OceanGate’s ill-fated Titan sub relied on a hand-typed Excel spreadsheet - eviltoast
  • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

    They… Couldn’t just make a nice little python script for that??

    Dungeon.

    • Scratch@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      2 months ago

      “Ill-fated Titan submarine relied on Python script the CEO coded himself. When asked about unit tests, he replied; ‘That shits for pussies, we test in production.’”

  • Gollum@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    This is dumb ass article, it is common to have engineering stuff happen in excel.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      2 months ago

      It’s not the use of Excel, which is best-in-class software, it’s all the room for error they introduced.

      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.

      Dumb, but I don’t see that having anything to do with the implosion, just a wonky way to navigate.

      • Gollum@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        You guys are flying airplanes, just asking? 👀

        But I agree that’s far from ideal 😂

      • Gollum@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        Haha, we hand type our stuff several times into different formats, from PowerPoint to excel to some proprietary formats into a tool which configures something….

    • volkerwirsing@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, but in this case it really is idiotic. They are receiving data via some communication line from the sub, are manually typing it in excel and then are manually loading it into a mapping software. And then they are telling the contractor, who is proposing to use automatic, standard software for that, which is available on the market, to shut up and that they want to develop their own system, which they then proceed do don’t develop. That might also be common, but is far away from best practices. Just writing the text message contents to CSV and importing that via cron would have been easier.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    I’ve been following the USCG hearings that are being held now. You can follow them live on YouTube. They give some really interesting insights into this whole affair. It’s much, much worse than just the fabled Logitech controller.

    There were voids, delaminating and literal holes in the carbon fiber hull, it was sprayed with truckbed liner and at one time, a CO scrubber was made by using a Home Depot plastic container and a PC fan… They also rigged a buoyancy device with basically a vacuum cleaner bag and rope. It was a complete death trap through and through.

    You’ll be shocked that Stockton Rush would risk his life like that to dive with it, much less have the audacity to take paying others with him.