Fascinating but sad reading. Don't drink and drive.
I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
141–150 of 167 posts
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#142Joining the chorus to say that this is one of the greatest articles I’ve read. I love everything about it. From the hacker spirit to the investigative reasoning to the little observations made during the process like what could be considered a weapon according to regulations and how Covid affected costs of different items and when to consider o ring size in the planning. Love love love it.
My favorite line had to be this though.
> The first prototype didn’t look like much but the mental effect was enormous. Now there was at least something to show and improve.
worthy of being printed and framed.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#143Although it has already been said close to 137 times, this is the best read I've had this year, although that's likely an understatement.
I love the hacking spirit and how they always settle on the simplest solution, whether from a technical standpoint or an investigative one.
Great job, and I'm glad they got the recognition they deserve. Shout out to the Finnish police as well for not letting their ego interfere with information brought to them by a couple of random amateurs. This should be the norm, but sadly it isn’t.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#144The article doesn't say so, but some web search and deepl.com translation makes it sound like the second missing person may have died by suicide. When they first found the sunken car, they wondered (presuming that the car had gone off the road by accident) how the heck the car had ended up so far out into the water. The answer might be that it didn't fall off the road, but rather was driven off at high speed on purpo…
>The taxi driver later said that there wasn’t anything unusual about Juha or his behavior. He just seemed to have sat in an uncomfortable manner, like he had hurt his back. He also said Juha might have been a bit tipsy.
Perhaps intoxication + a muscle spasm caused him to floor the gas at some point? Maybe his leg fell asleep while driving?
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#145This was incredibly well written and the project itself was super cool to see come together. I worked on building UAV's in University but seeing the unique challenges with dealing with water from a signals perspective was really intriguing. Good luck with any future cases and can't wait to see what upgrades you make!
Except for not defining what an ROV is.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#146Just make a netflix documentary already. Amazing material.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#147I love these long-form build logs. I just started reading, and I am making the faux-pas of commenting before finishing. But, I'm wondering what the challenges are of automating the ROV to map a body of water's floor in a pattern. like a grid pattern, or whatever is most efficient. At first I was thinking currents would cause displacement. but can't we sense the current moving us in undesirable ways and correct with t…
Lakes can have currents. I wonder if pedantically speaking the definition of lake would include non-tidal in many countries but .... A) humans use names sloppily and if it's an important detail I wouldn't assume a lake is non-tidal without checking. B) non-tidal bodies of water might still change height over the year, for example after a heavy rainfall. Mainly I'd question the need to automate it. It's difficult, and…
Rarely (as far as I know), lakes can be tidal in their own way. For example Lake Wakatipu changes by about 10cm every half an hour.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jargon generally takes on its own meaning and context beyond a naive reading. "ROV" customarily refers to an underwater remotely operated vehicle, not merely any "remotely operated vehicle" (contrast with flying "drones" or contemporary cars with cell modems). I'm nowhere near an expert or even frequent user of the term, that's just from my casual recollection and a quick search seems to back it up. The proper compar…
>The proper comparison isn't the author's time versus the readers looking it up, but rather readers encountering a term for the first time having to look it up versus every other reader having to read overly verbose writing that reiterates basic definitions rather than getting to the novel points. If you're as interested in ROVs as you imply, well now you know for all of the other times you will read the term. If you…
> This isn't a water hobbyists forum
And the article was not written to this forum?
> Fact is, most of us cannot, from the title, figure out if we're interested
This is a situation where HN’s “no editorialising titles” rule falls flat. Simply with the context change the title would be also best changed. I also understand why we have the rule of course.
> Explaining ROV once at the beginning would, I dare say, not have impacted the enjoyment of underwater professionals very much
Sure. There is a lot which could have been improved on the whole article with better editing.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#149Awesome Read.
Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases
#150Amazing. Exactly the type of content that I come to HN for.