Elon Musk

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

i do follow tim but i guess whatever he said didn't stick

cool monorail bro

lol

i have a plan for a train that goes from boston to atlanta in 10mins, its called lasertrain and ill give you some cool drawings of it in a couple weeks, its ridiculous no one is building it btw it only costs $10

im not gonna build it tho cause im kinda busy

even i can afford that

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

isn't his point that hyperloop would be fraction of the cost and twice as fast?

the douchey thing is that he made a big ol deal abt something thats not at all real

Which is how 70% of architecture and urban planning works.

sure 70% that sounds totally realistic too

I meant 94% sorry.

To me, it really sounds like a kickstarter project... but from a billionaire.

i mean who knows maybe its revolutionary technology but its so preliminary its p comical to call a press conference abt it

maybe this is the best way to convince someone else to give it a shot idk

LOL "elon musk"

This should keep us occupied for a while: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

I wasn't scathing about Musk (I am about futurism in general) - if anything, he has a good track record on quixotic tech quests. I hope he's successful with this. I also hope there's a state left that can use it.

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

Knowing how CA politics works (and the CA rail projects are amazingly political), how would you expect a non-arrogant to even get traction with this?

I have no doubt that Musk will solve the Hyperloop technical issues. I very much have doubts about him navigating Sacramento.

I was describing this to my wife today and kept calling it Supertube.

Bad connotations...

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/supertrain-1_7696.jpg

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

Musk says the Hyperloop is best for distances of 900 miles. Beyond 900 miles, he thinks you're better off in a supersonic jet.

Lol

I never use my supersonic jet anymore as parking is always a total bitch

I have to say I rather like Elon Musk. He's made a massive pile of money and rather than sitting on it or managing it in mundane ways; he's making risky bets on thinks he's passionate about: Cars, Rockets, vacuum tubes.

Hyperloop seems a bit ridiculous to me, vacuum tube powered trains and trains in evacuated tubes are an old chestnut, almost as old as railways themselves. However, he's built a commercially viable private space programme and a car company* in the last ten years so anything is possible.

*Tesla isn't really a car company it's a power train company and if it is still making cars in 5 years I'll be surprised.

ya i'm kinda ll for crackpot genius billionaires actually doing interesting stuff, up until they become str8 up supervillains obv

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

― wk, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 2:23 AM

he might do this

is this dude one of the crazy silicon valley libertarian types or is he just beloved by them?

iirc he has liberal tendencies mixed in w the libertarianism

xp I heard him speak and he seemed not crazy and to have some kind of social or at least environmental conscience, unlike the usual libertarian types, but maybe he's just better at hiding it

(I like him too fwiw and right now he seems one of the most likely "crackpot genius billionaires" to solve some hard problems which are overdue for solving, so I hope he carries on with that. Also hoping that one day I'll get to see/read his computer game that appeared in some 8-bit micro type-in listings mag in the 80s)

he's not as bad as some of the other silicon valley libtards, I'll give him that.

nonetheless, this is a stupid proposal

do tell

curious to read a critique that amounts to more than 'hyperlol'

I think it's dumb that he's throwing around numbers when he doesn't even have a working prototype. It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project. I also think the "open source" thing is pretty silly since it's not like code where an individual can make some kind of improvement and test it out to see if it works. I guess an open source design is an interesting idea after the fact if he actually gets it working and other people want to build his design, but it still seems basically irrelevant.

Didn't he make his fortune with Peter thiel?
I don't know if that is "guilt by association" or "looking better by comparison"

It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project

^^^

A key part of his criticism of the other rail plan is that it's "more expensive to operate (if unsubsidized)." I'd like to see some more detailed numbers on that though. Why would we count the cost of unsubsidized rail against air travel which is heavily subsidized? All that really matters is cost to the traveller, and unlike airlines, I'm assuming the high speed rail system is not going to be run as a for-profit business. He also makes no comparison of the environmental costs of air flight vs. the planned high speed rail system.

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

― eris bueller (lukas), Monday, August 12, 2013 11:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm generally contemptuous of futurists, primarily because they seem to think energy and climate change problems will just sort themselves out, but a mass transit system that relies on solar power and transports people across one of the busiest stretches of highway in America is a good thing. I looked at the first two feeds you suggested and they seemed to just be saying this is just a toy for rich people, which is afaict completely unsupported by his proposal. He's not suggesting a magic carpet for billionaires; it's mass transit that uses solar power. This is a good thing! Maybe it's completely impossible hogwash, but I'd like to see actual engineering criticism of it instead of casual dismissals based on suspicion of ideas from rich people.

the main challenges are not engineering-related, their political

anybody who is over the age of 25, has lived in a city for any length of time, and paid a modicum of attention to the world around them knows that these kinds of massive public works projects tend to be underbid by shady contractors and then they go wildly over the original schedule and budget. so the fact that he's coming in saying he can do it so much cheaper with a totally new and untested technology is a huge red flag. to me it immediately suggests that the whole thing is not serious.

if he honestly thinks this is a feasible plan he should raise some funding and build a private line from LA to Vegas.

It's transparently unserious in that he doesn't want to do it himself and "regrets even mentioning it"

right, that aspect has been p funny

haha, I missed that part

ya seems like he said something offhandedly then realized abt his celebrity

a mass transit system that relies on solar power and transports people across one of the busiest stretches of highway in America is a good thing.

people don't commute the LA to SF corridor though. i have a hard time believing a transit system would fill the role of the 5 freeway. it's mostly trucks anyway.

You know what would do really well in transportation corridors like that? Plain old freight trains.

I swear, the interstate highway system and the fact it's mostly used for semi truck freight is the biggest money hole in our post-WW2 car-dependent wonderland

there already are freight trains

people don't commute the LA to SF corridor though.

?! they most certainly do. there are these things called commuter flights, they are booked solid all the time.

there are a lot more trucks xp

what exactly are you proposing?

a solar powered superhighway paved with bitcoins duh

in other news

Jesus fucking Christ he’s such an idiot pic.twitter.com/hf7iRNigeg

— evan loves worf (@esjesjesj) April 19, 2024

Just popped over to check out a Tesla investors forum. Usually they are neutral at worst, because it's all about the $$$, but they seem pretty down on Musk. They'd prefer he be out at the company, and they for sure wish he was not posting all the time, which they believe (and they may be right) directly correlates with the poor operation of the company. Not just because people now conflate twitter/Tesla/Musk with right-wing trolling, but because Musk himself is so impulsive and unable to control himself. Personally, I say fuck 'em all, but I wonder if Musk left Tesla (which I don't see happening) and a "normal" CEO were brought on board, could the company turn things around again? Or would it, too, become so "normal" that it would keep fading?

it's funny seems like a lifetime ago but I remember when Tesla was seen as this vaguely liberal yet luxury eco friendly signifier

its funny/ironic cuz using soap on the install is probably exactly the kind of ‘hack’ that elon was probably pushing internally back when he was ‘sleeping at the factory’ to make more model 3s or w/e

That's how we can tell that either this is the real Musk, or he is mentally ill (or both), because he seemed to have a good thing going for him and fucked it all up, apparently intentionally. Bezos, I'm sure he's a huge twat, but he seems to have the sense to keep his mouth shut. Trump, he used to have this vague liberal veneer to him, too, and yeah, he's gone full heel as well, but he is old and was always a stupid asshole.

with Bezos its kind of a "don't hate the player hate the game" situation, he's doing the kind of shit you might expect from an obscenely wealthy person. meanwhile Elon spends all his time being a terrible reactionary shitposter like any number of Nazi losers, who are either getting paid for it or are teeangers. Elon is neither, in fact he's like actively losing billions of dollars doing this shit

Really cool that 'unapproved changes' are happening in the manufacturing process

theyre just taking a page from boeings playbook https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/us/politics/spirit-aerosystems-boeing-737-max.html

its funny elons blaming the soap when it really is a batshit design that should never have made it out of autocad or w/e hell auto engineers use to design cars

Tesla is recalling all 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped to date

― lag∞n, Friday, April 19, 2024 8:00 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the sheer number and variety of problems and defects that have surfaced in cybertrucks so far based on this incredibly small sample size...i can't quite wrap my brain around it

i don't know that Tesla can fully recover, i think that specific design on the main fleet is pretty tiresome to a lot of people and at some point if you're driving a white tesla and you're at a stoplight with six other white teslas, it's a little embarrassing, and there are other better looking EVs out there now.

just out of curiosity i looked it up and Ford sold 750,789 F-150s in 2023

it's still a hot-shit vehicle to own to a certain degree but it doesn't feel like a long-term respectable brand, and i think the cybertruck is such an ugly failure it shows a company that doesn't have a clue.

Cybertruck seems destined to be the Pinto of this generation, known solely for people dunking on it. though it's way more expensive which makes it a lot more embarrassing

and yeah Tesla's reputation has cratered in a way I've never really seen, I mean I remember people getting all stoked just for the chance to ride in one, now the main thing I hear is "they're kinda ugly aren't they?". Elon himself isn't helping by being a total embarrassment, it's not even like a party line thing as it is with Trump, he only appeals to a specific type of incel Nazi

would be funny if the next gen teslas just copied the hyundai evs which prob have the best ev design language right now

the sheer number and variety of problems and defects that have surfaced in cybertrucks so far based on this incredibly small sample size...i can't quite wrap my brain around it

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Anecdotal data from my city, I've only seen 2 (TWO) Cybertrucks of ~10 that were not on the back of a tow truck = 20% not being towed (for being inoperable or parked illegaly, I know not).

3,878 seems not that many sales across nearly six months?

they cant make enough

yes i guess it's deliveries not sales

also stock just dipped below 148

it should go to zero thats what id pay

tesla as the plucky underdog penny stock of the future

Trump, he used to have this vague liberal veneer to him

I’m sorry, what

(stock might end the day below 146 lol)

Trump used to be a Dem donor who would sign his name to climate pledges and the like lol

(nope there was a late little rally 👎🏽)

Musk OUT wouldn’t help Tesla. A new CEO isn’t going to make FSD real and if one came in and actually made the real world product better it would still be valued at car company prices instead of tech unicorn prices.

Everybody dunked on his compensation package but without his relentless lying and hyping it would be a $35 stock so maybe he did create all that “shareholder value.”

It would help Tesla but it would destroy their stock price. People buy Tesla because Musk.

People buy Tesla because Musk.

I said to my wife over lunch that the fact that the Cybertruck recall impacts fewer than 4000 vehicles means that the Musk cult is a whole lot smaller than the press a) realizes or b) is willing to acknowledge.