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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

#751

Post by calpaterson »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #707
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...

I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers; I'm sure a contractor could do "better" for whatever meaning of the word better for specialist cases like the military, but... why? If an xbox controller breaks, they can just pull out a new one. War is as much about cost as it is about effective means of killing others. I can't say how much it's used because of a…

> I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers

In point of fact they are not. The PS5 controller has poor battery life and both have stick drift issues because they use cheap analogue sensors. The current generation of Nintendo controllers are similar: stick drift and battery issues are common. And then there are issues with wireless interference which can be a serious problem and, when it is, difficult to diagnose and fix. I don't think the Logitech controller in question even has wired as an option though of course I have no idea if that's relevant to the incident at all.

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

#752

Post by ethbr0 »

kbos87 wrote: post #542
venusenvy47 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also annoyed at the company for all the public emergency resources being forced to help rescue this contraption.

Budgets are unfortunately a zero sum game, and I have to wonder if there are much more obvious ways to save lives more efficiently with the amount of money it’s costing the US government to undertake a massive and technically complex search for 5 people.

There's capital and then operational costs.

If a Coast Guard ship heads out of St. John's or a Navy aircraft/ship/submarine transits to the area, they burn fuel but already existed with all their trained personnel.

So most of the cost is moving things into position. Expensive, but the asset probably would have been moving somewhere anyway.

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

#753

Post by CaptainZapp »

ethbr0 wrote: post #378
giantg2 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone involved knew what they were getting into." Did they? I might have missed that part.

>> OceanGate says it is an experimental vessel, and when CBS travelled onboard the correspondent had to sign a waiver accepting that it "has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death". https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65960217 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29co_Hksk6o

When I go scuba diving I also need to sign a waiver and acknowledge the inherent risk of the activity.

It doesn't mean that the regulator provided by the dive center is McGivered with duct tape and chewing gum. Which seems like the equivalent of the construction and the components quality of that vessel.

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

#754

Post by Prickle »

jacquesm wrote: post #714
mcpackieh wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Logitech has orders of magnitude more experience in manufacturing peripherals than Microsoft. You know that saying that anybody can build a bridge, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands? From what I've seen and heard, Logitech has used their experience to make peripherals that barely last longer than the warranty/return period. FWIW my 22 year old optical intellimouse from Microsoft is still…

From what I've seen Logitech stuff is next to indestructible (believe me I've tried).

Unfortunately, the cables on their newer headphones are made of the crappiest rubber possible. That part annihilated itself incredibly quickly.

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

#756

Post by Eisenstein »

miracle2k wrote: post #732
truemotive wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really frustrated by anyone that poo-poos this specific issue. One shall absolutely fucking obsess, me for instance about the game controller they used. Look at this. https://i.imgur.com/FrdR7TP.png So the F710 Logitech gamepad was something I wouldn't even trust as a teenager to let me play emulated retro games accurately. It has a hardware switch to toggle between DirectInput (an ancient input technology within…

> This controller is a metaphor for something that needs to immediately be regulated so that people like this can never get away with it again. There is something to be said for protecting people who would sign up for such an experience while misjudging the risk, or assuming that some government agency does provide oversight. Though, customers seem to have been informed that this is not the case: https://twitter.com/…

Sorry but that doesn't work in a reasonable society. You can't let just anyone do anything they want with the repercussions being 'they don't get rescued'. A few points:

* You can't let rescue services decide who deserves to be rescued -- for so many obvious reasons it would be patronizing to list them

* People with a lot of money and no sense can fuck things up on a massive scale if we let them do whatever they wanted

* Human society is not a free-for-all. As much as the civil libertarian tendencies in me want to say 'sure, do whatever you want, just don't mess with anyone else's stuff', it really isn't that simple

Shame and societal norms are a big deal in keeping people in check. Just getting yelled at in public for doing something objectionable is enough to keep most people from spitting indoors or pissing on crowded subway platform or what-have-you.

When shame doesn't work we rely on laws. Laws must be universally enforced and they must be fairly enforced and they must be seen to be enforced.

If we allow idiots with stupid ideas to get lucky enough times then they become looked up to and the shame goes away.

To the same end if the shame doesn't stop them we need to physically stop them or take away their ability to do the societally harmful thing they want to do.

People need to re-learn that you should be embarrassed for failing when what you strove to do was stupid and destructive.

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

#757

Post by sn41 »

rob74 wrote: post #747
major4x wrote: post #666

One shall not obsess with the game controller they use, I suppose, in their analysis, failing the controller wouldn't prevent the sub from resurfacing... It is symptomatic, however. The whole Silicon Valley is like that. You have the old guard, NASA, millions for fault analysis, rumors go the C code on some NASA rocket was certified at $1000 per line---human eyeballs reading it... All those start-ups and unicorns, th…

The use of the controller is symptomatic of their attitude, but I agree that it's probably not as relevant as, say, using an untested (and apparently untestable) carbon fiber hull: > Lochridge’s concerns mainly focused on the company’s decision to rely on sensitive acoustic monitoring – cracking or popping sounds made by the hull under pressure – to detect flaws, rather than a scan of the hull. Lochridge said the com…

Interesting... This is similar to the concerns that Vince Weldon, the Boeing engineer had over the 787 Dreamliner hull made of composites: that flaws could not be found by a visual scan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Weldon

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

#758

Post by tokai »

danudey wrote: post #47
leipert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Logitech “off brand”. They are well known for input devices.

I've been using Logitech input devices since before Sony or Microsoft ever made one.

Microsoft's first controller is much older than Logitech'.

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

#759

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to understand from this article.

Using off-the-shelf parts is par for the course even on military boats and submarines. They are far cheaper than custom made parts with fault rates which are acceptable. With proper maintenance and redudancy, this is not at all an issue.

The issue here is the carelessness of the team, the lack of proper safety engineering and an utter disregard for industry best practices. The equipment is not the issue. These specific practices would have led to an unsafe submarine even with custom made parts.

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

#760

Post by taneq »

major4x wrote: post #666

One shall not obsess with the game controller they use, I suppose, in their analysis, failing the controller wouldn't prevent the sub from resurfacing... It is symptomatic, however. The whole Silicon Valley is like that. You have the old guard, NASA, millions for fault analysis, rumors go the C code on some NASA rocket was certified at $1000 per line---human eyeballs reading it... All those start-ups and unicorns, th…

> You have the old guard, NASA

I thought the latest round of NASA missions were using commodity hardware and taking the fail-early-fail-often approach (at least compared to the old days)? And in doing so have delivered, all failures included, the most bang per buck of any NASA missions?

Not saying I'd trust my life to a gamepad alone, but pragmatism is a virtue in engineering.

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