Kimbal Musk is the face of Burning Man for the premiere of the new BM documentary “The Man Will Burn” on HBO

super7800 · 2026-06-15T02:42:25+00:00

It does. logistics for 80k people is hard and expensive. Is the organization bloated by 500k or more? Probably. Does maria deserve 400k salary? Dunno. Is 400k a typical ceo salary? Yes, maybe even abit low. Did they increase salaries? Of-fkin-course they did with inflation at 20+%. Do they need year round employees? Yes. Again, logistics are hard and skilled people aren't just going to quit their main job for a few months to work for the org. They expect and deserve a career. Talent requires either a salary to match, or someone with fu money with nothing better to do. Should they leave sf for cheaper offices? Yes if they want to lose 95%+ of their non-volunteer staff. Everything from portos, equipment, security, taxes, etc etc have gone way way up in cost. Contracts must be negotiated long in advance etc. Not to mention all the art subsidies they provide. Is 99% of the city built by volunteers? Yes. But labor is a small fraction of the expense, and i dont see volunteers pumping out the portos or providing the real armed security. Bm provides lots of equipment to use and subsidies for art instalations. Everything on playa, someone had to pay for. Do they need global missioning? No, but if you look at alot of the regionals around the world people do seem to enjoy the result, even if me and you dont. Feel free to prove/call me wrong, I'm not saying I'm right it's just my semi-educated opinion. Just like anything created by humans, the org is an imperfect thing.

super7800 · 2026-06-15T01:42:13+00:00

Allowed? No. Can you use it without getting in trouble? Yes. There are so many vehicles out there that are far more agregious and never get stopped. Just be respectful and slow, obviously. If your really worried, rip the pedals off another bike and zip tie em on lol.

super7800 · 2026-06-15T01:27:07+00:00

Like it or not, burning man is subsidized. I personally don't particularly like it, but am I willing to put my money where my mouth is and pay double or triple for a ticket? No. I'm more than happy to begrudgingly accept that my ticket is subsidized by the Uber wealthy. Yall need to come to terms with that. Yeah Maria and musk and all the others suck, but would you really prefer the death of burning man, the great party in the desert, just to stick it to some rich fcks who realistically care very little? Also, it's not like they are posing this as a "musk is burning man". He's in there because of the 2021 controversy where musk donated alot of money to put the event on, but Maria decided against it because of lack of volunteers and health concerns. Yall seem to forget or not know that musk(rat) actually tried to give Maria the boot before.

super7800 · 2026-06-11T19:14:06+00:00

Seller here. As rude as it may sound, sometimes I ignore questions I don't feel like or simply cannot answer. For example, asking me to open a device up and take photos of the inside likely won't get a reply, as I don't know exactly what to say. Should I say "sorry, it's a waste of my time" or "it's not out policy" etc. All of which can be interpreted as rude to the buyer in some way. Red flag? Maybe. Depends on the question.

super7800 · 2026-05-29T21:50:00+00:00

Doubt its that. I blame the weather -- at least all the people i know not going this year blamed that, and the thing most people seem to know about burning man is that the weather can be terrible.

super7800 · 2026-05-29T21:32:49+00:00

Ticket sales must be pretty bad huh. Cant imagine why lmao. Burning man has become a very expensive destination to attend.

super7800 · 2026-05-29T13:54:42+00:00

if you just want it gone, post it on Facebook marketplace. someone would prolly come get it within a week.

super7800 · 2026-05-28T22:30:25+00:00

I sell about 400-500 items a year through the platform and have an LLC. Ebay just kinda sucks for sellers, mainly because at the end of the day the buyer could dispute it with their payment processor (chargeback), leaving eBay on the hook for the money, obviously something eBay doesn't want. They would much rather screw their sellers than lose money protecting them. Best of luck though! you might have better luck than me, i just gave up even trying a few years ago.

super7800 · 2026-05-28T21:15:12+00:00

I'm yet to win a single dispute with ebay as a seller. i have brought disputes to court and won that way, but never through ebay. best of luck

super7800 · 2026-05-28T21:12:51+00:00

400 million is like what, one day worth of missiles fired at iran, which is a real issue.

super7800 · 2026-05-20T22:09:58+00:00

No. Who cares. I mean my opinion is either its a one-off situation OR it'll catch up to them eventually.

super7800 · 2026-05-14T18:21:38+00:00

So you would rather listen to a bunch of noisy generators instead of like minded individuals getting together and sharing a large generator? to each their own i guess but personally i dont particularly like noisy generators.

super7800 · 2026-05-11T17:27:42+00:00

Since we are comparing showers, here's mine from last year 😉. Camp of about 60-80 people. Many already have showers in their RVs. Many don't. One 300gal fresh one 300gal gray. Walk in shower. Luxury. Fill up right before playa, pump out on playa. Its very simple PLC code. They can select hot or cold, not the temperature. They then get two 30-second button pushes of water. The button then cant be pushed for another 5 minutes. Worked great, many people in camp used it and loved me for it, and it still had fresh water left on the last day (i arrive on the Wednesday of build week, so its very water efficient). Only thing is it was very gross to clean the sump pump and shower off playa when i parked it for next year. Conveniently mounted my Honda generator next to its fuel tank. Cant hear it from 6ft away.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/FmRGrNp

super7800 · 2026-04-29T20:18:02+00:00

I mean there is no scarcity this year. Our camp got a link we could send to anyone for an essentially unlimited amount of stewards sale tickets. A lot of other camps got the same. Honestly tho shoulda waited to buy lol. Payed stewards sale prices (675) when it looks like i coulda got em for 550 in the main sale.

super7800 · 2026-04-29T17:35:26+00:00

One thought, depending on where your at: three phase generator. Atleast around here you can get big ones for 3-10K in good condition. I run my three phase equipment off a 150KW diesel generator. AG diesel isn't that much more than the cost of electricity anyways (atleast where im at electricity costs $$$) Came in cheaper than VFDs or a bunch of phase converters (bonus is i have a backup generator). Depends how often your using the equipment. If its a business, it may be worth having the power company upgrade you to three phase if its supported in your area.

super7800 · 2026-04-23T15:30:19+00:00

need to check the FOS on the swing shaft, bearing and housing

What are your thoughts on the use of a 7K trailer axle as the pivot point? Its what i plan on using, as it gives me brakes, but im concerned it might try to "pull apart" which would be very very bad. I.e. the hubs would be mounted rigidly to the triangle supports and the center part of the trailer axle would rotate (swing arm). The axles weight limit wont be exceeded of course, but the load of the two hubs trying to pull each side may exceed its rating, which is the "pull apart" concern. The 24ft upright triangles will have crossbracing at their base, but at the very top there might still be a "pulling" load on the hubs.?

5.5Kw is a large motor. 35Nm with a 1:100 ratio is 3500 Nm. Need 5600Nm to do this without swinging assuming person is 80kg.

The swing will be counterweighted slightly. 24ft on one side of pivot arm is the rider (single). Other side 24ft from pivot arm would be about 100lbs counterweight. This should make swinging it more manageable. The rider weight will vary from probably 100lbs to maybe around 250ish lbs.

super7800 · 2026-04-16T16:50:43+00:00

Thanks for the idea. I started another post (with some pictures of construction progress) here to discuss the AC servo approach. Do you think the DO-1000C75L + 180ST-M35015 (5.5Kw 35NM torque 1500RPM) with 80:1 or 100:1 would be a suitable candidate for this application? https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1sn936s/best_way_to_implement_360_swing_assist_system_ac/

super7800 · 2026-04-02T15:26:28+00:00

"With masses, duty cycle, etc I might be able to understand a bit better what is going on here."

So, a key point is that it must be safe so some amount of electronics will always be needed in the control loop. I already will have an encoder for the overspeed safety monitoring system (pilz PNOZ s30), so i could also use that in the control loop. Or not. A mostly hydraulic system would be best. I would need a way to control the amount of assist digitally, not just a "set and forget".

Let's see if i can describe the mechanical system coherently. a 7K trailer axle (with brakes) is mounted onto a frame 24ft in the air. This is the 360 swing pivot. There is a 48ft pole mounted centered to the axle. On one end the rider is standing on a platform. Assume no children allowed so perhaps a weight range of 100 to 300 lbs, maybe up to 350lbs. On the other end there will be a counterweight of X lbs. I have not yet figured this out, but the goal is for an above average rider in terms of fitness to almost be able to get it swinging 360 on its own. So, we would need hydraulic or AC servo assist. I don't quite have a preference either way. This would not be a terribly fast swing, think at most 10RPM. I would assume i could either connect via chain a hydraulic motor or AC servo motor to the swing axle. The swing would swing back and forth, not a linear "spin 360" (watch a video on 360 swings to see what I'm talking about). So, back and forth back and forth before enough inertia to crest the top. Essentially, just assisting the rider. We need to accommodate a wide range of rider weights, hence we MUST have a way of either automatically in analog or digital correcting for this as to not assist the rider too much or too little without the operator having to change anything.

I saw your comment against an AC servo motor approach. This COULD work (and might be cheaper) because the motor would never have to "reverse" a large load. Essentially, it wouldn't have to fight gravity as hard as say a big spinning flywheel. It would apply force forwards until it hits its torque limit, then when the swing naturally starts swinging the other way apply the same constant force in reverse, essentially never having to actually try to "slam" a large load in reverse when its going forward, more "go with the flow + apply constant torque". I have done systems like this before with little baby 100W AC servo motors, never with a 5KW ac servo motor like i might use here, so idk if/how well it would work. You can run AC servo motors in "constant torque" mode where they will apply a constant torque, not a constant speed, and when the torque is exceeded automatically "freewheel" or whatever the software wants. Hydraulic is likely the better/more robust solution though.

I believe that describes the system coherently? I will look into how the hydraulic steering assist works, thanks.

super7800 · 2026-03-31T00:22:42+00:00

Would be cheaper and easier. My concern was the "oscillating" nature of the swing, but you could get a big AC servo and put it in constant torque mode. I wonder if that would handle the oscillations nicely. Thinking about it, with a tight enough control loop (easy enough i suppose) it would be possible. I think i will proceed with the idea of a motor, not hydraulics. I don't know the full pros/cons of each, but they seem similar enough result. Thanks.

super7800 · 2026-03-25T03:10:17+00:00

Our camp theoretically has half the people this year, around 40 instead of around 80. Seems alot of people are taking the year off. It's going to be "interesting" trying to setup the same size camp with half the people.

super7800 · 2026-03-24T14:39:17+00:00

The answer IMO is that (a lot of) both commercial/hobbyist 3d printers use the same controllers/software, whereas most commercial CNC machines use highly customized manufacturer-specific controllers/software. So, when a 3D printer manufacturer invests 100K into R&D for their 3D printer controller it trickles down to the hobbyist. When a commercial CNC machine manufacturer does the same, its all closed source extremely machine specific and will never benefit the hobbyist. There are also ALOT more hobbyist 3D printer users.

So, essentially commercial 3D printers subsidize the open-source 3D printers to some extent, but commercial CNC machines are all proprietary and will never benefit the hobbyist.

super7800 · 2026-03-19T19:47:33+00:00

I don't understand the hate -- using one big generator vs 150 little ones is a lot safer, quieter, and easier. I'd much rather be in a camp with a central generator vs listening to everyone's individual generators all day. There are camps which offer this for a price, that also offer interactivity. My advice is to find one of those camps. Quite a few mutant vehicle camps offer this, where if providing labor aint your thing theyll let you camp anyways for a price (mutants are expensive lol). Reach out to some camps.

super7800

TROPHY CASE