Comment by smittywerben | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smittywerben | Hacker News Reader

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They allege that this system was designed by students or recent graduates from Washington University who have no real experience. I don't think it's the student's fault.

Showing Rush tossing the controller while saying "it's bluetooth so I can hand it to anybody... it's meant for a 16 year old to throw it around and super durable" is powerful imagery for a jury.

The complaint specifically mentions Bluetooth, which I can't tell if it's an error. They switched from the DualShock controller used in Cyclops I, which does use Bluetooth. There is probably a reason they switched wireless technologies (Bluetooth is even worse than Logitech's 2.4 GHz wireless), which if not documented, could also show negligence.

Your carbon fiber hull fatigue theory is interesting.

I picture it sitting out in the hot sun and cold nights for months. It reminds me of the CNA building in Chicago, where windows fractured due to uneven sun exposure. The owners didn't replace them until one fell and killed a pedestrian, resulting in an $18 million settlement in 1975.

> powerful imagery for a jury

Be careful: are you trying to predict legal results, or find truth? Those are (unfortunately) rather different questions. If you're looking for truth, you don't care about what makes "powerful imagery for a jury".

BTW, the "carbon fiber hull fatigue" theory is not GPs, it's the extremely obvious top candidate for the failure.

Anyway, there is still no evidence that using a gamepad had any concrete negative effect. Letting passengers drive? Yeah, that's a problem. But it would be at least as big a problem with industry standard controls, which wouldn't even have the faint advantage of familiarity.

The switch from the Dualshock to the Logitech, as a system designed by students, demonstrates negligence that led to the catastrophe. Had the system not been designed by students, it would not use a wireless game controller. You could argue it in your head but in reality, which is part of the claim, no such system exists in any submarine.

Why are you so determined to make the gamepad mean something? Is it not enough that the whole design of the sub was fundamentally flawed?

Anyway, the best sense I can make of your logic is that designedByStudents -> gamepad, and designedByStudents -> negligence, therefore gamepad -> negligence. In that case I believe your fallacy is "affirming the consequent", with a side of ad populum w.r.t other submarines. I don't see how changing the type of controller fits in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

I'm not affirming the consequent here. I'm saying don't dismiss the gamepad claim outright. As I said, it's not normal for a sub traveling miles under water to have electronics sourced from Walmart's toy section.

This thread is about the gamepad. The lawsuit mentions it. It's relevant. Period.

It's mentioned, but we can still point out that its importance is at best overstated, and that the article headline mentioned it in a deceptive way, and that it most likely had nothing to do with the actual incident (again, plenty of bigger issues).

So then the most important question relating to the gamepad remains: why do people keep mentioning it? The specific sub thread we're under started with a pretty good theory IMO.

In the meantime, the correct thing is in fact to dismiss the gamepad until any evidence appears relating to its role in the vehicle loss, and not to get to excited for that to happen.

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