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Elon Musk Is Really Boring (bloomberg.com)
Sometimes it is hard to tell if Elon Musk is serious about the things he says. But as for his "boring" claims, that's really happening. In a wide-range interview with Bloomberg, the billionaire talked more about his new venture, The Boring Company. The idea began on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago when Musk tweeted, "Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging..." Over the course of next few hours later, Musk added, "It shall be called 'The Boring Company,' Boring, it's what we do. I am actually going to do this. Excerpts from the story: And so, around noon on a Friday in January, an excavation crew started digging. "I was like, 'Hey, what's the biggest hole we can make by Sunday evening?'" Musk says. [...] "My other idea was to call it Tunnels R Us and to essentially troll Toys "R" Us into filing a lawsuit," he says, letting out a loud and well-articulated ha-ha-ha-ha. "Now we've decided to troll AT&T instead! We're going to call it American Tubes and Tunnels." When I ask him if the tunnel venture will be a subsidiary of SpaceX or an independent company, he responds cryptically. "Don't you read my Twitter? The Boring Company. Or TBC. To Be Continued." An aide chimes in: Yes, the Boring Company, aka To Be Continued, aka Tunnels R Us, aka American Tubes and Tunnels, aka whatever, will indeed be an independent company. Tunnel technology is older than rockets, and boring speeds are pretty much what they were 50 years ago. Musk says he hopes to build a much faster tunneling machine and use it to dig thousands of miles, eventually creating a vast underground network that includes as many as 30 levels of tunnels for cars and high-speed trains such as the Hyperloop. Musk chose the SpaceX parking lot as the site of his first dig, mostly because it was convenient and he could legally do so without city permits. The plan is to expand the current hole into a ramp designed for a large tunnel boring machine and then start digging horizontally once the machine is 50 feet or so below ground, which would make it low enough to clear gas and sewer lines and to be undetectable at the surface. 100 marks to Bloomberg for the headline, and the story which is as funny as it is insightful.
Between making SpaceX & Tesla profitable - or cutting the cash losses - and raising 5 kids, don't you have enough already on your plate?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
But I knew that already.
...we probably need to legalize whatever he's smoking.
Before all the sour-pusses have their say, I want to say this: good on him.
Will it work? No idea, but at least he's trying. And betting against Musk is always risky.
Is he crazy? Since he has so much money, and since he's not destructive, no, he is not crazy, he's eccentric.
Can I use my iPhone in the tunnel?
Typical - get a big idea, get resources together to make it happen, get it off the ground and running, then loose interest. On to the next big idea.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
They sold Instant Hole kits, I think.
(Read this in a news anchor's voice)
Breaking news!
In an effort to prevent the internet from calling him a fucking retard for posting a story on Slashdot like "Elon Musk is boring,' MsMash followed up the Bloomberg story with the note, "the story is funny and insightful" in an effort to direct viewer opinions. No word yet on whether the attempt to sway public opinion has had any effect, but we'll follow this story to find out."
By the way, 100 marks to Notabadguy for the comment, which is as funny as it is insightful. No need for you fellow readers to decide for yourself, spend those karma points as directed.
There is an opportunity for a business who can vertically integrate boring machine design and operation. This whole boring business run just like it was running in the XIXth century; he probably foresaw a significant headroom for disruptive technological improvement.
He's already going to space.
If he gets to build up digging know-how, he'll be the first to actually make a shitload of money off asteroid mining.
Best part: r&d possibly largelgy paid for by public money (first NASA, and maybe now he can acceds some infrastructure funds or public contracting for the boring part)... That's one hell of a way to hack the system. Go him! :-)
The Boeing Company
The Boring Company
Stole my idea.
I hope he's ready for the protests he's going to encounter when he tries to bore under Lake Oahe....
that he can legally start digging without a permit?
Living in California myself, I can guarantee you most city/county, and possibly state level laws regarding this state that more than 1 foot of change in elevation, or a retaining wall of more than 3 feet in height requires a building permit, irregardless of any 'actual' construction efforts being done beyond that.
While it is entirely possible he has enough money to make this happen without anybody raising the above rules to him, it seems like a prime place for someone to set an example of what is and isn't acceptable behavior whether a 'backyard contractor' or a multibillionaire.
Anyways if he gets away with it, time for me to start on my tunnel down to my underground bunker, because who is going to notice unless it collapsed and killed me?
> The idea began on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago...
I'd be willing to be it began considerably before that. That was just the rollout.
He draws a lot of criticism on Slashdot for his publicity-generating statements, and his extremely ambitious engineering goals.
I think history will regard him as one of the great engineers. Nikola Tesla, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Wright brothers and many more were frequently derided as "crackpots" and "frauds" during their lifetimes. Now their achievements are revered.
Musk has already succeeded commercially with SpaceX and Tesla (and others), and who would really bet against his continuing success? Still, there will always be people who mock him and belittle his achievements to date.
I can't be the only one who thought of the Labyrinthine Worlds of Simmons' Hyperion Cantos.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
the smell of Musk in the mornin'.
Not mentioned in the summary is the fact that what got Elon moving on this idea was when some of his SpaceX employees were hit by a car crossing the street to their parking structure:
"A news report about three SpaceX employees who were hit by a car on Dec. 17 after leaving work. The incident occurred at 2:15 a.m. About three hours later, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted the following Tweets:
@elonmusk Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging..."
SpaceX has been trying to get a pedestrian bridge built there for a long time, but haven't been able to get permission from the city (blame NIMBYism or just bureaucracy). But with the tunnel, they're able to start digging down without permits on their own land (still need permission once they start digging under the street, of course).
The Yellow Pages here used to have an entry for Boring: "See civil engineers".
Elon Musk must be the reincarnation of the Fifth Duke of Portland. {Building a lot of tunnels under his land}
Musk makes vague claims of having a new tunneling technology, but does he really have a fundamentally faster TBM?
That's all Musk is. With a healthy dose of sociopathy scooped on top instead of charm.
Here in Seattle we've had some tunnel boring going on over the past few years - and, based on experience, I believe our tunnelers will tell you there are lots of man-made obstacles deeper down than that.
#DeleteChrome
Seems to me that the folks whose property Musk is burrowing under/through have a bit of a say in whether or not he can do this.
I thought that Cali's mineral rights were pretty much sewn up at this point... viz the nodding donkeys everywhere.
Fortune of the day, just at the bottom of the /. page:
"I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work."
(emphasis is mine)
Sounds like he's got cabin fever. I give him credit for seeing that our current transportation systems we eventually drive us into another Dark age. Our current transportation system is like a 911 event every 10 days. The answer is simple. A autonomous track system that has utilities built into it, using autonomous personal vehicles.
Time to go and catch a few Mahars.
This makes sense. If I was going offworld to Mars, you need Rockets, you need vehicles and power storage that run independent of any sparse fossil resource that may or may not exist, you need habitats....and on Mars, underground tubes would be quite handy for transport and for living. At the end of the day, if Elon gets to Mars, everyone will be wearing shiny jumpsuits.
I WANT ONE! :D
--exa--
Let the hate begin!
FUCK! MUSK!
Really p(h)unny, Elon. That's what sitting in jam traffic does to you, it makes the mind wander. That's why I try to get a job with less of a commute...
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
As a visionary he needs to continue creating new companies, get them running, then move to next one...
I'm unclear on what his edge is here, other than maybe he enjoys the idea of digging stuff? Tunnel boring is an existing market with a number of players. Will the borer also install the road? Seems more likely he's trying to cover up the installation of a secret underground lab.
Up in Ottawa we've been digging tunnel for several years for our new light rail. The machines doing the digging are probably the least complicated part of the project. The real issue is varying soil and rock conditions and trying not to cause things like this.
... will be Elon Musk as the Mole Man.
Google has a similar case of Corporate A.D.D. - except the "A" team hands off the project when they get about 80% done with it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the remaining 20% is done by the interns.
"...which would make it low enough to clear gas and sewer lines and to be undetectable at the surface.."
First, you probably mean DEEP enough?
And "undetectable at the surface" Sure - unless you nick things like the Aliso Canyon Gas Storage facility (which stores gas as far as 9000 feet down....)
(cf https://www.washingtonpost.com...)
Deep-tunnel digging is pretty much 90% about dealing with the unexpected, because that's the part that fucks you quickly, catastrophically, and often lethally.
That said, I wish him the best. The only thing I see as a barrier is, as usual, the lawyers. I don't believe that the current legal regime as far as who owns/uses/profits from subterranean 'property' is anywhere near where it needs to be to cope with what he's talking about. It's very much a wild-west show, because most of the law seems to deal with MINERAL rights, not access/use rights. Can Musk tunnel 100' under my house without my permission? How about the state capital? What if he's 1000' down?
Good luck, Elon.
-Styopa
People take Musk's jokes too seriously. SpaceX is building a pedestrian underpass to the big SpaceX parking lot that is across a major street (Crenshaw Blvd in Hawthorne). There have been accidents, and a number of SpaceX employees have been hit by cars trying to cross the busy street.
- Necron69
A "mild" case of having an extra chromosome? Is that like a mild case of losing a leg?
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'm going to ignore all the other things wrong with this idea and wonder what mental aberration is responsible for you thinking that there is any sense in which rocks become easier to handle when molten.
Electric vehicles, rockets and now tunnels. The next thing will be hydroponics.
http://botaday.com/sharepic?no...
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Undetectable at just 50ft? Hardly. there are plenty of cases of people in England loosing their homes down sinkholes that appear after some old, forgotten mine hundreds or even thousands of feet down collapses after centuries.
I find it hard to believe that in California, once you've dug 50 ft down on your own land, absolutely nothing stands in your way (other than geology) to just tunneling wherever and as far as you like.
If I happen to own some land in CA that Musk wants to tunnel under/through, can he really do so without my permission or even knowledge?
Boeing should start a subsidiary called "SpaceD".
Maybe he's a chimera.
God Bless him. He's going to live out my ultimate Minecraft Dream!!
Solutions like this are classic examples of tech-rich people thinking they have all the answers when there's a whole bank of qualified specialist people already working in that field who know what's really needed to fix the problem but have only been stymied by politics.
If traffic is driving Musk nuts then the solution is not to find innovative new ways to handle more traffic. The solution is to ask why is traffic so bad in the first place.
Recommended reading: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jacobs
Or if that's too heavy, try Suburban Nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the American dream.
Only then will you come to see the culprit: Single Use Zoning, aka the BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) rules. Single-use zoning forces everybody to make several car journeys just to get through a typical day. Going to work? Car. Going out for lunch? Car. Going home form work? Car. Need to go out for a bottle of milk and postage stamp? Car. Going to a movie? Car.
No bloody wonder the place is flooded with traffic. You try to build a city around the automobile and it becomes a hostile environment for pedestrians and cyclists. You try to widen roads to accommodate more cars and the laws of induced demand kick in, resulting in even more traffic and roads as choked as they were before.
Learn a few things about urban planning, Elon. Don't arrogantly assume that you're the first person to want to address this problem. Smart growth and sustainable, walkable, transit-oriented development is a far better solution than drilling holes in the ground and cracking puns about the word "boring." It requires years of tedious work and politicking to build support for smart growth. A city is not a private company with which you can do what you like. There are elected councils, public advisory committees, public hearings, tax implications, and all manner of complex bureaucratic hoops that you have to jump through to fix these things.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Hopefully not. I wish him the best of luck; but if he ends up as an unkempt recluse I won't be surprised. With a little luck, maybe I can figure out where he will be hitch-hiking... or maybe not.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
As far as I can tell, Socrates is likely a fictional character made up by Plato.
That's why smart companies do basic research so that they can have something for investors 50 years down the road to invest in.
Your greatest challenge lies ahead-and downwards.
Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
Combine a fast borer with the hyperloop and you could build a gravity train which can travel between stations without needing power.
Tunnel technology is older than rockets ...
When freeways were first proposed, some futurists saw them as being 2 or 3 storey elevated roads. I still think that would be cheaper than tunnels. By the way, the hyper-loop idea isn't new; it's just that nobody wanted to put new (well 1950s) technology inside old transport technology. Of course, the real futuristic idea was flying cars; the technology is close but we're nowhere near solving the infrastructure problems of personal flight.
As far as I can tell, Socrates is likely a fictional character made up by Plato.
No, he's mentioned by other contemporaries. His pedophilia was apparently a running joke in society at the time. It's really reaching to suggest that he's some sort of shared fictional character, yet different in kind from all the shared fictional characters we now know as Greek mythology.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
With Musk the right question is never 'will it work?" but 'will it make any sense factoring in the costs?'
Well, at least it did made sense for several European cities that decided to have their highway bypass *underground*.
And that not counting the huge number of cities that have their public transportation underground.
So yeah, definitely worth a try.
Now will Elon manage to bring something new to the table (e.g.: similar to how SpaceX brought back the idea of reusable space vessels) ?
Or at least open a new market for some current technology?
(e.g.: similar to how Tesla manage to introduce the north-american market - much more range-anxious than the densely populated areas (eu/japan) where electric cars where previously being deployed) (though elon Top-down instead of bottom-up approach was innovative : he went with big ranges from the beginning, while progressively building progressively cheaper (more affordable) normal-range cars (roadster -> Model S/X -> Model 3) whereas European constructor usually went for a range of normal vehicle (e.g.: the whole Zero-emission platform of Renault) with prograssively bigger batteries and better ranges (all companies ended-up meeting half-way at same price and mileage category than Model 3)
Or will it be a giant "meh?"
who knows ? nobody until he tries.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Note that, neither Tesla's Autopilot, nor the countless other camera/lidar based solution sold by countless other manufacturer nowadays are self-driving.
At best, they are exactly what is called an Autopilot for planes and ships : some travelling is automated up to some level by the onboard electronic, but the vessel still must remain under the supervision of the plane's/ship's captain. (i.e.: the captain can't go take a nap. only the electronics is relieveing them from needing to mind the minute detail of piloting).
Hence the logical name "autopilot" used by Tesla marketing. Though stupid people are stupid and somewhat mis-interpret what "autopilot" means.
At worst, they are simply collision avoidance technologies (the driver is in full charge of steering the vehicle, but the car is able to sound an alert and to an emergency braking to avoid a crash).
Self-driving is *still* limited to small scale experiments (google cars and similar technologies tested by startups)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Machinist frequently use a tool called a boring bar. You might use such a tool to bore out a rifle barrel for example. But machinist often are grumpy and drink to much at very boring bars and come to work and make mistakes when using a boring bar. And then we wonder why foreigners find English such a difficult language to learn.
A "mild" case of having an extra chromosome? Is that like a mild case of losing a leg?
The effect of having a full redundant chromosome , part of one, or less than one are not the same. Then there are ring chromosome , translocations, and far more. Read up on down syndrom : while the trisomy 21 is the crushing majority of the cases, there are indeed cases with less than 1 additional complete chromosome. And there are indeed various form of the down syndrom, some being more "mild". In some case of translocation, you can even be completely normal, just your children may not be.
I swear this whole Boring company move is just a diversion to keep press attention off the lack of Tesla's performance and the Model 3 is talking longer than expected.
Is that like a mild case of losing a leg?
It's just a flesh wound.
As far as I can tell, for most of history nobody made much of an effort to distinguish between real and fictional people.
http://softwareengineeringmca....
Elon Musk's primary talent is fleecing us, the taxpayers. He is the world's largest recipient of government grants, hand outs, and subsidies - more than any human that ever lived on earth.
Shut off your flaming machine. This is the truth, and it's a compliment, it's not that easy to steal that kind of money legally. His closest competitor would be General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt.
But you can be certain that there are government grants to be made in the tunneling business, or this would not be happening.
Murphy was an optimist
Plato is a fictional shadow-puppet made up by that guy standing at the mouth of the cave.