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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

#862

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…

Like the video [1] mentions, they were only improvising on things (including the controller) that would not pose a safety hazard if they failed. The critical components like the capsule were designed alongside NASA and others. People aren't just tossing safety to the wind, but trying to create a better balance. NASA does spend a extreme amount of money on compliance and safety - yet that doesn't prevent them from doi…

>Like the video [1] mentions, they were only improvising on things (including the controller) that would not pose a safety hazard if they failed.

This is an extremely dangerous attitude though (obviously). In the BBC documentary, the thrusters are out of orientation and they just solve it by saying 'turn the controller, since right is your new forward.'

In the documentary it's played off as fun, but there's a non-zero chance the sub is currently stuck within seafloor wreckage and it could 100% be the fault of the controller.

Bad steering certainly wouldn't prevent them from dropping ballast (which they imply is the ultimate failsafe), but it is not a zero-failure-risk system.

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

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theranos is an outright fraud. Not the product of getting things done on fast track. They knew things could not be done and kept up the charade for long enough to profit off of it, and hopefully get away.

> Theranos is an outright fraud. Not the product of getting things done on fast track Theranos is product of the same culture. Company founder chases a goal they do not understand, and convinces investors its right around the corner. In actuality they have no clue. There is no foundamental difference between theranos diagnosis and tesla autopilot. The only reason we call theranos fraud is that we know conclusively th…

Elizabeth Holmes was not convicted of fraud and sentenced to eleven and a quarter years in prison because her company was a bad investment, no matter how much tech "journalists" want you to believe. She's going to prison because she committed boring financial fraud. If she was truthful to investors about the state of her company and her technology, she never would have received funding. Claiming that your technology will totally be ready in 6 months and will change the world is one thing, saying that it's in secret use by the US Military in Afghanistan onboard medevac helicopters is another.

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

#864
post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Not saying I'd trust my life to a gamepad alone I’d trust it to an Xbox, PlayStation controller, they’re some of the most reliability tested input devices ever. Most people are freaking out because it’s some known glitchy budget gamepad.

My playstation controller of less than a year old has stick drift so ymmv and you definately need backups. N=1 ofcourse but it's not that rare.

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

#865
post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the capsule considered the only critical safety component? If everything else fails wouldn't it just fall to the bottom of the ocean? Even if it can survive that depth that only sounds good on paper. Nobody could get to you.

The capsule itself is positively buoyant. As long as it can jettison the ballast (and is not tangled up in something on the seabed, say, the Titanic), it will come to the surface.

Sure, but they can also incorrectly steer themselves into wreckage that causes them to be stuck...

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

#866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the capsule considered the only critical safety component? If everything else fails wouldn't it just fall to the bottom of the ocean? Even if it can survive that depth that only sounds good on paper. Nobody could get to you.

Because an implosion is a single point of failure leading to instant death. Anything else can be salvaged by staying calm and using one of multiple ways to resurface.

They are visiting a debris field. There is a much more than zero chance they are stuck on something.

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

#867
post #378

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

I'm pretty sure you can't have people sign away your reasonable duty of care, only inherent risks.

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

#868
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn’t downvote him, but I think it’s a bit dismissive of the original point and kind of falls prey to the no true Scotsman fallacy. antonvs’ point can be summarized as essentially “even though you have firsthand experience running companies with cobbled together critical infrastructure, that’s not actually cobbled together infrastructure.”

I don't agree with your summary. I specifically talked about "the cobbling together at a large org", I didn't say it wasn't actually cobbled together.

The point is just that any system that's being used successfully in production at scale has already been tested, has already broken in myriad ways both in testing and in production, and those issues have been addressed somehow - quite possibly by more cobbling together.

This doesn't somehow make the system "not actually cobbled together" - as I said, the implementation may still seem horrible to engineers. It just means that the points of failure that have actually arisen, whether in testing or production, have been addressed somehow, so that the system is able to function at scale.

A key point in all this is that factors like survivor bias are at play: you're not looking at an org that failed because of their cobbled-together system, you're looking at one that succeeded. Large orgs are also more likely to have more testing to help catch the issues with their cobbled-together systems.

This all means that if you try to use this approach on your experimental submarine that you're selling tickets for, you're trading off the almost certain loss of life of some of your passengers against the short-term time and cost savings achieved by poor engineering practices.

To quote Lord Farquaad, "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make."

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

#869

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 This all will be better discussed after the recovery or memorials or whatever (Godspeed to them, I honestly hope for a miracle) This metaphor is extremely double edged, especially in Silicon Valley ethos. When it fails, everyone piles on about the game controller and the lack of ‘flight worthiness.’ When it works they are lauded as heroes because of the extreme savings o…

When (most) people talk about the shitty controller, the options in their heads aren't "3rd party Logitech" or "$10,000 bespoke controller". They're "$200 elite OEM controller", "$60 standard OEM controller" or "$30 notoriously bad piece of shit Logitech".

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

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The use of the controller is symptomatic of their attitude https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military... https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/us-military-video-ga... https://www.pyrosoft.co.uk/blog/2007/11/04/army-fly-uav-spy-...

Xbox controllers are way ahead of low-end logitech controllers though, so the point stands: If you want to control the device using a controller, might as well pick a good reliable one instead of the cheapest option available.

Or shove like 3 spares into a box somewhere on the vessel. $30 is not some bottom end falls-apart-if-you-look-at-it-wrong quality either

What's more perplexing is using a wireless one

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