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

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

#181

Post by pcurve »

pinot wrote: post #150
Houshalter wrote: post #38

The first subway in New York City cost about $100 million per kilometer in 1900 (adjusted for inflation of course). The new subway line being opened this year cost $2.2 billion per kilometer. This is despite over a century of improvements in technology. Here's an interesting HN post, "Forty Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11736696 In that article is…

A tunnel built in 1900 looks nothing like a tunnel built in 2017. Strength, longevity, safety systems, dimensions, computer controls, power etc etc are all massively upgraded. It's not a fair comparison. That's like saying this electric car [1] from the 1902 would be far cheaper to build than a Telsa in 2017, therefore Teslas are over priced. [1] http://www.intechopen.com/source/html/41483/media/f4.jpg

Here's a subway line in South Korea that was built for $100 million / km.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE87IPJqW4M

Granted, it's not the most fair comparison, but the cost of subway construction in NY is abomination.

https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...

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

#182

Post by sfall »

awalton wrote: post #155
VLM wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waterless ones are patented and without a water line you'd be locked in to higher priced products and/or have to spend a lot of extra money to run a new water line after the walls go up. Generally the situation with waterless ones is people endlessly social signal their green superiority about them, then the incredible stench makes them install real urinals. Even if only 5% or so install real urinals the net cost is…

> waterless ones are patented and without a water line you'd be locked in to higher priced products and/or have to spend a lot of extra money to run a new water line after the walls go up. Urinals have a very long life cycle, and by the time one needs to be replaced, it is likely any patent left would be in Design only, and thus other manufacturers can build and sell them, allowing the market to rebalance the cost. I…

waterless urinals require a cartridge which has to be replaced

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

#183

Post by pcurve »

nkrisc wrote: post #15

Unions have a purpose. Suppressing innovation and competition to protect their gravy train monopoly should not be one of them.

I support union, but when a crane operator makes $500,000/year just because of union and location factor, I become ashamed. This reminded me of story from a few years ago about Spanish air traffic controllers making $1,000,000/year+ while others in far more wealthy Eurozone made 1/10th of that.

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

#184

Post by hoorayimhelping »

CPLX wrote: post #93
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the unions. On my way to work, I pass by a giant inflatable rat inflated by a gas motor that's hauled around by a truck. It's rather annoying when its tail gets loose and covers the sidewalk, as can happen on windy days when it's not tied down appropriately. It's probably 10 or 12 feet tall, at least, and the tail is maybe 12 feet long or longer. (3 feet is about one meter for those in metric land). It's parked…

Though it's possible that you're correct on this specific issue, you've offered absolutely no support for your argument. Consider the possibility that the strong streak of instinctive union bashing that you see in typical professional class culture in the U.S. is very much the creation of decades of aggressive PR effort by those who consider unions threatening.

Comment offers examples (that many people in New York on his site have experienced) and you fire back with some nonsense about some kind of PR campaign? Consider the possibility that people have had awful personal experiences dealing with unions (we hired a part time guy to help out cleaning our office and the office management threatened to shut down our building access because we didn't use approved union labor) that have colored their opinions on them instead of just dismissing them as "instinctive union bashing"

Youre doing exactly what you accused the comment you're responding to of, just on the other side of the coin: instinctively defending unions

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

#185

Post by fiter »

RangerScience wrote: post #43
fiter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's very important to be able to let people make these decisions. It's inefficient to add a water line if it's never going to be used. You might believe I'm going to use it, but I might know I'm not going to use it. Maybe you're right, but I am the one paying the bill to tear off finishings to run water lines in the walls.

Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions, and the only architecture that matters is the one that lets you change. It's like the dig-once fiber policy for roadways, and is all part of the "don't build to peak value" idea; it's also like a usual problem with user interface design: if you only ever built user tools to do what you imagined, users (or later owners / tenants) are limited to your imagination. I go to a gym in…

I think this is a business decision.

Some building developers will reap the reward if it was a good decision, others will suffer the consequence.

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

#186

Post by deelowe »

CPLX wrote: post #93
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the unions. On my way to work, I pass by a giant inflatable rat inflated by a gas motor that's hauled around by a truck. It's rather annoying when its tail gets loose and covers the sidewalk, as can happen on windy days when it's not tied down appropriately. It's probably 10 or 12 feet tall, at least, and the tail is maybe 12 feet long or longer. (3 feet is about one meter for those in metric land). It's parked…

Though it's possible that you're correct on this specific issue, you've offered absolutely no support for your argument. Consider the possibility that the strong streak of instinctive union bashing that you see in typical professional class culture in the U.S. is very much the creation of decades of aggressive PR effort by those who consider unions threatening.

Here's an example from my world: IT technicians were kicked out of their office building when the electrical contractors saw them crimping cat 5 for a network closet. That's how bonkers unions are.

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

#187

Post by sfall »

ThomPete wrote: post #98
nkrisc wrote: post #15

Unions have a purpose. Suppressing innovation and competition to protect their gravy train monopoly should not be one of them.

Not all unions are bad. Unions serve a purpose in many industries but today a lot of them are antiquated echoes from the past. Uber drivers should have a union IMO, but the ATeachers Union and Manhattan construction industry should have theirs disrupted by something more fitting for the new reality they have too much power. The construction industry literally have people holdning signal flags the entire day. Furtherm…

people are not holding signal flags bc the contractor wants to higher more people but DOT state or federal require it.

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

#188

Post by hinkley »

jonknee wrote: post #174
gingerbread-man wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that cities don't want buildings torn down every 10 years because it's cheaper for the buyer to just rebuild from the ground up than to fight what essentially amounts to a heap of technical debt. Well-constructed buildings can last centuries: future-proofing is a pretty big deal.

Why would a city care? That's just more permitting money and local jobs.

You're replying to a story about a guy who wants to replace tower cranes because two of them fell over and killed people in the same year.

That's why the city cares. Every time one goes up or comes down there's a risk involved.

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

#189

Post by CPLX »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #184
CPLX wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's possible that you're correct on this specific issue, you've offered absolutely no support for your argument. Consider the possibility that the strong streak of instinctive union bashing that you see in typical professional class culture in the U.S. is very much the creation of decades of aggressive PR effort by those who consider unions threatening.

Comment offers examples (that many people in New York on his site have experienced) and you fire back with some nonsense about some kind of PR campaign? Consider the possibility that people have had awful personal experiences dealing with unions (we hired a part time guy to help out cleaning our office and the office management threatened to shut down our building access because we didn't use approved union labor) th…

In the face of a direct quote from the agency that inspected the crane and deemed it unsafe, the comment cited some unrelated union anecdotes as the reason why this specific guy's crane was considered problematic.

That's about as dispositive as me mentioning a bunch of optimistic inventors of construction equipment who had no regard for the safety of workers and killed people.

Despite that I said he might well be right. He just hasn't cited anything that shows it. I'm a business owner in New York City too, stories are cheap.

The reflexive statement that unions are what's getting in the way of fearless capitalist innovators is, in fact, a well financed argument that is harming our society and increasing inequality and political unrest.

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

#190

Post by Ericson2314 »

Frondo wrote: post #111
crusso wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where corporate power with labor is scoped to each specific corporation, union power often crosses to many corporations, often even crossing to different industries. Many industries have needlessly suffered and died at the hands of overpowered unions. Capitalism rarely extracts questionable value from society, and when it does it's normally the result of government interference in an industry in order to advantag…

Wow! Many industries have "suffered and died" at the hands of unions? That is an amazing claim.

SMH at the libertarians who beleive competition magically always maintains itself in a free market.
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