• @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    Jesus Christ that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The submarine in the game Iron Lung was safer to drive than this thing.

    But Wilby said that for the Titan, the coordinate data was transcribed into a notebook by hand and then entered into Excel before loading the spreadsheet into mapping software to track the sub’s position on a hand-drawn map of the wreckage.

    The OceanGate team tried to perform these updates at least every five minutes, but it was a slow, manual process done while communicating with the gamepad-controlled sub via short text messages.

    Updates every FIVE MINUTES?! I wouldn’t even trust this thing in a damn swimming pool.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      933 months ago

      I really do wonder why they ended up in this. It can’ be that hard to make even a hacky DIY system to do it automatically. The navigation system just had to have some digital or even analog output, then it would be just the problem of interpreting the signal with some script and writing it into a file.

      When Wilby recommended the company use standard software to process ping data and plot the sub’s telemetry automatically, the response was that the company wanted to develop an in-house system, but didn’t have enough time.

      • @[email protected]
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        1023 months ago

        To write a script, you need someone who can write scripts.
        If all you have is someone who can write VLOOKUPs in Excel, and the CEO is too cheap to hire someone, then that’s what you use.

        • @[email protected]
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          753 months ago

          So basically it’s a project done by MBA geniuses, entrepreneurs and visionaries who optimized by cutting on those mundane and boring nautical engineers and software developers?

          God, do I like how evolution works.

        • @[email protected]
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          303 months ago

          someone who can write VLOOKUPs

          I think you’re overestimating the competence on display here…

      • @[email protected]
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        403 months ago

        I really do wonder why they ended up in this. It can’ be that hard to make even a hacky DIY system to do it automatically.

        All-manager team, no devs?

      • @[email protected]
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        93 months ago

        I like how the company didn’t consider using standard software to do it, and then switch to the in-house system that they made later, instead of just having it done by hand instead.

    • Madrigal
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      283 months ago

      There are better ways to do that even in Excel!

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Right? I work with plenty of users in non-technical roles who have at best rudimentary Excel skills, and even they could figure out a better way to manage this. The whole thing with Excel is to make basic data work accessible even to a rube, and let them do an incredible amount of things otherwise outside their skillet.

        Using Excel like this is like giving someone a microwave and they only use it as a kitchen timer.

    • @leftzero
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      93 months ago

      What’s worse is that half the coordinates probably ended up as dates…

    • @[email protected]
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      43 months ago

      Man if it wasn’t for that kid that was probably dragged into this, I’d be fucking rolling rn. How fucking stupid do you have to be to not see the sea of red flags???

  • @[email protected]
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    1313 months ago

    According to Ross, six days before the Titan submarine imploded, the sub’s pilot and the company’s cofounder, Stockton Rush, crashed the vessel into a launch mechanism bulkhead while the vessel was attempting to resurface from dive 87. […] but Ross said he did not know if an inspection of the sub was carried out afterward.

    How does every new detail about the excursion keep getting worse? Next week I’m going to learn they used Saran wrap for the windows.

    • @[email protected]
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      223 months ago

      The sub was totaled. Like you need to change a helmet after a crash even it it looks fine

    • Captain Aggravated
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      3 months ago

      It is my understanding that Rush also hard-bottomed the sub (crashed into the sea floor) while diving to the Andrea Doria. And was a little piss baby about it the entire time.

      That’s apparently a shorter version of the video I’d seen previously; eventually Rush does hand over the controls, by throwing the playstation controller at the guy’s head.

    • @[email protected]
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      63 months ago

      i wonder if it would have made the trip without that crashing. not that it matters much, but wow. how insanely stupid!

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      And the week after that, we’ll find out that the sub didn’t even go into the ocean. They crushed it in a car compactor.

  • @[email protected]
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    1053 months ago

    It’s a good thing that no serious company uses excel spreadsheets to manage their data, right? Right?

    • @[email protected]
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      823 months ago

      Of course not! We employees of Fortune 500 companies use Google Sheets to manage critical data.

      It’s in the cloud, that’s how you know it’s good.

      (I’m not even joking…our VP said this)

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Excel effectively forces cloud usage now if you want to use autosave. And frankly, Microsoft is doing everything it can to shift users to cloud based Office apps.

        They really, really want users and business owners to think of the local data storage and desktop computing as secondary to OneDrive and Webapps. I swear at some point in the future the consumer version of Windows will be little more than the Edge browser in a wig.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          Companies now prefer cloud storage because they will still have the data if they fire you as your access will be lost immediately. You could delete all local files and it will take lot of time and effort to recover them.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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          23 months ago

          I swear at some point in the future the consumer version of Windows will be little more than the Edge browser in a wig.

          Does that mean the install size might wind up being less than 23.2 gigs?

      • @[email protected]
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        153 months ago

        I just wish the whole ‘cloud’ thing would die in a ditch specifically for people like that.

        No, most use-cases don’t need to be in a cloud.

        You are 99.9% paying more for that setup than having people who understand servers.

        And if you need the cloud, then hooray for you, but it should not need to be subsidized by thousands of small customers who jumped on the wrong train.

    • @[email protected]
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      343 months ago

      Be me, postal worker. One of our machines uses a csv file to attach zip codes to bins. See fresh engineer decide to change one zip code in notepad really quick. See file’s formatting get wrecked. Spend next 6 hours watching all the mail spit out of the very last bin every time they think they finally fix it as if machine has irritable bowel syndrome. Engineer earns nickname ‘boy wonder’ first week on job

      • @[email protected]
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        183 months ago

        This is why I always save contents as a new file instead of overwriting the original one when I’m using a machine that isn’t mine. I’ve been burned so many times by flimsy newline characters, proper unicode support, legacy encoding and many other stuff you assume it should be already in place.

    • @[email protected]
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      203 months ago

      There are teams where I work that are basically using Excel as a database and SharePoint as S3 in automated processes… But at least no one is going to DIE when those things fall over!

      • Captain Aggravated
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        53 months ago

        I think it’s a hole in education. Unless you go to school for IT or programming the most advanced thing you’re probably going to be taught is spreadsheet, and yet out in the world of business you need actual database software, and Excel can kinda sorta look like it’s somewhat accomplishing that for a while so that’s what gets used.

        When the only tool society has been taught exists is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

          • Captain Aggravated
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            13 months ago

            As in, would type up a memo in Excel? Woof.

            Sometimes I want a more free-form tool that can be a journal or a checklist or a spreadsheet so that I can plan and calculate and such. My personal journal sometimes reads like The Martian, “Okay, my solar panels make 165 kilowatt hours per sol, and I need 47 of it for my project, meaning I have 108 kilowatt hours per sol left over…” But I look at things like OneNote and fall right off them.

    • @[email protected]
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      13 months ago

      cries in data analyst

      Did you know our company is over a thousand years old, possibly even two? Recent dives into our digital archives have unearthed invoice records dated to the year 1021, though we’re also investigating the validity of one dated to 215.

      Whoever decided to make dates a manual entry text field without validation should be forced to write SQL by hand, without syntax highlighting, autocompletion, syntax checks, reference or looking up stuff, querying a database with no schema or data dictionary.

    • @[email protected]
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      343 months ago

      It’s like an oasis in the desert right now. Everyone can look at this crazy spectacle and ignore all the polarized and heart-wrenching crazy bs that the rest of the news is full of.

    • @[email protected]
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      253 months ago

      Watching some of the hearing, they should be paying attention to how underfunded OSHA is. The agent assigned to one of the whistleblowers had several jobs in front of that case and never got to it before it was dropped. The company was also run on a cult of personality and anyone with any sense either left on their own or were driven out.

      • @[email protected]
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        83 months ago

        Does this actually fall under OSHA? I have no idea who governs regulations for private submarines lol

        But this would also be crazy low priority if it was OSHA, I imagine. The people working on (doing maintenance on) the sub weren’t in danger, right? So just four to five people who sign waivers every few months? Fuck that take a look at some more meat packing factories.

    • @[email protected]
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      83 months ago

      It’s the only way the media is allowed to point out how stupid and useless the ultra-wealthy are. For some reason the media owners allow this little bit of dunking, as a treat.

    • @[email protected]
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      123 months ago

      90% of corporations aren’t transcribing positioning data by hand every five minutes to figure out the sub’s position.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    I have a little pet theory I’ve been stewing about when it comes to penny wise/pound foolish decisions from business owners of all types. From landlords, to local cafes, and all the way up to Fortune 500 CEOs. It comes down to bad accounting.

    I’ve taken to setting aside money into buckets. There’s a bucket that handles some filter replacements for our home furnace (it’s a 5 inch thick HEPA filter, so it’s bit pricey) and under sink RO system, for example. When it comes time to buy one, I just pull from that bucket. It doesn’t feel like I’m losing anything off my usual budget for the month. The money is just there, and it feels nice to be able to pay without worry. It almost feels like a reward for good planning.

    Companies do this, as well. In fact, I helped setup a similar system at my local community makerspace (which runs as a 501(c)3). We pay into buckets for things like insurance every month, and then we pay it when the bill comes due each year. Again, it doesn’t feel like we’re stressed for anything.

    Not all companies do this, or if they do, they don’t do it for everything. If you’re not setting aside a little bucket for something that you know will come up, then it has to be paid out of your general funds. That’s money you wanted to use for something more fun than furnace filters or insurance or a software package that can process navigation data automatically.

    So when you see billionaires or landlords complain about something important being too expensive, it might be because they aren’t tracking their accounting buckets properly. If this keeps happening, that’s a good indication that they are anything but a glorious Captain of Industry.

    • @[email protected]
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      183 months ago

      My son is kinda struggling with his allowance money. I might not be the greatest example or at least, a good financial teati him.

      But the other day, my friend told me their kids received a special wallet with envelopes inside. Exactly the kind of buket system you describe.

      So I’m going to buy this for both my kids, I think it’s going to be helpful for them.

    • TonyOstrich
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      93 months ago

      I would add to this that almost all the companies I have worked for (from local businesses to multi national corps) constantly “save” money by hiding it in labor costs. There is some line item or other thing that is clearly definable on a budget and so they will outsource it in some capacity and then pat themselves on the back for the cost savings. However, what ends up happening is the resulting product that comes in is dog shit and it forces the people on the ground to fix it or otherwise make it work.

      Most regular people just want to do their job and not rock the boat, so rather than make this new issue a pain point for management, they just deal with it. Over time those types of things start to add up and burn people out, but the higher ups are never directly effected and so I think they get a weird sense of anything they say ultimately “just working out”.

  • @[email protected]
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    293 months ago

    Man, a hand typed spreadsheet must have been hard to navigate with the PlayStation controller.

    • Draconic NEO
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      23 months ago

      It wasn’t even a PlayStation controller, it was a knockoff Logitech controller shaped like a DualShock but with Xbox colored buttons.

  • 🐋 Color 🍁 ♀
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    273 months ago

    There were so many things relating to this incident that bewildered me. The titanium end caps were stuck on using glue, by hand. Also, while carbon fiber is great at handling tensile loads at 14 PSI, it’s not so great at handling compressive ones at 5500 PSI. For such a delicate mission, the whole thing seemed unprofessional in so many ways.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      Those giving out the awards want to wait and see if someone dies over laughter about this event. Then they’ll get the award.

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    I’m ready to weep from this.

    Every time any problem comes up, my current manager insists we must use Excel to solve it.