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

The Boring Company [video]

boringcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 800 posts

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#711

Post by nojvek »

bkanber wrote: post #494
athenot wrote: post #445

This looks really cool. However, boring through rock is the most expensive way to connect 2 places. It only makes sense if the land features or purchase value require it. Fundamentally, this is about short-circuiting the regular road network and establishing a managed packet network that can bypass congestion. Interestingly, that's also the value proposition of public transit, though it also runs into issues of cost,…

> However, boring through rock is the most expensive way to connect 2 places. For now. I think that's the whole point of this company. Reduce cost and risk of drilling just like SpaceX's goal is to reduce cost and risk of space flight.

I wonder why it's so expensive. I agree with musk. It makes sense for humans to have a 3d transport system rather than 2d. The payoff is huge. Moving 200mph through tunnels is the future we should be aiming for.

I also get a feeling he's read "foundation" from Isaac Asimov which talks about this.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#712

Post by wonderwonder »

billiam wrote: post #700
wonderwonder wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think cars are going away any time soon for several reasons. Cars offer individuals far more freedom, go anywhere when you want. Also people live in rural areas, I'm not going to wait 3 hours for a bus to take me to my mom's house in the country, I'll just drive. In addition there is probably not a bus that goes there. People go shopping, they don't want to carry on $200 worth of groceries onto public…

Guess what rural areas don't have? Traffic. I love the way that Musk hacks the American economy, government subsidies, value system, marketing engine, and the capacity of the public to fall for bullshit, because that is how truly new things get made in this country. But this amusing semi-joke is just reflective of the fact that LA proves car-based transport doesn't scale, no matter who is driving. Mass transit is the…

you need a car unless your life plan is just to limit yourself to only urban areas. If you ever want to leave the urban area you will need a car. If I have my own car, even if there is public transportation I will likely take my own car for the convenience of it being my own space.

I am not arguing against the need for mass transport but I see no reason we cant have both.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#713

Post by danellis »

mozumder wrote: post #604
mcbutterbunz wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain how he messed this one up?

Because you are now more dependent on private cars for transport. Why would you use this instead of a system where you take a neighborhood bus to the local transit station & shopping center where you can pick up a light rail to the closest subway station, where you take the express train downtown to the high-speed rail station, where you take that to visit the next state for the day? No cars, and you can sit and read…

> Why would you use this instead of a system where you take a neighborhood bus to the local transit station

Because I don't want to walk four miles in weather that could be 90 degrees or 9 degrees to get my "neighborhood" bus, and then waste hours of the day because I have to change to other buses (sometimes going in the wrong direction) to get somewhat close to my destination. I especially don't want to do that carrying heavy or fragile things, or in the rain or snow.

As long as the US continues to be a sprawl, personal transportation will be important.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#714

Post by danellis »

cbhl wrote: post #508
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 think it's more nuanced than that. You can break down the world into the 99% that "know" that it's impossible. They'll never invent that world-changing thing. That leaves 1% that "don't know" that it's impossible. Of that 1%, 99% will try and fail. The remaining 1% of the 1% succeed, like George Dantzig (who came late to a Stats class at UC Berkeley, thought some problems on the board were homework, and a few days…

How many people in the world have tried this, let alone people on HN? Very, very few people even attempt things on this scale.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#715

Post by ChuckMcM »

As a backup you could always sell them as automated parking lots while you were working on the tunnels. Because I'm odd in that sort of way, I imagine the tunnel as an infinite tape and the entrance/exit ramp as a place where you can read or write the tape. Now if you could just force the cars to either forward or backward on demand ...

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#716

Post by unityByFreedom »

Can_Not wrote: post #705
unityByFreedom wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla sells high tech luxury vehicles that, as yet, aren't mainstream, and there are several road bumps to overcome before getting there. To laud Musk's success today to the point of proving success on his future products is premature. He hasn't completed his initial goals -- making electric mainstream and space flight an enterprise. Not saying it isn't possible or what he has achieved isn't great. Just saying his ex…

> as yet, aren't mainstream Maybe it takes more than 5 minutes to make all cities capable of powering electrical cars then competing with the existing car market? He's already built a successful product, has successful competitors, prevented the 2000's era proprietary cell phone charger fiasco from happening again. It's a little too late to be skeptical.

I agree. Just saying it isn't evidence for future big plan success. I'm glad some people are optimistic for it. I wonder what will happen to all these goals if / when the next recession hits. But that's more of my cynical view coming in. You keep being you and I'll be me ;-)

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#717

Post by collinmanderson »

vmasto wrote: post #311

Kinda off topic with what this is about but I have a few technical questions regarding the website (which is just a logo and a YouTube video embed on a white background): - Why is it built with React? - Why does it need to load so much JavaScript? - Why does it need to load a custom web font? (There's exactly zero text from what I see). - Why does it need a CSS grid framework?

Yeah, it's amazing how much code is on that page. Really? How many font weights are you pulling in? 5? Is there _any_ text on that page? :)

It actually looks like it was made using a GoDaddy website builder. https://builtwith.com/boringcompany.com

I suppose they don't really need a perfect website at this point.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#718

Post by theptip »

tigershark wrote: post #556
theptip wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tunnelling is a broadly solved problem As rockets were before Space X? It costs a billion dollars per mile to dig a subway tunnel. If the costs could be brought down, it would change a lot about the way we build mass transit systems.

What? Are you serious??? If it's true then in US you are getting ripped off big time. The whole crossrail project is 73 miles with 14 miles of tunnels and 40 station and it has a cost of 15B£ (19B$ with today exchange rate). I cannot find the total cost of the tunnels, but apparently for 1.25B£ you can have 18km of tunnels: http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrail-awards-ma... That is 1.6B$ for 11 miles. Ba…

Those Crossrail numbers give $0.2B/mile, including a lot of miles of track that aren't tunnels. After digging a bit I found this, which is a good summary:

https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...

It seems that $1B/__km__ (not mile, you're right) is sadly par for the course in the US, and Crossrail passes that threshold too. Projects elsewhere are below that threshold though.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#719

Post by c22 »

mljoe wrote: post #490
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…

According to the DOT, a train is only about 33% more energy efficient then driving.[1] In addition a subway or bus system has to run on a schedule even when the train is mostly empty. The train and bus is always starting and stopping and causing all it's passengers increased delay to serve the needs of the few entering or leaving. Public transport is the token ring networking of transportation. It's just inherently l…

On the other hand, the train runs on a schedule which can give you a pretty accurate idea of when you should leave and when you will arrive at your destination. The car might be faster sometimes, but sometimes it is slower and you can't always predict which it's going to be.

Re: The Boring Company [video]

#720

Post by tim333 »

19eightyfour wrote: post #682
tim333 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper? A nuclear machine that melts rock and probably doesn't exist? I'm not convinced that the video you linked on sheepletv above the "underground alien bases" one is the most reliable info.

Sure, ridiculing such information is easy, especially when you describe it as you have, emphasizing the easiest targets for ridicule. If your intent was to ridicule the information, I get your comment makes sense. But, IMHO, that's not a very substantive contribution for HN. IMHO, it would have been more worthwhile to highlight the less-easy-to-ridicule aspects of the page, such as the quotes from, and discussion abo…

Ah ok though I felt the 'cheaper' bit was somewhat unproven.
Post reply on HN