As a means of subsidizing lawyers the present nuclear regulation system is well designed - but is there not perhaps a cheaper way of rewarding legal diligence? It would probably be cheaper to give each law school graduate a guaranteed salary of $50,000 a year on the condition that he (or she) not practice law.
Jerry PournelleGates has always understood Moore's Law better than anyone else in the industry. If you can make something run at all, get it out there -it may be slow and clunky, but hardware improvements will bail you out. If you wait until it's running perfectly on the hardware already in the field, it will be obsolete before it's released. This philosophy built Microsoft and is the main reason Microsoft won the war IBM declared back in the OS/2 days.
Jerry PournelleThe difference between Libertarian and Conservative is that Conservatives understand this, and know that unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery. Alas, many Conservatives think that everything has to be regulated and controlled.
Jerry PournelleBecause Tom Doherty and people like that are not stupid. If they could have streamlined their operation more to get more money out of it, they would have done it. It's not like they're a bunch of idiots.
Jerry Pournelle