Elon Musk

seems like we should have a thread on this guy, idk

Who he?

It's really an anagram of "Nole Skum."

Suk Lemon

ahe's kinda like tony stark, so i gather from ten mins research, but without the weapons and with clean energy and space

it's kinda surprising he isn't more well known all things considered

seriously. if wiki is even half-accurate shouldn't he be a fixture on Time mag or something?

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

it's been nice not having this loser in the news every day

tramways are the future

Melbourne FTW then, we have the longest tram network in the world. (And according to my brother who works for the company that makes the trams, they have to build them extra tough because we have the worst track on the world as well)

Oakland & Berkeley used to have a bunch of trams/streetcars and they were dismantled decades ago
San Francisco & San Diego are the two main CA cities that kept them

oh i meant the airborne ones thatre like ski lifts we call the tracked ones street cars over here did not know people called them trams elsewhere learn something new every day

where are the flying cars that would clear congestion

the first car-plane accident might be a nightmare for insurers though

i dont know. how is the current robotaxi liability claims world going

I mean if you're asking me what I WANT then I want high-speed trains that tie into local metro networks and architecture designed for amenities available within quarter-mile walks. But I live in Texas so if you are asking to me to choose from what is actually on the menu, I am open to driverless cars.

in SF we call trams LRVs (light rail vehicles) and they are ultimately superior to cars regardless of human or computer driven.

yeah seriously fuck this attitude

― a (waterface), Wednesday, June 25, 2025 2:36 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

just calling it as i see it. weren't you the one (accurately) predicting a trump win in 2016?

light rail is not that good if youre going to half ass functionality might as well soar through the air on beautiful cables

thankin U for the traumatic memories of my ex moving to Roosevelt Island

sorry for stirring that up but you can hardly blame them for wanting to live the tram life

california high speed rail system: first authorized in 1982. anticipated to start operating between noted california population megacenters merced and bakersfield in 2031-2033.

waymo: already doing 300k rides a month in 2024.

:(

xp overhead monorails or gtfo

I mean, mass transit is clearly not going to happen via forward-thinking public works projects so if driverless cars create market forces that drive people away from individual car ownership, OK if that is what it takes. If driverless cars begin to eclipse human drivers in terms of safety then it will eventually be cost-prohibitive to pay for individual liability car insurance. So you have more people owning self-driving cars or just using the services. If my car drives itself why wouldn't I lease it for taxi services when I'm sleeping or at work? A critical mass of self-driving cars means increased ease of using them for point-to-point local travel, and eventually it becomes advantageous on a personal economic level to not own a car anymore at all, even in the suburbs. Changes a lot of things on the ground - garages are wasted space that could be an extra bedroom or office, parking garages are also massive wastes of urban space. All that stuff shifting puts a city in a much better place from which to attempt large-scale mass transit systems.

no

you're leaving out the part where a driverless car does not have a driver

oh *that's* what that means

if the world was just technology stories wed already have public transit everywhere

with self-driving, we can all be semi-drunk nearly all the time

i guess i have trouble believing that any corporation, but especially any tech corporation, genuinely cares about user safety beyond basic liability in 2025. they're emphasizing safety (ie low driving speeds, overcautious behavior, etc) right now bc they're under the microscope as they start up but as soon as it's inconvenient or impacting profitability those will be programmed out.

yup not to mention the things that are just inherently unsafe about cars pollution primacy in the built environment etc

f hazel’s posts on this thread are far more offensive to me than almost anything anyone has ever written on this site

go back and look at my posts in the politics thread again I guess

lol

as a Texan it is in fact extremely refreshing to hang out on ILX and be the most reactionary person in the room for once

haha <3

we should prob have a separate thread for driverless cars given the Waymo growth?

true, posting here gives the very mistaken impression I have anything but complete loathing for Elon Musk, Tesla, and also Waymo to be honest

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