The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen” • Hacker News Board

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#21

Post by JCharante » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

no_butterscotch wrote: post #7

justrealist wrote: post #3

I mean, I get it, it was a clown show. And yes, give it 15 minutes of fame, because it's the Titanic and all. But I feel like some people care about this far more than I can understand, and the news cycle on this is quite protracted. People die in stupid ways every day and this doesn't seem more egregious than most.

I agree. I actually rolled my eyes when people initially complained that the Greek migrant boat collapse wasn't getting as much attention. This is a one off whereas migrants die all the time. However as time goes on and the articles are STILL ongoing, after as you say the 15 minutes of fame, I have to agree that at this point in time any writer still writing about this is worthy of an eye-roll in the other direction.…

> While it was news it was worth covering. Now, if you're a journalist and you're still covering it

I hold the opposite opinion. I think that covering it when everyone else was covering it would have been a waste of time because there is only limited information out there. Covering it 2 weeks or months later is much better and more information will have emerged and you can weave a narrative to tell the story better than some AI-written articles that just repeat the same 3 sentences from the Coast Guard.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#22

Post by Chaosvex » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:09 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #11

Off topic, but interesting to me: not sure if I've ever seen an editing mistake in The New Yorker before, and I've been reading it since I was a teenager. In a quote, "Ocean Gate" should be "OceanGate" or at the very least should include a "[sic]".

It's not a mistake if it's verbatim. The [sic] is usually to show that the mistake isn't by the publisher but adding an additional space in a company name probably isn't egregious enough to warrant it.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#23

Post by anonu » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:11 AM UTC

I am curious to see if a Coast Guard report gets published on all of this. I am particularly interested in the decision making that lead up to the event.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#24

Post by Animats » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:13 AM UTC

Photos of the recovered debris show an intact titanium end bell being lifted by a strap through where the acrylic porthole was. No sign of porthole or carbon fiber tube. Not yet clear what failed first, the tube or the porthole.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#25

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:14 AM UTC

Grimburger wrote: post #19

swader999 wrote: post #13

I'm sure most of us have been on projects where similar bad engineering decisions were made. It's depressing how common these attitudes are. At least death isn't a possibility with the projects I've left in disgust.

Titan is fairly akin to modern software engineering , there's a lot of behaviours in the company that certainly resonates. Mechanical and structural engineers don't behave like this 99% of the time.

[deleted]

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#26

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:17 AM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #4

justrealist wrote: post #3

I mean, I get it, it was a clown show. And yes, give it 15 minutes of fame, because it's the Titanic and all. But I feel like some people care about this far more than I can understand, and the news cycle on this is quite protracted. People die in stupid ways every day and this doesn't seem more egregious than most.

Most people that die in stupid ways aren't rich. That's the difference

That's because most people aren't rich. Your post has a statistical problem :-/

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#27

Post by ergocoder » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:18 AM UTC

Everything is an accident waiting to happen, just with different probability. Waiting long enough and it will happen.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#28

Post by arghandugh » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:20 AM UTC

hadlock wrote: post #9

justrealist wrote: post #3

I mean, I get it, it was a clown show. And yes, give it 15 minutes of fame, because it's the Titanic and all. But I feel like some people care about this far more than I can understand, and the news cycle on this is quite protracted. People die in stupid ways every day and this doesn't seem more egregious than most.

The summer is historically a Very Slow News Season, they are going to milk this for all they can get. There are a handful of meaningful elections in 2023, and the legislature is on vacation through the middle of August.

It takes a tightly closed mind to not glean some insight from (or sense the import of) a one-in-a-billion story that touches on class, tech, and trust.

Five people died in an unprecedented fashion due to a rich con artist sending maliciously incompetent engineering to the bottom of the ocean. Stretch a bit, please.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#29

Post by mbritton72 » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:21 AM UTC

Grimburger wrote: post #19

swader999 wrote: post #13

I'm sure most of us have been on projects where similar bad engineering decisions were made. It's depressing how common these attitudes are. At least death isn't a possibility with the projects I've left in disgust.

Titan is fairly akin to modern software engineering , there's a lot of behaviours in the company that certainly resonates. Mechanical and structural engineers don't behave like this 99% of the time.

I heard pressure testing of the carbon fiber wasn't done. They relied on sensors to detect delamination instead. In software engineering, a component is both created and unit tested with tests on relevant functionality. Delamination sensors are poor compensation for a missing test. They probably didn't test the delamination sensors, either.

Re: The Titan Submersible Was “An Accident Waiting to Happen”

#30

Post by davidw » Sun, Jul 02, 2023, 5:21 AM UTC

Grimburger wrote: post #19

swader999 wrote: post #13

I'm sure most of us have been on projects where similar bad engineering decisions were made. It's depressing how common these attitudes are. At least death isn't a possibility with the projects I've left in disgust.

Titan is fairly akin to modern software engineering , there's a lot of behaviours in the company that certainly resonates. Mechanical and structural engineers don't behave like this 99% of the time.

To be fair, most modern software engineering doesn't directly lead to someone dying, so in a lot of cases, it makes economic sense to try and push out that additional feature quickly rather than combing every line for potential bugs.

Most customers are going to go with the product with more features even if there are a few more bugs, compared with one with zero bugs and much less functionality.