More on the missing sub

Some very interesting stuff in this article from National Public Radio. They sent a correspondent on a dive, and he reported that there are seven different ways for the sub to jettison weight for an emergency surface, including an automatic method with a dissolving rope!

From the article: "What you can do is rise to the surface. And there are seven different ways to return to the surface. Just redundancy after redundancy. They can drop sandbags, they can drop lead pipes, they can inflate a balloon, they can use the thrusters. They can even jettison the legs of the sub to lose weight. And some of these, by the way, work even if the power is out and even if everyone on board is passed out. So there's sort of a dead man's switch such that the hooks holding on to sandbags dissolve after a certain number of hours in the water, release the sandbags and bring you to the surface, even if you're unconscious."

So it might be sitting on the surface of the ocean, just currently undetected: one problem is that the seas in that area are six foot white caps, and I don't know why unless it's for photography/aesthetic reasons, the submersible is WHITE. A nice addition would be a radio transponder that activates when exposed to air. I'd want it painted in squares of black, white, and safety orange. Something easily spotted from the air.

I think today or tomorrow is pretty much the limit for their air.

At least with having heard banging, the search coordinators have an area that they can concentrate their efforts in. But it is still pretty grim odds.

If it did sink to the bottom of the ocean, the US Navy does have a recovery vehicle capable of working at such depth: it recovered an F-35 aircraft last year off the South China Sea that had a bit of a misfortune while trying to land on a carrier. But I read something about the ship that could carry it what was based closest to that part of the Atlantic was decommissioned last year.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183273102/titan-missing-sub-titanic-rescue-oceangate

In Twit news: eviction and lawsuits

The Muskbro bought the company in October 2022. Many Twitter employees stayed on for the expected and promised annual bonus that was normally paid out in the first quarter of the year, bypassing job offers for new and better positions.

Care to guess whether or not the bonus was paid?

A class action lawsuit has been filed for non-payment, saying over $5,000,000 is owed to current and former employees.

In other news of the Twitterverse, employees of a Denver-area office building - I think I drove past it once or twice - were EVICTED for rent non-payment. The landlord had access to a slush fund and when rent wasn't paid they accessed it, which activated a legal requirement that Twitter replenish the slush fund. They did not, and the landlord began eviction proceedings, which culminated in the building being vacated earlier this month.

According to the Ars article linked below, there are TWENTY lawsuits against the Mustbrat for nonpayment of various services, including the lease on the HQ in San Fran.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/musk-owned-twitter-stiffed-employees-on-promised-bonuses-class-action-says/

Photo gear review site DPReview lives! A buyer was found!

I posted earlier this year that DPReview was in danger of being shuttered in April as it had become an Amazon property and Amazon had slashed a bunch of less-than-sufficiently-profitable properties. Several people and freelancers were let go.

But the publication of articles throughout April continued at pretty much an unchanged pace. And May. And June. And no announcement as to what had changed.

Yesterday there was an announcement.

DPReview "...and its "current core editorial, tech, and business team[s]" were acquired by Gear Patrol, an independently owned consumer technology site founded by Eric Yang in 2007." Though the core team is intact, no announcement regarding trying to bring those who left back into the fold.

All original content will apparently remain available.

This is great news for photographers! Also a good potentially apocalyptic warning to people who might consider selling enterprises to Amazon.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/camera-review-site-dpreview-finds-a-buyer-avoids-shutdown-by-amazon/