Maybe we will not teleport in 2 seconds across the globe or this project will die, who knows if we don't try.
A little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. Just saying.
And for Virgin, it's not my money, if they want to invest in a black hole sure they can.
When VMware was first announced and demoed, the commenters at Slashdot declared things like it was fake, it was stupid, it was a waste, it would never work, or that dual booting was a better solution. They largely concluded that virtual machines weren't a thing and happily congratulated themselves for their brilliant insights.
I'm on a tablet or I'd dig the link out for you. It's one of my favorite discussion threads on the Internet.
So, to make it easier for you - I've grabbed a laptop and dug out the link:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/99/02/11/0939233/multiple-os...
I absolutely encourage anyone/everyone to read the linked comments. It's one of my favorite examples when a number of discussions come up.
My preferred time to reference it is when people say things like, "Slashdot used to be so much better!" Or when they say things like, "We had much better commentary back in the day!"
No, no they did not. In fact, it was never as good as people recall it being. That is kind of what makes it so wonderful and why I love discussion sites.
I am, by no means, innocent or superior. ;-)
Today's thread about Musk's "Hyperloop" is good fodder to bookmark and look back at in a decade. I have to wonder how many of the posters will admit they were wrong, should this reach fruition?
I dug the link out for another person who replied. You may want to take a look?
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/99/02/11/0939233/multiple-os...
There was a database glitch that messed up usernames (I think that was after they'd added accounts, my memory isn't that good so I'm not certain) but it's still an amusing read. It really is a good example for a variety of discussions. It's my favorite example, actually.
A few people actually understood and made comments, and some had seen a recent demo. Some speculated about patents and one was happy to point out that they had a whole notebook full of ideas. Some seemed to think the software could do things it couldn't actually do, and certainly not at that stage.
One person even complained that it wouldn't work for him because if his old hardware. Others complained that it didn't meet their needs. Some even seemed unhappy that it wasn't available to run on their obscure OS. Of course, they couldn't use a more popular OS and then virtualized their obscure OS.
Also, there are comments to complain about the site management, people insulting other people, and comments that hadn't a damned thing to do with the subject at hand.
For so few comments, it's like they managed to hit every stereotype. It's absolutely my favorite reference thread and it works for so many conversations. I actually made it a point to finally bookmark it on my tablet as I've been using it more than a laptop lately.
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
This sounds like such an insane proposition relative to the Dropbox we know today.
The top comment is being pedantic that it doesn’t technically replace a USB drive because you have to install software and have access to the Internet. Hilarious in retrospect.
If the biggest complaint someone can have is “you have to have Internet” you’re doing OK.
Does it? If you used WebDAV then you can mount a share in Windows or Linux even over the Internet, and windows at least is good at caching it while you're offline for short periods. For someone who has their own always-on Apache it seems like this would replicate most of the use cases for Dropbox. I think the point that's being missed is simply that most people would rather see a few ads or pay a small fee than administer their own Apache, not that what Dropbox offers is technically so far ahead.
I’m just guessing on numbers, but that probably describes <1% of the population. Most people think Apache is a word used only to describe helicopters.
I admit that it's just a guess, but it does seem likely.
Again, not a major point.
"Hacker News hated Dropbox so..." Is a fun trope, but Dropbox still isn't profitable ;)
In seriousness I bet a lot of us go though the thought process that we want to give constructive criticism, since positive feedback isn't super actionable.
Feeling smarter than the rich people is always a good feeling too (and cheap, since we aren't even betting our own money )
I mean, let's apply your logic to its logical conclusion: we should never criticize anything, ever, on the off chance it could end up working and then people would look back on our comments and call us silly. On that note I'm just starting a gofundme to create my own interplanetary travel agency, don't forget to donate.
Yeah, HN was wrong about dropbox (although some of the criticism was a lot more specific and arguably accurate than some make it up to be). Now let's fetch the comment threads about color.com, about google plus, about the ubuntu phone, about whatever other failed product we've already long forgotten about.
If HN is wrong about hyperloop, so what? You'll be able to gloat about it in a few decades from your supersonic train seat. In the meantime there are real, practical questions that need answering and that's a much more interesting discussion than "wow this is so coool" or "I wonder what Elon Musk's armpits taste like".
Do you think that the Hyperloop One folks are going to read this thread and give up on the project? "Well, looks like we were wrong, shut down everything folks". I can get this argument for a small startup of one or two young entrepreneurs but for some reason I don't expect Virgin Group to be that insecure.
People are pointing out the glaring flaws in the Hyperloop idea, not because they can't or won't believe that crazy ideas are possible, but in reaction to the media's reaction to Elon Musk's PR. Surely I'm not the only one who wants to upchuck every time that Musk makes a claim and the media drools all over whatever he says. It even goes beyond the media itself but how the public reacts to how the media reports Musk. Otherwise smart people I've met have likened Musk to a modern day Edison, or even Tesla. Musk's companies have achieved great things, but he has more in common with Barnum than famous inventors.
Testing impossible ideas is wonderful. Musk's PR being inflated by the media, creating an audience of believer sycophants, is a different story and I really don't mind people blowing holes in the Hyperloop theory if the newsprint-spewing public isn't going to get that from technology reporters. I'd bet Hyperloop critics actually like the idea at one level or another, and hate to see such ideas looked at with pollyanna eyes.
Likening him to Barnum would perhaps paint him as a little more nefarious than Musk actually is, but I wouldn't consider that insulting. The man was a master promoter. But perhaps he's not a good analogue because their "products" are very different. People liken Musk to Edison, and they did both own technology companies that produced innovations, but that's where the similarity ends.
You might like the idea that it's some sort of reasoned rejection of Elon PR, but it's not. Just make a Show HN sometime.
Its like Elon going into trucking and people saying the range isn't sufficient. The guy is pretty darn smart. I'm confident he understands trucking range and has some solutions, and simply isn't discussing it for secrecy and/or succinctness.
There's a lot of in depth criticism of hyperloop based on Elon's 57 page paper. It is hardly a case of gut reactions to 400 word press releases.
However from what I have seen so far I am quite disappointed as even known issues aren't addressed at all. As if the people involved are blindly going at it instead of working with people who know something about pressure vessels etc.
Sure sometimes you need an outside perspective but not like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk
He has some other good videos (solar roadways) but tends to spend to much time bashing creationists.
Or it won't. Most companies fail, I expect most ideas do too.
> A little bit of optimism doesn't hurt. Just saying.
Yes and no. Optimism is worthwhile but realism is important too. It's cool that private companies are pursuing these ideas and I wish them all the best, but when I see people claiming that e.g. California's high speed rail is overpriced/pointless because of hyperloop then I want to scream. We shouldn't let our enthusiasm over these hyped ideas detract from implementing the more pedestrian approaches that are proven to work and address our very immediate needs.
Orwell mentions it in one of his lesser-known essays when discussing the problems with arguing about economics(1).
>"When the nautical screw was first invented, there was a controversy that lasted for years as to whether screw-steamers or paddle-steamers were better. The paddle-steamers, like all obsolete things, had their champions. Finally, however, a distinguished admiral tied a screw-steamer and a paddle-steamer of equal horsepower stern to stern and set their engines running. That settled the question once and for all. And it was something similar that happened on the fields of Norway and of Flanders [referencing economic questions]."
1 - www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_saw