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Titanic tourist sub missing

Saw this re-posted elsewhere, good comment:
Reflecting on it, the reason I think the OceanGate situation has become such a flashpoint for anger is because it's such a perfect microcosm of the problem with everything right now. Decisions are not made based on safety, reasonable caution, or concern for human life. Every decision is instead made from a default assumption of 'what if the bad thing just DIDN'T happen?' We are given pie-in-the-sky promises and sizzle reels and an endless PR hype-cycle for every new innovation and inevitably it fails to work, harms people, and then is maybe barely apologized for before the next bad idea comes down the pike. OceanGate's underengineered, undercooked, doomed submarine isn't merely a metaphor for the hubris of the wealthy, it is a scale model of the way the wealthy dictate our reality. All consequences can be ignored, all blowback can be forestalled, let the end-user eat the cost.

I am not angry because the submarine was badly-made. I am angry because I live in a vastly larger pressure vessel being managed and maintained by the exact same people.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.

That's quite a read, the guy was a colossal fucking imbecile. A spoilt, over privileged man-child.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.
Unfortunately engineers who raise concerns are often ignored. Stockton Rush is not unique.
 
That's quite a read, the guy was a colossal fucking imbecile. A spoilt, over privileged man-child.
Seems to have been a complete tit. The thing about him asking the woman from accounts if she wanted to lead a mission due to not having anyone qualified (she refused), and the group of teenagers on $15 an hour to do elements of the design as part of their school intern project. It’s amazing the guy got to his 60’s.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.

It's also somewhat er... ironic? that all the guff parroted in the press about them being 'explorers' appears to have been 100% part of the scam. Quite possibly doesn't actually work (again jurisdictions, laws etc), but seems the intent was to avoid them registering as paying customers, rather they would be 'partners engaged in research' or something.
 
It's also somewhat er... ironic? that all the guff parroted in the press about them being 'explorers' appears to have been 100% part of the scam. Quite possibly doesn't actually work (again jurisdictions, laws etc), but seems the intent was to avoid them registering as paying customers, rather they would be 'partners engaged in research' or something.


Yes, in the states in aviation they have the ‘experimental’ class which enables all sorts of new aircraft to fly and lots of interesting old stuff to keep flying in a way that doesn’t happen here or in the EU. However one of the rules is that such aircraft have to have ‘Experimental’ painted in them very clearly and also have a placard clearly defining their status in the cockpit so anyone flying in it knows exactly what they are getting into.
 
It's also somewhat er... ironic? that all the guff parroted in the press about them being 'explorers' appears to have been 100% part of the scam. Quite possibly doesn't actually work (again jurisdictions, laws etc), but seems the intent was to avoid them registering as paying customers, rather they would be 'partners engaged in research' or something.
Yes, that too. Born into a different family, he’d be scamming people from a call centre he hadn’t paid the rent on.

The woman from accounts is just a jaw dropping detail. Imagine the chat on the way down if she’d agreed to it. ‘So, how did you end up getting into this?’, ‘Well I was at the filing cabinet last week and Stockton asked me if I fancied a change, so here I am piloting you to the bottom of the Atlantic’.
 
Yes, in the states in aviation they have the ‘experimental’ class which enables all sorts of new aircraft to fly and lots of interesting old stuff to keep flying in a way that doesn’t happen here or in the EU. However one of the rules is that such aircraft have to have ‘Experimental’ painted in them very clearly and also have a placard clearly defining their status in the cockpit so anyone flying in it knows exactly what they are getting into.
The latest Tom Scott on YouTube video is about a flying replica of the Wrights' second aircraft that is "Experimental". From his narration, it still has to go through a lot of regulation even to get to Experimental.
 
We don't even use wireless or bluetooth connections in meeting rooms as they are considered critical business environments and you can't rely on the connection as OU says.

Always a bad sign when someone says, "can't you do it with wifi?" about a Zoom/Teams room. More so at 20,000 fathoms under the sea.
 
I think his philosophy was that if any system failed all they had to do was rock back and forth to drop the ballast and the sub would resurface. Which obviously wouldn’t work if everyone became unconscious through air failure and wouldn’t prevent an implosion.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.

So many bits in that article that caused me to curse out loud while reading. The breathtaking arrogance of Stockton Rush should live on in infamy. His entire approach is an indictment of late-stage capitalism.
 
Paywall removed article to a good piece in The New Yorker.


The detail about the engineer who was fired for raising concerns is particularly chilling. Shortly before he was sacked, sued, and Rush tried to have him deported into the bargain, he desperately demonstrated one last time to Rush and co that the hull integrity wasn’t what it should be and that nobody should go in it, by shining a torch at it - and the light shafts filtered through all the cracks.


I'm up to remapping the PS3 on the ocean floor, my skin is crawling and I want to scream.


Jesus fucking Christ
 
I'm up to remapping the PS3 on the ocean floor, my skin is crawling and I want to scream.


Jesus fucking Christ
It's like it almost sounds cool that you have a system you can dynamically change to account for unforseen events. But then you remember it's fucking remapping a god damn controller.

Then you remember that the unforseen problem was that THE FUCKING PROPELLER WAS PUT ON BACKWARDS.

Also they were doing this at the bottom of the ocean because THEY DIDN'T CHECK IF IT WAS WORKING AT THE SURFACE!!!
 
It's like it almost sounds cool that you have a system you can dynamically change to account for unforseen events. But then you remember it's fucking remapping a god damn controller.

Then you remember that the unforseen problem was that THE FUCKING PROPELLER WAS PUT ON BACKWARDS.

Also they were doing this at the bottom of the ocean because THEY DIDN'T CHECK IF IT WAS WORKING AT THE SURFACE!!!

It seems to be worse than that, from the New Yorker:
Rush couldn’t remember where the buttons were, and it seems as though there was no spare controller on the ship. Someone loaded an image of a PlayStation 3 controller from the Internet, and Rush worked out a new button routine. “Yeah—left and right might be forward and back. Huh. I don’t know,” he said. “It might work.”

“Right is forward,” Griffith read off his screen, two and a half miles below. “Uh—I’m going to have to write this down.”

“Right is forward,” Rush said. “Great! Live with it.”
It seems they didn't remap the controller as such, just got the pilot to remember the new controls.
From reading previous stories, I thought they'd remapped the controller, so the pilot could use the same inputs to get the same output, but if this is true then, then just luckily worked out which controller position now did what.
 
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