Well... at least he was indeed putting his own ass on the line with them? I don't trust a wireless controller to play Brickout let alone bet my life on one, personally, but we can be pretty sure that this guy wasn't intentionally running a scam to endanger people's lives, at least any more than, say, the early days of Mt. Everest or polar expeditions. The big difference of course is that the world in general has been made safer for most of us, and communication technology improved to the point that everyone knew about it within hours instead of, at best, a short newspaper article months later, if there wasn't enough interesting more locally that day so they needed to fill some column inches.
Reading what El Reg had to say about it, the porthole window thing could even have been a feet-to-meters conversion that got missed in the design phase, since being certified to 4300m when you only intended to dive where the sea floor is at 4000m would be fine, but 4300ft is a definite problem. That's not to absolve the error, there should have been far more than enough double- and triple-checking by multiple sets of eyes to catch that kind of thing, but it's happened many times before, especially when someone is putting together off-the-shelf components as they specifically were.
In the end, I'd have to say better to never know what happened than to have been stuck in a little can on the bottom of the ocean with three days worth of air when it took four for even an RPV to find the site. I like small spaces to the point of being uncomfortable if I don't have a hat to provide the impression of a ceiling outdoors even on my good days, but that's still an idea that gives even me the willies.
Reading what El Reg had to say about it, the porthole window thing could even have been a feet-to-meters conversion that got missed in the design phase, since being certified to 4300m when you only intended to dive where the sea floor is at 4000m would be fine, but 4300ft is a definite problem. That's not to absolve the error, there should have been far more than enough double- and triple-checking by multiple sets of eyes to catch that kind of thing, but it's happened many times before, especially when someone is putting together off-the-shelf components as they specifically were.
In the end, I'd have to say better to never know what happened than to have been stuck in a little can on the bottom of the ocean with three days worth of air when it took four for even an RPV to find the site. I like small spaces to the point of being uncomfortable if I don't have a hat to provide the impression of a ceiling outdoors even on my good days, but that's still an idea that gives even me the willies.
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‎noli esse culus
‎noli esse culus