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In the engineering field, I've found there's an issue with a subset of engineers where they get some kind of enjoyment out of saying why something can't be done

In the engineering field, I've found there's an issue with a subset of engineers where they get some kind of enjoyment out of saying why something can't be done without providing any suggestions or improvements to make it possible. They just feel the need to be negative and list reasons why something won't work. It's unfortunately common, it's unproductive, and it really gets kind of annoying after a while.

mikeash 13y ago
I think it's interesting how people are apparently compelled to bring up all possible objections, no matter how weak, when they really should be concentrating on the strongest ones. For example, I think the discussions of headway at the beginning of this article are very good, and he lays out both problems and potential solutions, albeit ones that make the system less useful. However, by the time we reach the end, we get crap like "Clearly he's unfamiliar with the Cypress Street Viaduct." Yes, I'm sure Elon Musk has never heard of that, sure. I'm sure he didn't research earthquakes at all when making his statement. Come on, really? This kind of nonsense weakens the article considerably, because readers will tend to concentrate on the weakest aspects of it, not the strongest.
tptacek 13y ago
There's already an alternative plan on the table that does SF to LA, city centers in both, in 2 hours 28 minutes. To mount the argument that engineers and critics should be focusing on rehabilitating Musk's proposal rather than shooting it down, one of the following needs to be plausible: (a) that door-door transit times on Musk's system will be significantly better than the HSR plan (b) that construction and operation of Musk's plan will be significantly cheaper than HSR (c) some X factor makes Musk's plan more attractive There are compelling arguments against (a) and (b): (a) because Musk's system can't reuse existing urban rights of way, it terminates far from either city center. It gets a "~30 minute" estimate, which message boards are eager to latch onto, by waving a magic wand and turning Hayward into San Francisco and Sylmar into Downtown LA. If that was a viable strategy, SWA would still be relying on Islip to service NYC. (b) Musk's estimated tunneling and el track costs are so low that, were they viable, they'd revolutionize all of the rest of urban planning. For instance, Musk proposes to lower the cost of running viaduct by an entire order of magnitude. No comparable tunnel has been built for anything like what Musk proposes his tunneling costs will be. And the expenses he lays out make optimistic assumptions about the routes he'll be able to use, especially through the mountains. It's gotta handily beat 2hrs 28min for the route people actually care about, OR be substantially cheaper. These aren't nits: they're the entire motivation for the proposal.
- tedunangst 13y ago
  You must realize you're posting on "I could build that in a weekend" central. When viewed through HN goggles, a train that goes 80% of the distance between sf and la is identical to a train that connects downtown. Facts, like tweets, have a size limit. "Hyperloop will connect areas relatively near to sf and la" is too long. "Hyperloop will connect sf and la" is a shorter, and therefore better, fact.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    It's true, but I love the threads that make me go look things up. I could really give a rat's ass about the Hyperbloop, but what other than a Hyperbloop thread could motivate me to go read up on the per-mile cost of mountain tunneling, or the amount of traffic in Sylmar?
dojomouse 13y ago
I find it even more annoying when they're not engineers, and their math is bad, and they get it totally wrong. The number of news stories I saw explaining the Hyperloop as 'like a big pneumatic tube' and showing the twitter picture of the huge fan forced tube as support... even though that's COMPLETELY WRONG... anguish. But yeah, screw those guys. Much more fun to solve the problems.

mikeash 13y ago

I think it's interesting how people are apparently compelled to bring up all possible objections, no matter how weak, when they really should be concentrating on the strongest ones. For example, I think the discussions of headway at the beginning of this article are very good, and he lays out both problems and potential solutions, albeit ones that make the system less useful. However, by the time we reach the end, we get crap like "Clearly he's unfamiliar with the Cypress Street Viaduct." Yes, I'm sure Elon Musk has never heard of that, sure. I'm sure he didn't research earthquakes at all when making his statement. Come on, really? This kind of nonsense weakens the article considerably, because readers will tend to concentrate on the weakest aspects of it, not the strongest.

tptacek 13y ago

There's already an alternative plan on the table that does SF to LA, city centers in both, in 2 hours 28 minutes. To mount the argument that engineers and critics should be focusing on rehabilitating Musk's proposal rather than shooting it down, one of the following needs to be plausible: (a) that door-door transit times on Musk's system will be significantly better than the HSR plan (b) that construction and operation of Musk's plan will be significantly cheaper than HSR (c) some X factor makes Musk's plan more attractive There are compelling arguments against (a) and (b): (a) because Musk's system can't reuse existing urban rights of way, it terminates far from either city center. It gets a "~30 minute" estimate, which message boards are eager to latch onto, by waving a magic wand and turning Hayward into San Francisco and Sylmar into Downtown LA. If that was a viable strategy, SWA would still be relying on Islip to service NYC. (b) Musk's estimated tunneling and el track costs are so low that, were they viable, they'd revolutionize all of the rest of urban planning. For instance, Musk proposes to lower the cost of running viaduct by an entire order of magnitude. No comparable tunnel has been built for anything like what Musk proposes his tunneling costs will be. And the expenses he lays out make optimistic assumptions about the routes he'll be able to use, especially through the mountains. It's gotta handily beat 2hrs 28min for the route people actually care about, OR be substantially cheaper. These aren't nits: they're the entire motivation for the proposal.

tedunangst 13y ago
You must realize you're posting on "I could build that in a weekend" central. When viewed through HN goggles, a train that goes 80% of the distance between sf and la is identical to a train that connects downtown. Facts, like tweets, have a size limit. "Hyperloop will connect areas relatively near to sf and la" is too long. "Hyperloop will connect sf and la" is a shorter, and therefore better, fact.
- tptacek 13y ago
  It's true, but I love the threads that make me go look things up. I could really give a rat's ass about the Hyperbloop, but what other than a Hyperbloop thread could motivate me to go read up on the per-mile cost of mountain tunneling, or the amount of traffic in Sylmar?

dojomouse 13y ago

I find it even more annoying when they're not engineers, and their math is bad, and they get it totally wrong. The number of news stories I saw explaining the Hyperloop as 'like a big pneumatic tube' and showing the twitter picture of the huge fan forced tube as support... even though that's COMPLETELY WRONG... anguish. But yeah, screw those guys. Much more fun to solve the problems.