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How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

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Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#191

Post by Kliment »

cmarschner wrote: post #126
Kliment wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thing about BER is that it's designed to replace Tegel, which is easily the most sensibly built major airport in Germany. Space-efficient, cheap to operate, high-throughput, built very quickly with limited resources to solve a specific problem.

Tegel has the charm of an old bus station, but efficient it is. My record was Berlin Schönhauser Allee to Munich East in 3 hours and 20 minutes. It can only get worse from there. The commute to BER alone will be at least 30-40 minutes longer.

Who gives a shit about "charm". Last year I had a connection that due to delays on the incoming flight left me with 8 minutes from the time we got shuttled into the terminal to the time my outgoing flight gate closed, and it wasn't even in the same terminal. I ran over to the other terminal, went through the insecurity controls, and made the flight, with several minutes of time to spare. I know of no other airport where something like that would be possible.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#192

Post by raverbashing »

woobar wrote: post #117
ubernostrum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to get into the hall of fame, you do an Olympics.

Brazil and Russia are going to outdo this. By hosting both World Cup and Olympics within a few years.

Russia also had the Winter Olympics (and Snow when it's 10C outside is expensive)

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#193

Post by bsimpson »

unreal37 wrote: post #139

I love that there's 150,000 defects, 80,000 of them considered serious.

I don't know how you even count that high, unless it's through extrapolation: "this nail was pounded incorrectly and there's 10 nails in a board and 1000 boards in this area, so 10,000 defects."

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#194

Post by sillygeese »

D_Alex wrote: post #178
sillygeese wrote: post #172

If you're in a position to hand out $5B of other people's money, do you think some people might want to bribe you to get it? What if you can only hand out $1M? Will someone still want to bribe you? -Of course, but he'll be a "smaller player" then. All public spending involves some sort of "corruption" [1] because it's always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge of spending it. If you…

> If you could pay $10 to get $100, wouldn't you do it? Certainly not, if the $10 is a bribe. Would you? > A bribe is an investment... No, it is a criminal offence, in most places. And for good reason. Corruption does horrible things to the economy.

> Certainly not, if the $10 is a bribe. Would you?

Probably not, even if only because I'm not the kind of person who'd even get into a position to bribe someone for personal gain.

But there's this thing called "psychopaths", and they do seek out bribing opportunities and they don't have any problem whatsoever with paying bribes too.

> No, it is a criminal offence, in most places. And for good reason.

Sure, but the people taking the bribes are part of the organization that's supposed to punish people for taking bribes (i.e. "criminal offenses"). See a problem there?

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#195

Post by sillygeese »

sd8f9iu wrote: post #185
sillygeese wrote: post #172

If you're in a position to hand out $5B of other people's money, do you think some people might want to bribe you to get it? What if you can only hand out $1M? Will someone still want to bribe you? -Of course, but he'll be a "smaller player" then. All public spending involves some sort of "corruption" [1] because it's always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge of spending it. If you…

> All public spending involves some sort of "corruption" [1] because it's always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge of spending it. In an ideal democratic system, opposing parties would seek to expose corruption in public officials and use it to their advantage, thereby dis-incentivizing the misappropriation of public funds. Obviously no democracy is perfectly ideal, but your armch…

> In an ideal democratic system, opposing parties would seek to expose corruption in public officials and use it to their advantage, thereby dis-incentivizing the misappropriation of public funds.

Look, "misappropriating public funds" is exactly why someone would work hard to get into a position where he's in charge of public funds. No one does anything without some personal gain involved.

> Obviously no democracy is perfectly ideal, but your armchair analysis hasn't exactly blown a hole in modern governing theory.

On the other hand, you haven't exactly blown a hole in the fact that people act according to incentives, and people in charge of vast amounts of other people's money presents a massive incentive for both bribing them and them accepting bribes.

> more of mismanagement than corruption

How do you tell them apart, especially considering "mismanagement" would be an excellent cover for blatant bribery. "Oh this silly city official guy chose a completely shitty service provider for this project. Maybe he'll check their track record next time!"

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#196

Post by sillygeese »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #176
sillygeese wrote: post #172

If you're in a position to hand out $5B of other people's money, do you think some people might want to bribe you to get it? What if you can only hand out $1M? Will someone still want to bribe you? -Of course, but he'll be a "smaller player" then. All public spending involves some sort of "corruption" [1] because it's always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge of spending it. If you…

"How do you benefit from someone else spending your money for you?" 1. Economy of scale 2. I can get 5% on my own but they can get 8%. If he invests my money for me for 1.5% then we both prosper. So there's at least 2 ways. There are more. Yes it's more complicated, but you asked and I answered.

> 1. Economy of scale 2. I can get 5% on my own but they can get 8%. If he invests my money for me for 1.5% then we both prosper.

First of all, "he" is not interested in your well-being, so he might as well get a good deal with a total price of X, but mark down X + Y as the expenses, and then pocket the difference.

And second, free competition drives quality up and prices down, so you'll get a good deal that way too. There's plenty of "economy of scale" in millions of people seeking out the best deal on whatever.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#197

Post by sillygeese »

RobertoG wrote: post #179
sillygeese wrote: post #172

If you're in a position to hand out $5B of other people's money, do you think some people might want to bribe you to get it? What if you can only hand out $1M? Will someone still want to bribe you? -Of course, but he'll be a "smaller player" then. All public spending involves some sort of "corruption" [1] because it's always other people's money being spent, and there's always someone in charge of spending it. If you…

"Think about it. How do you benefit from someone else spending your money for you?" What is convenient and rational for an agent from the perspective of that agent could be not the more convenient action if all the other agents in the “game” take the same action at the same time. In a sense, this is the root of the separation between microeconomics and macroeconomics. In other words, you can benefit from somebody thi…

What is this I can't even..

But in case it helps, let's make this a bit more accurate: How do you benefit from someone forcefully taking your money from you and then spending it for you?

(Hint: If you actually did benefit, they wouldn't have to take your money by force - you'd be happy to hand it over!)

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#198

Post by orkoden »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #149
smhg wrote: post #115

This reminds me of the immer funny David Zuelke explaining the difference between "North Germany" and "South Germany" to a group of non-Germans. It was at an after-phpDay drink a few years ago. According to him, you can find the famous German Gründlichkeit in The South, with The North being the exact opposite. He used the Berlin airport as an example: "it was an endless failure". This was in 2011 or 2012. I wonder ho…

Thank you -- I don't speak German, and have just added Gründlichkeit to the list of German words I love. It joins Fingerspitzengefühl, Fremdschämen, Weltschmertz, Sitzpinkler, and Fernweh. I really need to learn your language.

Gemütlichkeit is another word to learn.

If you come to Germany you can take part in any conversations just knowing genau and ach so.

Genau - Exactly, I understand, I agree. Used to express agreement. Germans like to agree. Use freely in any conversation at any time. Ach so - really, I see. Can be used to express agreement, astonishment, realization, understanding, questioning depending on intonation and stress. Na - hello, how are you, hey. Can be used at any time to start or avoid a conversation.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#199

Post by anishkothari »

manarth wrote: post #180
anishkothari wrote: post #168

I didn't read the article (too long and it's late) but something caught my eye. If you keep scrolling down, you hit the next article and the URL changes. How did they do that? Kudos

It's a HTML5/JS thing - 'pushState'. If you search for that, you'll find plenty of resources explaining it in better detail than I can.

Great, thank you!

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#200

Post by kjs3 »

johnbeerboost wrote: post #140
kjs3 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly it's a PITA when you fly, but how often do you fly? I was a Delta Gold Medallion flyer for years (50k+ miles), and couple of times flirted with Platinum (75k+ miles). So...basically on a flight a couple of times a week, every week. There are large numbers of us. Denver is a pain in the ass.

A couple of times a week? That doesn't really add up. I flew London to San Francisco and back just once a month - not several times a week - for a year and that was 130k miles.

Atlanta to Charlotte is about 215 miles. Atlanta to Tampa is 415. Atlanta to Denver is about 1200. Not everyone's commute is half way around the world.
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