The full story of Thailand’s extraordinary cave rescue | Hacker News Reader

The full story of Thailand’s extraordinary cave rescue

bbc.co.uk

28 pointsALee25 comments

FWIW, the NYT also had an excellent feature focused on the technicalities of the rescue. Lots of great graphics too: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/world/asia/thailand-cave-...

From the diagrams on nyt, it looks like they never went underwater.

I was under the impression they had to navigate through a small passage that was 3 feet across under water.

This was definitely great news for Thailand. Especially after the capsized boat last week where 60+ people died.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-accident-boat/th...

I cannot believe that Elon Musk has accused Vern Unsworth, one of the British rescue divers, of being a pedophile on Twitter, all because his idea of using a mini-submarine to rescue the boys was rejected[1].

It's absolutely disgusting behaviour on his part and completely uncalled for. It's one thing to professionally disagree with the best method for rescue (although Elon is not a cave rescue expert by any measure), but it's another to libel a man and accuse him of being a pedophile.

He's lost any goodwill he gained from offering to help. In my mind, he's lost all good will. You can't just go around accusing people of being pedophiles because they live in Thailand. He's as bad as Donald Trump accusing Joe Scarborough of murdering his constituent-services director.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/15/elon-musk-tweets-hell-bet-...

Edit- NM. Have at it.

While unseemly, Elon is as much a part of the tapestry of the story, as the side show is a part of the circus.

It’s been discussed to death, and every time the discussion is the same. There’s no intellectual satisfaction in a noh play of hyper-partisan bickering between people who think that Musk is a charlatan, or a prophet.

Meanwhile the article here is full of good information. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m amazed this rescue ended with only a single death, and learning about how it was pulled off and discussing that with a bunch of technically inclined people is a lot more promising than another round of Musk.

I have sympathy for that position, but Musk did work hard to attach himself to this story.

Edit: going over to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537018

Has Elon Musk lost his marbles, or has his broad public platform just magnified his, to be frank, strange personality? I remember that footage of him getting delivery of some million dollar car and thinking that this guy is kinda off center:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb3pmifEZ44

I get the heebie-jeebies watching this. And knowing he then crashed this car. Without insurance. Showing off.

Maybe he's not, Savior of the World material?

I'm no fan of Musk, but its not unusual among the super rich to not have insurance. They frequently post a bond with the state in lieu of insurance. Perfectly legal in fact in California.

So is this another example how the super rich can sideline laws that need to be followed by the not super rich? Like for example, anything that's not allowed, but the only repercussion is a fine? (let's say, littering, just as a concrete example) If I'm super rich, that basically means I can do it, but a poor person would think twice.

Also see companies dealing in business malpractices that only receive a pittance of a fine as the outcome of losing the legal trial. ie: "cost of doing business"

No, it's not.

Insurance requirements are for liability -- the other car and driver.

In California for example, You post the bond in the amount required by the state (35k), that acts as your certificate of insurance. Purchase a surety bond from a company licensed in California, or file a certificate of self insurance (only for motor carriers, and requires a 300-750k deposit), or you can purchase traditional liability insurance.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/brochures/fast...

But why would one do that, rather than pay insurance? What's the benefit to the driver?

In the long run, its cheaper - if you have the initial capital.

So it's an example of, "being poor is more expensive than being rich"

Any other pluses to doing it this way?

One less thing to worry about, you file the bond once, and its good forever

But, why would you think this? Musk is a founder of some of the most successful tech startups ever. This is HN, and that's quite on-topic.

There's currently a thread discussing this angle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537018

He is absolutely a part of the story of the rescue though, he made sure of that himself by loudly proclaiming his pie in the sky solutions and then getting pissy when the actual domain experts rejected them.

Sometimes the simple solutions are the best.

Who could Elon Musk possibly be referring to. Gary Glitter?

Elon really needs some people in his life who are empowered to reel in his bullshit. This is the kind of stupid bigotry that people never forget.

Actually, getting involved at all was an incredibly risky move. That he was eager to insert tech he had just invented into this sort of situation, is really questionable from a risk management perspective. If we hadn't already seen Tesla and SpaceX do such great jobs of handling risk, his judgment in this episode would be a reason to join the shorters...

Surely good handling of risk includes the response when things go wrong? Tesla has not done well in this regard.

They seem to be doing a better job than Uber? It's a hard problem, and they haven't caused a catastrophe yet...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com