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Such negative responses. Isn't prototyping and actually just doing it part of innovation? I think it's great that this is being tried, and I hope that if it bec

Such negative responses. Isn't prototyping and actually just doing it part of innovation? I think it's great that this is being tried, and I hope that if it become a success they will extend the existing track to other cities.

vasilipupkin 11y ago
exactly. Why is everyone so negative? Sure, it hasn't been fully worked out yet. So, isn't still fantastic that we have yet another potential alternative ?
- sailfast 11y ago
  Reading the McCullough biography of the Wright Brothers, I found myself wondering "what if they had read the Hacker News comments for flight?" The answer I found was that they were completely unperturbed by such trivialities, and that was a major part in their success. I'm happy to see somebody's testing out the concept and look forward to continued progress in the areas of transportation. I will say that the end of the article makes quite the proclamation regarding Hyperloop, with a big "If" but I think measured positivity is certainly warranted here.
  - guipsp 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
    - sailfast 11y ago
      Point taken - and I appreciated it a great deal when they decided to make ShowHN official and suggest rules that would support the OP.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    The Wright Brothers were also just trying to fly. They weren't trying to compete against well-established technology (such as trains that have already been built). The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC.
    - weego 11y ago
      The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC. Every human endeavour until incredibly recently in our timeline was a self-cost, whether it be in health, time or wealth. Only in the last blink of an eye have we expected a Govt or Govt funded entity to do it for us. And it's clear they can't. Personally I couldn't be happier that someone is trying something new. It might not be a success, but it might lead to an innovative new industrial process, or way of constructing something, or it might work. Who cares if it costs $5billion if we can progress from it and someone will fund it? What else is that money going to do? Sit in a hedge fund? Get invested in a WhatsApp clone? What does that do for us as a society and a species?
      - elektronjunge 11y ago
        > Every human endeavour until incredibly recently in our timeline was a self-cost, whether it be in health, time or wealth. Only in the last blink of an eye have we expected a Govt or Govt funded entity to do it for us. And it's clear they can't. Absolutely not. Governments have been funding innovation since the dawn of time, nearly every royal court hired scientists in some capacity. Many developments in navigation and transportation were funded by governments looking to improve their armies. Its not like a the average scientist could have afforded to make their own train engine, or a large sailing vessel to test their new technologies.
      - dragontamer 11y ago
        > Who cares if it costs $5billion if we can progress from it and someone will fund it? Hey, if it isn't coming from taxpayer money, I don't care. But this whole California High-speed rail vs Hyperloop thing? That's a publicly funded project, slated to be funded by California bonds and California debt. I say California should buy the proven system, while the private sector can go play with their own innovative products until they can at least demonstrate a working prototype. There's no reason for California to fund the hyperloop project... not yet anyway.
lmm 11y ago
By all means try. But saying it "becomes reality" is massively overhyping it.
HCIdivision17 11y ago
This is what I keep thinking. I'm excited about the tech that will be developed to make it work! I live in Texas. I can't give a flying tube torpedo about whether CA gets a fancy speedy train thing. But I would love to have some very large-scale vacuum tube tech developed that can safely launch people. There's all kinds of great innovation that will come out of it.
27182818284 11y ago
I was super negative when it started because I expected the initial release that they pulled an all-nighter for (according to his Twitter feed) to have been more than just like a sketch of an idea typed in Word. Now that things are moving forward, my opinion has radically changed. That, and in the meantime his car won the Consumer Report's Best Buy, SpaceX darn near landed a rocket vertically in the ocean, and ground has been broken on their spaceport.
- greglindahl 11y ago
  How did you know that all they had was in the whitepaper?
  - 27182818284 11y ago
    From Elon's tweets it certainly looked like all they had was that small document, which was less in content than most white papers that are often released.
    - greglindahl 11y ago
      Ah. That's a big leap from very little data!
      - 27182818284 11y ago
        Yeah. And looking back over it now, the document is a lot longer than I remember. I think this is what biased me: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337?lang=... I remember then seeing the doc after that Tweet and thinking "You and others worked all night on that?" It reminds me of that interview with Jerry Seinfeld where he mentions the worst thing you can do is introduce a comic as "The funniest guy in the world" because it biases the audience right before you come out on stage.

vasilipupkin 11y ago

exactly. Why is everyone so negative? Sure, it hasn't been fully worked out yet. So, isn't still fantastic that we have yet another potential alternative ?

sailfast 11y ago
Reading the McCullough biography of the Wright Brothers, I found myself wondering "what if they had read the Hacker News comments for flight?" The answer I found was that they were completely unperturbed by such trivialities, and that was a major part in their success. I'm happy to see somebody's testing out the concept and look forward to continued progress in the areas of transportation. I will say that the end of the article makes quite the proclamation regarding Hyperloop, with a big "If" but I think measured positivity is certainly warranted here.
- guipsp 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
  - sailfast 11y ago
    Point taken - and I appreciated it a great deal when they decided to make ShowHN official and suggest rules that would support the OP.
- dragontamer 11y ago
  The Wright Brothers were also just trying to fly. They weren't trying to compete against well-established technology (such as trains that have already been built). The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC.
  - weego 11y ago
    The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC. Every human endeavour until incredibly recently in our timeline was a self-cost, whether it be in health, time or wealth. Only in the last blink of an eye have we expected a Govt or Govt funded entity to do it for us. And it's clear they can't. Personally I couldn't be happier that someone is trying something new. It might not be a success, but it might lead to an innovative new industrial process, or way of constructing something, or it might work. Who cares if it costs $5billion if we can progress from it and someone will fund it? What else is that money going to do? Sit in a hedge fund? Get invested in a WhatsApp clone? What does that do for us as a society and a species?
    - elektronjunge 11y ago
      > Every human endeavour until incredibly recently in our timeline was a self-cost, whether it be in health, time or wealth. Only in the last blink of an eye have we expected a Govt or Govt funded entity to do it for us. And it's clear they can't. Absolutely not. Governments have been funding innovation since the dawn of time, nearly every royal court hired scientists in some capacity. Many developments in navigation and transportation were funded by governments looking to improve their armies. Its not like a the average scientist could have afforded to make their own train engine, or a large sailing vessel to test their new technologies.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      > Who cares if it costs $5billion if we can progress from it and someone will fund it? Hey, if it isn't coming from taxpayer money, I don't care. But this whole California High-speed rail vs Hyperloop thing? That's a publicly funded project, slated to be funded by California bonds and California debt. I say California should buy the proven system, while the private sector can go play with their own innovative products until they can at least demonstrate a working prototype. There's no reason for California to fund the hyperloop project... not yet anyway.

lmm 11y ago

By all means try. But saying it "becomes reality" is massively overhyping it.

HCIdivision17 11y ago

This is what I keep thinking. I'm excited about the tech that will be developed to make it work! I live in Texas. I can't give a flying tube torpedo about whether CA gets a fancy speedy train thing. But I would love to have some very large-scale vacuum tube tech developed that can safely launch people. There's all kinds of great innovation that will come out of it.

27182818284 11y ago

I was super negative when it started because I expected the initial release that they pulled an all-nighter for (according to his Twitter feed) to have been more than just like a sketch of an idea typed in Word. Now that things are moving forward, my opinion has radically changed. That, and in the meantime his car won the Consumer Report's Best Buy, SpaceX darn near landed a rocket vertically in the ocean, and ground has been broken on their spaceport.

greglindahl 11y ago
How did you know that all they had was in the whitepaper?
- 27182818284 11y ago
  From Elon's tweets it certainly looked like all they had was that small document, which was less in content than most white papers that are often released.
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    Ah. That's a big leap from very little data!
    - 27182818284 11y ago
      Yeah. And looking back over it now, the document is a lot longer than I remember. I think this is what biased me: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/366964441159438337?lang=... I remember then seeing the doc after that Tweet and thinking "You and others worked all night on that?" It reminds me of that interview with Jerry Seinfeld where he mentions the worst thing you can do is introduce a comic as "The funniest guy in the world" because it biases the audience right before you come out on stage.