Who says we're going to fight jihadis for the rest of history?
Which is the whole point.
Coming up with fixed strategies and then discovering they don't work was exactly what von Moltke was criticising. It didn't work in WW1, It definitely didn't work in Vietnam - despite overwhelming technology, firepower, money, bombs and munitions. The russians failed in Afghanistan for similar reasons. The "plan" in Iraq seemed to be to destroy everything (that part succeeded) then to work out what to do with the rubble (that part failed hopelessly).
The only thing the army - and it always the army - can say for sure is that the next adversary will be different from the last. And almost certainly different from what they trained for.
Overmatch's team hopes this data will inform the Army's decisions about which technologies to purchase and how to develop tactics using them
As German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke noted “No battle plan, survives contact with the enemy.” [ Wiki ]
And this sort of "strategy" seems to make the basic error: that the enemy is playing by the same rules, or has had the same training that these soldiers - on either side - are employing.
I fear this will go badly and catastrophically wrong. Probably the first time it's tried.
The public wonders why we could get stuff done so effectively in the past.
The reason stuff (government stuff) costs what it does is because that is the amount of money available to spend on it.
The other factor is the extended time periods for development. The longer you spend designing something, the more scope-creep there is. The more opportunity for plans to get changed in the light of technological advancement or the obsolescence of what you were planning to use.
So with the F35 - the article says it will have a service life of 60 years. I kinda doubt that. I reckon that long before 2077 pretty much every aircraft - starting with military jets - will be pilotless. They will be smaller, cheaper, faster, more agile and will whip this thing's arse in any battle scenario. I doubt these will be used operationally for even half their planned service time.
Nearly half a trillion to build and buy. Over a trillion more to keep them flying.
At what point would it be cheaper to start being nice to all the other nations, so you don't need to spend more on defence than every other country combined?
First of all, none of the characters are likeable. I wouldn't care if any or all of them got eaten by their monster-cum-computer.
Second, the show lacks the "lightness" and humanity of previous incarnations. (Although Voyager comes close, in terms of grinding tedium and unnecessary earnestness).
Finally, the Klingons. Really? The show simply doesn't need all that pseudo-religious claptrap. In TOS and others, they were a bit-part, just another baddie. I have no desire to bond with them and don't need any of their back story, culture or infighting. Just shoot the suckers!
This might be "peace, the old fashioned way" so far as the bomber crews are concerned. But they are wrong - the world has changed since the face-off with the USSR.
The "threat" posed by NK is completely different, and an administration's failure to recognise that means they are helping NK in its goals, not reducing the possibility of an attack. Kim Jong Un does not seem to be fearful of american aggression - he seems to be actively provoking it. A small gesture on his part produces a massive reaction from the USA. What an ego trip that is!
And the thought of having thousands of megatons "pointed" at his tiny, little, country: 25 million people, means nothing. A nuclear war wouldn't do much to alter their standard of living - at least, not that of the survivors. So the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction is a failure. If it was ever a plausible concept, that is because it was intended to be used against an adversary who "loved their children too". But KJU is not in that category.
But really, this response has nothing to do with trying the dissuade North Korea from progressing down the nuclear route. This is just a "fear response". Just like all those scared americans who are armed to the teeth. Their guns and other weapons are merely safety-blankets: bought and hoarded in an attempt to make them feel safe. And resurrecting the bomber readiness status is just another act of domestic reassurance. Just like the gun-nuts who spend all their time cleaning and oiling their weapons to keep their emotions of fear and panic under control.
The article answers its own question. Why do we still use passwords? and then tells us, of the alternatives,
the obstacles to using them are often prohibitive
Which makes the article rather pointless.
However it misses out a vital aspect. No matter what technology replaces passwords, it will get hacked, faked, or discovered. One day. And that means that whatever security measure is in place, it must be changeable by the user, just like passwords are.
So that rules out all the biometric options, if they were only to be used on their own. Consequently, whatever replacement is to succeed must be something the user has (and could change) or knows (and can change).
places they couldn't normally visit, like Antarctica or even Mars. These virtual field trips are safer and easier to organize than real outings, and they might soon be cheaper, too
The guy claims that the reason (OK, one reason) for the decline in field trips is budgetary. Then the article tells us that VR trips might be cheaper?
Well if they only "might" be cheaper (though I would expect them to be a dam' sight cheaper than a trip to Mars - or Antarctica) then that doesn't sound like they are addressing the issue claimed.
However, the real reason field trips have declined is simply because of all the litigious parents and liabilities that schools incur, need to insure against and have to account for. Trips are simply not worth the hassle of organising and dealing with the fallout.
Though I expect there are already parents gearing up to sue the arse of schools and teachers for the "stress" of making their little darlings wear a VR helmet - or the cost of their "destroyed" hair-do.
the head of U.S. Air Force Space Command said he's "completely committed" to launching future missions with recycled rockets like those championed by SpaceX's Elon Musk
Wiki doesn't give his age, but he was a 2nd Lt. in 1984, so his retirement must be coming up. The only question is whether SpaceX will give him a seat on the board or retain him as a consultant for his "loyalty"?
perhaps the timeline from the underground basin filling to eruption is more on the scale of decades.
How long until the underground basin fills up?
If that is still thousands of years, who really cares?
But if it is due to be a year or two, I think all those "other continents" (where all life won't be destroyed) will start to re-think their immigration quotas.
More pixels render hair, fur and skin with greater detail
Yes, but who want to be able to count how many nose hairs a newsreader or actor has?
It seems to me that picture quality is a very poor substitute for programme quality. But since it is the only substitute we have and it doesn't look like programme quality is going anywhere, any time soon, I suppose that counting nasal hair is what will pass for entertainment in the future.
When an article makes a claim, quotes a "fact", references a report or another piece of work it is helpful to know where that information came from.
The days are long gone where a statistic in a news article can be taken on faith. The quality of the link is far more important than the actual content that is linked to.
For example The Guardian newspaper frequently bases stories (whether you consider a "story" to mean a journalistic article: news or opinion, or a work of fiction, I will leave up to you) on "reports" that some organisation or other has published. But such is their penchant for bias, selective truths and cherry-picking "facts" that they rarely report the full picture. Since their articles do not attribute the source of those "reports", it is difficult to know whether the source is credible. The same newspaper also tends to refer to other articles it has published as "proof" that a new article is valid. In those cases, their links tell us that they are just involved in self-promotion.
Links also reward the original sources of information. Being linked-to from a reputable source will improve the trust of the original page. It might even drive a little advertising revenue their way, too.
honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics,
But unless those samples were from evenly distributed sources, across the world, all they tell us is that the places which returned the largest numbers of samples had the most pesticides.
That does not lead to the conclusion that three-quarters of all the honey (from everywhere) is the same as that sampled.
For example, does the Clips take random photos at squiffy angles, upload them to a website where no-one will look at them and then delete them.
Can it also be used in concert halls, where all it records is a whited-out stage a few pixels wide against a totally dark background and a muffled sound because the user had their hand over the microphone.
if so, can I buy one, send it on holiday instead of going myself and then bore the bollocks off all and sundry by showing the photos to disinterested co-workers and claiming I had a wonderful time.
But the fact that the scientific Nobels have drawn controversy since their very inception hints at deep-rooted problems
Well, why don't you start a company, make a few $$$$ Billion and then you can establish science-based prizes according to your wishes?
Seriously. They seem to me to be a great way of acknowledging some aspects of scientific endeavour. They probably aren't perfect, but what is?
To gripe on about them sounds like an easy, lazy, route. Either that or sour grapes from the people who missed out. Especially when the alternative is nothing compared to the publicity and financial rewards the Nobels offer.
I suspect that whatever changes were proposed, there would be someone, somewhere, who would find reasons to complain about that, too. But since no scientists (or nominees in other fields) actually starts out with the intention to win a Nobel, it's just a nice little extra if or when the phone call comes.
Try to be a little more easy-going and less discontented with the world.
Investment advice is already done by computers, as is some type of legal advice - computerised appeals against parking tickets
Other forms will follow: medical advice, counselling (though it doesn't even take a smartphone to say "how does that make you feel")
Journalism. That is already dead in most publications. It just hasn't stopped moving yet.
TV repair and other home appliances. Already on their last elbows, soon to be totally extinct.
Train driver. Just as soon as they can unionise robots and teach them how to go on strike
TV / Film personalities. We have already seen a few avatars (Max Headroom, anyone?) But a digital "personality" is far easier to work with
National leaders : see TV personalities
Postal deliveries. Does this need explaining?
Road sweepers. The first public / road-travelling robots.
Airport baggage handlers.
Librarians. No more libraries
It takes 15 hours to fly from New York to Shanghai. Your argument is that it will take 15 hours to put on a flight suit?
The time it takes for the flight is irrelevant when taken out of context.
What is important for business users is the reduction in "productive" time due to travel. If a worker could be as productive on a flight as they were in their office, then they could travel by blimp and it wouldn't matter. And would the lost productive time ever make up for the extra cost of the journey taking minutes instead of hours, if there wasn't any internet or comms in general, available on the rocket?
Plus, if there is only 1 rocket a day, then you have the inconvenience of having to schedule your time around that. Whereas many (aircraft) flights a day to the same destination adds flexibility, which has its own value.
But whatever the outcome is, it all pales to nothing if the time in the air (or space) is only a small proportion of the overall journey. I used to live about 20 miles from London's Heathrow airport - the biggest passenger hub in the UK and one of the largest int he world. However it still took 22 hours from closing my front door to sitting down on the plane. Since 9/11 that is now 3 hours, sometimes longer. Add to that passport control at the destination, baggage reclaim, customs and security clearance then travel to the centre to your destination city and you can't get anywhere international in less than 6 hours.
Even a Concorde turned out to be unaffordable over the long term, and that was quite a bit simpler than this scheme.
Concorde never had the success to parallel its technological progress due to environmental and noise limitations.
I cannot see a rocket being allowed to take off (or land) anywhere close to a city, nor to fly near one, either. Since they aren't known for their maneuverability, once you set one off in a given direction, it's difficult to perform a 90 turn to comply with noise ordinances.
Most data that companies have is wrong. It is out of date, frequently incorrect (especially when people make a point of giving false information: surely 99% of the time) and the vast majority of it is duplicated.
No website that does not require me to give a credit card to buy stuff has anything usable. They don't even have my real name, age, address or nationality. The few that do, will know if I bought an Arduino or a pair of trousers or a toaster or The Undercover Economist or some lightbulbs or polyurethane adhesive. But none of that is any sort of reliable indication of what I would buy in the future. Hell, even I don't know what I will buy in the future.
Even if the credit card companies could consolidate all the activity across all my cards, websites and bank accounts, it would just add up to someone who buys groceries, pays bills, buys clothes, who travels, buys gifts, home improvement goods, has hobbies and interests. They could discern the size and age of my family, possibly make a stab at my job and income, make of car and holiday destination.
But so what? They tailor a few advertisments to me - that is better than pushing random ads in my direction.Except I use an ad-blocker so I have no idea what is being directed at me. Occasionally I notice that something appears on a website that is associated with something I recently bought - but since I have already bought it, it has no relevance. They have missed the opportunity.
If companies place a monetary value on this sort of data, they really are paying for nothing. They might as well offer to buy the leaves that fall off trees for all the relevance it has. But I suppose that in an industry where they can't buy what is valuable, they place value on what they can buy. But they are kidding themselves.
The most "user friendly" design is one that does the right thing every time.
It is not one that gives you half a dozen options (all equally badly described:: telling the user what they do, not what their effect will be) for half a dozen more operators. It will have intelligent defaults - possibly ones that vary, depending on circumstances. It will provide a clear workflow: top - bottom, left-right, corner to corner -- whatever, it will be CLEAR what to do first, next and to finish.
Having said that, it will still be possible for users to make their own decisions. A good design will not railroad a user into one single path, one single process or one single methodology. If it did, there would be no point providing a user interface.
I look forward to the day - at the rate of progress, in the dim and distant future, when user interfaces work like this. Without any "I have just crashed and wiped out all your work. OK" style messages,
This is the biggest problem. While air travel is fast, once you get into the air it is very slow in terms of average speed, from leaving your house to arriving at your final destination.
Even if a hyperloop could reduce the "airborne" time to zero, the difference in total travel time: driving to the station/airport, parking, transfer, security, boarding, ** travel **, disembarking, travel from the distant station to where you actually want to go - compared to air travel, will be quite small.
A submarine that is hundreds of miles long. One that is subject to seismic movement in up to three directions.
But there is more to it than that. How about a piece of debris falling off the train and either smashing along the side between it and the tunnel wall. Or hitting the next train that uses the tunnel?
The big difference between perceived danger in air travel and car travel is one of control. Cars can at least try to avoid accidents. Planes, less so. With a hyperloop that Musk himself says can take 20 miles to get up to speed, won't be able to avoid anything and with its considerable mass, won't be able to stop very fast either.
With no air to dissipate the heat from the braking system, how that works and getting it to work quickly will be a major challenge.
I have this bad feeling that the very first time one of these trains has a seriously fatal (multiple victims, mechanical failure) accident, that will be the end of the whole project.
Slashdot Mirror
Who says we're going to fight jihadis for the rest of history?
Which is the whole point.
Coming up with fixed strategies and then discovering they don't work was exactly what von Moltke was criticising. It didn't work in WW1, It definitely didn't work in Vietnam - despite overwhelming technology, firepower, money, bombs and munitions. The russians failed in Afghanistan for similar reasons. The "plan" in Iraq seemed to be to destroy everything (that part succeeded) then to work out what to do with the rubble (that part failed hopelessly).
The only thing the army - and it always the army - can say for sure is that the next adversary will be different from the last. And almost certainly different from what they trained for.
Overmatch's team hopes this data will inform the Army's decisions about which technologies to purchase and how to develop tactics using them
As German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke noted “No battle plan, survives contact with the enemy.” [ Wiki ]
And this sort of "strategy" seems to make the basic error: that the enemy is playing by the same rules, or has had the same training that these soldiers - on either side - are employing.
I fear this will go badly and catastrophically wrong. Probably the first time it's tried.
The public wonders why we could get stuff done so effectively in the past.
The reason stuff (government stuff) costs what it does is because that is the amount of money available to spend on it.
The other factor is the extended time periods for development. The longer you spend designing something, the more scope-creep there is. The more opportunity for plans to get changed in the light of technological advancement or the obsolescence of what you were planning to use.
So with the F35 - the article says it will have a service life of 60 years. I kinda doubt that. I reckon that long before 2077 pretty much every aircraft - starting with military jets - will be pilotless. They will be smaller, cheaper, faster, more agile and will whip this thing's arse in any battle scenario. I doubt these will be used operationally for even half their planned service time.
At what point would it be cheaper to start being nice to all the other nations, so you don't need to spend more on defence than every other country combined?
Just wait for the course correction
I didn't really like the new show. Not sure why
Here's my reasons - see if any strike a chord.
First of all, none of the characters are likeable. I wouldn't care if any or all of them got eaten by their monster-cum-computer.
Second, the show lacks the "lightness" and humanity of previous incarnations. (Although Voyager comes close, in terms of grinding tedium and unnecessary earnestness).
Finally, the Klingons. Really? The show simply doesn't need all that pseudo-religious claptrap. In TOS and others, they were a bit-part, just another baddie. I have no desire to bond with them and don't need any of their back story, culture or infighting. Just shoot the suckers!
The "threat" posed by NK is completely different, and an administration's failure to recognise that means they are helping NK in its goals, not reducing the possibility of an attack. Kim Jong Un does not seem to be fearful of american aggression - he seems to be actively provoking it. A small gesture on his part produces a massive reaction from the USA. What an ego trip that is!
And the thought of having thousands of megatons "pointed" at his tiny, little, country: 25 million people, means nothing. A nuclear war wouldn't do much to alter their standard of living - at least, not that of the survivors. So the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction is a failure. If it was ever a plausible concept, that is because it was intended to be used against an adversary who "loved their children too". But KJU is not in that category.
But really, this response has nothing to do with trying the dissuade North Korea from progressing down the nuclear route. This is just a "fear response". Just like all those scared americans who are armed to the teeth. Their guns and other weapons are merely safety-blankets: bought and hoarded in an attempt to make them feel safe. And resurrecting the bomber readiness status is just another act of domestic reassurance. Just like the gun-nuts who spend all their time cleaning and oiling their weapons to keep their emotions of fear and panic under control.
the obstacles to using them are often prohibitive
Which makes the article rather pointless.
However it misses out a vital aspect. No matter what technology replaces passwords, it will get hacked, faked, or discovered. One day. And that means that whatever security measure is in place, it must be changeable by the user, just like passwords are.
So that rules out all the biometric options, if they were only to be used on their own. Consequently, whatever replacement is to succeed must be something the user has (and could change) or knows (and can change).
But what?
places they couldn't normally visit, like Antarctica or even Mars. These virtual field trips are safer and easier to organize than real outings, and they might soon be cheaper, too
The guy claims that the reason (OK, one reason) for the decline in field trips is budgetary. Then the article tells us that VR trips might be cheaper?
Well if they only "might" be cheaper (though I would expect them to be a dam' sight cheaper than a trip to Mars - or Antarctica) then that doesn't sound like they are addressing the issue claimed.
However, the real reason field trips have declined is simply because of all the litigious parents and liabilities that schools incur, need to insure against and have to account for. Trips are simply not worth the hassle of organising and dealing with the fallout.
Though I expect there are already parents gearing up to sue the arse of schools and teachers for the "stress" of making their little darlings wear a VR helmet - or the cost of their "destroyed" hair-do.
the head of U.S. Air Force Space Command said he's "completely committed" to launching future missions with recycled rockets like those championed by SpaceX's Elon Musk
Wiki doesn't give his age, but he was a 2nd Lt. in 1984, so his retirement must be coming up. The only question is whether SpaceX will give him a seat on the board or retain him as a consultant for his "loyalty"?
perhaps the timeline from the underground basin filling to eruption is more on the scale of decades.
How long until the underground basin fills up?
If that is still thousands of years, who really cares?
But if it is due to be a year or two, I think all those "other continents" (where all life won't be destroyed) will start to re-think their immigration quotas.
More pixels render hair, fur and skin with greater detail
Yes, but who want to be able to count how many nose hairs a newsreader or actor has?
It seems to me that picture quality is a very poor substitute for programme quality. But since it is the only substitute we have and it doesn't look like programme quality is going anywhere, any time soon, I suppose that counting nasal hair is what will pass for entertainment in the future.
The days are long gone where a statistic in a news article can be taken on faith. The quality of the link is far more important than the actual content that is linked to.
For example The Guardian newspaper frequently bases stories (whether you consider a "story" to mean a journalistic article: news or opinion, or a work of fiction, I will leave up to you) on "reports" that some organisation or other has published. But such is their penchant for bias, selective truths and cherry-picking "facts" that they rarely report the full picture. Since their articles do not attribute the source of those "reports", it is difficult to know whether the source is credible. The same newspaper also tends to refer to other articles it has published as "proof" that a new article is valid. In those cases, their links tell us that they are just involved in self-promotion.
Links also reward the original sources of information. Being linked-to from a reputable source will improve the trust of the original page. It might even drive a little advertising revenue their way, too.
honey samples collected as a citizen science project between 2012 and 2016. They found that 75 percent of honey contained at least one of the five tested neonics,
But unless those samples were from evenly distributed sources, across the world, all they tell us is that the places which returned the largest numbers of samples had the most pesticides.
That does not lead to the conclusion that three-quarters of all the honey (from everywhere) is the same as that sampled.
Can it also be used in concert halls, where all it records is a whited-out stage a few pixels wide against a totally dark background and a muffled sound because the user had their hand over the microphone.
if so, can I buy one, send it on holiday instead of going myself and then bore the bollocks off all and sundry by showing the photos to disinterested co-workers and claiming I had a wonderful time.
But the fact that the scientific Nobels have drawn controversy since their very inception hints at deep-rooted problems
Well, why don't you start a company, make a few $$$$ Billion and then you can establish science-based prizes according to your wishes?
Seriously. They seem to me to be a great way of acknowledging some aspects of scientific endeavour. They probably aren't perfect, but what is?
To gripe on about them sounds like an easy, lazy, route. Either that or sour grapes from the people who missed out. Especially when the alternative is nothing compared to the publicity and financial rewards the Nobels offer.
I suspect that whatever changes were proposed, there would be someone, somewhere, who would find reasons to complain about that, too. But since no scientists (or nominees in other fields) actually starts out with the intention to win a Nobel, it's just a nice little extra if or when the phone call comes.
Try to be a little more easy-going and less discontented with the world.
Investment advice is already done by computers, as is some type of legal advice - computerised appeals against parking tickets
Other forms will follow: medical advice, counselling (though it doesn't even take a smartphone to say "how does that make you feel")
Journalism. That is already dead in most publications. It just hasn't stopped moving yet.
TV repair and other home appliances. Already on their last elbows, soon to be totally extinct.
Train driver. Just as soon as they can unionise robots and teach them how to go on strike
TV / Film personalities. We have already seen a few avatars (Max Headroom, anyone?) But a digital "personality" is far easier to work with
National leaders : see TV personalities
Postal deliveries. Does this need explaining?
Road sweepers. The first public / road-travelling robots.
Airport baggage handlers.
Librarians. No more libraries
It takes 15 hours to fly from New York to Shanghai. Your argument is that it will take 15 hours to put on a flight suit?
The time it takes for the flight is irrelevant when taken out of context.
What is important for business users is the reduction in "productive" time due to travel. If a worker could be as productive on a flight as they were in their office, then they could travel by blimp and it wouldn't matter. And would the lost productive time ever make up for the extra cost of the journey taking minutes instead of hours, if there wasn't any internet or comms in general, available on the rocket?
Plus, if there is only 1 rocket a day, then you have the inconvenience of having to schedule your time around that. Whereas many (aircraft) flights a day to the same destination adds flexibility, which has its own value.
But whatever the outcome is, it all pales to nothing if the time in the air (or space) is only a small proportion of the overall journey. I used to live about 20 miles from London's Heathrow airport - the biggest passenger hub in the UK and one of the largest int he world. However it still took 22 hours from closing my front door to sitting down on the plane. Since 9/11 that is now 3 hours, sometimes longer. Add to that passport control at the destination, baggage reclaim, customs and security clearance then travel to the centre to your destination city and you can't get anywhere international in less than 6 hours.
Even a Concorde turned out to be unaffordable over the long term, and that was quite a bit simpler than this scheme.
Concorde never had the success to parallel its technological progress due to environmental and noise limitations.
I cannot see a rocket being allowed to take off (or land) anywhere close to a city, nor to fly near one, either. Since they aren't known for their maneuverability, once you set one off in a given direction, it's difficult to perform a 90 turn to comply with noise ordinances.
Because without that rather basic attribute, it's merely a domed-off part of Earth.
No website that does not require me to give a credit card to buy stuff has anything usable. They don't even have my real name, age, address or nationality. The few that do, will know if I bought an Arduino or a pair of trousers or a toaster or The Undercover Economist or some lightbulbs or polyurethane adhesive. But none of that is any sort of reliable indication of what I would buy in the future. Hell, even I don't know what I will buy in the future.
Even if the credit card companies could consolidate all the activity across all my cards, websites and bank accounts, it would just add up to someone who buys groceries, pays bills, buys clothes, who travels, buys gifts, home improvement goods, has hobbies and interests. They could discern the size and age of my family, possibly make a stab at my job and income, make of car and holiday destination.
But so what? They tailor a few advertisments to me - that is better than pushing random ads in my direction.Except I use an ad-blocker so I have no idea what is being directed at me. Occasionally I notice that something appears on a website that is associated with something I recently bought - but since I have already bought it, it has no relevance. They have missed the opportunity.
If companies place a monetary value on this sort of data, they really are paying for nothing. They might as well offer to buy the leaves that fall off trees for all the relevance it has. But I suppose that in an industry where they can't buy what is valuable, they place value on what they can buy. But they are kidding themselves.
This must count as the most inept warning - or is it merely a tragically poor attempt to scare a government into increasing their funding - for years.
It is not one that gives you half a dozen options (all equally badly described:: telling the user what they do, not what their effect will be) for half a dozen more operators. It will have intelligent defaults - possibly ones that vary, depending on circumstances. It will provide a clear workflow: top - bottom, left-right, corner to corner -- whatever, it will be CLEAR what to do first, next and to finish.
Having said that, it will still be possible for users to make their own decisions. A good design will not railroad a user into one single path, one single process or one single methodology. If it did, there would be no point providing a user interface.
I look forward to the day - at the rate of progress, in the dim and distant future, when user interfaces work like this. Without any "I have just crashed and wiped out all your work. OK" style messages,
Even if a hyperloop could reduce the "airborne" time to zero, the difference in total travel time: driving to the station/airport, parking, transfer, security, boarding, ** travel **, disembarking, travel from the distant station to where you actually want to go - compared to air travel, will be quite small.
That's like a submarine diving to 10 metres
A submarine that is hundreds of miles long. One that is subject to seismic movement in up to three directions.
But there is more to it than that. How about a piece of debris falling off the train and either smashing along the side between it and the tunnel wall. Or hitting the next train that uses the tunnel?
The big difference between perceived danger in air travel and car travel is one of control. Cars can at least try to avoid accidents. Planes, less so. With a hyperloop that Musk himself says can take 20 miles to get up to speed, won't be able to avoid anything and with its considerable mass, won't be able to stop very fast either.
With no air to dissipate the heat from the braking system, how that works and getting it to work quickly will be a major challenge.
I have this bad feeling that the very first time one of these trains has a seriously fatal (multiple victims, mechanical failure) accident, that will be the end of the whole project.