Inside The Search For Jim Gray

An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek adds some interesting new details to the story of unprecedented grass-roots search for Jim Gray, the Turing Award-winning database guru who helped set up Microsoft Research's San Francisco lab. Gray disappeared Jan. 26 after sailing out of San Francisco Bay to scatter his mother's ashes at the Farallon Islands, 27 miles offshore. Once the Coast Guard had given up its massive search, Gray's friends rallied the tech community — including people like Google co-founder Sergey Brin — into action. 12,000 volunteers spent 3 days examining 1.6 million hi-res images of ocean gathered by a NASA pilot who flew a U2 low over the area where Gray was thought to have disappeared. But it was all for naught. As Sendmail creator Eric Allman notes, Gray was expert at 'stripping away mystery by making things simple. It's an irony to me that he should end in a mystery.'"

Comments

Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

I remember a freighter that came into Charleston harbor with a SAIL snarled in the anchor. The crew never heard or felt a thing, but the sailboat was never found. Their best guess was that the collision happened off the coast of Spain.

If Gray's boat was run over by an outgoing freighter, he would have had little time to escape. The sailboat would have been sucked under the freighter and may or may not have come to the surface after the freighter's hull and propellers got through chewing on it.

Re:Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[MarkSyms]

If he was in any way an experience Yacht master then there is no way that would happen. The only way you're ever going to get that type of collision is if the skipper in charge of the yacht is seriously inexperienced or there is zero visibility. Given that he was heading out to scatter his mother's ashes I doubt it was bad vis, that's the sort of trip you want to do in perfect conditions as you want it be a memorable experience.

First rule of the sea, it is your responsibility to avoid a collision, regardless if the other vessel should give way to you.

Re:Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[TiredOfCrap]

You are so wrong!

I nearly got nailed by a tanker leaving Charlestown harbor at about 2:00 am.

The tanker came out of Charlestown roads and immediately altered course straight in my direction.

I had no engine and was totally reliant on sail, so my ability to get out of his way was restricted. I used flashlamps focussed on the bridge of the tanker, but nothing changed.

In the end I had to use a distress flare, and the tanker missed me by about 20 feet.

What many people don't realize is that modern ships are comouter driven, thereby only requiring one person on watch when under voyage. That person could have been taking a leak, studying a chart, whatever.

When a tanker bears down on you at 15 knots, you don't have much time to react, and if you panic, what you DO do could be considered as counter productive, to say the least!

Re:Low Flying?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was one of the people who analyzed the U2 (actually ER-2) images. According to the headers, the images were obtained at 50,000 feet. Perhaps that is "low" for an ER-2. By the way, the footprint ofthe ER-2 images was small compared to the satellite images, which in turn were somewhat smaller than to the area searched by the Coast Guard

Re:Colour me apathetic.

[ulzeraj]

Despise his work for Microsoft that guy developed brilliant systems. Microsoft's way is evil shit and all that stuff... but in the end I think that we're all geeks and/or scientists and we should forget this software wars sometimes and work together for a common good and Gray's work with scientific databases is a common good.

I would not work with him developing a Microsoft product for example, but I would be honoured by joining him in some scientific research;

Well, I don't usually post because of my poor english... but sometimes I must reply. Sorry for the bad english.

Re:Colour me apathetic.

[Goaway]

Wow, you are a fucking psychopath. Congratulations.

Simple query.

[Anonymous Coward]

SELECT [Location] FROM [MissingPeople] WHERE [FirstName] = 'Jim' AND [LastName] = 'Gray'

Results: NULL

Oh my.

Re:Low Flying?

[Gerhardius]

The camera array on NASA's ER2 is a tad more sophisticated than simply a DSLR or two. The relatively limited and older IRIS system covers a strip approximately 40 nautical miles wide: exactly what kind of setup could accomplish this on a turboprop? I am not saying it could not be done, but it would take more than a few days of work. The possible selection of cameras on the ER-2 is listed in the first link, the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scales for civilian and military usage are 2nd and 3rd:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/AirSci /ER-2/cameras.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htm
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm

Wisdom of Crowds (of geeks)

[(Robo_Bro)]

FTFA:

I decided I'd organize a group that would predict where an object would drift in that period If anyone's read James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds", they'd be familiar with a story in which a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience). This technique is roughly based on the idea of nature's bell-curve; collect enough guesses and the mean will be RIGHT ON. Anyways, I was simply curious if this technique was employed. How poetic would it be for Jim to be found because of a database's average?

Re:Wisdom of Crowds (of geeks)

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

If anyone's read James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds", they'd be familiar with a story in which a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience). This technique is roughly based on the idea of nature's bell-curve; collect enough guesses and the mean will be RIGHT ON.

No offense, but if your description of the technique is correct, it's based on sheer luck, not on "the idea of nature's bell-curve"...