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Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

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Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#121

Post by SerLava »

tcpekin wrote: post #91
logicrook wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, why? After reading a few of them, I was completely sick of this format. It appears to me as information-free fluff, written in a very generic style. What do you like in this format? I genuinely don't understand how it can sell, but if it does, there must be something?

It can also be fun to read something that just isn't parsed down to the bare facts. For example, in my opinion, [0] would be much less interesting without the benefits of long form journalism. [0] http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diam...

The problem is labeling. The headline says the article is information about the urgency of the search.

It's an intentional lie because "How the MH370 Search is Going" or whatever won't get clicks.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#122

Post by SeoxyS »

samstave wrote: post #39
willvarfar wrote: post #4

"The company already offers a similar service for ships and boats, which use Inmarsat’s network free of charge for distress signalling." Interestingly, back when I was an intern, BT used to charge an exorbitant rate for those distress calls. I once wrote-up the whole internship thing http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/17282439831/an-ei... "I was pretty uncomfortable when I found that mayday calls were being c…

Why don't we have an additional distress beacon on all planes that says their gps coords to Inmarsat continuously no matter what? Basically why can't we use the Inmarsat network for more than distress but any and all planes report to some tamper proof system every minute? (Yes I know how many flights there are, but you don't need to store the data once a plane has reached its destination successfully)

> Yes I know how many flights there are

Actually, not that many. There are less than 20,000 commercial flights in the air at any given a time.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#123

Post by tomphoolery »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #116
rwhitman wrote: post #55

The MH370 tracking problem is unfortunate but what I'm most fascinated by in all of this is the continuing reminder of how powerless we are as a civilization when it comes to the oceans. A plane crashes in an area with no landmass and we lose it. We've overfished many species to near-extinction because we completely failed to understand exactly how many fish there actually are. The sea acts as a natural eraser for hu…

I live by the Atlantic, people go missing every so often. It seems tragic but normal to the locals. The sea is the sea. It'll slurp you out and kill you. Tourists seems quite shocked that there isn't more that could be done. Everything in a city is very safe, it's pretty hard to accidentally kill yourself. It stands to reason that we should put up some more signs, or have someone stop them from doing something silly.…

Sounds like the perfect retirement community for a serial killer.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#124

Post by rquantz »

baddox wrote: post #82
notatoad wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with long form journalism if you have a complex story to tell with lots of information to convey. The problem is not with the format, it's with journalists trying to pad out a tweet's worth of information into a long-form article.

I'm much less forgiving of the format. Every example I've seen has been a colossal and seemingly deliberate waste of the reader's (my) time. Even when it is reasonably skillfully written and contains information on a subject I'm interested in, I vastly prefer the writing style of, say, Wikipedia.

Would it help if you think of it as a form of literature, rather than a means of devouring information by the most efficient means possible? It may still not be for you, and this may not be a good example of it, but it is a genre with purposes other than what you are assuming.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#125

Post by kijin »

maxerickson wrote: post #58
rwhitman wrote: post #55

The MH370 tracking problem is unfortunate but what I'm most fascinated by in all of this is the continuing reminder of how powerless we are as a civilization when it comes to the oceans. A plane crashes in an area with no landmass and we lose it. We've overfished many species to near-extinction because we completely failed to understand exactly how many fish there actually are. The sea acts as a natural eraser for hu…

The logistics of a cruise ship probably don't compare all that badly to a town of similar size.

Except you probably won't die if you accidentally step outside of the town.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#126

Post by vacri »

rquantz wrote: post #124
baddox wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm much less forgiving of the format. Every example I've seen has been a colossal and seemingly deliberate waste of the reader's (my) time. Even when it is reasonably skillfully written and contains information on a subject I'm interested in, I vastly prefer the writing style of, say, Wikipedia.

Would it help if you think of it as a form of literature, rather than a means of devouring information by the most efficient means possible? It may still not be for you, and this may not be a good example of it, but it is a genre with purposes other than what you are assuming.

I'm probably a bit old-fashioned, but I think that the set 'literature' does not intersect with the set 'bounces a giant angled magenta byline in my face' (the "find a $100 smartphone" bit)

Actually, one question I used to like to ask people: "In bookshops, what qualifies a book to move from 'fiction' to 'literature'?" (yes, you can get poetry and whatnot in the literature section, but it's primarily fiction-based)

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#127

Post by mmmBacon »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #116
rwhitman wrote: post #55

The MH370 tracking problem is unfortunate but what I'm most fascinated by in all of this is the continuing reminder of how powerless we are as a civilization when it comes to the oceans. A plane crashes in an area with no landmass and we lose it. We've overfished many species to near-extinction because we completely failed to understand exactly how many fish there actually are. The sea acts as a natural eraser for hu…

I live by the Atlantic, people go missing every so often. It seems tragic but normal to the locals. The sea is the sea. It'll slurp you out and kill you. Tourists seems quite shocked that there isn't more that could be done. Everything in a city is very safe, it's pretty hard to accidentally kill yourself. It stands to reason that we should put up some more signs, or have someone stop them from doing something silly.…

Same thing happens here along the Northern California coast. With El Nino this year, the waves are bigger and more powerful than a typical winter and catch people unaware. There are occasional "sneaker" waves that break on the beach and knock people down.

Recently: http://www.mercurynews.com/central-coast/ci_29405514/san-jos...

http://abc7news.com/news/pacifica-man-drowns-trying-to-save-...

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#128

Post by intrasight »

hueving wrote: post #63
0xffff2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please give it to Google so they can add it to Google Maps. What do you think "add[ing] it to Google Maps" would accomplish? What makes you think the data analysis is easily crowd-sourced? I.e, what makes you think that analyzing the data requires no special experience or expertise? >there will be a swarm of autonomous submersible robots doing detailed scans Why? What would be the economic case for doing this? Build…

>Why? Gold lost on sunken ships!

yes, that would be incentive enough

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#129

Post by intrasight »

outworlder wrote: post #37
intrasight wrote: post #28

Rest assured that this mystery will be solved. Petabytes of data? Please give it to Google so they can add it to Google Maps. The fact that we can't successfully crowd-source this search is indicative of our having very incomplete maps of the ocean floor. Eventually (could be a hundred years but I expect less) there will be a swarm of autonomous submersible robots doing detailed scans. They will find all kinds of int…

In a hundred years I expect the wreckage to be found, even by accident. That's a moot point though, as in a hundred years, the relatives will be no longer alive and noone will care too much.

I disagree. Historians, scientists, engineers, prospectors, etc. will be thinking about this for a LONG time.

Re: Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away from Keeping Secrets Forever

#130

Post by maxerickson »

kijin wrote: post #125
maxerickson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logistics of a cruise ship probably don't compare all that badly to a town of similar size.

Except you probably won't die if you accidentally step outside of the town.

I was mostly drawing a comparison with the one sentence The majority of our planet is covered in something we can't even figure out how to build habitats on top of without piling up dirt underneath.

A town of 5,000 people that is situated on land will usually also import loads of fuel and food. So a cruise ship isn't really the same thing as a town, but it has quite a bit in common with it if you look at the town as a habitat.

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