5 ms·

A reminder for those in the back, government regulation made this safe (FAA limits). And yes, this is good engineering, but through decades of learning crowdfu

A reminder for those in the back, government regulation made this safe (FAA limits). And yes, this is good engineering, but through decades of learning crowdfunded with tax dollars.

artursapek 1y ago
Anyone arguing against government regulation as a whole is completely delusional. Companies can't be trusted to regulate themselves.
- baggy_trough 1y ago
  The problem is we don't have a garbage collection method to get rid of counterproductive or even insane regulations, so they build up into a choking plaque over time.
  - anjel 1y ago
    https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_the_Congressional_Review_Act https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_... You can argue that is not effective enough perhaps, but the mechanism itself exists.
    - baggy_trough 1y ago
      It needs to be much stronger than the ability to pass new regulations, but it's much weaker instead.
      - alistairSH 1y ago
        Is that really true? An agency can remove a regulation it created. Congress (via the linked law) can also remove a regulation. Congress can also create regulations via legislation (though they typically don't go to that level of detail). And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a harm. The cost of removing that regulation prematurely is reintroducing that problem / harm.
        bjt 1y ago
        The problem is more about regulatory capture. An industry adapts to a regulation, and creates winners and losers. Once the regulation no longer makes sense (costs taxpayers/consumers more than it benefits), those who are winning from it have a strong interest in keeping it around anyway. A good example is the state franchise laws against car manufacturers owning dealerships. Why can't Toyota sell me a car directly? Direct manufacturer sales seem to work fine in other contexts (e.g. Ikea). In Europe they're moving more and more direct sales. There's no good reason to keep them here in the US, but the dealership owners who benefit from these laws are the only people impacted directly enough to bother hiring lobbyists.
        alistairSH 1y ago
        Agreed. And, IMO, the fix to regulatory capture isn't adding a mechanism to directly make deregulation easier. Instead, it's to (somehow) remove the money from politics/campaigning.
        baggy_trough 1y ago
        > And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a harm. It would be comforting to believe so, but that requires ignoring every aspect of human nature.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - hangsi 1y ago
    There is a mechanism for this, internationally usually named some variant of a Law Commission [0]. The idea is to look for laws that are technically in effect but can rarely or never be applied. For example, the UK Law Commission boasts a repeal of 3000+ acts in its time [1], such as repealing rules for conducting slave trades that were made obsolete in the 1800s but not repealed at the time. In addition to the sibling comment's mention of the Congressional Review Act for agency oversight, there is a US Office of the Law Revision Counsel [2]. It has an official website [3] which is beautifully old-fashioned, but looks to be purely a resource for accessing the letter of the law and doesn't recount its volume of repeals in the same way. None of this matters if the insane or counterproductive regulations are deliberate and desirable for the current lawmakers, of course. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_commission [1] https://lawcom.gov.uk/repeals/ https://lawcom.gov.uk/repeals/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Law_Revision_Counsel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Law_Revision_Cou... [3] https://uscode.house.gov/ https://uscode.house.gov/
  - vkou 1y ago
    We do, it's called the legislature. Half the legislature campaigns on not doing anything if they get elected, though, and when they get elected, you get... Well, you get a lot of different things, most of them awful.
    - baggy_trough 1y ago
      I'm interested in a system that would actually collect the garbage rather than just being theoretically capable of it but in practice not doing it.
      - vkou 1y ago
        It would probably work about as well as a system where all contracts and debts get voided every 7 years. It's building on quicksand, but it's certainly not unprecedented.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  This event was unsafe, despite being wholly within the regulations, but in the comments of this post, the CEO of the company has made a promise to do better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656044#45659295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656044#45659295 Government regulators have failed, but at least the company is making an effort to prevent this from happening again.
  - SR2Z 1y ago
    Government regulators have NOT failed. The CEO already pointed this out - hitting the front windshield on a corner at cruise speed is the worst possible case for a collision like this. Once pilot got some light shrapnel and the airplane successfully landed with zero deaths. This is such a rare collision that people attributed it to SPACE DEBRIS initially. The only fix I'd like to see the government make is allowing lightweight objects to broadcast transponder data. Even if they don't do that, another 50 years will probably pass before the next collision of this type.
dlcarrier 1y ago
A reminder to those who presume regulators make the right decisions, a cheap ADSB out transponder would have prevented this incident, but putting one on a weather balloon is prohibited by the FAA.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Prohibited? Why? Will air travel become safer because we don't know where they are?
  - MPSimmons 1y ago
    What happens to the payload mass when you add the transponder?
    - dlcarrier 1y ago
      It could easily be less than a percent of added weight, considering that there's probably already batteries and a GPS receiver on the balloon.
  - ggreer 1y ago
    The FCC requires that airborne transmitters identify themselves by broadcasting the an FAA designator such as the aircraft registration number.[1] The FAA has no identification or registration process for small weather balloons. So this effectively prohibits them from broadcasting. It's possible to add a radar reflector, but they add significant weight and bulk to the balloon's payload. I think reflectors are only required for larger weather balloons. 1. See § 87.107: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title47-vol5/pdf/CFR-2024-title47-vol5-sec87-107.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title47-vol5/pd...
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

A reminder for those in the back, government regulation made this safe (FAA limits). And yes, this is good engineering, but through decades of learning crowdfunded with tax dollars.

artursapek 1y ago

Anyone arguing against government regulation as a whole is completely delusional. Companies can't be trusted to regulate themselves.

baggy_trough 1y ago
The problem is we don't have a garbage collection method to get rid of counterproductive or even insane regulations, so they build up into a choking plaque over time.
- anjel 1y ago
  https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_the_Congressional_Review_Act https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_agency_rules_repealed_under_... You can argue that is not effective enough perhaps, but the mechanism itself exists.
  - baggy_trough 1y ago
    It needs to be much stronger than the ability to pass new regulations, but it's much weaker instead.
    - alistairSH 1y ago
      Is that really true? An agency can remove a regulation it created. Congress (via the linked law) can also remove a regulation. Congress can also create regulations via legislation (though they typically don't go to that level of detail). And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a harm. The cost of removing that regulation prematurely is reintroducing that problem / harm.
      - bjt 1y ago
        The problem is more about regulatory capture. An industry adapts to a regulation, and creates winners and losers. Once the regulation no longer makes sense (costs taxpayers/consumers more than it benefits), those who are winning from it have a strong interest in keeping it around anyway. A good example is the state franchise laws against car manufacturers owning dealerships. Why can't Toyota sell me a car directly? Direct manufacturer sales seem to work fine in other contexts (e.g. Ikea). In Europe they're moving more and more direct sales. There's no good reason to keep them here in the US, but the dealership owners who benefit from these laws are the only people impacted directly enough to bother hiring lobbyists.
        alistairSH 1y ago
        Agreed. And, IMO, the fix to regulatory capture isn't adding a mechanism to directly make deregulation easier. Instead, it's to (somehow) remove the money from politics/campaigning.
      - baggy_trough 1y ago
        > And we have to remember, at one point, every regulation that exists was created to solve a problem / prevent a harm. It would be comforting to believe so, but that requires ignoring every aspect of human nature.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- hangsi 1y ago
  There is a mechanism for this, internationally usually named some variant of a Law Commission [0]. The idea is to look for laws that are technically in effect but can rarely or never be applied. For example, the UK Law Commission boasts a repeal of 3000+ acts in its time [1], such as repealing rules for conducting slave trades that were made obsolete in the 1800s but not repealed at the time. In addition to the sibling comment's mention of the Congressional Review Act for agency oversight, there is a US Office of the Law Revision Counsel [2]. It has an official website [3] which is beautifully old-fashioned, but looks to be purely a resource for accessing the letter of the law and doesn't recount its volume of repeals in the same way. None of this matters if the insane or counterproductive regulations are deliberate and desirable for the current lawmakers, of course. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_commission [1] https://lawcom.gov.uk/repeals/ https://lawcom.gov.uk/repeals/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Law_Revision_Counsel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Law_Revision_Cou... [3] https://uscode.house.gov/ https://uscode.house.gov/
- vkou 1y ago
  We do, it's called the legislature. Half the legislature campaigns on not doing anything if they get elected, though, and when they get elected, you get... Well, you get a lot of different things, most of them awful.
  - baggy_trough 1y ago
    I'm interested in a system that would actually collect the garbage rather than just being theoretically capable of it but in practice not doing it.
    - vkou 1y ago
      It would probably work about as well as a system where all contracts and debts get voided every 7 years. It's building on quicksand, but it's certainly not unprecedented.
dlcarrier 1y ago
This event was unsafe, despite being wholly within the regulations, but in the comments of this post, the CEO of the company has made a promise to do better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656044#45659295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45656044#45659295 Government regulators have failed, but at least the company is making an effort to prevent this from happening again.
- SR2Z 1y ago
  Government regulators have NOT failed. The CEO already pointed this out - hitting the front windshield on a corner at cruise speed is the worst possible case for a collision like this. Once pilot got some light shrapnel and the airplane successfully landed with zero deaths. This is such a rare collision that people attributed it to SPACE DEBRIS initially. The only fix I'd like to see the government make is allowing lightweight objects to broadcast transponder data. Even if they don't do that, another 50 years will probably pass before the next collision of this type.

dlcarrier 1y ago

A reminder to those who presume regulators make the right decisions, a cheap ADSB out transponder would have prevented this incident, but putting one on a weather balloon is prohibited by the FAA.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
Prohibited? Why? Will air travel become safer because we don't know where they are?
- MPSimmons 1y ago
  What happens to the payload mass when you add the transponder?
  - dlcarrier 1y ago
    It could easily be less than a percent of added weight, considering that there's probably already batteries and a GPS receiver on the balloon.
- ggreer 1y ago
  The FCC requires that airborne transmitters identify themselves by broadcasting the an FAA designator such as the aircraft registration number.[1] The FAA has no identification or registration process for small weather balloons. So this effectively prohibits them from broadcasting. It's possible to add a radar reflector, but they add significant weight and bulk to the balloon's payload. I think reflectors are only required for larger weather balloons. 1. See § 87.107: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title47-vol5/pdf/CFR-2024-title47-vol5-sec87-107.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title47-vol5/pd...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]