But I feel like some people care about this far more than I can understand, and the news cycle on this is quite protracted. People die in stupid ways every day and this doesn't seem more egregious than most.
And rightly so - one can derive lessons on organizational culture and risk management from such incidents that are applicable to one's own life and career.
Five people died in an unprecedented fashion due to a rich con artist sending maliciously incompetent engineering to the bottom of the ocean. Stretch a bit, please.
[1] https://www.theonion.com/critics-say-submersible-should-ve-b...
However as time goes on and the articles are STILL ongoing, after as you say the 15 minutes of fame, I have to agree that at this point in time any writer still writing about this is worthy of an eye-roll in the other direction.
While it was news it was worth covering. Now, if you're a journalist and you're still covering it, then I do think you're a piece of **.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/world/europe/titan-sub-gr...)
I hold the opposite opinion. I think that covering it when everyone else was covering it would have been a waste of time because there is only limited information out there. Covering it 2 weeks or months later is much better and more information will have emerged and you can weave a narrative to tell the story better than some AI-written articles that just repeat the same 3 sentences from the Coast Guard.
We are nit goldfish. We have memories. Tell us about how investigation continues - whether in this case or others.
There’s no mystery, no doubt, only pain. This sub failing, well, the pain is self induced so it’s hard to feel concerned, and it’s a mystery (not a big one, ok). It’s light news.
So both have their place. They don’t have the same impact, and well, let’s hope both will be solved… faster for the migrant problem though!
If there's something interesting in the conclusion of the story why get so hot and bothered if someone reports on it? Your reaction is strange to a story that many found interesting and may have follow up details.
It's a pretty interesting case study on safety culture. Dying in a stupid way is often preventable, and yet we just accept it, for probably some of the same reasons Rush did.
If I put myself 11 months in the past watching that video, I would probably think this company OceanGate is so professional with zero possibility of merging and mixing their passengers with whatever content in that tiny toilet box.
In my mind, all 5 lost souls are explorers. But 11 months... that's long enough time for someone to generate doubts on the thing to either fix it or speak out.
Except they all signed waivers, per the article, that they were mission specialists. The nuance was important and the jury is out on whether the implication was fully communicated to the people who paid to join. The article seems to indicate that it was...
Calling them anything other than passenger (per the article) was specifically designed to subvert regulations that would have required them to certify the sub. And courts don't like that very much.
Mitigating factors for an explorer should be (imho): novel destination, novel experience of natural forces, novel challenge of actively piloting/driving, unusual physical hardship, unusual mental hardship, novel engineering challenge, unusual training requirements, committing to significant unknowns, etc.
few have been to Titanic
few have experienced the significant pressures involved
ever drive a car while actively sweating bullets and shitting bricks?
see above
See significant pressures.
Can't say this was required since the interface was a console controller
See engineering challenges + novel materialsThere were enough doubts and enough competent people speaking out in the five previous years.
The problem seems that Mr. Rush was just not willing to listen.
You don't fuck with physics, especially not in 4000 metres depth.
Reading this (excellent) story I caught myself almost permanently shaking my head about the callousy of that guy.
Driving to work, that's an accident waiting to happen. Consider all the poorly signed roads, drivers of various states of sobriety and rage.
The sub was in use for years, they did well to engineer within their budget. There's always someone pointing out something wrong, nothing would get done if you actioned every single 'concern'
> someone [...] single concern
"That spring, more than three dozen industry experts sent a letter to OceanGate, expressing their “unanimous concern” about its upcoming Titanic expedition—for which it had already sold places."
More than three dozen someones. More than three dozen concerns.
Language also has a subtext that expresses more than just what the words mean.
Perhaps this wouldn't have been possible on their budget... But I think I'd rather have no sub than a sub full of dead people.
Most customers are going to go with the product with more features even if there are a few more bugs, compared with one with zero bugs and much less functionality.
Equipment rated for depths of 1,300 will be capable of several times that, possibly only reaching immediate material failure at 8,000 meters. But there's a reason you have a FOS; you want to be well within your material limits, not pushing it close to breaking point. After multiple trips that material could be weaker, or an unexpected stress could cause early failure.
Acrylic does not come without drawbacks. The engineer needs to have full knowledge and understanding of these drawbacks to successfully design, manufacture and assemble an aquarium that will stand and support aquatic life for years. To ensure longevity, the typical large aquarium is designed with a factor of safety of 11 to 12. This may seem high, but when one considers the implications if one of these large aquariums were to fail, and the sudden, catastrophic event that occurs when they do fail, it becomes more understandable and acceptable. Unfortunately, aquariums have failed for various reasons, leading to tremendous damage, huge monetary losses and, at times, complete loss of the aquatic life. There have been high-profile public aquarium failures, which typically involve huge aquariums, as well as private aquarium failures that range from several hundred to thousands of gallons of water loss. Some common reasons why acrylic aquariums can fail include:
- Poor bonding of acrylic panels creating a weak seam
- improper installation
- poor manufacturing of the acrylic panels, resulting in inferior strength and stiffness
- residual stress molded or formed into the panel during manufacturing
- introduction of large gouges or notches that can significantly increase stress in the panel
Unfortunately, these issues commonly do not reveal themselves during inspection, assembly or the initial setup stages. Further, when the actual failure event does occur, which is typically months to years after installation, it is quick and catastrophic. The seam or crack opens nearly instantaneously without warning. The phenomenon behind this is called creep rupture—the disentanglement of the molecules of plastic over time, at a stress level significantly below the yield strength—yes, below the yield strength—of the plastic.
[1] https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/when-acrylic-aquariu...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/aquarium-explosion-hotel-aquadom-fi...
> Ramsay grabbed a copy of Stachiw’s acrylic handbook from his spare bedroom. When Stachiw’s team was doing its tests, “they would pressurize it really fast, the acrylic would implode, and then they would assign a conversion factor, to tabulate a safe diving depth,” he explained. “So let’s say the sample imploded at twelve hundred metres. You apply a conversion factor of six, and you get a rating of two hundred metres.” He paused, and spoke slowly, to make sure I understood the gravity of what followed. “It’s specifically not called a safety factor, because the acrylic is not safe to twelve hundred metres,” he said. “I’ve got a massive report on all of this, because we’ve just had to reverse engineer all of Jerry Statchiw’s work to determine when our own acrylic will fail.” The risk zone begins at about twice the depth rating.
So apparently acrylic is not tested or rated in a way that gives you a simple "safety factor." But going by this quote, the acrylic might have hypothetically been tested to implode around 7,800 meters, which means that anything over 2,600 would be in the "risk zone."
A more important lesson is that once you know you're dealing with a narcissist or a liar, you can't "correct" for their lies. You basically need to throw out all the data they provided, and redo any analysis from scratch.
Nor do I read it for the body text!
Yes it is (and [sic] is specifically used for verbatim quotes[1]). Companies often take their style guides pretty seriously, so an extra space can be a big deal. But in any case, The New Yorker has extremely high AP standards, so that's why I'm surprised to see even such a slight mistake.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sic-meaning-us...
The pilot is somewhat aware but says nothing to the customers?
I’m not super bothered by one lord getting other lords killed. Lawyers and insurance will settle this to the relative dissatisfaction of the other parties (lawyers and insurance companies never lose). What is a travesty is how often this happens in aggregate, lords consistently winning their idea of justice against serfs and peasants. And there’s an entire industry now damaged by this one person’s hubris.