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

arstechnica.com

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

#541

Post by csb6 »

javajosh wrote: post #356
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

> You can't stop that, and personally, I don't think its a good idea. To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety". It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand.

Personally, I think it ought to be illegal to misrepresent your service’s safety. I seriously doubt the passengers onboard were aware of OceanGate’s whistleblower lawsuit or the claim that the viewport is not rated for the depth it is used at. When interviewed by the BBC, the company represented their submersible as very safe, certainly not as something likely to kill its passengers.

How is it a “nanny state” or “snooping” to require businesses to be honest about their service? This isn’t even necessarily an action a government would have to perform - it could be carried out by classification societies [0]. Do whatever you like with your own experimental sub, but don’t misrepresent it as a safe sightseeing trip for tourists.

> It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand.

It’s even easier to imagine scenarios where a business is allowed to sell trips on a vessel with critical safety issues that the company knew of but did not disclose or address.

We have remedies for these real scenarios - they are called laws and regulations.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_classification_society

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

#542

Post by kbos87 »

venusenvy47 wrote: post #379
dmonitor wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's an awful lot of keyboard engineering, given nobody knows what happened yet. Unless I'm mistaken, the subject article starts with the words "Submarine missing". The fact that the whole thing was jury rigged and double checked by nobody with certifications is enough to start pointing fingers at the engineers. This isn't the company's first trip either. They've taken multiple trips down and have almost lost the…

I'm also annoyed at the company for all the public emergency resources being forced to help rescue this contraption.

Budgets are unfortunately a zero sum game, and I have to wonder if there are much more obvious ways to save lives more efficiently with the amount of money it’s costing the US government to undertake a massive and technically complex search for 5 people.

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

#543

Post by pdntspa »

BEEdwards wrote: post #74
tredre3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). my xbox elite controller didn't even last a year (usb port died)... now tbf the x button on the replacement razer controller i got also died in the same time frame. to be more fair though the wired xbox 360 controller i got with my original xbox back in ~2007 has never let me down.

I've lost two 360 controllers, one started freaking out on the inputs and the other one's right analog stick just chipped off one day

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

#544

Post by thehappypm »

jiggawatts wrote: post #513

Something that I found strange was the use of carbon fibre for the main pressure vessel. I was under the impression that the exceptional strength carbon fibre is only in tension, and that it isn't particularly good in compression. Why would OceanGate use carbon fibre? Other similar deep-diving submersibles used either steel or titanium, which are isotropic and have high compressive strengths.

Why use cutting edge materials at all?

6” of steel is impenetrable..

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

#545

Post by speed_spread »

asddubs wrote: post #489
simonblack wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing that everything stopped at once, I'd bet that is exactly what happened. Shades of the Thresher disaster. No doubt we'll hear a few months down the track that the Navy's sound receivers did actually pick up the implosion noise.

or someone makes a startup offering submarine exploration of the titanic tours crash site

Recursive Ventures

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

#546

Post by fencepost »

According to the person in this NPR piece (who was on it last year) there are a variety of fairly inexpensive off-the-shelf things used, including the LED lighting. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183273102/titan-missing-sub-...

Also relevant (and discussed in the piece) there are multiple independent systems to increase buoyancy and bring it back up to the surface, including some that should trigger automatically even if everyone aboard is unconscious.

Not discussed was whether any of them would operate if it lost pressure containment.

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

#547

Post by antonvs »

brutusborn wrote: post #473
toss1 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not authoritarian to regulate things like safety for the general public. It is a necessary component of a complex society. The main distinction between a self-determined vs authoritarian govt is the independence or lack thereof of all of the govt and society's institutions, including he legislative, executive, & judicial branches of govt, and in general society the press, industry, academy, religious orgs,…

This is not the general public, this is a few adventurers. Very different. Also, desiring to give up power to an authority is authoritarianism (at least according to Oxford): “ the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.”

Authoritarianism as a political system, as opposed to an abstract concept, is a bit more specific than that. E.g. in Cerutti’s “Conceptualizing Politics: An Introduction to Political Philosophy”, he summarizes common aspects of various definitions as follows:

> “It seems that its main features are the non-acceptance of conflict and plurality as normal elements of politics, the will to preserve the status quo and prevent change by keeping all political dynamics under close control by a strong central power, and lastly, the erosion of the rule of law, the division of powers, and democratic voting procedures.”

Western democracies are not examples of authoritarianism, no matter how much they might interfere with the desire of rich people to prove they’re special.

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

#548

Post by throwawaylinux »

peterashford wrote: post #528
throwawaylinux wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a good use of our tax money to have (usually equally incompetent) government bureaucrats chasing rich "eccentrics" around and policing how they hurt themselves? Department heads, and chiefs, and comptrollers and TPS reports and meetings to decide the meeting to define the committee to oversee efficiency standards, to go tell millionaires they can't ride in shonky submarines? Not using that on say schools…

I think the issue is less eccentrics hurting themselves as it is them profiting off endangering others

The thing is loaded with millionaires and billionaires. Pretty sure they can afford the time and money to do basic due diligence, it's not like they're struggling the buy food and need the government to prevent desperation exploiting an asymmetric power relationship.

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

#550

Post by metabagel »

curiousgal wrote: post #178

Why is a submarine going missing such a big deal? I am either growing old and grumpy faster than I thought or the media is in shambles.

You’re right. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it captivates people’s imagination and sells newspapers… er… clicks
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