If that is what you got from my post, then I failed to communicate with you.
That's positive, so let's go through this.
You made a point about how you could get anywhere on your bike as a kid.
Correct
I countered with how this won't work for everyone.
Not quite true, you countered with my nostalgia being false. My nostalgia might not be yours, but it is 100% true for me (and all the people I knew as a kid)
You countered with, no, it's because people have changed.
I didn't counter with anything other than to clarify that my nostalgia is mine and it it true for me.
I came back with a more specific example of how even in a relatively bike friendly location you may have need for a car as a teenager. I did mention false nostalgia, but that was not the main point of my post, and I'll try to be more concise in the future.
I do appreciate your response. These things tend to get emotional quickly and it's refreshing to see someone not do that.
I think maybe you don't know what social media is.
Which doesn't answer the question why a user can't have multiple social media accounts at one time.
And how are the VCs going to make money? They only invest if they think they can see big payback later. So where is that going to come from?
A lot of VC works on potential. ie Find customers first, work out how to monetise it later. eg Twitter and Tinder
Targeted advertising has proven to be the most effective way to fund large-scale online services. Until someone comes up with an alternative model, social media systems will all be funded by targeted advertising.
The proposition is that there is potential to steal hundreds of millions of customers from FB by developing a clone product and marketing it to target groups who are ready to jump to something else.
Whether you introduce ads a few years down the track, a subscription model, or something else to monetise it doesn't matter in the first few years. The point is that there exists a lot of space in the market that no-one seems to be interested in grabbing
your complete ignorance of the fact you think you can just...
I think that when you want help you ask the experts and get the options, which is what happened.
But you knew all along, they should've just called you instead. Why ask actual experts when you can ask some guy on the internet instead...
Er, I think you need to learn quite a bit more about what you're talking about before trying to contribute further. I'm not sure you have the slightest idea what Musk's boring machine is like. It's 400ft long, 26ft in diameter, and weighs 1200 tons.
And it's one single piece right?
Yes, where you have 1st world infrastructure and sufficient space and supporting equipment to get going. None of which is the case here, and so "standard" most definitely does not apply. Even if you can find a sufficiently level place to do this, you still have to spend weeks clearing away the rainforest and flattening the ground out. You then have to have the other digging equipment to even get the starter tunnel built, which in itself takes weeks.
Standard practice at most mine sites. I did some work on one once years ago, you might be surprised what these guys can do.
Weeks is not a problem when the alternative solution is months.
You're confusing digging a tunnel in a hot, dry, section of a 1st world country in bedrock, with trying to dig through a mountain in a 3rd world area where there's zero infrastructure.
Back to the mining thing, Elon may not be a miner, but you can bet his team have that background. Or do you think he assembled his team from from the UCLA class of 2016 Digging Holes But Only Under 1st World Cities?
You still have the question of how you prevent collapse or further flooding, no one has yet been able to explain how Musk's boring machine magically prevents that.
Details for the experts to work out. TFA only says that Musk has sent over an Engineering team to check it out. Maybe instead of sending experts on site they should've just made a decision based on Slashdot comments instead? That's how you get shit done!
I'm not anti-Musk by any measure, he's doing a lot of good work IMO, but pretending he's the second coming of Christ, capable of fixing all the world's ills single handedly is a bit naive.
No-one said that. TFA said the Thai govt asked for his help and he sent a team to take a look. What do you think he should he have done instead?
He doesn't own the only drilling machine in the world,
But he owns one of most innovative with some of the leading experts in their field and also he has a history of jumping in at a moment's notice to help out if he can. So why wouldn't you at least ask?
and even if he did there's a tiny little bit more to it than that.
Yeah and the only way to find out what that 'little bit' is is to ask.
I used to watch Thunderbirds when I was a kid. Even then I knew it wasn't a documentary.
I solve problems for a living, and when you need help with a tricky problem I find the best path is to find someone who knows a lot about the subject and ask them. Even better when that person also has a lot of weight they can throw into a project to help out if required. True story.
Two words: Network effect. Everyone uses Facebook because everyone else uses Facebook.
Yeah I hear this all the time, but it doesn't really explain why it clone wouldn't work.
That's because the only way to break the network effect is to offer an alternative that isn't a clone,
Not necessarily. If people have general distaste with a product, then they'll try anything new even it's an exact clone but in a different colour.
but is actually significantly better in some compelling way. It has to offer something that will entice people to leave their friends and family. If what you offer is exactly the same as Facebook, then what's the incentive for people to move?
Because you don't have to leave straight away, it is possible to run multiple Social Media Apps together. I currently have friends and family that I reach either by Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, Slack, Txt, Phone, Email whatever and it's not a problem.
FB2 would gain all the people that like a Newsfeed type interaction but that hate FB and their approach to advertising and surveillance (there are a lot of these people).
You could also get the teen market who have largely ignored FB by marketing it as 'new and exciting' just like every other teen product which has no innovation or actual new value.
Most people don't care so much about "the ads and the spying". And even if they did... how would this alternative social network be funded if it didn't use targeted advertising?
The same way every other tech project is funded, through VC.
To support billions of users you need hundreds of thousands of servers, terabits of bandwidth and the operations and engineering staff to build and support all of it.
Like Tinder and Twitter and every other Tech App that makes no money?
Because the value is not in the product; it's in the people using it, and the people are all on Facebook. Metcalfe's Law means that it'll need something pretty damn disruptive to unseat them at this stage.
Not really. Like with say Twitter or Instagram, users already have multiple Social Media Apps. If you made an FB clone but without intrusive ads and tracking, people can use both. Over time FB2 would reach a critical mass that FB would have to rethink their strategy.
It happens all the time Apple Music or Tidal vs Spotify, Apple Maps vs Google Maps, Bing vs Google Search etc
Seems like an awfully precarious position for Zuckerberg to be in since his company effectively has one product which could easily be copied. And this is the bit I don't get get, where are the FB clones? Most people I know hate FB and would switch to another similar product if it were available, but there simply are none. Every competitor tried to do something different and failed (hello Google Plus).
All that most people are after is the simple connect with 'friends', share a newsfeed format, and messaging but without the ads and the spying. Can't someone make something like this and put us out of FB misery forever? How hard is to build something just like the original FB (without the videos, the trending news, the autoplay ads etc) but with a different logo and colour scheme?
In contrast here you have to somehow first get the boring kit 9,000 miles across the world,
A plane
when you've done that you have to figure out how you drive it through dense jungle that have at best footpaths, at worst nothing at all.
A helicopter
When you achieve that you have to figure out a) where you're drilling to, b) how the hell you're going to get the drilled material out, and c) how you prevent any kind of collapse, or prevent any breakthrough of a cavern holding water resulting in that water flooding the cavern you're trying to get to.
Standard practice for any dig
Even if you manage all that, I suspect it's not straightforward, you'll need experts in geology -
Such as someone who owns a world leading tunnel boring company would have
even if Elon could ship his stuff over, how long does it take? I'd have thought it'd take weeks to even get the kit over there, much less the support staff, and the site preparation to even begin drilling.
I don't know how long it would take either which is why you ask. Then you weigh up the options because if option A is waiting months for the monsoon to clear, option B is waiting months to teach kids how to be expert cave divers and option C is dig them out, option C may turn out the least worst option.
None of this is new, we've had mining collapses and people have figured out how to dig them out. Asking one the world's leading tunnel digging companies for advice doesn't seem like a bad choice to me.
Some people, (myself in this category), have no desire, and actually are irritated at the thought of renting something forever. Common sense says at some point, you should be done paying for it, and get to enjoy it free and clear.
This is the problem with common sense, there is no such thing. What is common to you is not common to me so assuming 'everyone thinks like me' is a bit short sighted.
As an example I don't want to own a jet airliner. When I travel I prefer to pay a small fee to use one to get where I'm going then forget about it. You might not have good quality public transport in your town but I do and this is exactly the same concept.
The current trend by companies and the other half of people, is to pay less now, but pay for ever for needed items. This is how all the software companies are now charging monthly fees to rent software.
Because renting actually offers more value in some cases. (as the airline example above demonstrates). If you want more examples do you own your own power station? Water treatment plant? Global communications Network? Some things are more cost effective to rent.
A simple calculation, on how much it cost to buy vs. rent,
For me, cars (reasonably priced $20k) are a no-brainer for purchasing.
And that's fine. Some people will get more value from owning a vehicle, but you'll find for a lot of others, especially people in larger, more dense urban environments where parking is hard and expensive, where you like to got out for a drink and get home safely, where you're old and can't drive but still want freedom of movement, or you're young and don't have a license etc. In many cases renting, especially a robot car which will be cheap, this is the no-brainer option.
I'm sure nobody thought of that, considered the possibility of creating further problems like collapses, whether it would take so long the waters would have receded by the time it was finihed or anything like that.
I''m sure someone thought about it, but maybe that someone wasn't a leading expert in tunnel boring machines? And maybe that someone doesn't have access to the same resources that someone like Musk does?
I get that Musk is polarising figure, but I've spent a lot of time in Thailand, and if my kid was stuck there I'd want as much foreign assistance as possible. Musk actually has access to useful resources specific to this problem that not a lot of other people can offer.
I am not interested in this model, because at its core is renter model. You don't own the car, as such you don't have any say in how it operates.
Like a hotel room. I assume you buy a different house every time you go on holiday?
You are also foolish to think that costs will be lower in the long term. Once alternatives (i.e. personally owner car) are rare you will pay exactly as much as market can support for personal transportation. So you will still have monthly payments that are comparable to what you pay now.
Depends on how it is regulated. A free-ish market will ensure prices are competitive. The simple fact that a single vehicle can be used over 10x more than vehicles are today means it will be cheaper through efficiency gains
It's like sharing lawn tools with the neighbor - it never works out. He keeps them too long, returns them dirty, uses up all the gas, doesn't check the oil... If you're going to get cranky over a $300 lawn mower, you're going to go ballistic over a $100K "shared" vehicle.
Why would an individual need to own one? The robot car maker should own them all, then you pay a per use.
Use his big test noring device to drill down? Is the cave underwater with a pocket? Drilling in from the top would release the air and flood the cave before they could get out.
Er what? The cave is in the side of a hill. It goes down then up. Water tends to only go down due to gravity, hence it has trickled into the lower parts of the cave sealing the entry. If you drill a hole in the top of the cave it won't force gravity to reverse.
I wish someone could explain how they actually got in there in the first place. Even before it flooded it seems like a tough place to get too. Who led them there and why? Is he facing any punishment?
It's a cave, and boys* like exploring caves.
*Most boys not brought up in under cotton wool laws of the 21st century where you can't do shit any more. Thailand is one of those places where you're still allowed to have fun.
Shocking isn't it - the thought that people who are like actual experts on a thing might know a lot more about that thing than people who are experts on other things - or nothing
Diving is one thing, digging tunnels is another thing. Sometimes a problem can be solved using more than one thing.
Rick and John are two of the best cave divers in the world, if it was easy to get them out with scuba they'd be out by now - those two are so good at this that you can trust that whatever can be done from a diving point of view is being done. Musk can help on something like this if he can get them better pumps and such, but I'd be surprised if he can, his businesses aren't exactly specialists in pumping water in remote areas as far as I'm aware. I don't think this is something he can fix with tech magic
Great post, and I didn't RTFA but I was thinking Musk would be offering a left field solution. eg he does own a tunnel making company, he may be offering to dig them out and skip the whole diving dilemma altogether?
Slashdot Mirror
If that is what you got from my post, then I failed to communicate with you.
That's positive, so let's go through this.
You made a point about how you could get anywhere on your bike as a kid.
Correct
I countered with how this won't work for everyone.
Not quite true, you countered with my nostalgia being false. My nostalgia might not be yours, but it is 100% true for me (and all the people I knew as a kid)
You countered with, no, it's because people have changed.
I didn't counter with anything other than to clarify that my nostalgia is mine and it it true for me.
I came back with a more specific example of how even in a relatively bike friendly location you may have need for a car as a teenager. I did mention false nostalgia, but that was not the main point of my post, and I'll try to be more concise in the future.
I do appreciate your response. These things tend to get emotional quickly and it's refreshing to see someone not do that.
"But it's weird to think YouTube would flag an old video for infringing on a new one, no?"
Is this high school?
I think maybe you don't know what social media is.
Which doesn't answer the question why a user can't have multiple social media accounts at one time.
And how are the VCs going to make money? They only invest if they think they can see big payback later. So where is that going to come from?
A lot of VC works on potential. ie Find customers first, work out how to monetise it later. eg Twitter and Tinder
Targeted advertising has proven to be the most effective way to fund large-scale online services. Until someone comes up with an alternative model, social media systems will all be funded by targeted advertising.
The proposition is that there is potential to steal hundreds of millions of customers from FB by developing a clone product and marketing it to target groups who are ready to jump to something else.
Whether you introduce ads a few years down the track, a subscription model, or something else to monetise it doesn't matter in the first few years. The point is that there exists a lot of space in the market that no-one seems to be interested in grabbing
Exactly my point.
No your point was that my nostalgia is fake based on someone else's experience that isn't mine. And you got it wrong.
your complete ignorance of the fact you think you can just...
I think that when you want help you ask the experts and get the options, which is what happened.
But you knew all along, they should've just called you instead. Why ask actual experts when you can ask some guy on the internet instead...
Well if it's all a matter of the right level of skill then why doesn't someone work on automating the process?
Because people who sail actually enjoy the process of sailing.
That's false nostalgia. I'm sure you can find examples of that if you are looking for it,
The example I used was mine. It was real, it was my actual childhood. I even said so in my comment
Er, I think you need to learn quite a bit more about what you're talking about before trying to contribute further. I'm not sure you have the slightest idea what Musk's boring machine is like. It's 400ft long, 26ft in diameter, and weighs 1200 tons.
And it's one single piece right?
Yes, where you have 1st world infrastructure and sufficient space and supporting equipment to get going. None of which is the case here, and so "standard" most definitely does not apply. Even if you can find a sufficiently level place to do this, you still have to spend weeks clearing away the rainforest and flattening the ground out. You then have to have the other digging equipment to even get the starter tunnel built, which in itself takes weeks.
Standard practice at most mine sites. I did some work on one once years ago, you might be surprised what these guys can do.
Weeks is not a problem when the alternative solution is months.
You're confusing digging a tunnel in a hot, dry, section of a 1st world country in bedrock, with trying to dig through a mountain in a 3rd world area where there's zero infrastructure.
Back to the mining thing, Elon may not be a miner, but you can bet his team have that background. Or do you think he assembled his team from from the UCLA class of 2016 Digging Holes But Only Under 1st World Cities?
You still have the question of how you prevent collapse or further flooding, no one has yet been able to explain how Musk's boring machine magically prevents that.
Details for the experts to work out. TFA only says that Musk has sent over an Engineering team to check it out. Maybe instead of sending experts on site they should've just made a decision based on Slashdot comments instead? That's how you get shit done!
I'm not anti-Musk by any measure, he's doing a lot of good work IMO, but pretending he's the second coming of Christ, capable of fixing all the world's ills single handedly is a bit naive.
No-one said that. TFA said the Thai govt asked for his help and he sent a team to take a look. What do you think he should he have done instead?
He doesn't own the only drilling machine in the world,
But he owns one of most innovative with some of the leading experts in their field and also he has a history of jumping in at a moment's notice to help out if he can. So why wouldn't you at least ask?
and even if he did there's a tiny little bit more to it than that.
Yeah and the only way to find out what that 'little bit' is is to ask.
I used to watch Thunderbirds when I was a kid. Even then I knew it wasn't a documentary.
I solve problems for a living, and when you need help with a tricky problem I find the best path is to find someone who knows a lot about the subject and ask them. Even better when that person also has a lot of weight they can throw into a project to help out if required. True story.
Two words: Network effect. Everyone uses Facebook because everyone else uses Facebook.
Yeah I hear this all the time, but it doesn't really explain why it clone wouldn't work.
That's because the only way to break the network effect is to offer an alternative that isn't a clone,
Not necessarily. If people have general distaste with a product, then they'll try anything new even it's an exact clone but in a different colour.
but is actually significantly better in some compelling way. It has to offer something that will entice people to leave their friends and family. If what you offer is exactly the same as Facebook, then what's the incentive for people to move?
Because you don't have to leave straight away, it is possible to run multiple Social Media Apps together. I currently have friends and family that I reach either by Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, Slack, Txt, Phone, Email whatever and it's not a problem.
FB2 would gain all the people that like a Newsfeed type interaction but that hate FB and their approach to advertising and surveillance (there are a lot of these people).
You could also get the teen market who have largely ignored FB by marketing it as 'new and exciting' just like every other teen product which has no innovation or actual new value.
Most people don't care so much about "the ads and the spying". And even if they did... how would this alternative social network be funded if it didn't use targeted advertising?
The same way every other tech project is funded, through VC.
To support billions of users you need hundreds of thousands of servers, terabits of bandwidth and the operations and engineering staff to build and support all of it.
Like Tinder and Twitter and every other Tech App that makes no money?
Because the value is not in the product; it's in the people using it, and the people are all on Facebook. Metcalfe's Law means that it'll need something pretty damn disruptive to unseat them at this stage.
Not really. Like with say Twitter or Instagram, users already have multiple Social Media Apps. If you made an FB clone but without intrusive ads and tracking, people can use both. Over time FB2 would reach a critical mass that FB would have to rethink their strategy. It happens all the time Apple Music or Tidal vs Spotify, Apple Maps vs Google Maps, Bing vs Google Search etc
Seems like an awfully precarious position for Zuckerberg to be in since his company effectively has one product which could easily be copied. And this is the bit I don't get get, where are the FB clones? Most people I know hate FB and would switch to another similar product if it were available, but there simply are none. Every competitor tried to do something different and failed (hello Google Plus) .
All that most people are after is the simple connect with 'friends', share a newsfeed format, and messaging but without the ads and the spying. Can't someone make something like this and put us out of FB misery forever? How hard is to build something just like the original FB (without the videos, the trending news, the autoplay ads etc) but with a different logo and colour scheme?
In contrast here you have to somehow first get the boring kit 9,000 miles across the world,
A plane
when you've done that you have to figure out how you drive it through dense jungle that have at best footpaths, at worst nothing at all.
A helicopter
When you achieve that you have to figure out a) where you're drilling to, b) how the hell you're going to get the drilled material out, and c) how you prevent any kind of collapse, or prevent any breakthrough of a cavern holding water resulting in that water flooding the cavern you're trying to get to.
Standard practice for any dig
Even if you manage all that, I suspect it's not straightforward, you'll need experts in geology -
Such as someone who owns a world leading tunnel boring company would have
even if Elon could ship his stuff over, how long does it take? I'd have thought it'd take weeks to even get the kit over there, much less the support staff, and the site preparation to even begin drilling.
I don't know how long it would take either which is why you ask. Then you weigh up the options because if option A is waiting months for the monsoon to clear, option B is waiting months to teach kids how to be expert cave divers and option C is dig them out, option C may turn out the least worst option.
None of this is new, we've had mining collapses and people have figured out how to dig them out. Asking one the world's leading tunnel digging companies for advice doesn't seem like a bad choice to me.
Some people, (myself in this category), have no desire, and actually are irritated at the thought of renting something forever. Common sense says at some point, you should be done paying for it, and get to enjoy it free and clear.
This is the problem with common sense, there is no such thing. What is common to you is not common to me so assuming 'everyone thinks like me' is a bit short sighted.
As an example I don't want to own a jet airliner. When I travel I prefer to pay a small fee to use one to get where I'm going then forget about it. You might not have good quality public transport in your town but I do and this is exactly the same concept.
The current trend by companies and the other half of people, is to pay less now, but pay for ever for needed items. This is how all the software companies are now charging monthly fees to rent software.
Because renting actually offers more value in some cases. (as the airline example above demonstrates). If you want more examples do you own your own power station? Water treatment plant? Global communications Network? Some things are more cost effective to rent.
A simple calculation, on how much it cost to buy vs. rent, For me, cars (reasonably priced $20k) are a no-brainer for purchasing.
And that's fine. Some people will get more value from owning a vehicle, but you'll find for a lot of others, especially people in larger, more dense urban environments where parking is hard and expensive, where you like to got out for a drink and get home safely, where you're old and can't drive but still want freedom of movement, or you're young and don't have a license etc. In many cases renting, especially a robot car which will be cheap, this is the no-brainer option.
I'm sure nobody thought of that, considered the possibility of creating further problems like collapses, whether it would take so long the waters would have receded by the time it was finihed or anything like that.
I''m sure someone thought about it, but maybe that someone wasn't a leading expert in tunnel boring machines? And maybe that someone doesn't have access to the same resources that someone like Musk does?
I get that Musk is polarising figure, but I've spent a lot of time in Thailand, and if my kid was stuck there I'd want as much foreign assistance as possible. Musk actually has access to useful resources specific to this problem that not a lot of other people can offer.
Lucky you. Not everyone lives in the worlds most bikeable town with perfect year-round weather and safety.
It was none of that, people were just less precious a few decades ago than they are now.
I am not interested in this model, because at its core is renter model. You don't own the car, as such you don't have any say in how it operates.
Like a hotel room. I assume you buy a different house every time you go on holiday?
You are also foolish to think that costs will be lower in the long term. Once alternatives (i.e. personally owner car) are rare you will pay exactly as much as market can support for personal transportation. So you will still have monthly payments that are comparable to what you pay now.
Depends on how it is regulated. A free-ish market will ensure prices are competitive. The simple fact that a single vehicle can be used over 10x more than vehicles are today means it will be cheaper through efficiency gains
It's like sharing lawn tools with the neighbor - it never works out. He keeps them too long, returns them dirty, uses up all the gas, doesn't check the oil... If you're going to get cranky over a $300 lawn mower, you're going to go ballistic over a $100K "shared" vehicle.
Why would an individual need to own one? The robot car maker should own them all, then you pay a per use.
Most sensible families have a $30k car paid off in 5 years and drive it another 5.
Citation?
Which means New York? That's about the only US city that qualifies.
Americans are not confined to living in America.
BUT, I have kids. They need to be ferried to sports, before-school activities, certain friends' houses, etc.
I used to be a kid and I had a bike. There was nowhere I couldn't get on my bike...
Use his big test noring device to drill down? Is the cave underwater with a pocket? Drilling in from the top would release the air and flood the cave before they could get out.
Er what? The cave is in the side of a hill. It goes down then up. Water tends to only go down due to gravity, hence it has trickled into the lower parts of the cave sealing the entry. If you drill a hole in the top of the cave it won't force gravity to reverse.
I wish someone could explain how they actually got in there in the first place. Even before it flooded it seems like a tough place to get too. Who led them there and why? Is he facing any punishment?
It's a cave, and boys* like exploring caves.
*Most boys not brought up in under cotton wool laws of the 21st century where you can't do shit any more. Thailand is one of those places where you're still allowed to have fun.
Shocking isn't it - the thought that people who are like actual experts on a thing might know a lot more about that thing than people who are experts on other things - or nothing
Diving is one thing, digging tunnels is another thing. Sometimes a problem can be solved using more than one thing.
Rick and John are two of the best cave divers in the world, if it was easy to get them out with scuba they'd be out by now - those two are so good at this that you can trust that whatever can be done from a diving point of view is being done. Musk can help on something like this if he can get them better pumps and such, but I'd be surprised if he can, his businesses aren't exactly specialists in pumping water in remote areas as far as I'm aware. I don't think this is something he can fix with tech magic
Great post, and I didn't RTFA but I was thinking Musk would be offering a left field solution. eg he does own a tunnel making company, he may be offering to dig them out and skip the whole diving dilemma altogether?