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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

#491

Post by phs318u »

antonvs wrote: post #459
jacurtis wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I have moved through my career and been in charge of larger and larger companies, I continue to be surprised how much of what you would expect is critical infrastructure that affects many people is being "cobbled" together. I've worked at some companies that manage huge systems that affects tens of millions of people, which cause extremely severe problems if they break, and they are "cobbled" together with a surpr…

The difference is that the cobbling together at a large org has generally been battle-tested over time, at scale. The bits that were going to break have already broken and been replaced with something better. While it may seem horrible aesthetically from a developer's perspective, it's nevertheless functional and reliable for its purpose. But when you use that approach on a new, one-off device with life-threatening c…

Can anyone downvoting antonvs please explain why? I think it’s a valid opinion to hold and point to make irrespective of whether you agree.

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

#492

Post by anamexis »

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.”

Supporting fairly basic safety regulations for commercial endeavors does not equal strict obedience to authority.

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

#494

Post by vkou »

detourdog wrote: post #384
Aeolun wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d expect companies that sell these kinds of tours for 250k a pop to be vetted though? If it’s uncle bob in his garage I’d be fine with lack of regulation, but when he starts commercially selling his trips he’d need to pass safety standards.

He is not selling the trips they are paying to be crew. This is such a needless story.

Recklessly killing your workers is even worse.

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

#496

Post by phs318u »

brutusborn wrote: post #404
reaperman wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between Jacques Cousteau building a janky submarine rig for himself vs. Creating a business model of selling tickets to random strangers on that janky submarine.

There is definitely a difference, but it doesn’t really matter philosophically speaking. If people want to take huge risks, then so be it. Whether they build the sub themselves or pay and give that responsibility to a proxy, it is still up to them to make their own risk assessment.

A “risk assessment” by customers is typically based on attestations to safety made by the company. If the company is hiding or misrepresenting pertinent information then the customers have been denied the opportunity to make a reasonable assessment. At best it’s a case of gaining money by deception. At worst the company principals will be liable for deaths the deaths of those customers.

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

#497

Post by mwint »

greiskul wrote: post #468
Osiris wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s international waters. What “government” are you referring to?

Any ship needs to fly the flag of a country. They do so by registering with a country, following the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. By doing so, the ship has to follow the laws of the registered country. If a ship or submarine does not register to any country, I think most coast guards will assume it to be pirates or drug smugglers. And they will probably surrender and arrest anyone on board or sink…

Yeah, and there will always be a country willing to let you do anything short of actual piracy under their flag, maybe for a fee. There’s no world government, thank goodness.

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

#498

Post by vkou »

cratermoon wrote: post #303
klabb3 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enormous profiteering of deep ocean exploration is certainly an interesting angle, but I highly doubt it. If you want money from that, I think you’d want to be a military contractor instead, or consult for offshore oil. A $250k “leisure” trip to titanic would be an… unusual anniversary gift.

How is it all that different from companies selling seats on spacecraft to visit ISS? Or just to be in orbit or above the Kármán line and experiencing microgravity?

Space is sexier, there's a lot more space sci-fi that people can get excited about, than there is deep-ocean sci-fi.

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

#499

Post by slacka »

soumyadeb wrote: post #54
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

"BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues".

You can watch it outside of the UK here: https://vimeo.com/838023699

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

#500

Post by svnt »

worthless-trash wrote: post #427
svnt wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people should we sacrifice to get a submarine tourism startup?

I believe that question has been answered.

We’ve had one, yes. What about the second submarine tourism startup?
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