TacosaurusRex said:

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There is a reason why every construction accident training video is in China. When you have no concern for human life during construction, or what happens after they "complete" construction, things tend to move faster. There is also a reason why Chinese firms and materials are not allowed on many projects in the States.

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For their national projects with tons of eyes on them, they usually do stuff up to nearly our standards.

Everything else gets the short shift though.

TexAgs91 said:

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BusterAg said:

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Can someone specify what we are talking about since I don't click twitter?

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It's literally not possible to click twitter

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False. I even double-clicked it.

Installing new rail in America, with our amazing highway system, is kind of like installing central AC into all of London.

Why?

The amount of stuff you would have to tear up for high speed rail to be helpful in the US doesn't come close to paying for the efficiency gain you would get from a rail system over autonomous vehicles.

If you want AC in London, just install a mini-split.

Rail is completely useless in America where you have freedoms.

Gov subsidized mass transit only allows you to participate in the Gov approved places.

Obama invested our tax dollars heavily into building up around rail hubs. If you want "his" money, you play his rules.

Downtown Plano, is an example. If you live in the multi-family housing there, and rely on Gov transit (Dart rail and buses) because you don't have a car... you are limited to where the rail and busses take you. You can only stop where they have chosen to let you stop. And you can only travel at the prescribed times.

Sure, you can walk from there. And sure... you can Uber, but you are really limited by the fees imposed.

I can jump into my car... I can go anywhere I want... shop anywhere I want. If I want to go on my time... I can go. I don't have to consult a schedule. I don't have to follow the "allowed" route.

Assuming this isn't made with the construction equivalent of tinker toys and gluesticks, you then have to ask two other questions:

Why did they build that specific train station?
Do we need one too?

The answer to the first will tell you a lot about the answer to the second.

What's cheaper for the consumer? How much cheaper will insurance become when cars are piloted by an AI that doesn't:

Get distracted by a cell phone
Get drunk
Get sleepy
Get distracted by a passenger…or anything really
Get confused
Get Asian

Yeah….when premiums for this start tanking because the data will eventually exist to show it's safer….thatll be the catalyst that triggers this

Can we ban obvious ai videos?

Dammit, now I am doing by absolute bestest to avoid ranting about DFW/Houston drivers to derail this thread.

Totalitarian governments are REALLY good at large public infrastructure projects. When the government is the one pushing the project, has tons of resources, and no one can oppose it, it gets pretty easy.


Here the project is private, has to make money, the government sets hurdles and barriers, and private citizens sue to keep it from happening. Or here the government runs the project, sets its own hurdles and barriers that triple the cost, is hamstringed by budget constraints, and is sued by private citizens to keep it form happening.

all AI watch at 2:10. The guy working on drainage disappears underwater...

txaggie_08 said:

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Is that entire video AI? At one point around the 2:05 mark a guy sinks into the water and disappears.

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Lol. I just noticed that. To be fair, you can be sure that a Chinaman actually died that way making this facility.

Rails work great for moving commodities. For moving individual people with a variety of destinations it sucks. It is no shock that rail fanboys tend to be socialists, or in this case Chinese, where individuals are treated more like commodities than human beings

sorry for the DERAIL

What did it mean or what is happening with the metal scales? Something about they move all the time at different angles?

Burdizzo said:

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Rails work great for moving commodities. For moving individual people with a variety of destinations it sucks. It is no shock that rail fanboys tend to be socialists, or in this case Chinese, where individuals are treated more like commodities than human beings

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Have you been to China? They live like ants or bees. Rail works when everyone, and I mean everyone lives in a giant depressing tower with no yard.

For us, yeah, its not as good.

aggiehawg said:

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May be a dumb question here but why would we want to build something like that?

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China didn't need a new rail station like this, it's just a jobs program.

Cheap EVs with self driving. Just build more highways instead.

Took the bullet train from Naples to Rome yesterday.

It's embarrassing that we can't put one in. So damn easy and inexpensive.

Martels Hammer said:

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sorry for the DERAIL

What did it mean or what is happening with the metal scales? Something about they move all the time at different angles?

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Have you never watched How to TRAIN Your Dragon?

Quote:

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There are about a billion Chinese people. Life doesn't mean as much over there

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Yes, but it typical Chinese fashion they have overestimated their population by anywhere from 50-100 million people. Life is still cheap though.

What is downright criminal is that China is still considered a developing country by the UN, which allows them to get preferential loans, get access to loans & contribute less to international aid. Also because they are poor & developing, they get an extra 10 years to phase out stuff (pollutants for example) that developed countries by treaty have to do.

There was an effort to build a high speed rail station in Houston. There was an old mall that shutdown, and the property was acquired. It's been over a decade of red tape so far, and no real progress made. It was in the news recently because they started tearing down the mall buildings finally.

Found a story about it:

I don't think projects of that scale are possible in the US anymore. There are too many regulations, environmental regulations in particular, that make it infeasible. Land acquisition for the rail lines is possible through eminent domain seizure purchase, but each one is years of legal battles before and after the fact. All of this makes the cost too high for the risk of nothing happening. You could spend 30+ years in legal battles, and the impact of losing one of them is severe.

txaggie_08 said:

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Is that entire video AI? At one point around the 2:05 mark a guy sinks into the water and disappears.

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no, that's the only non-AI part. he slipped into the water never to be seen again.

Apache said:

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Quote:

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There are about a billion Chinese people. Life doesn't mean as much over there

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Yes, but it typical Chinese fashion they have overestimated their population by anywhere from 50-100 million people. Life is still cheap though.

What is downright criminal is that China is still considered a developing country by the UN, which allows them to get preferential loans, get access to loans & contribute less to international aid. Also because they are poor & developing, they get an extra 10 years to phase out stuff (pollutants for example) that developed countries by treaty have to do.

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this does not get discussed enough.

Gilligan said:

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Took the bullet train from Naples to Rome yesterday.

It's embarrassing that we can't put one in. So damn easy and inexpensive.

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They are easy to use in europe but they are only cheap because they are heavily government subsidized. There are huge infrastructure costs to build high speed rail. You can't look at ticket prices to call it cheap.

DallasAg 94 said:

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Rail is completely useless in America where you have freedoms.

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I should have been more clear for those who are triggered by mass transit. I'm talking about the scale of the construction project in the time that it took to build it. Not what they actually built.

And yes... long live cars!

Gilligan said:

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Took the bullet train from Naples to Rome yesterday.

It's embarrassing that we can't put one in. So damn easy and inexpensive.

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When I took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka, I knew immediately why we can't do that.

Where to start...
1 - We'd have to keep the homeless and mentally ill off the train tracks.
2 - We'd need ridership that we'd never get.
3 - Don't forget whose palms need to get greased and contracts awarded to the "right" firms. How can Pelosi, et.al. profit?

TexAgs91 said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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Rail is completely useless in America where you have freedoms.

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I should have been more clear for those who are triggered by mass transit. I'm talking about the scale of the construction project in the time that it took to build it. Not what they actually built.

And yes... long live cars!

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We (meaning my father and his peers) built the TransAlaska Pipeline in 3 years.

So we could do it from a technology and logistics standpoint.

But these days, you're not even going to get started until you've got environmental studies, minority business participation, governmental approval, not to mention acquiring the right of way.

So... No, we couldn't but, not because we're not capable.

Quote:

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We (meaning my father and his peers) built the TransAlaska Pipeline in 3 years.

So we could do it from a technology and logistics standpoint.

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For which company? My Dad worked on the design for that pipeline for Texaco back in the day.

China is not concerned with cost efficiency, worker's rights/adequate wages, environmental impact, etc. It's easy to build pretty much anything when you have near unlimited access to money, resources and cheap manpower and the government removing all logistical hurdles, safety regulations and efficacy checkpoints.

Apache said:

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Quote:

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There are about a billion Chinese people. Life doesn't mean as much over there

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Yes, but it typical Chinese fashion they have overestimated their population by anywhere from 50-100 million people. Life is still cheap though.

What is downright criminal is that China is still considered a developing country by the UN, which allows them to get preferential loans, get access to loans & contribute less to international aid. Also because they are poor & developing, they get an extra 10 years to phase out stuff (pollutants for example) that developed countries by treaty have to do.

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It is like the HUB program. There is no incentive for businesses to get out because once they are out they have to compete on a level playing field.

Also, it's important to point out that China's massive industrial and technology projects generally produce stuff that malfunctions/breaks a lot. Bridges collapsing is a pretty regular occurrence for example.

Gilligan said:

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Took the bullet train from Naples to Rome yesterday.

It's embarrassing that we can't put one in. So damn easy and inexpensive.

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A whopping 140 miles. Oooh, aah, that's impressive (not.)

American Hardwood said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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China built this. But could America? I know we can build this, but with all the regulations, could we build this?

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Yes. All it takes is the government stealing enough of your money to incentivize the right people to do it.

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If I remember correctly the West side of our existing Kyle Field was built in nine months (December through August).

Logos Stick said:

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Cheap EVs with self driving. Just build more highways instead.

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Most people on here think they are better drivers than 90% of the population, hate added tech on vehicles and hate the idea of driving anything without a V8. So yeah, I can see your idea taking off.

The Houston-DFW high speed rail line was a mismanaged disaster from start to finish which even our admittedly inept state legislature refused to back, thankfully. They acquired just enough property and had just enough investors/powerpoints to get media attention, before it finally fell apart.

It's an example of why we shouldn't try to 'be like China' just because they build/open something that is really big. Congqing is one of 4 nationally administered cities and part of the government's 'push west' so hundreds of millions/billions of investment has been made to make it look pretty/grow. If the US government by policy decided to invest a couple trillion dollars into making Amarillo a population/transit/industrial/tech industry hq this could be done, with rail and everything, but...why?

If I had to make a ten dollar bet whether the 'Chongqing East Railway Station' is busy, profitable, and safe in 10 or 20 years, I'd definitely take the under, in any case.