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Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

crainsnewyork.com

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Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#11

Post by cperciva »

tbirrell wrote: post #9

tl;dr - It's like a crawler (mobile with a boom, street level crane) but you put it on top of something already there. Since its on top of something, it's not a "mobile" crane and couldn't get certified as one, however, it also didn't fit into the tower crane (tall, lifts things) certification. So it got stuck in between two classifications and as a result made it too hard for construction companies to bother includi…

It could, and did, get approved as a mobile crane.

Then it was unapproved, thanks to political pressure.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#12

Post by lwf »

pkamb wrote: post #6

> During the many hours of downtime on job sites, perched hundreds of feet above the street, he would pull out a journal and sketch new ideas for cranes, hoping to solve some of the machines’ fundamental problems. Per last week's discussion, who owns those sketches? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921433

Well, he owns the company, so it's moot:

> The 50-year-old crane operator and president of crane leasing company Vertikal Solutions was helping to build the 34-story Hilton Garden Inn in midtown.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#13

Post by learc83 »

pkamb wrote: post #6

> During the many hours of downtime on job sites, perched hundreds of feet above the street, he would pull out a journal and sketch new ideas for cranes, hoping to solve some of the machines’ fundamental problems. Per last week's discussion, who owns those sketches? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921433

I really doubt a crane operator's contract said anything about assigning IP to his employer. If that is the case, he owns them.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#14

Post by stcredzero »

jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

extract a lot of questionable value from society.

So they've become "extractive" in the parlance of economists and sociologists studying 3rd world economies?

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#17

Post by JBReefer »

stcredzero wrote: post #14
jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

extract a lot of questionable value from society. So they've become "extractive" in the parlance of economists and sociologists studying 3rd world economies?

Right, or you could say that they were successful rent-seekers.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#18

Post by tyingq »

jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

We're often guilty of the same sort of thing in IT. I've seen IT leaders go on witch-hunts for areas of a business solving their own small issues with Ms Access, FileMaker, etc. Or developers complaining about simple crud apps and their support being outsourced overseas.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#19

Post by gist »

This is interesting. That said for some reason I think that posts like this stray far from the purpose of a site like this as it is more of a general interest and not specific to startups or technology.

I wonder if PG's 'anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity' conflicts with his 'If they'd cover it on TV news' (where I assume TV news is actually broader than just what would be on TV news and includes items of a more general audience business interest).

What's the issue exactly? It crowds out and distracts from stories that might be of more value and relevance than simply something that is interesting.

Maybe a new way to describe would be 'of interest to hackers and relevant to what they do in a strong way'.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#20

Post by GFischer »

schoen wrote: post #4
GFischer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that this might be a new push by their PR firm (which is very good I guess, the article is very flattering and small-guy vs union side and all the right buttons) http://gothamgr.com/media-coverage/

It looks like they subsequently received their certification: http://vertikalsolutions.net/products/ > NYC SKYPICKER CERTIFICATION > The SKYPICKER MDS is approved for use by the New York City Department of Buildings division of Cranes and Derricks This article might have been organized by a PR firm, but if so, I guess it's already been successful.

Good find :) .
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