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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

#581

Post by Aperocky »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #578
Aperocky wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the banging sound article was correct, it sounds like they had a failure of the ballast not coming off... I wonder how many layer of safety there is, there should probably be at least 3 independent ways that ballast can come off when your life depends on it..

According to this article, the submersible had 7 safety features, 5 of which involves shedding weights: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65965665

Hopefully all of these features are independently tested.

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

#582

Post by PepperdineG »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #424
Aeolun wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of us would have designed a better submarine I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing. Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

People are latching onto the logitech controller, but I think it's low on my concerns list. Controllers are relatively robust, and they stated they had backups, and could surface without any control input by manually dumping the ballast. Much more concerning are the potential flaws in the carbon fiber hull, as disclosed during the David Lochridge lawsuit (mentioned in another thread), the rumoured lack of surface rad…

Actually the wireless controller points to a bigger problem like, I think the underlying reason for using a wireless controller may have been because the computers were inaccessible when the craft was under way. It's not so much the device itself, but if there was a need to use a wireless device that would point to a design flaw.

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

#583

Post by zarzavat »

csb6 wrote: post #541
javajosh wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

> You can't stop that, and personally, I don't think its a good idea. To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety". It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand. Personally, I think it ought to be illegal to misrepresent your service’s safety. I seriously doubt the passengers onboard were aware of OceanGate’s whistleblower lawsuit or the claim…

The founder is likely dead and paid the ultimate price for his negligence. There’s simply not much you can do about people who are willing to die and take other people with them, whether intentionally or negligently. You can’t put a dead person on trial.

I believe that the GP’s point is that there’s no omniscient agency that can preemptively stop people from doing stupid things. There’s not enough resources to watch everything that everybody is doing all the time.

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

#584

Post by mozman »

javajosh wrote: post #356
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

> To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety"

This is exactly why we need less government and be slower to call for laws. Human nature cannot be changed despite our belief that it can be.

The same lazy decisions that led to this potential event can also be used to destroy lives.

At the end of the day we are all accountable for our selves.

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

#585

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

jibe wrote: post #429
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of emergency beacon is the real WTF. Not even an inflatable buoy. Using a game pad is probably OK. But no emergency method to mark their last location or even surface?

They did have multiple emergency methods to surface. Neither those, nor a beacon help if it imploded under pressure.

Ah, I didn’t see that they had emergency resurfacing methods. I don’t have much hope for these guys.

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

#586

Post by jacurtis »

plewd wrote: post #451
jart wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying consumers lives matter more than researchers?

Researchers are aware of the risks they're taking. Consumers (who don't really understand the dangers of the environment they're about to enter) just blindly trust that they're in good hands, and in this case it seems like they were deceived about the trustworthiness of this vessel.

If using the term "consumers" broadly speaking, then I would agree that they assume trustworthiness of the vessel. When I drive my car onto one of the Seattle ferries, I pay my ticket and as a consumer I have total trust in the safety of the vessel, that they are following all safety protocols and that it is inheritely safe. I don't know how this thing carries hundreds of passengers and 80 heavy cars across the waters, but I trust that the company I bought the tickets from knows and has taken proper precautions to get me safely to the other side reliably.

But this trip to see the Titanic is completely different. This was an experimental trip on an experimental vessel (they signed specifically to that affect). Anyone who thinks that journeying down to 13,000 feet to see the titanic was going to be as risk free as crossing the Puget sound or going to disney world is crazy. The sheer reason they are paying for this trip is because it has been relatively impossible up to this point. They are breaking new frontiers by doing so which is by its nature inherently risky. There has to be known risk involved here. It isn't a ride at disneyland. This was serious. I am sure they didn't actually expect to die, but they had to know that there was a realistic possibility of that outcome.

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

#587

Post by kodah »

javajosh wrote: post #356
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

> To get it you'd need a nanny state that snoops on everyone and steps in to stop you "for your own safety". It's easy to imagine scenarios where this gets out of hand.

A nanny state is telling you how to live your life. An example is when NYC banned large soft drinks or when we listed marijuana as a schedule 1 drug. Registration of a mode of transportation is hardly a nanny state activity because vehicles inherently pose a risk to others whether as a passenger or someone sharing proximity with you.

You can certainly build your own car and register it. They're often called salvage titles; this is true for airplane kits too, but you also have to be able to prove the worthiness of the machine. We have lots of process and administration to take care of this, but for whatever reason it didn't work here.

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

#588

Post by afiori »

brutusborn wrote: post #482
rdtsc wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing for them to take the risk for themselves, but it's a whole other level selling to others. For example, if someone wants to drink a refreshing glass of strychnine soda, it's hard to stop them. But opening a stand and selling at the street corner is a bit different.

The distinction is artificial, both parties paid for either the materials or the final product. Financial gain doesn’t fundamentally change who is responsible, that it just you applying your personal values to the situation.

As an hypothetical would you say that someone should be allowed to sell "mystery drinks" where the customer is told that the ingredients are a secret but the seller knows that it is heavily poisonous?

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

#589

Post by cmcaleer »

iepathos wrote: post #197
srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

xbox 360 controllers last only 6 months to a couple years with various failures that don't matter when you're playing a video game with them but can actually get you killed if they fail when you're in deep ocean. These are not ok for controls in vehicles where failure can mean everyone onboard dies. The navy does not use these for critical system controls. They were never built or tested for that.

I have thousands of hours of playtime on CoD4, MW2, and countless PC games over the course of about 15 years on my 360 controller I've had since I was a teenager. I've had to replace the joysticks a couple of times, and opened it up to clean it a few more times than that. wth are you doing to your controllers that they die in 6 months?
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