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Elon Musk Says Boring Company Will Sell 'Lego-Like' Kits of Excavated Rock (theverge.com)
Elon Musk says his Boring Company will sell "interlocking bricks" made from the rock that its tunnel-creating machines excavate from the ground. In other words, think Lego, he says, except giant, heavy, and made of Earth. The Verge reports: Musk says that the Boring Company will sell "kits" of bricks, starting with one that makes it easy to build things from "ancient Egypt," like replicas of the pyramids, the Sphinx, or the Temple of Horus. The bricks will be "lifesize," though it's not clear what that actually means. And they'll be bored through the middle, to save some weight, but still rated to withstand California's earthquakes. (As is typical, Musk announced the idea in freewheeling fashion on Twitter.) t's unclear when these bricks, or the kits, will be available or how much they'll cost. The Boring Company is currently only digging short, preliminary tunnels in California and Maryland, so there's presumably not enough to start selling any of this upturned rock just yet. But the small company has big plans for tunnels around the country meant to facilitate debatably futuristic modes of transportation, so there will be plenty of newly removed earth if even half of those ever come to fruition.
"I reckon I could get people to buy dirt from me"
Will sell boring products. What are these for and who will want them.
My old pet is not moving and might be dead.
Even his joking twitter posts still have more credibility then Trump's real ones. :)
I must have missed an important tech advancement in tunnel boring. I thought his machines were the traditional super long cylinders with a massive grinding head at the front. The result is probably some kind of slurry that is piped out to the surface.
But if he is getting solid blocks, he must have something more advanced that I had assumed. Maybe something that cuts the sides like a mega chainsaw? Or some variation of a wire cutter? In any event, getting large blocks out instead of grinding everything to a powder must be a great advance, and I am curious about that.
A dingo ate my sig...
Fun fact: there's a California, Maryland. What does it have to do with anything? I dunno. Maybe some Ol' Musky symmetry or something.
The tesla enters the tunnel.... The steering wheel automatically folds up... the car is fully auto mouse. Drives through the tunnel... steering wheel and user control fully restored.... HELL YA... the future man.
[($)]
I know your here somewhere. Just do it baby.... :P
[($)]
Elon: I'm going to build a rocket that lands itself after its done
press: okay cool!
Elon: I'm building a tunnel digging company because traffic sucks
press: right on!
Elon: I'm selling a flamethrower if you wanna buy it.
press: ..what?
Elon: Also i launched my car into space on a mission to orbit mars
press:..okay...uh...
Elon: im making legos out of the rocks we excavate from my drilling project, then you use them like legos!
press:...seriously?
Fire Department: OK everyone we need you to clear out of Mr. Musks office immediately, theres been a gas leak here for quite some time and we dont yet know the extent of the exposure
Elon, on a stretcher: I'm building a tunnel you know!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Fantastic! Trump announces the future on twitter, everyone loses their minds.
Hmmm. Should I switch from buying Beanie Babies to this?
It is not "Lego". It is LEGO® brand building blocks.
Let's start an internet rumor that Elon Musk's Boring Company, (so named to try to divert attention away from it, as the saying goes, if you want to do something evil, wrap it in something boring!) has purchased and intends NOT to use, or is otherwise suppressing existent teleportation technology that would allow, in only 3 to 5 years, people to beam from one place to another, Star Trek style, for a trivial amount of money, so as to charge people huge amounts of money to move their carcasses, cave-man style, that is, physically, from one location to another, with all the tedious TIME that takes up, having to occupy, iteratively, EVERY SINGLE POINT IN BETWEEN the start point for movement, and the end-point, rather than avoiding both through the power of teleportation.
For good measure, let's spice this up by throwing in the assertion that, ironically, given Musk's car company is named "Tesla," that the teleportation technology was initially developed BY genius electrical pioneer and inventor Nikola Tesla, and that's part of why it's being suppressed! Should be fun!
Also, regarding stone LEGO-like bricks... imagine finding one of THESE in the dark with your foot! You thought PLASTIC bricks were no fun to step on or kick in your kids' bedroom... whoo-boy!
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
So Elon figures to sell the waste product from his company. Better than paying to have it disposed. Very clever, right?
Not a new idea. He ain't got nuttin on the masters of this trade.
Take Fluoride for example. Poisonous to the body but somehow the idea was completely entrenched with no credible scientific evidence that it was great to put in drinking water. To save your teeth which would totally rot out otherwise.
Some time later the phosphate mining industry discovered they could sell fluorosilicic acid -- the waste product of their industry and expensive to dispose of -- for water utilities to dump into drinking water. This is poison. And tax dollars pay them for it.
They weren't alone. Sodium fluoride is a waste product of the aluminum industry. Toxic waste also purchased for water fluoridation supply. I heard that domestic industry ran out of this so now we import it from China who consider it a dangerous pollutant. (China!)
Elon. Very bright guy. Lots to learn.
Isn't it a little early for 4/1 jokes? "No credible evidence..." I suppose they have every dentist on earth on their secret hush-money payroll too, right?
Also, milk comes out of the wobbly things on the underside of Cows, and is used to feed their calves. They completely fail to mention this on the packaging.
Antibiotics are excreted by fungi; in fact, most medicine you find in hospitals comes from GMO fungi; won't you think of the poor innocent bacteria?!
Vanillin is the strongest flavoring naturally found in vanilla extract; it can also be extracted from cow manure, or synthesized from other chemicals.
Helium is a 'waste product' that comes from mining other substances; such large amounts of it are unintentionally extracted that the price of helium is far lower than where the demand curve would place it, leading to worry of a future permanent helium shortage, since you can't just make more.
'Spent' nuclear fuel rods can be reprocessed and used in other nuclear reactor designs.
Plenty of 'waste' has later found a usage, as someone figures out a use for it. Doesn't mean it's bad or useless just because it's a byproduct.
Oh, and dosage determines toxicity. Fluoride levels are low enough (I'd bet) to be nontoxic unless you drink amounts of water that'd be lethal due to electrolytic imbalances. Chlorine, a poison, is also put in drinking water intentionally, to kill remaining microbes.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Flamethrowers that aren't flamethrowers.
Legos that aren't Lego(tm).
Lets face it, the only thing "hyper" in Boring's Hyperloop is hyperbole.
Kingsford BBQ charcoal briquettes were originally made from left over scrap wood from Model - T fords. Don't think that is the case now, but who knows.
Gotta love harmless eccentric billionaires. Much better than any other kind of billionaire imho.
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Sounds like Anchor Stone Blocks, 130+ years later.
http://anchor-stone.eurosourcellc.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks [wikipedia]
Can a golden calf be sold too?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
They weren't alone. Sodium fluoride is a waste product of the aluminum industry. Toxic waste also purchased for water fluoridation supply. I heard that domestic industry ran out of this so now we import it from China who consider it a dangerous pollutant. (China!)
This was fake news in 1952, when the Republicans were spreading it. Today it's still fake news, but from the Democrats.
Combine lego-type blocks and AI? Maybe not a good idea...
You can already get those at Home Depot. They call them paving stones and come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
This is how you get permission to mine under cities. The toxic waist products after sulfide mining will be shaped into bricks and distributed to the ignorant.
I posted on the announcement tweet for these lego asking about the delivery times for the Flame Thrower. Musk responded with "Prob May" Do you think he means this year? Do we have any record of accuracy for these "Prob" estimates? Thanks
Forward thinking.
Then I can finally build that Ender Chest.
Too heavy to transport. Don't get the practical application. Hopefully there is one though! Cool idea, reuse byproduct
Then.
It doesn't have to make sense when Uncle Sam foots the bills.
Is Elon Musk on cocaine ???
Go well
It started when a Dutch concrete company tried to find something useful to do with the excess concrete that came back in their mixer trucks. So they made a bunch of smallish moulds shaped like a 2x4 Lego brick and poured the excess in them.
These became wildly popular as temporary barriers and construction material, and nowadays any number of concrete suppliers will sell you stackable, interlocking concrete bricks.
Tunnel boring machines do not neatly cut out the rock. They grind it up and spit out gravel.
While one could, theoretically, cut out nice chunks of rock (assuming the place you are tunneling actual has decent rock), taking time for this would massively slow the actual digging process. And for what, exactly? It's not like quarried stone is something difficult to find.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
One of the outstanding questions was, "what do you do with all the excavated material?" Turns out he intends to make them into bricks (consider the description - life size, holes through the middle, withstand an earthquake) and sell them. Yes, bricks are lego-like. So it's not that crazy. He's just hoping to turn the excavated material into a building product.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Maybe Elon is trying to get back into Trump's good graces by making bricks for his wall.
Musk could drop a giant turd on the ground, call it special, and a significant number of people would be fighting over the opportunity to own it.
Trying to find extra value of the left over rubbish, a.k.a. "revaluating / recycling", has been standard practice since as long as people have been digging (or boring).
Inventing ways to getting people to buy dirt is literally the norm in the field.
It's the marketing spin that's new:
Usually the dirt is provided as a ultra cheap material to fill holes, mix with concrete, etc.
Shaping it as the architect's supersized LEGO (as *litteral* bricks) is a new marketing ploy.
Probably for the free publicity that this novelty will generate.
And maybe banking on Elon's charisma, they'll even manage to bump the price and make a quick buck compared to what the normal "landfill material" rates would have brought.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
So all of this may be a precursor to mars/moon habitat building & transport infrastructure maybe? I wonder if the dimensions of the borer would fit in the BFR? Flamethrower is to fry aliens of course...
Geared towards the colonization of Mars. So every "way out" product or service he comes up with is in service to that goal. Think about everything he's working on and you'll see what I mean. Visionary always looks crazy to the proles.
Elon has not met the Uniform Building Code which dictates not only materials but rate of production for building materials in the US. The bricks and mortar kind of code is a product of the San Francisco bricklayers union based upon production of 80 bricks per hour. ANYTHING that poses a threat to that hallowed sanctuary for union labor in the US is an impossibly expensive process.
Getting new innovative product introduced in the US is so cumbersome that you must go to EU to see what the future looks like. There styrofoam blocks erect a building in hours and cement filled with rebar the same day. A completed structure in 24 hours. THAT is a threat to unions. German engineers could not get approval in the US for the styrofoam insulated interlocking building brick system.
Good luck Elon...
This time, he invented the Brick.
Finally
Kingsford BBQ charcoal briquettes were originally made from left over scrap wood from Model - T fords. Don't think that is the case now, but who knows.
NOS model T scrap wood or new production?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
https://static1.squarespace.co...
Linked from: https://www.boringcompany.com/...
Must be a beta version - no visible interlocking mechanism.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
"I know that it's a turd, but it's an Elon Musk turd, you know? It just has that special quality. I think it glitters during the day and glows in the dark at night! Don't tell anyone, but I think a phoenix hatched out of it when I wasn't looking. Musk pulled a phoenix out of his ass, just outstanding!"
The problem is that there are probably a multitude of state and local laws on the books that will prevent building anything with these blocks.