Pipedream - Home Delivery By Pipes

[Bud]

Don't tell the customers though that their food was delivered through the sewer network   

[SiliconWizard]

It would be great to order something on the internet, then 5 minutes later, there is a big whooshing noise at home, as the parcel(s) arrive. Without even needing to answer a door, or go to a collection point or similar, which could be a number of miles, from home.

Yeah it would be great. But it's not going to happen for a myriad of reasons.

Uh yeah. And uh, great? Sure. But it kinda looks like a kid's dream rather than adult stuff.

[SiliconWizard]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

While that could be a solution for essentially a dedicated, point-to-point network such as what your describe, a general-purpose network using the same technology for connecting essentially every address to every other address is a completely different matter.

Oh and still, I wonder what happens with the system your talked about with the hospital, if it ever gets jammed. How does maintenance work? And I sure hope they have a back-up solution, probably involving classic delivery.

[langwadt]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

While that could be a solution for essentially a dedicated, point-to-point network such as what your describe, a general-purpose network using the same technology for connecting essentially every address to every other address is a completely different matter.

Oh and still, I wonder what happens with the system your talked about with the hospital, if it ever gets jammed. How does maintenance work? And I sure hope they have a back-up solution, probably involving classic delivery.

sure they can always go delivering by car, but they have three separate tubes even though they currently only  need one

[coppice]

You never know what might be feasible in specific cities, by reusing defunct installations. When Mercury Communications started in the UK in the 1980s, it was feasible for them to start wiring up the City of London  quickly with fibre, because they bought the remnants of the London Hydraulic Power Company. They still owned a series a pipes that was put under the city in Victorian times, to hydraulically power a variety of systems before the electric grid got started. Their pipe network was ideal for quickly deploying modern telecoms.

[TimFox]

Similarly, there was an underground freight-tunnel 24"-gauge rail system in Chicago, which is still in place although service was ended in 1959 after the two CTA subway tunnels on State and Dearborn Streets severed much of the dense matrix of tunnels 40 feet below grade.  The network reached 60 miles, all under Chicago streets that (mostly) form a rectangular grid.  The remaining tunnels in central Chicago were fixed up by adding flood gates after the infamous underground flood of 1991-92.  The tunnels are in use by the electrical utility and various communications cables.
The company that drove the pilings in the wrong location to pierce the tunnel roof at Kinzie St claimed they didn't know the tunnel was there--if they had asked me, I could have shown them the map in the standard book on the subject.
Later, in 2004, the Kinzie St bridge (which the pilings were supposed to protect) was the site of the infamous Dave Matthews Band incident (q.v.).

[MarkMLl]

I thought about doing a video, but is it worth my time?

Yes, because as with "The Boring Company" it completely overlooks the difficulty of getting wayleave under the densely-populated areas which are its only possible application.

As such it highlights the ignorance of technological "visionaries", not to mention the questionable ethics of their financial backers who have no excuse for not knowing better.

MarkMLl

[SiliconWizard]

These projects tend to hog investors' money (and political interest) to the detriment of more sensible and useful ones. This is definitely not harmless.

[TimFox]

The narrow-gauge Chicago freight tunnels were dug on the cheap by digging up the public roadway, fabricating the relatively small tunnel forty feet down, then covering it again ("cut and cover").
Later, two subway tubes were added downtown, to normal loading gauge and standard rail gauge.  Almost all of the subway tunnels were bored with a boring machine.

[coppice]

The narrow-gauge Chicago freight tunnels were dug on the cheap by digging up the public roadway, fabricating the relatively small tunnel forty feet down, then covering it again ("cut and cover").
Later, two subway tubes were added downtown, to normal loading gauge and standard rail gauge.  Almost all of the subway tunnels were bored with a boring machine.

The secret to low infrastructure costs in to get in early. The Chinese realised this, and built infrastructure like crazy before their cities expanded too far. Now those cities have mushroomed in size they are finding further infrastructure much more expensive to build. Even if some of their earlier work was not of the highest quality, its a lot easier to upgrade it than to put new systems in place in a busy city.

[Rick Law]

This actually makes Amazon Prime Air and Alphabet's (Google's) Wing look more practical --  unmanned flying drones to deliver your package instantly.  After all, Wings claimed over 10,000 cups of coffee and 1200 roasted chicken has been successfully delivered.^[1]

That is of course until some bad elements in society use that for criminal purposes -- a very bad flying drone can be easily overlooked amongst the many cups of coffee and bagels being flown across town to someone's breakfast table.  On the plus side, it certainly can clear the "aerial rats" (as a former Mayor in NYC once called the pigeons) from the city.

References:
In this article about Amazon Prime air is where you will find Wing's claim of 10,000 cups of coffee and 1200 roasted chickens delivered.  This article is actually an interesting read if you wonder whatever happened to those flying drone delivery ideas:
[1] https://time.com/6093371/amazon-drone-delivery-service/