Here in New Zealand, (One NZer confirmed dead so far, not that I feel concerned about that in the scheme of things) I was watching the live BBC coverage on the main TV1 channel here two hours after it happened.
Day two coverage here, the terrible disaster is the top story, and fills the first 20 mins of the 30 mins news, followed by elections in the Ukraine.
This is just a solution looking for a problem, and I'll predict that it'll never ever be used.
I live at a port in New Zealand (just outside Christchurch actually) and often watch the ships docking. My father used to tie them up. If I look to my left, I can see about a half-dozen ships out my window.
The majority of the 40 minutes that the article quotes, that it takes to berth the ship, is the tugs turning, and pushing the ship to the wharf. That's the thing with ships, they have a big propeller at the back, which pushes them forwards, and they can't move from side to side. They do have a rudder, but it's not designed for more than a few degrees of turning, you can't use it to dock. (I'll stay away from bow thrusters for now)
Basically the process goes like this...
A Pilot (who works for the port, and is an expert in the local navigation/conditions of the port) is taken to the ship on a small launch, and meets it several miles from the harbour.
The Pilot then commands the vessel, until it's tied up at the wharf. (s)he co-ordinates the ship, tugs, and wharf staff who, at the end of the operation drop the ropes over the bollards.
Securing the ship with the ropes takes about 5 minutes on a slow day, getting the ship alongside the wharf takes about 35 minutes. The thing with ropes is, that...
1) They're proven. They've been using them for thousands of years. 2) It's a standard system, used all over the world. 3) It's simple, never underestimate this. 4) it copes well with varing weather and tides. 5) You still need ropes to tie between the tugs and the ship.
Now, as I said before, you've going to save about 5 minutes per berthing? Your damage costs are going to far outweigh the costs of any savings.
And, what happens when the power goes out?
The ship floats away, probably onto rocks. Backup Generators? Yeah sure, a diesel generator is going to hold a ship with 4-8000 shipping containers alongside a wharf, is bad weather, and an especially high tide, with no outages.
I'm sorry, but there's no way this would ever work.
Hmmmmm, in my experience, in disasters like plane crashes etc, there is never a single failure that causes the problem, it is almost always a multi-systems failure, or a chain of events, any one that could have prevented the problem.
Perhaps they aren't taking this into account?
I'm sure it'll all be covered in comp.risks once the dust has settled, and the real causes are identified.
Hopefully they may learn what went wrong, and make their existing network more robust. I don't think that creating an entire new network alongside their existing one will help, it'll only create a new set of problems.
I guess that this comes under saftey-critical-systems design.
America has ALWAYS been behind in the space race, who had the first man in space, first animal in space?, first spacecraft to the moon, first satellite, the only thing the americans did first, was walk on the moon.
Slashdot Mirror
Woohooo !!!!!
If you're crap at doing something, just go buy someone who isn't.
Way to Innovate guys !
Gee, if this is what represents state of the art maps in the USA, you guys are in for a BIG surprise.
If you just keep travelling in a straight line, you'll eventually discover something the rest of us call "The rest of the world"
It's a nice start, but it's NOWHERE near complete.
NG.
If they're putting GPS in their trucks, why not ALSO give them your Lattitude / Longitude.
:-)
This should make you EASIER to find?
Is this not obvious?
I think it is unique to the US.
Here in New Zealand, (One NZer confirmed dead so far, not that I feel concerned about that in the scheme of things) I was watching the live BBC coverage on the main TV1 channel here two hours after it happened.
Day two coverage here, the terrible disaster is the top story, and fills the first 20 mins of the 30 mins news, followed by elections in the Ukraine.
NG.
Damn outsourcing! :-)
You've never going to save 40 minutes.
This is just a solution looking for a problem, and I'll predict that it'll never ever be used.
I live at a port in New Zealand (just outside Christchurch actually) and often watch the ships docking. My father used to tie them up. If I look to my left, I can see about a half-dozen ships out my window.
The majority of the 40 minutes that the article quotes, that it takes to berth the ship, is the tugs turning, and pushing the ship to the wharf. That's the thing with ships, they have a big propeller at the back, which pushes them forwards, and they can't move from side to side. They do have a rudder, but it's not designed for more than a few degrees of turning, you can't use it to dock. (I'll stay away from bow thrusters for now)
Basically the process goes like this...
A Pilot (who works for the port, and is an expert in the local navigation/conditions of the port) is taken to the ship on a small launch, and meets it several miles from the harbour.
The Pilot then commands the vessel, until it's tied up at the wharf. (s)he co-ordinates the ship, tugs, and wharf staff who, at the end of the operation drop the ropes over the bollards.
Securing the ship with the ropes takes about 5 minutes on a slow day, getting the ship alongside the wharf takes about 35 minutes. The thing with ropes is, that...
1) They're proven. They've been using them for thousands of years.
2) It's a standard system, used all over the world.
3) It's simple, never underestimate this.
4) it copes well with varing weather and tides.
5) You still need ropes to tie between the tugs and the ship.
Now, as I said before, you've going to save about 5 minutes per berthing? Your damage costs are going to far outweigh the costs of any savings.
And, what happens when the power goes out?
The ship floats away, probably onto rocks.
Backup Generators? Yeah sure, a diesel generator is going to hold a ship with 4-8000 shipping containers alongside a wharf, is bad weather, and an especially high tide, with no outages.
I'm sorry, but there's no way this would ever work.
Hmmmmm, in my experience, in disasters like plane crashes etc, there is never a single failure that causes the problem, it is almost always a multi-systems failure, or a chain of events, any one that could have prevented the problem.
Perhaps they aren't taking this into account?
I'm sure it'll all be covered in comp.risks once the dust has settled, and the real causes are identified.
Hopefully they may learn what went wrong, and make their existing network more robust. I don't think that creating an entire new network alongside their existing one will help, it'll only create a new set of problems.
I guess that this comes under saftey-critical-systems design.
I've got an error pinned to the wall of my cube.
:-)
It's just an empty dialog, with the title "Error", and an Ok button.
Not a single word of text in it.
Needless to say, it's a little hard to fix.
And also here.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html
I think he was the first to fly, it's a shame he didn't see a future in it and didn't claim the title.
America has ALWAYS been behind in the space race, who had the first man in space, first animal in space?, first spacecraft to the moon, first satellite, the only thing the americans did first, was walk on the moon.
They do run Windoze, at least on the machine that monitors the fuel cells.
I've listened to them on a flight, where the machine locked up, advice from the ground was to remove the network card, and reboot into "safe mode"
Scary, very scary.