none coming)" Former tunnel boring engineer here. There is a ton of room for innovation around tunnel boring machines built by the major manufacturers (primarily Herrenknecht and Robbins), around reliability, durability, ease of serviceability etc. I cannot emphasize enough how modern TBM's require an unbelievable amount of engineering attention, repair labor, spare parts infrastructu…

I really wish this was a top-level comment so it could be voted up to the very top. More informed than 99% of this entire comments section. Thank you!

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#397

Post by Anderkent »

Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

>I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack of having ever produced anything, concludes that their original supposition was indeed correct.

The latter are also aware of survivorship bias

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#398

Post by komali2 »

petra wrote: post #235
djsumdog wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still incredibly wasteful compared to a real subway. The amount of people a real mass transit system can move is orders of magnitude above tons if individual little cars: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... ..not to mention all the energy required to move each of those vehicles compared to a train that can move hundreds of more people in a similar space. Americans need to get over all…

One weakness of all public transportation is the lack of personal space. Maybe if someone would have solved that either by more space or some deep psychological insights, it would become more popular among Americans?

For me the main disadvantage is that it takes an hour, comes once an hour, has inaccurate timetables, costs 13$, and stops running at midnight. Hence why I drive from mountain view to San Francisco rather than bother with Caltrain.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#399

Post by darawk »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #393
Xcelerate wrote: post #377

It's amazing to me the amount of negativity directed toward his projects and the millions of reasons people give for why they "won't work" (not necessarily on HN, but at least on general news websites). I'm starting to believe the only difference between those who start their own companies and those who don't is that the latter convinces themselves that it is impossible, never builds anything, and from their own lack…

edit: don't feel like arguing. Best of luck to Musk.

> The Hyperloop was supposed to be a revolutionary form of transport, turns out it was overblown.

He didn't launch the Hyperloop, though. He explicitly said he wasn't personally going to pursue it, he was just putting the idea out there. You can't put the fact that it hasn't yet been implemented (even though there are people working on it) on him. I've seen no evidence that the concept is infeasible, or poorly thought out.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#400

Post by ryanwaggoner »

nebabyte wrote: post #374
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #333

I think there is nothing more boring than reading a bunch of people who never propose anything point out flaws. You all sound like Balmer. This is a CONCEPT!! Elon is THINKING you all are pointing, laughing and adding no value to the conversation of "What comes next?" If your idea is "the metro works", a 150 year old system, then this video is not for you. To the video, I like the concept of combining public and priv…

If that is your idea of value, there exist plenty of scifi writers/artists with concepts like this, except more practical, better thought out, or so on So perhaps instead of 'pointing' you should take your own advice?

That's really unfair considering the source. This is someone who continually has proved the skeptics wrong. At what point does he earn the benefit of the doubt in your eyes?
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