It's a way of thinking out loud and providing an opening for someone more knowledgeable to explain what is being overlooked. It makes for interesting threads.
It's wedged at the stern because the bow impelled the ground. The stern isn't impelled, once the front of the ship is free, the back be easily ungrounded by tugs.
It's pretty great. I hope this serves as a lesson to some people
"If these jokers will talk this much about this even though they clearly know nothing at all about the tech involved, what does that say about their comments on all the other threads here?"
I feel like we need a "why don't you just?" safe word, where the intent is to signify "hey I'm not being a smartass, I'm really just curious about why this seemingly simple solution won't actually work".
So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith that it makes it really hard to just have innocent conversations without being misunderstood. :-(
I try to replace any "I think..." and "Why don't they just..." comments with "I wonder if..." ones.
I've found it communicates my curiosity in a way that's less likely to be misinterpreted. It's made my internet/IRL conversations much more productive.
> So much of what happens on the internet is in bad faith
... and I have to admit I’m still not able to easily recognize the difference between bad faith and utter lack of experience and/or intelligence without digging deep into the history of the individual posting such “questions”.
And the need for that extra digging makes such questions effectively the same waste of time and emotional energy as responding to a troll.
Same. It's super easy to know when I am communicating in good faith, but it's not so trivial to know when you are.
You know those scenes in the movies where two characters circle around each other giving the side eye like "so are you fucking with me or are we cool?"
Twitter in particular feels like a whole site of people doing that. :)
Agreed. I’ve thought the same for posting an interesting fact. Anymore, I want to preface every single one by saying, “hey, you may already know this; I’m just sharing it because it hasn’t been mentioned yet and I think it’s neat. If you were implying the fact already, I apologize for overlooking that.”
What do you think people at "billion dollar companies" do in such situation?
Exactly the same thing. Just not on a public board. Just like everyone else is doing when discussing problems they face in any line of work.
Since it's unlikely anyone here has any decision making power relevant to the Suez canal, look at this discussion as an exercise in group problem solving. Sharpening the saw.
Not exactly-exactly. There are (e.g.) 1000 suggested solutions.
950/1000 of them are silly, stupid, impossible, -facepalm-, etc.
25/1000 are doable.
10/25 are doable and cost less than the other 25
5/10 are faster than others
2/5 are actively being investigated, and of course they won't be announced to 'us'. They (thinkers/engineers/specialists) will have to talk to their CEOs/COOs/CFOs, insurance companies, Egypt's military, handlersof the canal, and a bunch of other key stakeholders.
(my ratios are pure guesstimates, but it makes sense that there is a selection process, and we won't figure them out from our couches)
Like the parent comment said, it’s a way of thinking out loud.
For e.g., when someone says “just dig it out, it just pull it away...”, I give them a benefit of doubt by assuming what they are really saying is “I know it’s not as simple as just pulling it out but can someone explain why we can’t though?”
> armchair engineers who think they're gonna solve this better than billion dollar companies
There are 2 types of armchair engineers.
The ones who sneer and say, "If they just <x> then it would be fixed because I know best" Those people are bores.
There are others who are just tossing ideas around: partly for amusement and partly because they enjoy thinking, "What would I do in this situation ...?"
I haven't seen too many bores in this thread.
I don't think this latter group _seriously_ thinks they know better than experts, and I have found the various ideas and counterarguments interesting to read.
We have the luxury of just throwing around ideas and not caring about the consequences (because nobody in power will read it). It's just fun to think about how you'd solve a problem like this.
For example I'd try to attach a two Raptor engines to the ship and blow it back to the water :)
Many likely problems: equipment avilability to do so, time it will take, debris falling off and from the operations, risk of capsizing, probably need to load pieces on barges/crane but canal is not much large
Detonate a small but still relatively powerful bomb upstream (or maybe multiple small but staggered ones), to create a small tsunami-like wave, which in turn will move at least the ship's aft/stern (as the ship creates in the canal a "V"-like shape which will therefore concentrate most of the wave's force in that area) when it hits it. Almost guaranteed to work, theoretically.
Just bring in a Bagger 288[1] and use it to excavate a new diversion canal in front of the ship long enough to get it out of the main canal, bada-bing bada-boom. Simple!
That beast is really outstanding and would probably be able to do the job in reasonable time. This machine is so insanely large, it would fit into any sci-fi movie. The craziest thing is, some years back it was driven over a distance of 22 kilometers cross country to a different site, which was just mindblowing.
Proposing ideas shouldn’t be taken as suggesting that the poster is confident the ideas are correct, but rather as an invitation to talk through whether it would work and maybe learn something interesting.
So you are complaining that on a startup forum people are trying to solve billion dollar questions?
Besides, billion dollar companies often miss things. Yes, they have the more relevant experts and much better data than we, but they have to content with internal and external politics and have fewer people throwing around ideas. Sometimes the answer is to "why haven't you done X" is simply "nobody with a voice to be heard had that idea". If billion dollar companies were the infallible giants you make them out to be then startups straight up couldn't work.
Yes, most here are armchair engineers, though quite a few actual engineers around, so you never know. But the embarassing point is: the billion dollar companies currently also don't seem to have an idea about the possible solution :p. I am pretty optimistic that they will come up with a reasonable plan soon, but there is a nonzero chance that someone here will come up with a good idea. Sometimes it quite helps to be at a distance.
I think there's still room for suggesting potential solutions that might work, even if they make the operation of the cargo ship (even more?) unprofitable for its owners.
That said, the ones mentioned there don't pass the smell test.
