Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 1001 posts

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#281

Post by jsnell »

tredre3 wrote: post #16
srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly di…

The Xbox Elite 2 controller costs $150 and is a reliability nightmare. It has the look and feel of a premium product, but there are at least three components that are commonly reported breaking after fairly light use (like, after 100 hours of gaming). Analog stick drift, shoulder buttons that register duplicate presses, and face buttons (usually the A) that stop registering presses. All of these issues are still unfixed years after release.

Given that's what their flagship controller is like, they either don't do a lot of reliability testing or are ignoring the results.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#282

Post by acqq »

proggy wrote: post #200
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

3:54

Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate: "so the pressure vessel is not MacGyver at all because that's where we work with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail: your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe"

https://youtu.be/29co_Hksk6o?t=219

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#283

Post by IceHegel »

medellin wrote: post #225
CryptoBanker wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder/CEO has said that he hasn't been on a single trip where everything went to plan...

This is what happens when you take the move fast and break things culture to anything where people die when things break. Really just sad and so stupid.

It’s sad of course, but the early days of flight were also quite dangerous but they lead to rapid innovation and the stable industry of today.

It’s a tragedy, but high risk activities are by definition going to have a few.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#284

Post by dagmx »

thepasswordis wrote: post #270

I am blown away that there is any overlap between HN readers and people getting gotten by this clickbait. The controller is sending control signals to the computer which controls the motors. The controller itself is basically irrelevant . It’s not actually doing the control, the motor controllers are. Using off the shelf stuff like this is also common since it’s extremely well tested and usually very physically robus…

I’m not surprised at all. It’s common on pretty much every rage bait post here.

People think they’re technical enough to understand everything and want their hot takes heard.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#285

Post by pbourke »

thepasswordis wrote: post #270

I am blown away that there is any overlap between HN readers and people getting gotten by this clickbait. The controller is sending control signals to the computer which controls the motors. The controller itself is basically irrelevant . It’s not actually doing the control, the motor controllers are. Using off the shelf stuff like this is also common since it’s extremely well tested and usually very physically robus…

> The controller itself is basically irrelevant.

It's irrelevant until it fails with no backup mechanism when maneuvers are needed.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#286

Post by chinchilla2020 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #262
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

They really remind me of Tesla. Exploit bleeding-edge technology by doing things as fast and as cheaply as possible. This may sound glib but I really do blame Elon for making "move fast and break things" acceptable in the world of hardware. When things work you can do great things in record time. When things don't work, people die.

The difference is that Tesla spends enormous manufacturing cost on aesthetics. Where this sub looks like a bucket of bolts.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#287

Post by flyinghamster »

HWR_14 wrote: post #246
kamranjon wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard an anecdote at one point that when a submarine depressurizes that deep, everything inside gets pushed through whatever hole caused the depressurization, like squeezing the contents out of a tube of toothpaste. Might have been from the Byford Dolphin accident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin "Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner…

That was a decompression event with high pressure air flowing out. If a submarine has a rupture that deep, it would go the other way, high pressure water coming in. Most likely, as soon as there was any break the whole thing would collapse in on itself. Picture yourself crushing an empty coke can between the two flat ends. It goes from intact and pretty strong to all of a sudden easy to push and crushed. In the event…

Also, at that depth, the crushing pressure of an implosion would instantly superheat the air within the hull like a diesel engine combustion chamber. Which would win - flashed into ash or compressed into goo?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#288

Post by chinchilla2020 »

thepasswordis wrote: post #270

I am blown away that there is any overlap between HN readers and people getting gotten by this clickbait. The controller is sending control signals to the computer which controls the motors. The controller itself is basically irrelevant . It’s not actually doing the control, the motor controllers are. Using off the shelf stuff like this is also common since it’s extremely well tested and usually very physically robus…

hackersnews is pretty much reddit at this point

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#289

Post by fredoralive »

thekevan wrote: post #104

Every time I have seen people calling this amateur hour, I wonder if they are right or if it is similar to NASA using the same chip that was used in the Sony Playstation in the early 90s as in the New Horizons probe which reach Pluto in 2015. https://www.itpro.com/hardware/368293/why-cutting-edge-space...

Radiation hardened CPUs usually use established ISAs / core designs, but they are specially adapted and hardened for space use. It’s not like they’re using the same physical chip as a PlayStation (especially as the PlayStation CPU is custom silicon with stuff like a geometry unit and motion JPEG decoder on chip, it’s not just a standalone R3000).

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#290

Post by LeoPanthera »

chinchilla2020 wrote: post #286
LeoPanthera wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really remind me of Tesla. Exploit bleeding-edge technology by doing things as fast and as cheaply as possible. This may sound glib but I really do blame Elon for making "move fast and break things" acceptable in the world of hardware. When things work you can do great things in record time. When things don't work, people die.

The difference is that Tesla spends enormous manufacturing cost on aesthetics. Where this sub looks like a bucket of bolts.

I own a Tesla, and I can tell you that the aesthetics are only aesthetics. The beauty is literally skin-deep. Inside, the car is bodged together to make manufacturing as cheap as possible and with no other considerations.

Tesla likes to boast about the safety of their cars, and while I don't deny this, I believe that the safety is an accidental side-effect of the inherent properties of building a car with no explosive fuel and a heavy battery pack at the very bottom of the car.

Post reply on HN