Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy Pride :3)
Has anyone heard of Boom Supersonic? Supposedly the company is making a new SST that is supposed to be able to go supersonic without the sonic boom hitting the ground by flying at or above 50,000 feet. They did a demo flight using a a plane that doesnāt use the engine tech that the prospective finished plane will have nor does it resemble the prospective airframe design, so it seems like they went fast to prove fast plane is fast I guess?
I just now heard about here. Reading about it on Wikipediaā¦ they had a mathematical model that said their design shouldnāt generate a sonic boom audible from ground level, but it was possible their mathematical model wasnāt completely correct, so building a 1/3 scale prototype (apparently) validated their model? Itās possible their model wonāt be right about their prospective design, but if it was right about the 1/3 scale then that is good evidence their model will be right? idk,
Iām not seeing much that is sneerable here, it seems kind of neat. Surely they wouldnāt spend the money on the 1/3 scale prototype unless they actually needed the data (as opposed to it being a marketing ploy or worse yet a ploy for more VC funds)ā¦ surely they wouldnāt?iirc about the Concorde (one of only two supersonic passenger planes), it isnāt so much that supersonic passenger planes arenāt technologically viable, its more a question of economics (with some additional issues with noise pollution and other environmental issues). Limits on their flight path because of the sonic booms was one of the problems with the Concorde, so at least they wonāt have that problem. And as to the other questionsā¦ Boom Supersonicās webpage directly addresses these questions, but not in any detail, but at least they address themā¦
Looking for some more skeptical sourcesā¦ this website seems interesting: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/will-boom-successfully-build-a-supersonic . They point out some big problems with Boomās approach. Boom is designing both its own engine and itās own plane, and the costs are likely to run into the limits of their VC funding even assuming nothing goes wrong. And even if they get a working plane and engine, the safety, cost, and reliability needed for a viable supersonic passenger plane might not be met. Andā¦ XB-1 didnāt actually reach Mach 2.2 and was retired after only a few flight. Maybe it was a desperate ploy for more VC funding? Or maybe it had some unannounced issues? Okayā¦ Iām seeing why this is potentially sneerable. There is a decent chance they entirely fail to deliver a plane with the VC funding they have, and even if they get that far it is likely to fail as a commercially viable passenger plane. Still, there is some possibility they deliver somethingā¦ so eh, wait and see?
Which is absolutely insane. The knowledge to make efficient, modern jet engines is heavily concentrated (for example, India has been trying to build their own jet engines to reduce dependency on the US and Russia and have only managed to get to 1970s-era technology) and I have no expectation for Boom to be able to match that by any means.
It doesnāt seem like a viable thing. Is there really enough demand for a supersonic commercial flight with the seating capacity of a regional? The company claims that major airlines have already committed to purchasing the yet-to-exist plane, which begs the question āhow committed?ā I would highly doubt that without a demonstrator specifically for the passenger version, that any airline would put down any amount of money. I have been known to underestimate the foolishness of leadership, so maybe there is an inked deal as opposed to a handshake for x number of planes, though only at y price.
In concept, supersonic aircraft are cool. Going fast is really neat. I think those are the feelings Boom is banking on, which is sad because I feel that their airliner is vaporware.
Yeah, the commitment might be only a token amount of money as a deposit or maybe even less than that. A sufficiently reliable and cost effective (which will include fuel costs and maintenance cost) supersonic passenger plane doesnāt seem impossible in principle? Maybe cryptocurrency, NFTs, LLMs, and other crap like Theranos have given me low standards on startups: at the very least, Boom is attempting to make something that is in principle possible (for within an OOM of their requested funding) and not useless or criminal in the case that it actually works and would solve a real (if niche) need. I wouldnāt be that surprised if they eventually produce a passenger planeā¦ a decade from now, well over the originally planned budget target, that is too costly to fuel and maintain for all but the most niche clientele.