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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

#931

Post by 3pac »

thrashh wrote: post #705
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…

Nothing has changed. The reason NASA did that is because the stakes were so high. They couldn’t send a firmware update in the middle of a journey and the reputation of America hinged on the success of NASA. If you are under that level of pressure, you make sure you dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

Apollo 11 command module computer did receive a patch from Houston to the running executive in core memory while in flight to the moon.

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

#932

Post by nly »

N19PEDL2 wrote: post #927
Hamuko wrote: post #921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details about the single window on the craft is also pretty damning: > Further, the craft was designed to reach depths of 4,000 meters (13,123ft), where the Titanic rested. But, according to Lochridge, the passenger viewport was only certified for depths of up to 1,300 metres (4,265ft), and OceanGate would not pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport certified for 4,000 metres.

I read about the huge lack of safety measures on the submarine, and now this. I am beginning to think that perhaps the CEO of the company has voluntarily decided to die with his unfortunate fellow passengers. I know mine is big speculation, but taking the glass viewport to 300% of its certified maximum strength in an environment where the slightest setback can be fatal can no longer even be considered as "taking risk…

Depends what certification entails. The company that certifies the ports might only have a sub that can go to 1300meters

Doesn't mean that the design isn't mathematically sound to far deeper.

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

#933

Post by MockObject »

Eisenstein wrote: post #756
miracle2k wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 want…

Life is becoming very safe, but we evolved under conditions of deadly risks around every corner. What we can and should ask is that the risk takers only jeopardize their own lives.

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

#934

Post by HankB99 »

benglish11 wrote: post #913
mrweasel wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, does that actually work out financially, or is it really cheap or are carbon forks really expensive?

You probably wouldn’t do this for a fork. You’d just replace it. The carbon frame though can be expensive

Ouch! Folks across the street own a bike shop and sponsor an annual criteruim. Last year there was a crash right in front of our house - touch of wheels I suppose. There's a slight hill at the end of the street and I guess the riders could have been going in excess of 30 mph or more. No one badly hurt AFAIK but one bike had a broken frame. In this case no fancy equipment was required to detect the flaw. :-/

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

#935

Post by DanHulton »

Retric wrote: post #151
DanHulton wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Low end" and "high end" in the gaming market doesn't necessarily equate to "reliability," however. "Style" and "customizability" are very high on the differentiators between low/high for gaming peripherals, neither of which are necessary on a sub. The reviews for the controller (mentioned by name in the article, so easy to look up) are generally great (4.2/5 with thousands of reviews), and the 1/2-star reviews are a…

It’s not about having a RGB controller, it’s the fact you can get a COTS controller built for boats which is vastly less likely to crap out unexpectedly due to say condensation in an enclosed environment where people are exhaling water vapor. You might generally be fine, but many crash investigation involved some cheap component failing as part of a longer sequence. Ie something fails and humidity increases then XYZ…

Sure, but the headlines are always "$30 video game controller" or "low-end videogame controller", not "videogame controller". I agree that that's the real problem, that using a videogame controller for life-or-death control is a bad idea, but I'm just peeved by the headlines that seem more upset that the videogame controller being used is inexpensive, and seem to insinuate that if they'd used an XBox Elite controller, maaaaybe that'd have been okay.

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

#936

Post by vkou »

detourdog wrote: post #769
vkou wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recklessly killing your workers is even worse.

Many jobs are dangerous and regulated but killing customers is different. somehow it is the insurance companies that are the first line of defense when some conjures up a novel scheme.

Dangerous jobs still require the employer to try really hard to make them as safe as possible.

It doesn't sound like that was the case here.

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

#937

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

barelyauser wrote: post #848
ceejayoz wrote: post #845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the ballast is held on via electromagnets. Lose (or deliberately cut) power, you're going up.

Isn't this like a huge waste of energy?

There's a difference between a "waste of energy" and a failsafe emergency system that happens to use a lot of energy.

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

#938

Post by omniglottal »

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…

Nothing is untestable. If validation results in destruction, then destructive testing is how this is done.

Failing to test is a choice, similar to the choice made by a software engineer who determines, without testing, that their production service has no bugs.

If a component's flaw can only be detected right before a failure, we need statistical analysis of multiple such failures being intentionally induced to estimate the component's limits.

Not finding or knowing about existing limits or flaws is the direct result of not looking for them.

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

#939

Post by major4x »

sn41 wrote: post #757
rob74 wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You may be interested in having a look at this relevant and interesting article "Nanoscopic origin of cracks in carbon fibre-reinforced plastic composites":

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55904-2

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

#940

Post by thrashh »

3pac wrote: post #931
thrashh wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing has changed. The reason NASA did that is because the stakes were so high. They couldn’t send a firmware update in the middle of a journey and the reputation of America hinged on the success of NASA. If you are under that level of pressure, you make sure you dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

Apollo 11 command module computer did receive a patch from Houston to the running executive in core memory while in flight to the moon.

Well maybe not technically couldn’t but preferably not have to.
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