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Elon Musk's Promises and Goals for Tesla, SpaceX, and More
- ceejayoz 9y agoThis is some very confusing UI.
- agumonkey 9y agoFunny, I think it's part of a semi serious "brutalist" trend I've seen pop up these days. Taken to the extreme there.
- andy_ppp 9y agoPresumably created when someone accidentally renamed musk_ux_wireframes.psd to musk_designs_final.psd
- agumonkey 9y agorenaming is hard
- stcredzero 9y agopart of a semi serious "brutalist" trend I've seen pop up My experience with Brutalist architecture, is that it looks weird on the outside, but it's often quite comfortable on the inside. This isn't comfy.
- shuntress 9y agoMy understanding of Brutalism (as it related to buildings) is that it is supposed to feel daunting, uniform, and unashamedly utilitarian while being (almost surprisingly) highly usable and subtly beautiful (to certain tastes). So I would say a 'brutal' web page would be a plain Apache file index. Basically the opposite of what we see here.
- agumonkey 9y agoArchitecturally that's right, but people have been using this term for the kind of bare, high contrast, blueprintish genre. I don't advocate the accuracy here :)
- leemac 9y agoThe UI here is fascinating. I'm so lost, yet I'm so intrigued to keep clicking around.
- gerbal 9y agoDoes that mean the UI actually works?
- hyperbovine 9y agoIt's a metaphor
- 2474 9y agoIt's interesting Bloomberg with with a brutalist approach to the aesthetic. I'm not sure it lends itself that well with the content they were presenting.
- leemac 9y agoI was surprised as well. This is also on the front page which is interesting given the target audience. In a strange way I find it fun, though a bit unusable.
- simonsarris 9y ago5% cute and 95% terrible to navigate. Worth noting that unlike other delays, The Model 3's target date was originally December and then pushed up. July is 5 months ahead of the original schedule! Model 3 Launch ANNOUNCED: MAR 31, 2016 TARGET DUE DATE: DEC 31, 2017 REVISED DUE DATE: JUL 31, 2017 I'm very excited. Electric transportation is one of the most moral technologies we can work on to get out of oil's malthusian trap. I have a lot of respect for Musk pushing the envelope as much as he can.
- chrinic726 9y agoUser interface
- stcredzero 9y agoIt's sort of like Geocities, but with higher resolution images and better typography.
- shuntress 9y ago>Electric transportation is one of the most moral technologies we can work on to get out of oil's malthusian trap While I agree with the sentiment and can't wait for good mainstream electric vehicles, I would like to be pedantic and point out the possibility of generation of the electricity to run an electric vehicle being very dirty. As well as the (not current, but theoretical) possibility of using clean energy to synthesize combustion fuels for engines that efficiently clean all outputs. A transport being electric does not automatically make it better.
- grinich 9y agoElectricity is fungible in the sense that it can come from many sources. Oil is not-- it really only comes out of the ground. (Biofuels also have the same problem.) You can think about making cars electric as removing a tight coupling between transportation and fuel. It creates a more generic interface, which will create more flexible implementations. For example: wind, solar, and using charged car battery fleets to balance the electric grid at peak times. It's hard to see how combustion can ever be better than electric. Even in situations where you completely offset the carbon by synthesizing fuels with clean energy, you still have huge issues around air quality in dense urban cities. Electric motors are also massively easier to maintain, have fewer moving parts, are quieter, etc etc.
- pavlakoos 9y agowho created this UI?
- vermontdevil 9y agoCreated on FrontPage
- gerbal 9y agoAm I the only one that finds the Boring Company the most interesting of Musk's current projects? If he can pull off fastish, cheapish tunnelling under major cities we could see a renaissance in new subway construction in American cities.
- amackera 9y agoThe actual boring of the tunnels in cities is the smallest part of the problem. Still a lot of work to get there! But maybe someday :)
- foota 9y agoTell that to Seattle
- whicks 9y agoIsn't it a main goal of the Boring Company to reduce the cost of projects like what is happening in Seattle?
- vermontdevil 9y agoThought the same thing. And be able to go in different directions than being limited. See Big Bertha being stuck for two years.
- pmoriarty 9y agoI think Montreal already has a bunch of tunnels under much of the city, for use in its relatively hostile winter environment. Paris also has lots of tunnels underneath. That's not to mention all the sewer systems in virtually every city and subway systems in many major cities. So not only is boring tunnels under cities doable, but it's already been done.
- iraphael 9y agoI have to respectfully disagree. From the video (the only source of information we have about the company's plans), it focuses on automobile-centric high speed transportation (as opposed to, say, efficient public transportation). If there's anything we learned in the last ~30 years of urban planning is that building cities at car scales isn't the best way to promote healthy city life and community. There are many reasons for this. There's probably books that focus on just this, but if you want a better idea of how city design has affected community living in general, I recommend The Great Good Place [0]. I read somewhere else in this thread that The Boring Company is obviously something intended for Mars. I am more ok with that idea, since it might be impossible to do anything other than underground individual transportation in a place where the environment is hostile. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Good_Place_(Oldenburg) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Good_Place_(Oldenbur...
- kayoone 9y agoSomehow all of his projects tie together to build a full Mars infrastructure including solar energy, solar mobility, high speed tunnels, space travel and even that satellite network he planned to beam internet to earth from LEO. If he manages to do that in his life time and Mars becomes a popular alternative to Earth, his wealth (or that of his descendants) will exceed anything there ever was. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and JPMorgan in one person. Of course, it's highly unlikely and just a though experiment at this point. edit a word
- badsock 9y agoI thought the Boring company was the most "obviously for Mars" project. One of the cheapest ways to create pressurized, radiation-sheltered spaces is to dig.
- rezistik 9y agoDon't discount the self-sustaining Gigafactory.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago> (or that of his ancestors) descendants
- loceng 9y agoHe might be developing time travel too..
- pmoriarty 9y agoIf all of Musk's endeavors amount to nothing more than just a means for a rich playboy to waste his time and money, it still makes me wish that more rich playboys had nearly as ambitious and constructive ways of wasting their time and money rather than spending it all on yachts, mansions, parties, and private jets. At the very least, it is inspiring and on the face of it aims to make the world a better place for all humanity. That's a worthy goal, even if it doesn't work out.
- scblock 9y agoDidn't make it past the "click to enter" splash page. Who thought this type of web design was a good idea?
- pikachuaintcool 9y agoI think it's cool.
- swalsh 9y agoWow so much wrong with this UI. From the floating head to the weird use of space. I just can't parse any interesting info from here, which is a shame because I think there is something to be gained.
- aninhumer 9y agoIt feels way too competent in other respects to not be intentional. I think someone had a lot of fun making this, and I'm having a lot of fun exploring it...
- shmerl 9y agoReminds me of the blinking Web of the '90s.
- wand3r 9y agoModel Y before 2020. Then electric will finally be S3XY
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- csours 9y agoI wonder if in 300 years Musk will be mentioned in the same sentences as Genghis Khan... I've been continually amazed at how Musk has been able to generate buzz, and then eventually execute on that buzz. For instance the Price to Earnings ratios for traditional automakers are better now than they've ever been, but Tesla has surpassed Ford and GM in market cap; but Tesla has negative P/E! Musk has done so many things his own way, and he's been successful... eventually. But there have been expensive lessons: the Falcon wing doors probably adds $20k and 6 months to the launch of the Model X. Failing to use lean manufacturing principles drives up the cost of Tesla's vehicles, and probably reduces quality; from the stories I've heard of the number of people at the end of the production line, it sounds like old GM methods. The turbo pump failure ground SpaceX launches to a halt. Will his enterprises be successful in the end? Who knows! Disclaimer: I work for a Tesla competitor.
- shuntress 9y agoI don't have information to validate or dispute this but the argument a co-worker of mine always makes is that Tesla (and Musk) are 'propped up' by government money and never should have made it this far. I would be interested to get your take on this assessment.
- danjoc 9y ago>'propped up' by government money It's pretty well documented, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...
- pmoriarty 9y agoIn his Mars colonization plan announcement he himself said that the majority of money is going to come from the government (if I'm remembering right). In many ways Musk is a salesman for a certain vision that a lot of people seem to be buying in to right now. Some might even call this leadership.
- Sohcahtoa82 9y ago> but Tesla has negative P/E! P/E is a single number and doesn't tell a whole story. You're the exact type of investor that is frustrating a lot of people with your shortsightedness. Every penny they make is going back into the company for R&D. Unlike Ford and GM, Tesla is actually innovating. They're also expanding like crazy. Their earnings are low because they haven't produced much yet, but those earnings will skyrocket once the Model 3 gets released and all those reservation holders start ponying up the remaining money for their car. > the Falcon wing doors probably adds $20k and 6 months to the launch of the Model X. The Model X is already launched. It launched two years ago. > Disclaimer: I work for a Tesla competitor. It explains your FUD. At least you're honest.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- raleighm 9y agoFound the designer's personal page: http://jamespants.com/ http://jamespants.com/
- sixQuarks 9y agowell... I guess you can say he has his own "style"
- kiernanmcgowan 9y agoLooks like the designer took some inspiration from Homer Simpson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk
- MR4D 9y agoThis page makes my eyes bleed!
- sqeaky 9y agoIt seems like this page is trying to show a bunch of Musk's "failures", and really its showing how ambitious he is. He is succeeding at many things not just any one thing.
- nkoren 9y agoUsually I'm kind of annoyed by the HN peanut gallery when they mostly ignore the content of a really interesting page to complain about the typeface or how it looks with Javascript disabled, or whatever. But ye gods -- this is probably the worst UI/UX I've encountered this decade. What the hell were they thinking?
- namlem 9y agoMy impression is that it's supposed to be intentionally bad to be funny.
- flycaliguy 9y agoCheck out Steph Davidson’s portfolio. Bloomberg's team went with something experimental, one-off and an interesting distraction for office workers. http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/steph-davidson-bloomberg-businessweek-090317 http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/steph-davidson-bloomberg...
- westoncb 9y agoSeems to me that it's partly an art project + joke. I thought it was amusing and actually pretty efficient at conveying its information—once I figured out the basic model for navigation. In any case, it's clearly not an attempt at strictly optimizing usability.
- loco5niner 9y agoWow, this is a horrible interface
- westoncb 9y agoHere's a guess at the motivation for the... eccentric, design: it's a weird contrast to see something so trivial and incompetent looking displaying information about Musk's very non-trivial, competent work. I found it amusing personally.