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Comment by adflux | Hacker News Reader

Love the armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies

It's a way of thinking out loud and providing an opening for someone more knowledgeable to explain what is being overlooked. It makes for interesting threads.

Cunningham's Law: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

> It makes for interesting threads.

The threads are not particularly interesting because people make the same suggestions over and over again.

So far I haven't really seen any other suggestions saying to cut the bolbous bow off. The ship can still sail without it.

That's the most obvious part of the grounding, but the ship is properly wedged at both ends. It's not the whole problem.

It's wedged at the stern because the bow impelled the ground. The stern isn't impelled, once the front of the ship is free, the back be easily ungrounded by tugs.

This is how every post and comment works on HN.

It's pretty great. I hope this serves as a lesson to some people

"If these jokers will talk this much about this even though they clearly know nothing at all about the tech involved, what does that say about their comments on all the other threads here?"

Also known as the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.

In that case... why don’t we get Elon Musk’s Submarine to get it out?

I bet they could hook up a bunch of Falcon-9's or Super Heavies to the ship and launch it into orbit.

That's a pay per view event waiting to happen.

It's hilariously arrogant too.

I feel like we need a "why don't you just?" safe word, where the intent is to signify "hey I'm not being a smartass, I'm really just curious about why this seemingly simple solution won't actually work".

So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith that it makes it really hard to just have innocent conversations without being misunderstood. :-(

I try to replace any "I think..." and "Why don't they just..." comments with "I wonder if..." ones.

I've found it communicates my curiosity in a way that's less likely to be misinterpreted. It's made my internet/IRL conversations much more productive.

> So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith

... and I have to admit I’m still not able to easily recognize the difference between bad faith and utter lack of experience and/or intelligence without digging deep into the history of the individual posting such “questions”.

And the need for that extra digging makes such questions effectively the same waste of time and emotional energy as responding to a troll.

Same. It's super easy to know when I am communicating in good faith, but it's not so trivial to know when you are.

You know those scenes in the movies where two characters circle around each other giving the side eye like "so are you fucking with me or are we cool?"

Twitter in particular feels like a whole site of people doing that. :)

You don’t need to do the digging if you follow the rules of the site, which include interpreting others’ comments as charitably as possible.

Agreed. I’ve thought the same for posting an interesting fact. Anymore, I want to preface every single one by saying, “hey, you may already know this; I’m just sharing it because it hasn’t been mentioned yet and I think it’s neat. If you were implying the fact already, I apologize for overlooking that.”

Why dont you just coin a new phrase? Perhaps it'll stick.

I've actually seen literal quotes before, e.g. a question like:

"Why don't you just" get a bunch of people on rafts and row real fast to push it off?

Because if it doesn’t stick, everyone else will just think you’re annoying (like the “fetch” girl in Mean Girls).

"Why is the following wrong:"

"What's the problem with"

"What's the problem with training every pigeon in the world to grab on and fly it out of there?"

"Why is the following wrong: They could get a shitload of muskrats and have them dig out the banks?"

Etc. Suggestions made obviously ridiculous.

What do you think people at "billion dollar companies" do in such situation?

Exactly the same thing. Just not on a public board. Just like everyone else is doing when discussing problems they face in any line of work.

Since it's unlikely anyone here has any decision making power relevant to the Suez canal, look at this discussion as an exercise in group problem solving. Sharpening the saw.

> Exactly the same thing.

Not exactly-exactly. There are (e.g.) 1000 suggested solutions.

950/1000 of them are silly, stupid, impossible, -facepalm-, etc.

25/1000 are doable.

10/25 are doable and cost less than the other 25

5/10 are faster than others

2/5 are actively being investigated, and of course they won't be announced to 'us'. They (thinkers/engineers/specialists) will have to talk to their CEOs/COOs/CFOs, insurance companies, Egypt's military, handlersof the canal, and a bunch of other key stakeholders.

(my ratios are pure guesstimates, but it makes sense that there is a selection process, and we won't figure them out from our couches)

And some that are doable will not be safe enough.

Maybe but maybe not.

Like the parent comment said, it’s a way of thinking out loud.

For e.g., when someone says “just dig it out, it just pull it away...”, I give them a benefit of doubt by assuming what they are really saying is “I know it’s not as simple as just pulling it out but can someone explain why we can’t though?”

It always amuses me how much specialists in one field think that their expert status is transferable to other fields.

I think its that when you know something really well, you feel like you're in control. When you have a new problem, that emotion doesn't go away...

> armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies

There are 2 types of armchair engineers.

The ones who sneer and say, "If they just <x> then it would be fixed because I know best" Those people are bores.

There are others who are just tossing ideas around: partly for amusement and partly because they enjoy thinking, "What would I do in this situation ...?"

I haven't seen too many bores in this thread.

I don't think this latter group _seriously_ thinks they know better than experts, and I have found the various ideas and counterarguments interesting to read.

and... and... what?

Sorry, I was typing 1/2-thoughts & talking to someone. I deleted the sentence fragment.

We have the luxury of just throwing around ideas and not caring about the consequences (because nobody in power will read it). It's just fun to think about how you'd solve a problem like this.

For example I'd try to attach a two Raptor engines to the ship and blow it back to the water :)

Or tear the ship apart :). Which makes me think - why not cut the ship in half? Two pieces will be easier to dislodge and tow away :).

Someone actually is trying that idea in Georgia right now (https://www.thedrive.com/news/34648/capsized-cargo-ship-in-g...) but it really is not easy!

Many likely problems: equipment avilability to do so, time it will take, debris falling off and from the operations, risk of capsizing, probably need to load pieces on barges/crane but canal is not much large

in half? I would not go for less than nine pieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ENOJBLVgjw

What a fascinating watch! That they were able to produce such clean cuts through the entire ship with the cutting wire is absolutely incredible.

The salvage company hired to fix this problem is probably just reading this thread and nodding along like yeah that could work. Great idea HN!

Congrats! You've discovered that engineers like to stretch their imaginations and theorize about solutions to problems for their own fun and enjoyment

Detonate a small but still relatively powerful bomb upstream (or maybe multiple small but staggered ones), to create a small tsunami-like wave, which in turn will move at least the ship's aft/stern (as the ship creates in the canal a "V"-like shape which will therefore concentrate most of the wave's force in that area) when it hits it. Almost guaranteed to work, theoretically.

Or more likely, it will break the hull apart and then there are 5000 containers stuck in the bottom of the canal.

IIRC the banks of the canal aren't very high above the water level.

Raising the banks for say 1/2 mile on either end of the ship might not be impossible? Maybe?

Billion dollar companies are filled with people. Nothing special about billion dollar companies except money. I wish money equated to great ideas.

Outfits like SMIT also have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, plus some equipment.

Just let the air out of the tires, simple.

Just bring in a Bagger 288[1] and use it to excavate a new diversion canal in front of the ship long enough to get it out of the main canal, bada-bing bada-boom. Simple!

[1]Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azEvfD4C6ow

That beast is really outstanding and would probably be able to do the job in reasonable time. This machine is so insanely large, it would fit into any sci-fi movie. The craziest thing is, some years back it was driven over a distance of 22 kilometers cross country to a different site, which was just mindblowing.

Put balloons around it to give extra buoyancy. That should work.

That actually is something that you can do in smaller salvage operations. The technical word for these balloons is lift bag.

I searched for the biggest ones I could find this week and it was something like several tons. So we only need about 10 thousand of them.

And the key words are "smaller salvage operations".

Or with crabs, potc style! /s

Why don't they just give me a long enough lever so I can simply lift the ship out of the canal?

Put huge hydraulic cylinders below the ship. The obvious problem is, what are those cylinders anchored to?

but did they try turning it off and on again?

The canal or the ship?

Maybe if you kill the ship it respawns at its port of origin?

Proposing ideas shouldn’t be taken as suggesting that the poster is confident the ideas are correct, but rather as an invitation to talk through whether it would work and maybe learn something interesting.

So you are complaining that on a startup forum people are trying to solve billion dollar questions?

Besides, billion dollar companies often miss things. Yes, they have the more relevant experts and much better data than we, but they have to content with internal and external politics and have fewer people throwing around ideas. Sometimes the answer is to "why haven't you done X" is simply "nobody with a voice to be heard had that idea". If billion dollar companies were the infallible giants you make them out to be then startups straight up couldn't work.

Yes, most here are armchair engineers, though quite a few actual engineers around, so you never know. But the embarassing point is: the billion dollar companies currently also don't seem to have an idea about the possible solution :p. I am pretty optimistic that they will come up with a reasonable plan soon, but there is a nonzero chance that someone here will come up with a good idea. Sometimes it quite helps to be at a distance.

From the actual engineers

https://www.tradewindsnews.com/casualties/salvors-warn-ever-...

I assume you're The Person that Googles the answer to every discussion you have with your friends rather than having a little fun with it.

That's how a lot of billion dollar companies got started.

If this was space engineers I would build a crane drone and offload it unto nearby ships. Or build giant trucks to help the ship get unstuck.

Or just tow it outside the environment...

> Or just tow it outside the environment...

For those who haven't seen this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

Where is Elon when you need him?

He just offered to build them a little submarine

I don't think Musk will give unsolicited help to anyone ever again, after the spectacular form of gratitude the underwater capsule was received with.

That ship is never going to fit in that submarine.

How many Raptor engines would we need here?...

Why didn't anyone think of this before? Internet commenting is over folks. This guy realised its not productive.

I think there's still room for suggesting potential solutions that might work, even if they make the operation of the cargo ship (even more?) unprofitable for its owners.

That said, the ones mentioned there don't pass the smell test.

It's entertaining. I think a big winch or two to drag it off.

That's what some scientists said about mRNA research

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