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Comment by krisoft | Hacker News Reader

> drive it with a Logitech USB gamepad

As opposed to the professionals who went with a microsoft xbox controller? [1]

> Or the fact that they scrubbed a Titanic launch for the media due to weather

Yes? Weather is a thing. This is not a ride at disney land, of course they cancel the operation when the circumstances are not favorable. In fact doing the opposite would be foolish.

The company in question might be full of jokers, but your points don’t quite illistrate this well. They are about appearances and not substance.

1: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/18/17136808/us-navy-uss-colo...

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> As opposed to the professionals who went with a microsoft xbox controller?

I think what's more telling is that they didn't even splurge on the actual Microsoft Xbox controller. They cheaped out with an unproven logitech gamepad. When you're already doing something in an unorthodox way at least don't half-ass it.

> The company in question might be full of jokers, but your points don’t quite illistrate this well. They are about appearances and not substance.

Your distinction is a bit arbitrary. Every point about this company will always be about appearances unless you have first-hand accounts or experiences. Otherwise, info on the company's technology, choices, strategies or anything else will always be based on appearance. In the absence of more concrete evidence, these small indicators can at least provide something to infer from.

> Your distinction is a bit arbitrary. Every point about this company will always be about appearances unless you have first-hand accounts or experiences.

Not really. Here is a substance based argument: there is no underwater FAA. This company, and any other private submarine company is setting their own quality level and then marking their own homework to see if they have met it. In a commercial environment they are incentivised to cut corners and there is no external force resisting this.

Then you can ask them about their tech and procedures. Do they have redundant means of communication? Do they have multiply redundant means to release the ballast? How many hull penetrations there are and how are they implemented? If they are unwilling to discuss these questions that is worse than a bad answer.

Some comments are criticising their choice of carbon fiber for the middle section of their pressure vessel. I don’t know enough about the engineering there to decide for myself if that criticism is fair or not but that is an argument about substance not appearance.

I think this is the big thing for me. David Pogue, when he went on a dive with them last year, pointed out that the vessel has no beacon [1]; yet the door bolts from the outside. Apparently there was a five-hour period where the company did not know the location of the sub after it resurfaced.

To me, that seems crazy. Having a GPS beacon seems like a no-brainer for safety purposes. It feels indicative of the engineering as a whole.

[1]: https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1670826522138091521

>In a commercial environment they are incentivised to cut corners and there is no external force resisting this

Please if you are incentivized to cut $10 on the main control interface of your expensive sub that is incredibly low volume production, you have some fundamental cultural problems and its not a business decision.

>In a commercial environment they are incentivised to cut corners and there is no external force resisting this

Please if you are incentivized to cut $10 on the main control interface of your expensive sub that also is to drive your business, you have some fundamental cultural problems beyond "commercial environment".

> As opposed to the professionals who went with a microsoft xbox controller? [1]

The Xbox controllers have an astronomical number of testing hours on them by now.

Can’t you say the same thing about the logitech one? My point is that using an off the shelf solution is not necessarily a bad one. Probably there are differences between the reliability of the different controllers within that category but not to the level where choosing one over the other is a clear sign of engineering mallpractice.

There are far more Xbox controllers in use than Logitech. In the gaming community, the Logitech controllers are known to be janky and less reliable.

The PlayStation controllers are more popular globally, but have not had a great track record when it comes to operation with anything but a PlayStation.

I get what you're saying, though, and I'm not faulting them for using an off-the-shelf product. I'm faulting them for using a substandard product.

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