A whale necropolis has been found • Hacker News Board

Re: A whale necropolis has been found

#41

Post by Avicebron » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 12:51 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #8

Avicebron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you ever find a monetization path this is what I wanted to do for years. I don't know where Schmidt landed in the court of public opinion but I appreciate that the Schmidt Ocean Institute is a thing. I just wish these things didn't reek of billionaire vanity.

The zone this whale necropolis has been found within is named after the Australian Navy hydrographic, meteorological and oceanographic research vessel that first coarsely mapped this deepest part of the Indian ocean in 1960, during my father's time of service onboard. Mind you, if you go the service path you might end up scrubbing toilets or close sampling atomic bomb sites ... so your mileage (and lifespan) may vary…

Alas my skill set is probably better utilized designing and building the underwater research drones.

Re: A whale necropolis has been found

#42

Post by setr » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 7:55 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #40

Palomides wrote: post #4

funny that this summary is paywalled but the actual article is open access https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10546-z

Enclosing the commons has long been an effective way to make money.

Both are hosted by nature.com though...

Re: A whale necropolis has been found

#43

Post by dbish » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 11:16 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #38

dbish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always wanted to start a company that builds automated underwater swarms of “probes” that just search and return info and carry out small exploration tasks but over long amounts of time and space. Do it right and you can send the first underwater explorers to Europa. Hard to find the right way to monetize in the early stages though. SpaceX had a variety of options.

AUVs are a thing, but it's a very expensive area to be in, and there's a lot of challenges, especially the extremely high degree of autonomy you need in a much less predictable environment. Maybe recent advances in AI could move the needle there.

Yep. The AI advances and pushing for much more autonomy are why I think there’s something new possible here.

Re: A whale necropolis has been found

#44

Post by dbish » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

irishcoffee wrote: post #15

dbish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always wanted to start a company that builds automated underwater swarms of “probes” that just search and return info and carry out small exploration tasks but over long amounts of time and space. Do it right and you can send the first underwater explorers to Europa. Hard to find the right way to monetize in the early stages though. SpaceX had a variety of options.

I actually work in this space. The difficulties of long-running underwater probes should not be discounted. Comms bandwidth without a tether is… quite slow. Dealing with even the tiniest drops of water inside the system is… a real problem. Salt water is also quite a problem. Deploy and retrieve is a real problem. I won’t say I think outer space is easier, but the problem space is very different.

The comms problems are exactly what makes it interesting to me, since autonomy is fully required really.

Re: A whale necropolis has been found

#45

Post by jtfrench » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 8:52 AM UTC

car wrote: post #14

jtfrench wrote: post #2

I feel like maybe we've needed an "OceanX" before a "SpaceX".

Hey, Gabe Newell might be your man here. But it's not for profit. https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-explorer-ve... https://www.forbes.com/sites/deajusufi/2026/06/13/gabe-newel...

For as long as I've known of Gabe from working in the game industry, I somehow always forget about his not-so-little hobby of being a sea-faring cyber pirate.