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Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

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Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#511

Post by speedplane »

aninhumer wrote: post #471
speedplane wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my point is that he didn't flip thousands of coins. He made thousands of calculated decisions. His thousands of decisions resulted in success. Others, with their own thousands of decisions did not. I don't see the "luck" here.

The point is, if enough of people are making decisions, success is not sufficient to distinguish a "calculated decision" from a lucky one.

I get the point, but it's ridiculous. It's like monkeys on a typewriter coming up with Shakespeare. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but the odds are incomprehensibly small based on luck alone. If a monkey did write that prose, it's probably a pretty special monkey. Likewise, Elon is a pretty special monkey too.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#512

Post by speedplane »

danmaz74 wrote: post #470
speedplane wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my point is that he didn't flip thousands of coins. He made thousands of calculated decisions. His thousands of decisions resulted in success. Others, with their own thousands of decisions did not. I don't see the "luck" here.

He took thousands of calculated risks. Lots of those calculated risks didn't pay off, you can be sure. But enough of them did. There are no Übermenschen.

I'm not saying he's the greatest person of all time, or even the smartest, but he's demonstrably one of the best at getting very large high risk projects off the ground and building tons of support for them. That's not luck.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#513

Post by zimpenfish »

Pxtl wrote: post #502
zimpenfish wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e.g. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2016/12/15/second-avenue-... > The total length of the project, from 96th Street and 2nd Avenue to 125th Street and Lexington, is about 2.7 km. At $2.2 billion per km, this sets a new world record for subway construction costs, breaking that of the first phase of the same line, which only cost $1.7 billion per km.

I read one article that blamed the high cost of modern subways primarily on the hyper-elaborate modern subway stations and the actual tunnels are a small component of the cost.

I think you're right - tunnels seem to be about $200-400M per km when considered purely on their own.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#514

Post by vidarh »

daemin wrote: post #448
vidarh wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly unlikely. Branson's Virgin Group owns only 20% of Virgin Atlantic (don't let yourself be mislead by the Virgin name appearing all over the place - Virgin tends to start businesses, sell all or part of them when the opportunities are right, but continue to lease the name out to the buyers; the Virgin brand appears on dozens of companies with little to no Virgin Group ownership). In 2016, Virgin Atlantic's reven…

As I replied to an earlier sibling comment, Richard Branson tends to invest and distribute the Virgin name to a lot of companies, like a bigger angel investor that also helps with branding and marketing. Also a lot of them end up going nowhere, much like with other Angel investing.

But that is different to what I replied to, which was the question of whether he'd have a vested interest in trying to stop high speed rail.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#515

Post by pstuart »

danmaz74 wrote: post #456
pstuart wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's planning on making lots of tunnels. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-test-tunnel/

Tunnels are very, very expensive.

Musk seems to think he can do it faster/cheaper. His track record makes it worth considering.

The article I linked to smacks his arrogance down over costs that he's overlooking, but even that may be addressable. Let's see what he delivers in the next 5 years.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#516

Post by bufordsharkley »

BRAlNlAC wrote: post #380
bufordsharkley wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If in the mid-19th century these were gifted to the railroad companies as 99 year leases, the value to the companies wouldn't have been very different, but we wouldn't be in thrall to them today.

and what if the railroads looked at the 99 year lease offer and said, "no thanks fam"? What if is such a pointless game to play.

99 year leases have been very, very common throughout history. Simply doing a present value calculation yields the result that to an investor, a 99 year lease and a 999 year lease are approximately the same value today.

Re: Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

#517

Post by eradicatethots »

logicallee wrote: post #238
KekDemaga wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn't "will this ever work?", the question is (while keeping with your airplane analogy) is Elon Musk's design closer to the Wright brothers airplane or Da Vinci's ornithopter. I'd guess the latter personally.

The Wright brothers had a bicycle shop, whereas Da Vinci was more of a painter. The main thing Musk has in common with the Wrights is running an electric car transportation company and sending private rockets into space via SpaceX. I think you should revisit whether that makes it more Wright brothers or Da Vinci.

What are you arguing? You wouldn’t take the position that it’s guarenteed to succeed, that seems absurd to me. The person you replied to only made the point that it could fail. And in your reply you actually took the opportunity to degrade artists and thinkers, which seems cruel and unnecessary.

You’ve found a flaw, I think a pedantic one, in the example they gave.

Here’s an example that is less flawed, and I think if you had considered their point rather than sought minute flaws you could see this yourself: the palm note vs the iPhone. Hopefully, even if my analogy is not literally flawless, you can take my point.

Also, sorry for spamming you, something you wrote struck me and I wanted to see what else you wrote. Hope you don’t mind this.

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