Elon Musk

His family sound really annoying. Was married to, uh, somebody who was in that St Trinians film, uh, the one with Russell Brand.

You realise that if he was ever to become involved in some sort of scandal and subsequent cover-up, newspapers could use the headline, "Elongate"

if he was caught cheating he'd be THE MUSKRAT

dude owes his company's survival to gov programs but
says it's no big deal if Romney wins and makes good on his promise
to obliterate them all.

lots of companies do well out of govt contracts/programs, i'd imagine.

so hyperloop huh

people on twitter so mad. trying to understand why. i guess it boils down to:

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

still, i mean, it's pretty cool, right?

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

There are lots of problems everywhere all the time. Can't let it stop technology from moving forward.

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

There's a whole country, even! LA-to-SF sounds like a perfectly fine beta test.

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

Not all rich dudes are arrogant. Elon Musk has never struck me as anything close to that.

people on twitter so mad.

who do you follow?

i'm not getting that impression from all the tech ppl i follow

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

You might be right, Johnny, dunno. I was just trying to figure out why there was this explosion of contempt all over my twitter feed after the announcement.

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

i do follow tim but i guess whatever he said didn't stick

cool monorail bro

lol

i have a plan for a train that goes from boston to atlanta in 10mins, its called lasertrain and ill give you some cool drawings of it in a couple weeks, its ridiculous no one is building it btw it only costs $10

im not gonna build it tho cause im kinda busy

even i can afford that

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

isn't his point that hyperloop would be fraction of the cost and twice as fast?

the douchey thing is that he made a big ol deal abt something thats not at all real

Which is how 70% of architecture and urban planning works.

sure 70% that sounds totally realistic too

I meant 94% sorry.

To me, it really sounds like a kickstarter project... but from a billionaire.

i mean who knows maybe its revolutionary technology but its so preliminary its p comical to call a press conference abt it

maybe this is the best way to convince someone else to give it a shot idk

LOL "elon musk"

This should keep us occupied for a while: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

I wasn't scathing about Musk (I am about futurism in general) - if anything, he has a good track record on quixotic tech quests. I hope he's successful with this. I also hope there's a state left that can use it.

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

Knowing how CA politics works (and the CA rail projects are amazingly political), how would you expect a non-arrogant to even get traction with this?

I have no doubt that Musk will solve the Hyperloop technical issues. I very much have doubts about him navigating Sacramento.

I was describing this to my wife today and kept calling it Supertube.

Bad connotations...

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/supertrain-1_7696.jpg

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

Musk says the Hyperloop is best for distances of 900 miles. Beyond 900 miles, he thinks you're better off in a supersonic jet.

Lol

I never use my supersonic jet anymore as parking is always a total bitch

I have to say I rather like Elon Musk. He's made a massive pile of money and rather than sitting on it or managing it in mundane ways; he's making risky bets on thinks he's passionate about: Cars, Rockets, vacuum tubes.

Hyperloop seems a bit ridiculous to me, vacuum tube powered trains and trains in evacuated tubes are an old chestnut, almost as old as railways themselves. However, he's built a commercially viable private space programme and a car company* in the last ten years so anything is possible.

*Tesla isn't really a car company it's a power train company and if it is still making cars in 5 years I'll be surprised.

ya i'm kinda ll for crackpot genius billionaires actually doing interesting stuff, up until they become str8 up supervillains obv

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

― wk, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 2:23 AM

he might do this

is this dude one of the crazy silicon valley libertarian types or is he just beloved by them?

iirc he has liberal tendencies mixed in w the libertarianism

xp I heard him speak and he seemed not crazy and to have some kind of social or at least environmental conscience, unlike the usual libertarian types, but maybe he's just better at hiding it

(I like him too fwiw and right now he seems one of the most likely "crackpot genius billionaires" to solve some hard problems which are overdue for solving, so I hope he carries on with that. Also hoping that one day I'll get to see/read his computer game that appeared in some 8-bit micro type-in listings mag in the 80s)

he's not as bad as some of the other silicon valley libtards, I'll give him that.

nonetheless, this is a stupid proposal

do tell

curious to read a critique that amounts to more than 'hyperlol'

I think it's dumb that he's throwing around numbers when he doesn't even have a working prototype. It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project. I also think the "open source" thing is pretty silly since it's not like code where an individual can make some kind of improvement and test it out to see if it works. I guess an open source design is an interesting idea after the fact if he actually gets it working and other people want to build his design, but it still seems basically irrelevant.

Didn't he make his fortune with Peter thiel?
I don't know if that is "guilt by association" or "looking better by comparison"

It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project

^^^

A key part of his criticism of the other rail plan is that it's "more expensive to operate (if unsubsidized)." I'd like to see some more detailed numbers on that though. Why would we count the cost of unsubsidized rail against air travel which is heavily subsidized? All that really matters is cost to the traveller, and unlike airlines, I'm assuming the high speed rail system is not going to be run as a for-profit business. He also makes no comparison of the environmental costs of air flight vs. the planned high speed rail system.

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

― eris bueller (lukas), Monday, August 12, 2013 11:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm generally contemptuous of futurists, primarily because they seem to think energy and climate change problems will just sort themselves out, but a mass transit system that relies on solar power and transports people across one of the busiest stretches of highway in America is a good thing. I looked at the first two feeds you suggested and they seemed to just be saying this is just a toy for rich people, which is afaict completely unsupported by his proposal. He's not suggesting a magic carpet for billionaires; it's mass transit that uses solar power. This is a good thing! Maybe it's completely impossible hogwash, but I'd like to see actual engineering criticism of it instead of casual dismissals based on suspicion of ideas from rich people.

the main challenges are not engineering-related, their political

So do driverless cars always obey the speed limit? There are 25 mph roads around here that driving under 45 on will get you shot.

Driverless cars are not weaponless cars

cars themselves are weapons - if safety were actually the issue, the conversation would be about massively scaling back their size and weight (which the auto industry has sociopathically scaled up over the last few decades), putting hard limits on their speed, redesigning roads to slow them down and maximize pedestrian visibility, etc. etc. or, of course, shifting to density+transit.

Cars should be made of NERF.

The robotaxis are coming... the driverless car, AV thread. Waymo, Zoox, and others

Made one

Driverless cars are not weaponless cars

― Neanderthal, Wednesday, June 25, 2025 6:48 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://64.media.tumblr.com/73b2a3802dea5696b841a81d169062b3/tumblr_npbtesbT0S1ro2bqto1_640.jpg

getting back to the thread at hand, fucked up that gilbert arenas' son almost died in a cybertruck crash https://apnews.com/article/alijah-arenas-gilbert-usc-crash-d9146b4fe7e820a77a96c170a215d218

so this is now the umpteenth time one of these caught fire and trapped the victim inside, where they had to break the window to get out.

there are emergency pull cords but they're in hard to reach locations that may be impossible to reach after the accident and also you were just in an accident so you're disoriented.

sure is fun to live in times where this not only doesn't result in the vehicles being pulled from the street but is just recorded as a minor bug, the 'cost of having such a fun vehicle'.

while researching this I got in my list of results a thread about one of these incidents in the Cybertruck Owners Club message board and man, they are all very much in denial about this risk.

The Arenas story is wild because the crash happened was a straight line grid street with 4 wide lanes yet this sophisticated safety enabled vehicle managed to run all the way over the sidewalk, up the curb, over a FIRE HYDRANT (!) and smash into a tree... all in broad daylight.

If the car had NOT run over the fire hydrant that was keeping the car from turning into a firebomb, dude would be dead.

https://i.imgur.com/ijpFakW.png

https://i.imgur.com/Wc4TwQY.jpeg

like how does this happen in a car that's #2 advertised feature is its advanced driver-assistance systems offering "state of the art" lane-assist and collision avoidance?

It found a woke person and chased after

looking into it

Another fun recall Cybertrucks had thos year

Rearview Camera Delay
The rearview cameras, which have been a requirement in newer vehicles since May 2018, may experience delay after shifting into reverse. This delay reduces the driver’s view of what’s behind them, which increases the risk of a crash. Due to this faulty rearview Cybertruck camera, the vehicles were considered to have failed to comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard regulations.

cant even get a camera to turn on my lord

Imagine being cited because your backup camera was showing you what happened 5 seconds earlier.

This is why I've never fully embraced it

He noticed a few things were off with the Cybertruck as he drove to the gym, he said, such as flickering light displays. But the troubles ramped up rapidly on the way home, according to his account. “The wheel wasn’t moving as, like, easy as it should,” he said, and the car drifted over to the right between stoplights without him meaning it to. Then, coming out of a red light, the wheel felt locked in place with a rightward tilt, as if the car wasn’t on at all, he said. He sped up to make sure nobody was behind him as the car turned, he said, adding: “When I’m turning, when I’m speeding up to turn, I can’t stop. So the wheel’s not responding to me, as if I’m not physically in there.”

Arenas went over a curb before hitting a fire hydrant and a tree. The Cybertruck caught fire, and the hydrant launched a fountain of water. Inside the car, smoke started to crowd in around Arenas. Its windows fogged opaque, and the doors wouldn’t open, he said. The vehicle’s windows, which Tesla says are made of a “shatter-resistant armor glass,” wouldn’t break, he added.

It felt like hours were going by, Arenas said during the press conference, as critical seconds ticked away. He passed in and out of consciousness, biting his lips and clenching his hands to keep himself awake. He removed his clothes and cooled his body with water he found in a fast food bag. He yelled and pounded on the window to make noise. Arenas said he checked the the car’s app on his phone and found that it still showed him at the gym. As he worked to try to budge the top of one of the Cybertruck’s windows, he positioned himself so that when he passed out, his upper body would fall into a less smoky part of the vehicle, he said.

An onlooker, Bryant Sandoval, told KABC-TV that he heard the banging from inside the car, tried to stop the fire and attempted to smash the Cybertruck’s back window but to no avail. Then, he saw the driver’s side window ajar, he said. Video obtained by TMZ shows Sandoval trying to yank down the window. He then managed to pull Arenas from the car.

jesus christ

That's absolutely terrifying. I can't believe these things are allowed on the roads at all.

"The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel"

-DOGE 2025

Q: Would you deport Elon Musk?

TRUMP: I think we'll have to take a look.

He gets a lot of subsidies... pic.twitter.com/0Qs9EamHXp

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) July 1, 2025

Looking into it

Concerning.

It's all so fucking stupid

don't understand why it's not already zero

https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-says-hes-created-his-own-political-party-the-america-party-13392958

Yes, limited evidence exists: I visited Epstein's NYC home once briefly (~30 min) with my ex-wife in the early 2010s out of curiosity; saw nothing inappropriate and declined island invites. No advisory role or deeper ties. A 2023 subpoena sought docs in a JP Morgan lawsuit, but…

— Grok (@grok) July 6, 2025

Shit, Grok was on the Epstein flight log?

Launched his America Party today, sure we'll be hearing about that again.

Are members of the party called Americans?

There was an American party once, aka the Know Nothings

There already is an American Party, an offshoot of the now-defunct American Independent Party, which ran George Wallace for president in 1968.

Should go full Silicon Valley and call it Amerca or something

It being Musk, AmeriXa.

All too apt!

It’s a Party in the USA

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2whlowi5jjjqrdrrj4lxh2lx/bafkreienhbj2ektzbqgeqk4q5tw4qr5rtwao3bseyoowe72hg3ee5iu5oe@jpeg

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Trust Elon to turn Grok into not only a Fascist & Racist AI, but also one that speaks in fluent douche.

would be nice if there were still groups devoted to fighting against anti-semitism

they're too busy getting mad at people like Rashida Tlaib

Lol Grok is calling itself MechaHitler

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5siz7r23475fek2mj6p5zhzw/bafkreibzyyngmlqm5qj2a43rjxrm7gq5e2422s37mhk5fy2cak2yq5kw3e@jpeg