The Boring Company [video]

Post by danderino » Sat, Apr 29, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

jblow wrote: post #474

lojack wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identifying risk is one of the most valuable things startups can be doing. Ignoring that risk can be one of the most detrimental things. Good entrepreneurs treat that risk as opportunity. Bad entrepreneurs are paralyzed by it. "Reasons why not" are indeed a dime a dozen, but that doesn't mean they are useless. It may be a bit annoying to have to filter through the feedback that identifies the wrong risks, but we shou…

Yeah, identifying risk is important. But thinking one can "identify risk" as some random dude posting on Hacker News, criticizing a guy with a lot of experience running cutting-edge tech companies that make stuff like cars and spaceships (ACTUAL tech, not these lame web sites that people call "tech" these days), is ... well, delusional would be a polite word for it.

Post by lambdadmitry » Sat, Apr 29, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

clock_tower wrote: post #203

kolinko wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps if you're building a cellar. If you want to make a 10-story building - even in a virgin terrain, it's a complicated operation. Not to mention that you need to make the materials such that they resist a huge side pressure, water leaks and so on. Psychological costs are also costs.

Wide-open spaces, even enclosed ones, can reduce the psychological burden of confinement quite a bit -- there's a variety of Russian strategic-missile submarine with a swimming pool, for example. This subject also comes up frequently in SF (science fiction, not San Francisco, which has the opposite problem); there was some discussion of it on the "Atomic Rocket" worldbuilding guide, IIRC.

Post by oliv__ » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 1:25 AM UTC

shouldbworking wrote: post #578

mynameisvlad wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can easily cover up the hole with a sliding door pretty quickly after dropping, or, as someone else mentioned, raise fences during the process. This is far from the hardest problem to solve in the video.

I'm just pointing out that the flaw is egregious. PR videos are supposed to give people a view of the future, suspend disbelief for a minute. This just looks like something slapped together by an intern told to "put some future cars in a tunnel" A damn disappointment for something hyped a while back from Musk himself. He should learn from Hollywood, movie trailers are far more important than the movie itself when pub…

Post by kartickv » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 3:53 AM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #523

mljoe wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

First of all, the most recent data in the document you linked to shows Amtrak at 1,629 BTU/passenger-mile vs 3,877 BTU/passenger-mile for cars -- a 58% reduction in energy consumption, or alternately 2.4x better energy efficiency for trains over driving. But it's also important to note that the numbers for Amtrak are averaged across the entire system -- and most Amtrak routes outside the Northeast Corridor operate wa…

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 30, 2017, 4:06 AM UTC

danderino wrote: post #751

jblow wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, identifying risk is important. But thinking one can "identify risk" as some random dude posting on Hacker News, criticizing a guy with a lot of experience running cutting-edge tech companies that make stuff like cars and spaceships (ACTUAL tech, not these lame web sites that people call "tech" these days), is ... well, delusional would be a polite word for it.

So were not allowed to give our concerns because ultimately they may not be correct? Also, there's a ton of companies with a ton of knowledge who have done things which failed spectacularly or have refused to do things that would work. Tesla's whole existence is sentiment to that. Is Musk immune to making such mistakes? The consensus on his Hyperloop idea still seems to be that is infeasible.