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James Cameron says the Titan passengers probably knew the submersible was in trouble (www.npr.org)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The Titanic director has made 33 dives to the shipwreck and visited ocean depths in a submersible he built himself. He compares OceanGate to the Titanic in that both ignored safety warnings.

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[–] kabe 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

I know the controller seems corny, but it turns out that even the US Navy have used Xbox controllers.

The real red flags here were the carbon fiber hull and the fact that the Titan wasn't even certified or properly tested to ensure it could survive the stress of repeated dives to such extreme depths.

It's kinda insane that OceanGate got away with taking paying tourists down in that thing for as long as they did.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

To be fair the Xbox controllers are probably more reliable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Cmdr. Reed Koepp told USA Today at the time the controllers were cost-effective and came with an added bonus — young sailors already knew how to handle them.

At least two major weapons systems that the US military is focusing on utilize Xbox-style controllers, Task and Purpose reported in March.

Girguis said making fun of the gaming controller in the submersible was appealing because it's "an easy target" but that a lot of undersea vessels "use similar controllers."

It's a question of quality control. Military grade equipment is not the same as consumer grade equipment. That's why we have grade in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

"Military grade" is not a statement of high-quality... it's a statement of specified minimum capabilities and characteristics to satisfy a contract. It's quite common for off the shelf commercial equipment, even stuff targeted at home consumers, to meet or exceed MIL-STDs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

What do you think quality means? Go pick some IC's and you will see that the best quality is kept for military grade operations like operations in very low temperature for example. An IC designed with a high swing in operational temperature will require much more thinking than a consumer IC.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Thanks for providing an example supporting what I said.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Cool...I'm glad that you understand better what quality means. Now if you have a different definition of quality that's a different story.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

At least one of us does.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Well, sorry to disappoint you but if a circuit endures higher temperature swings than another then it is of a better quality than the other one. This attribute is part of the quantification of quality. But feel free to explain yourself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

"Military grade" does not necessarily mean higher quality. It just means it meets the requirements of the military for a specific purpose. Could actually be pretty shit quality. But you'd already know that if you had read RoboRay's initial comment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, it wasn't the video game controller that failed...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I believe the Navy uses xbox controllers for controlling periscopes, not the entire submarine.