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Elon Musk - The Future of Energy and Transport [video]
- beobab 14y agoAnyone got a transcript?
- sbierwagen 14y agoOr at least a summary?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- swalsh 14y agoI love the idea of Elon musk travelling to Russia trying to negotiate a price on ICBM's. I wonder if the Federal Government was watching him :)
- enraged_camel 14y agoThey were too busy reading Patraeus's love emails.
- agumonkey 14y agoFor the lazy podcaster, there's also the [audio] http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/podcasts/201211_musk.mp3 http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/podcasts/201211_m...
- filvdg 14y agothere seem to be bandwidth issues with the streaming
- spitx 14y agoNeat trick: Disregard the stream. It was buggy in Chrome and only mildly better in Firefox. (Oxford can't afford a more robust video solution?) Tackle the MP4 file instead. Only left click open it in place of downloading it. Quicktime should take care of the rest.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- stcredzero 14y agoElectric jets combined with beamed power could be huge. Such craft would be unencumbered by fuel tankage, so there would be huge potential for savings. One place to start, strangely enough, would be with electric tankers. By lifting fuel to altitude, individual aircraft fuel needs would be greatly reduced to cover the same distance, meaning structural weight could be saved, resulting in even more efficiency. Networks of power beaming stations to power cross country flights would result in aircraft so light, that parachute landing systems for the whole craft might be feasible. (Some on board battery capacity would always be necessary for emergencies.)
- paulsutter 14y agoGood point. Going further, a big advantage of an electric plane is that it can fly at much higher altitudes since it doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen like normal jets. At high altitudes, it may be more efficient to beam the power from orbit then from the ground or flying tankers. EDIT: replaced "the biggest" with "a big", point well taken.
- stcredzero 14y ago> the biggest advantage of an electric plane is that it can fly at much higher altitudes since it doesn't burn atmospheric oxygen The biggest? Not sure about that. Eliminating most of the fuel tankage is pretty huge. > more efficient to beam the power from orbit than from the ground That would be vital for over water flights. This might even be a way to jump start orbital solar power satellites. > flying tankers. By "electric tankers" I meant using beamed electric power to haul jet fuel to altitude, as a first step. Airplanes purpose built for this use case would have range or efficiency advantages.
- flyinglizard 14y agoTrue, but I assume it will use a fan or prop design, which loses efficiency as air density decreases (like swimming in air vs. water). And you will still need to pressurize the cabin.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago> At high altitudes, it may be more efficient to beam the power from orbit then from the ground or flying tankers. In line with InclinedPlane's comment upthread, I do have a question: how do you prevent such power delivery systems from becoming orbital weapons platforms? It wouldn't be difficult to make such satellite transmit power to a building or road insatead of a plane.
- akie 14y agoI've got the file. Where do I mirror it? Have fast connection to upload.
- pygy_ 14y agoTwo good options: http://www.youtube.com http://www.youtube.com and http://depositfiles.com/ http://depositfiles.com/ Note that you will need to provide some identification info (I don't remember what) if you want to upload a long HD video to YouTube. IIRC not needed for 480p.
- akie 14y agoI thought of YouTube, but the 15 minute barrier stopped me. So now I'm uploading to Veoh.com (at 45% as we speak) - it should be done shortly, I'll post the link once it's done. Hopefully they don't want to re-encode it. In that case, I'll upload to depositfiles.com...
- akie 14y agoOk, fuck - it uploaded but now it's recoding the file. Sigh. It'll be at http://www.veoh.com/watch/v40542469qRZG8NMn http://www.veoh.com/watch/v40542469qRZG8NMn once that's done. I'll now proceed to upload at DepositFiles.com, using the university's not-as-fast-as-I-thought network. (edit: nevermind. Use the other mirror (^^up there) instead.) (and when did universities stop having ridiculously overdimensioned internet connections?)
- mavhc 14y ago> and when did universities stop having ridiculously overdimensioned internet connections? About the same time internet video took off
- phpnode 14y agoperhaps you could torrent it?
- xoail 14y agoI think I'm in love with the guy.
- jd 14y agoMirror: http://78.47.91.45/201211_musk.mp4 http://78.47.91.45/201211_musk.mp4
- hedgehog 14y agoAnd magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:66a30e1f6e602ba6c6d9b31a1e8fd1becf7289e0&dn=201211%5Fmusk.mp4
- ahalam 14y agoTorrent here http://burnbit.com/torrent/227565/201211_musk_mp4 http://burnbit.com/torrent/227565/201211_musk_mp4
- jv22222 14y agoThx
- neokoenig 14y agoHi All, Sorry for the streaming server issues. Now mirrored on youTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HZIQliuoA&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HZIQliuoA&feature=youtu...
- simonebrunozzi 14y agoBefore thinking about enhancing tranportation, we should ask ourselves IF we need to travel more. In the last five years I took 500 flights (all on economy class except for two), and I also took about 100 train rides. For "short" trips (<600-700 km or 400-500 miles) train might be slightly slower, but there's essentially no dead time and it's cheaper (no rush to the airport, no stupid security checks at the airport, no weather affecting the trip, no big delays, no taxi trip from arriving airport to city center). As a consequence, we should "aggregate" airports and use them only for long range travel, and revert to rail or road for shorter trips. By doing this, we would maximize the frequency and availability of flights from these mega-airports. Then, by simply providing more leg space, power, and possibly internet connection, we could make flights "suck less". This is doable now. Any other technology would take decades to develop. And again, most people don't need to travel NY to Hong Kong in 3 hours. Most people need to travel cheaply, and possibly in a green way.
- marquis 14y agoI rarely travel for business: that one's been sorted by the internet. But I can't go long periods of time without seeing friends and family who are all over the world, and as I'm the one with the freedom I'm the one that travels. As a bonus I get croissants in Paris one day and shrimp in Sydney the next. I don't want to give this up - I want to pay some kind of forward-travel-tax that makes this more sustainable. Speaking of Paris, the Concorde is taunting me sitting at Charles de Gaulle and Orly right now, lifted up as if it's waiting for stronger winds.
- Eyght 14y agoHow would you feel about traveling in a larger vehicle, think zeppelin, that took 20 hours longer to reach its destination, but in return it would be cheaper and more comfortable - more like traveling on a cruise ship?
- gutnor 14y agoI really wonder if a Zeppelin would be cheaper considering that it would require more personnel, accommodation and service for long period of time. Actually like cruise ships: they are not cheaper than flying. They are a lot more comfortable.
- karpathy 14y agoMaybe this is a silly question but why doesn't SpaceX or Tesla use some form of crowd-funding scheme for their projects in addition to all their other sources of funding? I really want both companies to succeed and I'd be happy to contribute to either cause (yes, I see both primarily as a cause and philosophy, not just a company). Judging from response around the internet there are many people like me who are just as excited. I can't buy a Model S car because I don't have that money, but I'd be happy to throw some money at Tesla or SpaceX for a little badge and a warm feeling.
- quote 14y agoHave you considered buying stock?
- robbiep 14y agoParticipating in the secondary market (Stock market) doesn't give the company any money, you just have a stake of the company that varies in price according to the demands of others and the perceived value of the company. As far as I know there aren't any firm plans for a SpaceX IPO
- relix 14y agoBuying stock drives the price up of said stock, allowing the company to reap more money per share when it wants to sell more shares on said secondary market, and also allows it to get better deals on loans and future funding rounds. It might not directly give money to the company, but it's definitely an action anyone can take to "vote with your money" that actually benefits a company.
- thrill 14y agoSpaceX remains private. Purchasing stock will be limited to accredited investors, and limited in quantity to 500(?) before the company must become publicly reporting, which carries its own compliment of pain - the new bill will raise that to 1000 I believe - still a minuscule number for a multi-billion dollar effort. The recent launch success makes the likelihood of it going public soon a little higher, and then everyone will be able to participate - but I can only imagine all the caveats in the filing documents, and frankly after watching the debacle of a meltdown called Facebook, I wouldn't trust anyone on Wall Street to properly bring this to market unless a Dutch Auction was used.
- andrewtbham 14y agoI like when he talks about why Mars is the best planet to inhabit. 24 1/2 hour rotational cycle, 1/2 the earths gravity, lots of water/ice. Co2 atmosphere (which plants like to consume). Ultimately terraform the planet to make it like earth.... Sign me up!
- marcoamorales 14y agoWasn't the possibility of terraforming Mars debunked a while ago?
- goodcanadian 14y agoDepends what you mean by debunked. It is a bit of a fantastical idea to begin with requiring technology and engineering on a scale much larger than anything in human experience. It is, therefore, a bit difficult to come up with a plausible plan let alone debunk that plan. I, for one, do not see any fundamental reasons why it couldn't be done, but I can come up with plenty of practical reasons why it probably won't be done anytime soon.
- minwcnt5 14y agoI thought the lack of a magnetic field was considered to be such a "fundamental reason", i.e. without one away any significant atmosphere that's created will be stripped away by the solar wind.
- goodcanadian 14y agoThe issue is timescale. Yes, the atmosphere is (very slowly) stripped away by the solar wind, so we could not simply terraform it and forget about it. On the other hand, the timescale is very long by human standards, so as long as we produced new atmosphere at a rate faster than it is being stripped away, I don't see it being a fundamental problem. I could be wrong, of course.
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- 20100thibault 14y agoI'm wondering what's the efficiency (speed) limit on ducted fan relative to altitude for the electric airplane concept. Would like to have some data on it
- cskau 14y agoI'm surprised no one has posted the official youtube video yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HZIQliuoA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HZIQliuoA
- mcdonji 14y agoHe sounds quite bright. It seems he (and his people) are actually making a dent and are producing some tangible value. He said he could have gone to work for Wall Street. Does Wall Street actually attract our best and brightest people? I wonder what the world would look like if the best and brightest did not put all their talents into skimming value off the top (on Wall Street) but instead actually produced value.
- nodesocket 14y agoDoes anybody know if Elon has a minor speech impediment; stammer or stutter? I myself stutter and was just curious, as I noticed it watching this video.
- MarkMc 14y agoElon Musk certainly sails close to the wind. In this talk he says that SpaceX would no longer exist if the fourth spaceflight had not succeeded. And during the financial crisis in 2008 Tesla almost went bankrupt. I admire Elon's success, but I couldn't take the risks he takes.
- confluence 14y agoThat's why I attempt to mitigate the halo effect by using counterfactuals, historic branch extensions and alterations. For example: Steve Jobs, an art school college dropout, doesn't meet Wozniak - Where is he now? Steve Jobs gets himself killed in India. Steve Jobs doesn't get hooked onto computers or doesn't hang out with the right hobbyist crowd at the right time, in the right place, with few other options to pursue. When you look at history you'll see a bunch of events that could have - and most probably - should have happened and things get a whole lot less certain. Things are only guaranteed to people because they happened - but at the time - not so much. Once you see the world through this light - it's difficult to make the kind of statements that others make about the past and the future. It also reduces the effect of both the halo and hindsight biases and just generally lets you get a feeling for the anthropic principle and its constant interference with daily life (aka we would not be discussing this had Elon not been a success). These are called mistakes of omission (could have happened) and not commision (did happen). The deeds of omission far out weight all the deeds of commission.