Open thread 6/21/23

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• Trooper John Smith June 21, 2023, 8:35 AM

  “Ozymandias” is the first thing that popped into my head…

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• ghostsniper June 21, 2023, 9:28 AM

  “We can train someone to pilot the sub, we use a game controller so anybody can drive the sub.”
  ==========
  Anybody, even a cave man.

  Where of where has my cave man gone?
  Where of where can he be????

  https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/06/21/ceo-of-oceangate-explains-why-he-didnt-want-to-hire-experienced-50-year-old-white-guys-n2624780

  Like this one:
  https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Nano-Receiver-Controller-Vibration/dp/B0041RR0TW

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  • Trooper John Smith June 21, 2023, 10:01 AM

    Sounds like there were quite a few red flags. I read this AM that they have heard banging noises at 30 minute intervals. It probably would have been better if they had just suddenly lost pressure. I don’t think they’ll be able to get to them in time. Terrible way to go.

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  • Casey Klahn June 21, 2023, 11:52 AM

    I was interested to learn that OG is headquartered in dumbshitsville, Everett, WA. My personal friends there excluded, but Get Woke, Go Broke is now: get woke, die under the ocean because you’re a complete moron. It’s nature’s way of culling the herd.

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    • ItalianHazelnutSpreadNot June 21, 2023, 8:08 PM

      Silly place to live in the current geopolitical climate as will be getting MIRVed up the wazoo when the fun starts.

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      • jwm June 22, 2023, 7:10 AM

        Well, if WWIII goes radioactive, ground zero is not the worst place you could find yourself.

        JWM

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  • sharksauce June 22, 2023, 8:31 AM

    I have this game controller. It is great for playing retro arcade games! I wouldn’t pilot a sub with it!

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• PD June 21, 2023, 3:57 PM

  Howdy,

  Can anyone tell me how to cancel our monthly subscription to Gerard’s new site? We are getting dinged $10 every month still and we’d like to cut that off. It’s time.

  Thanks,
  Pete D.

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  • ghostsniper June 22, 2023, 6:43 AM

    Read the posts at the end of Jan and beginning of Feb for direction.

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• ghostsniper June 22, 2023, 6:52 AM

  Dood and his wife were going through some financial difficulties and after many days fraught with dispare they discussed it and decided she needed to hit the stroll and gather up some coin.

  Friday night about 9pm she has on her mini skirt, see-thru top, fishnets, wig, nails, dangly earrings, gaudy make up, and she steps out into the night.

  The husband is chewing his fingernails down to the 3rd knuckle and she finally comes home about 2am.

  Stepping in the door looking the worse for wear, she eeks out a smile and exclaims, “Look honey, I made $300.25!!!”

  The husband jumps up and says, “That’s GREAT!”, and he snatches the money from her and leafs through it.

  Then he says, “Wait a minute, who paid you twenty-five cents?”

  She, beaming, exclaims, “Everybody!”

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• ghostsniper June 22, 2023, 2:01 PM

  A submersible that was on a diving expedition to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic suffered a “catastrophic implosion”, the US Coast Guard has said, killing all five passengers on board.

  An international search effort on Thursday morning located debris near to the location of the Titanic on the ocean floor. Authorities later confirmed the debris contained the remains of the submersible, known as Titan.

  “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard said at a press briefing.

  The discovery of the remains of Titan puts an end to a frantic four-day search to locate the craft after it lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, on Sunday morning.

  The operator of the craft, OceanGate, confirmed the five people on board — its chief executive Stockton Rush, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, British businessman Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer — were presumed dead.

  “We now believe [they] . . . have sadly been lost,” the company said in a statement. “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.”

  A remote operated vehicle launched from the ship Horizon Arctic as part of the search operation located the nose cone of the Titan on Thursday morning, lying about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.

  The ROV later found a large debris field containing the front end of the vessel’s pressure hull. The rear end of the hull was subsequently discovered in another smaller debris field.

  Search and rescue crews had been in a race against time to track down Titan within 96 hours of its launch — the period of time the crew would still have had oxygen had the vessel remained intact.

  There was a glimmer of hope for the search effort on Wednesday after underwater noises were detected by patrol planes, prompting rescuers to refocus their search efforts. But the Coast Guard said on Thursday that there did not appear to be a connection between the location of the debris and the sounds.

  Mauger said that the tragedy likely occurred before the rescue effort got under way because sonar monitoring of the area had not detected any signs of an implosion during the search.

  “We know that as we’ve been prosecuting this search over the course of the last 72 hours and beyond that we have had sonar buoys in the water nearly continuously and have not detected any catastrophic events when those sonar buoys have been in the water,” Mauger said on Thursday.

  The location of the debris suggested there had not been a collision with the wreckage of the liner, according to Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who assisted with the search.

  The search operation will continue to map out debris on the seabed using ROVs over the coming days in a bid to determine the chronology of events. An investigation into the tragedy is also expected to be announced.

  “This was an incredibly complex case and we are still working to develop the detail of the timeline involved with this casualty and response,” Mauger said.

  “We’re going to continue to investigate the site of the debris field and I know there is a lot of questions about how why and when did this happen,” he added. “Those are questions that we will collect as much information as we can on now while the governments are meeting and discussing what an investigation of this nature of a casualty might look like.”

  https://www.ft.com/content/8738ac76-78cb-4a94-9a7f-417c28904ac7

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  • DT June 22, 2023, 4:43 PM

    If the stories are correct, it seems the CEO “went woke, got broke” by eschewing “50-yo white guys with experience” in favor of young diversity. And cut too many engineering corners. Diversity might be flexible; physics isn’t. “It isn’t nice to fool Mother Nature”

    The CEO got what he (didn’t) paid for; too bad about the passengers. Implosion at depth is quick though …

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  • Casey Klahn June 22, 2023, 8:54 PM

    My comment, in which I “go there”.

    Play stupid games…

    https://youtu.be/ZhxJAxa77sE

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    • ghostsniper June 23, 2023, 7:05 AM

      https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/12c1b9b5f40893db.jpg

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• jwm June 22, 2023, 6:08 PM

  From Posobeic on twatter:

  BREAKING: US Navy detected Titan implosion on SUNDAY, but Biden admin only released news on Thursday AFTER Hunter plea deal and whistleblower reports released

  JWM

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  • ghostsniper June 22, 2023, 6:58 PM

    I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
    =======
    The ship arrived at the dive site on 17 June, and the dive operation began the following day on Sunday, 18 June at 9:30 a.m. Newfoundland Daylight Time (NDT; UTC−02:30) (12:00 UTC). For the first hour and a half of the descent, the Titan communicated with the Polar Prince every 15 minutes, but communication stopped after a recorded communication at 11:15 a.m.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Titan_submersible_incident
    =========

    Shortly after 11:15am is when the implosion occurred.

    The hull was constructed with an “overlap” type of construction rather than the usual “criss-cross” method. This allowed and facilitated advanced material fatigue that can be avoided or prolonged with the criss-cross method. Further, physical testing was never done on the 5″ thick hull find out what it’s capacity was. Computer “models” were used instead.

    If you delve into this thing the deeper you go, pun intended, the more insanity you find. Billionaires paying big money to do supremely stupid things and getting killed in the process. A few years ago this would have stood out like a sore you know what but in the insane atmosphere of 2023 it just sort of blends into the background. Something strange is afoot.

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• DT June 23, 2023, 7:01 PM

  “Computer “models” were used instead.”

  Nothing like a bit of “real” data to screw up a perfectly-good computer model. Or as we used to say : “Silicon beats simulation”.

  (and nowadays, we fix the data, not the model. Models cost money to change and verify.)

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• Kristin June 24, 2023, 5:24 AM

  The real tragedy was : a young man was scared to take the trip down to the Titanic graveyard. Out of love for his adventurer father, on Father’s Day no less, he joined the other adults and found his death.

  That the adults want to play and find their thrills is fine. But coaxing your child is unforgivable to me.

  As a mother, I would never have let this happen.

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