4 ms·

> If I'm reading correctly the Florida waypoints referenced were renamed because a busybody NY Times reporter complained? Do you suppose that if a so-called bu

by mhink 2y ago

> If I'm reading correctly the Florida waypoints referenced were renamed because a busybody NY Times reporter complained? Do you suppose that if a so-called busybody complained about a waypoint the FAA didn’t care about, they’d bother to change it? It was $11k. You could probably pay that with the change in your couch.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago
> It was $11k. You could probably pay that with the change in your couch. I'm nominating this for 2024 Hacker News out-of-touch comment of the year. I'm having flashbacks of Bill Gates on the Ellen show years ago thinking a packet of crisps costs $10.
- jlund-molfese 2y ago
  The comment GP was responding to was in relation to taxpayer dollars. $11000/about 340000000 people in the US = 0.003 cents per person. Sure, not all people pay the same amount of taxes, but that's really not that much compared to other things that the federal government spends money on. Conclusion? Yeah, the average person probably has more than 0.003 cents in their couch.
  - wannacboatmovie 2y ago
    Ah, my mistake. The intent behind my comment was that in aggregate there are infinitely better ways of spending $11k of government money, whether that went to a worthy social cause or what should be the FAA's primary mission: improving aviation safety. Arbitrary renaming of waypoints for emotional reasons is ridiculous. A similar situation in Seattle a few years ago, they renamed the "Red Line" branch of their new metro system because people said it was racist. True story. The effort to reprint maps, repaint the trains, etc. cost much, much more than $11k. The system is behind schedule and grossly over budget to the tune of ~$0.5B.
    - sterlind 2y ago
      The system isn't behind and over budget because of renaming the branch, that's peanuts. It's behind (at least the I-90 segment) because they managed to screw up laying the concrete twice. The second time they just didn't measure right and were off by two inches - after pouring the whole thing. Again. Focusing on wokeness just serves to distract from the mundane but more serious problem of incompetence.
akira2501 2y ago
It cost the FAA that. There's probably many more downstream costs.

by mhink 2y ago

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

> It was $11k. You could probably pay that with the change in your couch. I'm nominating this for 2024 Hacker News out-of-touch comment of the year. I'm having flashbacks of Bill Gates on the Ellen show years ago thinking a packet of crisps costs $10.

jlund-molfese 2y ago
The comment GP was responding to was in relation to taxpayer dollars. $11000/about 340000000 people in the US = 0.003 cents per person. Sure, not all people pay the same amount of taxes, but that's really not that much compared to other things that the federal government spends money on. Conclusion? Yeah, the average person probably has more than 0.003 cents in their couch.
- wannacboatmovie 2y ago
  Ah, my mistake. The intent behind my comment was that in aggregate there are infinitely better ways of spending $11k of government money, whether that went to a worthy social cause or what should be the FAA's primary mission: improving aviation safety. Arbitrary renaming of waypoints for emotional reasons is ridiculous. A similar situation in Seattle a few years ago, they renamed the "Red Line" branch of their new metro system because people said it was racist. True story. The effort to reprint maps, repaint the trains, etc. cost much, much more than $11k. The system is behind schedule and grossly over budget to the tune of ~$0.5B.
  - sterlind 2y ago
    The system isn't behind and over budget because of renaming the branch, that's peanuts. It's behind (at least the I-90 segment) because they managed to screw up laying the concrete twice. The second time they just didn't measure right and were off by two inches - after pouring the whole thing. Again. Focusing on wokeness just serves to distract from the mundane but more serious problem of incompetence.

akira2501 2y ago

It cost the FAA that. There's probably many more downstream costs.