I really do wonder why they ended up in this. It can' be that hard to make even a hacky DIY system to do it automatically. The navigation system just had to have some digital or even analog output, then it would be just the problem of interpreting the signal with some script and writing it into a file.

When Wilby recommended the company use standard software to process ping data and plot the sub’s telemetry automatically, the response was that the company wanted to develop an in-house system, but didn’t have enough time.

There are better ways to do that even in Excel!

What's worse is that half the coordinates probably ended up as dates...

The sub was totaled. Like you need to change a helmet after a crash even it it looks fine

It is my understanding that Rush also hard-bottomed the sub (crashed into the sea floor) while diving to the Andrea Doria. And was a little piss baby about it the entire time.

That's apparently a shorter version of the video I'd seen previously; eventually Rush does hand over the controls, by throwing the playstation controller at the guy's head.

Of course not! We employees of Fortune 500 companies use Google Sheets to manage critical data.

It's in the cloud, that's how you know it's good.

(I'm not even joking....our VP said this)

Be me, postal worker. One of our machines uses a csv file to attach zip codes to bins. See fresh engineer decide to change one zip code in notepad really quick. See file's formatting get wrecked. Spend next 6 hours watching all the mail spit out of the very last bin every time they think they finally fix it as if machine has irritable bowel syndrome. Engineer earns nickname 'boy wonder' first week on job

There are teams where I work that are basically using Excel as a database and SharePoint as S3 in automated processes… But at least no one is going to DIE when those things fall over!

Look, if Excel is the last mile and everyone is properly plugged into a corporate database to pull numbers, then great.

But way too many companies manage everything from a network share full of xlsx files...

It's like an oasis in the desert right now. Everyone can look at this crazy spectacle and ignore all the polarized and heart-wrenching crazy bs that the rest of the news is full of.

Watching some of the hearing, they should be paying attention to how underfunded OSHA is. The agent assigned to one of the whistleblowers had several jobs in front of that case and never got to it before it was dropped. The company was also run on a cult of personality and anyone with any sense either left on their own or were driven out.

It’s the only way the media is allowed to point out how stupid and useless the ultra-wealthy are. For some reason the media owners allow this little bit of dunking, as a treat.

90% of corporations aren't transcribing positioning data by hand every five minutes to figure out the sub's position.

My son is kinda struggling with his allowance money. I might not be the greatest example or at least, a good financial teati him.

But the other day, my friend told me their kids received a special wallet with envelopes inside. Exactly the kind of buket system you describe.

So I'm going to buy this for both my kids, I think it's going to be helpful for them.

I would add to this that almost all the companies I have worked for (from local businesses to multi national corps) constantly "save" money by hiding it in labor costs. There is some line item or other thing that is clearly definable on a budget and so they will outsource it in some capacity and then pat themselves on the back for the cost savings. However, what ends up happening is the resulting product that comes in is dog shit and it forces the people on the ground to fix it or otherwise make it work.

Most regular people just want to do their job and not rock the boat, so rather than make this new issue a pain point for management, they just deal with it. Over time those types of things start to add up and burn people out, but the higher ups are never directly effected and so I think they get a weird sense of anything they say ultimately "just working out".

What an incredible sentence.

Hey, that was an ok controller they used to navigate

Supposedly the glued on titanium is the same thing the US Army does for their small Submarines, though I'm sure they found some way to cheap out/fuck up.

Come on now, Excel isn't that bad.

A Darwin award isn't given, it is earned. And they earned it when they died.