4 ms·
I think you're missing the point. The point isn't that they're not doing "real work" or that what they're building doesn't work at all. The point is about the
by davidivadavid 7y ago
I think you're missing the point.
The point isn't that they're not doing "real work" or that what they're building doesn't work at all.
The point is about the approach which consists in engineering a "hard problem" by adding unnecessary constraints/hypotheses to a real (although often ill-defined) problem, and then claiming it's a marvel of engineering when a half-functional, non-viable solution is completed.
It's the XY problem applied to startups. Instead of trying to solve the problem (energy, connectivity, etc.), they start from a given technology, and try to shoehorn it into a problem. That's bad design, and probably bad engineering in most cases.
- joshuamorton 7y agoNo, they started from a problem "how do you get internet into rural/low infra areas" and settled on balloons after iteration. You just didn't see the rapid prototype part, because at that point the company was "5 people fucking around in X" and not "Loon".
- starpilot 7y agoNumerous companies in the airborne wind turbine market, Makani, Joby: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-beginners-guide-to-the-airborne-wind-turbine-market https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-beginners-gui... Numerous proposals, including from Lockheed, for balloon satellites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon#Geostationary_balloon_satellite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon#Geostati... These aren't just "because we can" frivolous projects, these approaches have serious advantages over others, such that many are racing to commercialize it.
- jacquesm 7y agoI'll bet that plenty of these exist as copycat clubs that would have never been funded if Google had not funded Makani. At least some of them seem to sidestep some of the most obvious problems.
- tazjin 7y agoThis exchange reminds me of the Illuminatus! trilogy[0] in which the Discordians at some point introduce the idea of dividing humans into "neophobes" (who dislike new things and the exploration of random unknowns) and "neophiles" (who dislike sticking to established, stable paradigms and want to do new things instead). The former end up in a stable equilibrium with slow (if any) progress, the latter fail often but are important for fast-paced progress. In other words, whenever you (the reader generally, not davidivadavid in particular) write "probably", imagine a Wikipedia editor adding [citation needed] after it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy
- davidivadavid 7y agoOn the exploration/exploitation spectrum, I'm definitely on the exploration side. I'm just highly skeptical of those particular Google projects.