i'm assuming then that you're well-versed in tort law?
as i understand it, sovereign immunity only applies to actions taken by the government. when ATF guys shoot up your home and kill your dog during a drug bust but have arrived at the wrong address, this is the sort of case where sovereign immunity applies.
however, we are not talking about the actions of employees of the US government or people acting under their auspices/guidance/direction. we're talking about actions of individuals working for a private organization.
now, as a non-lawyer myself, i'm not well-versed in tort law. that being said: are you suggesting that the licensing body (presumably, an arm of the US govt, as mentioned in the article) responsible for approving the design for commercial use wouldn't get raked over the coals by witnesses called for expert testimony who suggest that the guidelines for design approval is somehow inadequate? that's the scenario that i'm talking about.
i understand what you're saying and even agree WRT tests. that is perfectly reasonable. my concern rests w/ when the craft leaves the testing phase and goes into full operation.
even with suborbital vehicles, isn't there a possibility, if not a likelihood, that the craft's range would well exceed the size of these zones? i'll confess i'm no rocket scientist (sorry, couldn't help myself there) but i think that's the nature of the problem.
my contention is that a mishap could lead to some really significant devastation, not necessarily during the testing phase. since mishaps are by definition cases where the unexpected rears its ugly head, i think it's reasonable to be concerned about this possibility, however remote: the risk is pretty high.
well, not to sound like a jerk but i can't help thinking that's simplistic.
no private organization will want to invest significant money into an enterprise when there's no government regulation to ensure they aren't going to be pi$$ing their money away into a lawsuit-zone. your occasional eccentric tycoon, sure, but there's a limited number of those guys since they're generally busy being bond villains...
besides, when the wright brothers plane crashed, it injured the craft, pilot and very little else. w/ a spacecraft, you've got a controlled explosion taking place with tons of very boom-happy material. imagine if such a vessel fell on a town. or city. or dam. you get the idea.
is it possible the stalling is a result of liability concerns?
consider: spaceflight is the transportation method w/ which humanity collectively has the least experience. if the US government licenses [x] business to ferry humans into space and some horrible mishap occurs, who's thinking that the families of the deceased* won't slap the mother of all class-action suits against, among others, the licensing body?
i mean, that kind of liability would have any bureaucrat shaking in his/her proverbial space boots, but added to that the incredibly high-profile nature of this type of work and the risk...
ed
*and survivors of course, although the likelihood of there being any is mighty small)
good points. i think for fuel they're still using liquid oxygen, which as you note creates some huge logistical issues WRT the standard refueling process.
curses. and i thought maybe i was onto something there, too.
just on principle, anything that can give NTT docomo a run for its money in that market is probably a good thing for the JP consumer. but isn't that cost of customer conversion a tad high? i mean, i know the yen isn't doing exactly great against the dollar but but still, does anyone have figures on what it costs ISPs in other countries so we have some sense of how well this effort could be sustained?
(yes, i'm aware that son's strategy really doesn't require tons of success immediately, having RTFA; just curious.)
er, got an URL or something? b/that sounds nifty and pretty reasonable, IMHO.
that aside: the x-15 originally was dropped from a b-52. i don't believe i've heard a satisfactory reason why this isn't a compelling alternative. o, wait: that isn't sexy enough to sell to the public, i suppose.
see, a lot of the problem appears to be getting anything off the ground. but if we can do that w/ existing aircraft, why reinvent the wheel?
or heck, we have mid-air refueling capabilities. couldn't we create a design that could do the same?
surely you realize this is just an invitation to the many libertarians to start harping on about the joys of free, unfettered capitalism and how it will go on to create the perpetual motion machine, etc....
and to be honest, i disagree that "leaving it to business" is always an inadequate solution. i would argue that leaving it to a big-brother/nanny state government is equally wrong-headed and equally inflammatory.:>
except i have one question: what if they simply rename the darned thing? it's only $169 million: in beltway terms, this isn't a whole lot of money.
what worries me is that this could sneak into some other omnibus legislation through a rider under a different and more innocuous name, under a last-minute change to another bill before congress.
"reagan was a great actor, but one of the lousiest presidents of all time."
this statement is a subjective determination, not a statement of fact. among conservatives, reagan is often lauded as the greatest president the US has ever had. now, whether or not that's T/F is irrelevant. besides, nimitz-class naming conventions dictate that you name the ships after former presidents.
considering the build-up of the military during his 2 administrations--really, a kind of glory day period for the pentagon--naming the newest nimitz after him was inevitable, IMHO.
i don't know about you, but what's the percentage of good managers, such as you describe well, and the rest of the managers in the business world.
i don't think anybody would argue that a good manager's job is to manage staff well: give the amount of support and assistance to permit staffers (and not just developers) to reach objectives.
an interesting idea, but the devil's in the details. how would one define "doing business internationally"? after all, JP, UK and US are pretty big markets. nothing against magyar, but HU just isn't. would you have to service [x]% of nations on [continent]? top [y]% of GDP within [continent]?
if there's an effective, meaningful way to determine such a definition, i'll support that, but hashing one out? ick.
for anybody interested, here's the text from the changsha xiangshu silk company site:
"Warning to some fraud: Recently (January 2003) there are several fraudulent attempts to withdraw funds from our account in "Bank of America" and Paypal. Such person may think we are vulnerable because we operate in China. Although we are in China, we have a very good and solid relationship with our US partners. They will do their best to protect our interests in USA. This time they have identified one suspect as a Daniell Balanik, located at 52 96th Street, New York, 10008, USA. The fraudulent transaction were done through WTS Bank. Another suspect is a customer of sharebuilder.com. This has been reported to the local police department and the related bank. A formal criminal investigation will be launched soon. All our losses has been recovered. All the future fraudulent actions done on our bank accounts will be prosecuted to the full extent by law. And we will cooperate closely with our US partners and other agencies on this regard."
IANAL, but while this appeals to me on one level, i think this may not be the best solution. this theoretically could create some problems w/ libel law depending on the particular implementation and locale.
of course, i suspect that M$ might be all too willing to assemble a method for blacklisting customers.
bingo. when we talk about american economic power, this is *one aspect* of what we're talking about: a single, highly-integrated market where the actual process of selling is pretty easy, relatively speaking.
and everybody knows americans will buy practically anything: that's why people keep offering to sell you "male enhancements" and viagra in e-mail.:>
back in 1993, british amateur inventor maurice ward created a plastic he called "starlite", which would withstand temperatures of up to 2700 celsius (that of a nuclear explosion). does anybody know what temperatures are reached during reentry, or for that matter, what happened to ward & starlite? i tried googling but didn't find anything interesting.
it's not like the shuttle has a lot of internal cargo space, or indeed, could afford to devote the mass necessary for extensive repair materials: most of that cargo space is devoted to payload, i thought?
i too am curious about just how one might actually go about repairing the shuttle: not all astronauts are qualified for EVA to start (just payload specialists?). and would a repair done in space hold up to the rigors of re-entry? i'm really unclear on the methods used to assemble a shuttle but either it's rivets or welding, and we know the inherent problems in trying to ignite anything in space...
Slashdot Mirror
i'm assuming then that you're well-versed in tort law?
as i understand it, sovereign immunity only applies to actions taken by the government. when ATF guys shoot up your home and kill your dog during a drug bust but have arrived at the wrong address, this is the sort of case where sovereign immunity applies.
however, we are not talking about the actions of employees of the US government or people acting under their auspices/guidance/direction. we're talking about actions of individuals working for a private organization.
now, as a non-lawyer myself, i'm not well-versed in tort law. that being said: are you suggesting that the licensing body (presumably, an arm of the US govt, as mentioned in the article) responsible for approving the design for commercial use wouldn't get raked over the coals by witnesses called for expert testimony who suggest that the guidelines for design approval is somehow inadequate? that's the scenario that i'm talking about.
i like how people respond so genteelly.
ed
i understand what you're saying and even agree WRT tests. that is perfectly reasonable. my concern rests w/ when the craft leaves the testing phase and goes into full operation.
even with suborbital vehicles, isn't there a possibility, if not a likelihood, that the craft's range would well exceed the size of these zones? i'll confess i'm no rocket scientist (sorry, couldn't help myself there) but i think that's the nature of the problem.
my contention is that a mishap could lead to some really significant devastation, not necessarily during the testing phase. since mishaps are by definition cases where the unexpected rears its ugly head, i think it's reasonable to be concerned about this possibility, however remote: the risk is pretty high.
ed
what would the fredonians say about that?
well, OK, not much i suppose considering they're now defunct...
ed
well, not to sound like a jerk but i can't help thinking that's simplistic.
no private organization will want to invest significant money into an enterprise when there's no government regulation to ensure they aren't going to be pi$$ing their money away into a lawsuit-zone. your occasional eccentric tycoon, sure, but there's a limited number of those guys since they're generally busy being bond villains...
besides, when the wright brothers plane crashed, it injured the craft, pilot and very little else. w/ a spacecraft, you've got a controlled explosion taking place with tons of very boom-happy material. imagine if such a vessel fell on a town. or city. or dam. you get the idea.
ed
is it possible the stalling is a result of liability concerns?
consider: spaceflight is the transportation method w/ which humanity collectively has the least experience. if the US government licenses [x] business to ferry humans into space and some horrible mishap occurs, who's thinking that the families of the deceased* won't slap the mother of all class-action suits against, among others, the licensing body?
i mean, that kind of liability would have any bureaucrat shaking in his/her proverbial space boots, but added to that the incredibly high-profile nature of this type of work and the risk...
ed
*and survivors of course, although the likelihood of there being any is mighty small)
good points. i think for fuel they're still using liquid oxygen, which as you note creates some huge logistical issues WRT the standard refueling process.
curses. and i thought maybe i was onto something there, too.
[sighs]
ed
this might be an interesting poll if it hasn't been done all that recently...
ed
just on principle, anything that can give NTT docomo a run for its money in that market is probably a good thing for the JP consumer. but isn't that cost of customer conversion a tad high? i mean, i know the yen isn't doing exactly great against the dollar but but still, does anyone have figures on what it costs ISPs in other countries so we have some sense of how well this effort could be sustained?
(yes, i'm aware that son's strategy really doesn't require tons of success immediately, having RTFA; just curious.)
ed
2 things:
er, got an URL or something? b/that sounds nifty and pretty reasonable, IMHO.
that aside: the x-15 originally was dropped from a b-52. i don't believe i've heard a satisfactory reason why this isn't a compelling alternative. o, wait: that isn't sexy enough to sell to the public, i suppose.
see, a lot of the problem appears to be getting anything off the ground. but if we can do that w/ existing aircraft, why reinvent the wheel?
or heck, we have mid-air refueling capabilities. couldn't we create a design that could do the same?
ed
you know, that's really what i meant to say...i wish /. let us edit our comments...
i've always been of the opinion that alexander had the right idea: "everything in moderation".
ed
"collect all 5 to create super-mega-man!"
surely you realize this is just an invitation to the many libertarians to start harping on about the joys of free, unfettered capitalism and how it will go on to create the perpetual motion machine, etc....
:>
and to be honest, i disagree that "leaving it to business" is always an inadequate solution. i would argue that leaving it to a big-brother/nanny state government is equally wrong-headed and equally inflammatory.
ed
except i have one question: what if they simply rename the darned thing? it's only $169 million: in beltway terms, this isn't a whole lot of money.
what worries me is that this could sneak into some other omnibus legislation through a rider under a different and more innocuous name, under a last-minute change to another bill before congress.
i fear this may become a senatorial shell-game.
ed
"reagan was a great actor, but one of the lousiest presidents of all time."
this statement is a subjective determination, not a statement of fact. among conservatives, reagan is often lauded as the greatest president the US has ever had. now, whether or not that's T/F is irrelevant. besides, nimitz-class naming conventions dictate that you name the ships after former presidents.
considering the build-up of the military during his 2 administrations--really, a kind of glory day period for the pentagon--naming the newest nimitz after him was inevitable, IMHO.
ed
sorry, nitpicking i know, but i couldn't resist...
:>
"unfortunately, he didn't foresee today's profit-driven marketplace, where such ideals have too frequently been left by the *weigh site*."
and apparently, profits can be outweigh ideals enough to require frequent analysis of the weight if ideals.
ed
hey, this is slashdot: shouldn't that be "yeah, i ahte that joe. he's really an insensitive clod!"?
ed
i don't know about you, but what's the percentage of good managers, such as you describe well, and the rest of the managers in the business world.
:>
i don't think anybody would argue that a good manager's job is to manage staff well: give the amount of support and assistance to permit staffers (and not just developers) to reach objectives.
it's just that they seem in short supply.
ed
an interesting idea, but the devil's in the details. how would one define "doing business internationally"? after all, JP, UK and US are pretty big markets. nothing against magyar, but HU just isn't. would you have to service [x]% of nations on [continent]? top [y]% of GDP within [continent]?
if there's an effective, meaningful way to determine such a definition, i'll support that, but hashing one out? ick.
ed
for anybody interested, here's the text from the changsha xiangshu silk company site:
"Warning to some fraud: Recently (January 2003) there are several fraudulent attempts to withdraw funds from our account in "Bank of America" and Paypal. Such person may think we are vulnerable because we operate in China. Although we are in China, we have a very good and solid relationship with our US partners. They will do their best to protect our interests in USA. This time they have identified one suspect as a Daniell Balanik, located at 52 96th Street, New York, 10008, USA. The fraudulent transaction were done through WTS Bank. Another suspect is a customer of sharebuilder.com. This has been reported to the local police department and the related bank. A formal criminal investigation will be launched soon. All our losses has been recovered. All the future fraudulent actions done on our bank accounts will be prosecuted to the full extent by law. And we will cooperate closely with our US partners and other agencies on this regard."
IANAL, but while this appeals to me on one level, i think this may not be the best solution. this theoretically could create some problems w/ libel law depending on the particular implementation and locale.
of course, i suspect that M$ might be all too willing to assemble a method for blacklisting customers.
ed
that's a simple solution. what kind of volume did you have to ship to GB for forwarding within the EU?
ed
bingo. when we talk about american economic power, this is *one aspect* of what we're talking about: a single, highly-integrated market where the actual process of selling is pretty easy, relatively speaking.
:>
and everybody knows americans will buy practically anything: that's why people keep offering to sell you "male enhancements" and viagra in e-mail.
ed
"it won't work, and you WILL be cleaning toad parts out of your potato launcher for weeks if you try it."
man, i have never in my life been more frightened by the sound of sad experience...
ed
sorry about that; i was clearly in error.
ed
back in 1993, british amateur inventor maurice ward created a plastic he called "starlite", which would withstand temperatures of up to 2700 celsius (that of a nuclear explosion). does anybody know what temperatures are reached during reentry, or for that matter, what happened to ward & starlite? i tried googling but didn't find anything interesting.
ed
it's not like the shuttle has a lot of internal cargo space, or indeed, could afford to devote the mass necessary for extensive repair materials: most of that cargo space is devoted to payload, i thought?
i too am curious about just how one might actually go about repairing the shuttle: not all astronauts are qualified for EVA to start (just payload specialists?). and would a repair done in space hold up to the rigors of re-entry? i'm really unclear on the methods used to assemble a shuttle but either it's rivets or welding, and we know the inherent problems in trying to ignite anything in space...
ed