Anyone else guess that Google is picking our brains here?
Cheers
The company was founded by CIA seed who knows what they do with the data they mine here.
Facebook, too. I pulled the plug on my account.
[QUOTE=DredgeBoyThrottleJocky;102395]Anyone else guess that Google is picking our brains here?
Cheers[/QUOTE]
I think you are WAY over thinking this. I never assume there is anything of relevance TO be picked! This is all fluff. Our whole industry is ONE pen stroke away from being replaced by Filipino’s and Greeks. Google has nothing to do with it. Assholes in DC, Now there’s something to worry about.
Even though it would negatively affect my lifestyle and income, just for the sake of comedy I would love to see more Greek mariners in US waters. Those guys are hilarious in a “lets blow up this tanker during tank cleaning ops kinda of way” or better yet " I’m going to run this ferry aground because I was watching the football match". Those guys are the best.
You may have run across IEEE a few times in CFR 46. Here’s their take. Just need some seamanship in the software. But where’s the software?
ABSTRACT
Autonomous ship navigation technology is a promising approach to reduce human errors in maritime accidents. Artificial Potential Field method has been successfully employed for path planning of autonomous mobile robot and it can also be effective for ship navigation at sea. The problem of local minima, however, should be properly tackled. Harmonic functions, by virtue of their extrema appearing only on the domain boundary, are novel approach for autonomous ship navigation. In this paper, harmonic functions are used in defining the potential field. A fluid dynamic analogy is introduced and proper boundary conditions are chosen to solve the navigation planning problem for ships. With harmonic potential field, ship navigation route can be generated automatically in constrained water areas and the tracks of the ships can follow the navigational regulations for the specific region as well. Computer simulations are conducted for two typical water areas such as Traffic Separation Scheme and narrow channel. The simulations illustrate satisfied results for path planning of ship navigation.
As far as Google reading out maritime rantings and ravings and using them against us: oh please God, no. Anything but that. I doubt it’s actually happening but still, please, not that.
As far as other mystical powers of society like politicians and lobbyists taking an interest in our little watering-hole here on the interwebs, I just wonder… Could it be that us looney-toons at gCaptain are having an effect on policy making? We sometimes joke on here that if only it were up to us and they just let us run things then everything would be fine, but what if the people actually running things are actually reading this stuff? Have we managed influenced real change in our industry through the combined powers of drunken rants and the internet?
Food for thought…
The answer to that question is yes, a number of past forum comments have changed policies and, yes, a few (not all) high level (e.g. at uscg, imo, class societies, etc) people do read this forum. That said most of the changes I know about started with good intentions but ended up (after going through the Bureaucratic meat grinder) being mostly ineffective.
As for google… some of the privacy concerns are legit but, having friends at google ocean and having consulted with google on a few shipping related projects in the past, I can say with 99.99% certainty that a google is a LONG way from being able to create a robot capable of taking over any job aboard ship!
Hi John, does “a LONG way from” indicate “working towards?”
Cheers
Not directly but they are looking at ship tracking technologies and improving communication between vessels
Thanks for that, John.
Looks like MIT and Oxford are already there,
"Welcome to the MOOS-IvP Home Page
MOOS-IvP is a set of open source C++ modules for providing autonomy on robotic platforms, in particular autonomous marine vehicles.
Release Updates:
(Mar 05, 2013) - MOOS-IvP 13.2.1 Released. Download, Release Notes 13.2.1
(Feb 04, 2013) - MOOS-IvP 13.2 Released. Download, Release Notes 13.2.
(Nov 30, 2012) - MOOS-IvP 12.11 Beta Released. Download.
(Feb 07, 2012) - MOOS-IvP 12.2 Released. Download.
(Aug 25, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.2 Released. Download.
(Aug 02, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.1 Documentation Posted. Docs.
(July 26, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.1 Released. Download.
(July 17, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2 Released. Download.
(June 23, 2011) - MOOS-IvP trunk using MOOS r.2374. Change in MOOS wire protocol."
Cheers
[QUOTE=Averof;102485]Even though it would negatively affect my lifestyle and income, just for the sake of comedy I would love to see more Greek mariners in US waters. Those guys are hilarious in a “lets blow up this tanker during tank cleaning ops kinda of way” or better yet " I’m going to run this ferry aground because I was watching the football match". Those guys are the best.[/QUOTE]
I like the “let’s stand around arguing, waving our hands and chain-smoking non-filtered cigarettes while the ship sinks and then flee in lifeboats while the passengers fend for themselves.” part.
[QUOTE=“catherder;102525”]
I like the “let’s stand around arguing, waving our hands and chain-smoking non-filtered cigarettes while the ship sinks and then flee in lifeboats while the passengers fend for themselves.” part.[/QUOTE]
Isn’t that Italians?
[QUOTE=Capt. Phoenix;102530]Isn’t that Italians?[/QUOTE]
The Italians are just trying to keep up with the neighbors…
[QUOTE=DredgeBoyThrottleJocky;102516]Thanks for that, John.
Looks like MIT and Oxford are already there,
"Welcome to the MOOS-IvP Home Page
MOOS-IvP is a set of open source C++ modules for providing autonomy on robotic platforms, in particular autonomous marine vehicles.
Release Updates:
(Mar 05, 2013) - MOOS-IvP 13.2.1 Released. Download, Release Notes 13.2.1
(Feb 04, 2013) - MOOS-IvP 13.2 Released. Download, Release Notes 13.2.
(Nov 30, 2012) - MOOS-IvP 12.11 Beta Released. Download.
(Feb 07, 2012) - MOOS-IvP 12.2 Released. Download.
(Aug 25, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.2 Released. Download.
(Aug 02, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.1 Documentation Posted. Docs.
(July 26, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2.1 Released. Download.
(July 17, 2011) - MOOS-IvP 4.2 Released. Download.
(June 23, 2011) - MOOS-IvP trunk using MOOS r.2374. Change in MOOS wire protocol."
Cheers[/QUOTE]
Well technically you could do it today, just install and give me access to a VNC server on a kongsberg bridge computer and access to the ship’s PBX and I could get her across the ocean… well at least until the satellite connection was lost or I crashed into something 
The fact is that the technology exists today to replace bridge crews with shoreside DP operators during 99.9% of operations. The only problem is that 0.1% of the time you really do need an experienced master on the bridge… and you never know when that 0.1% is going to rear it’s ugly head.
[QUOTE=john;102509]Not directly but they are looking at ship tracking technologies and improving communication between vessels[/QUOTE]
There is certainly lots of room for improvement. The NAVTEX pumps out several feet of warnings daily most of it irrelevant, lights out in ports too small for us to enter for example. Or trying to jump in quick enough to call a pilot in busy ports like Singapore requires a mate man the VHF continuously waiting for a clear channel. Another example is the answering the so-called “stupid questions” at every port or TSS, grt, nrt, last port, next port etc. Or surely there is an easier way for port authorities to check the ship’s documents then having to come aboard and asking the captain to to pull them out at every port.
[QUOTE=catherder;102525]I like the “let’s stand around arguing, waving our hands and chain-smoking non-filtered cigarettes while the ship sinks and then flee in lifeboats while the passengers fend for themselves.” part.[/QUOTE]
I like the new STCW required class in How to Trip into a Lifecraft without Spilling your Wine.
I couldn’t agree with you more but… don’t hold your breath.
Give me $1 million and I could build a system in less than a year… one that reduces the number of near port incidents. Not a bad pricetag and it’s an amount I ‘could’ find investors for. The problem is, after it’s built, I’d need at least an additional $10 million to lobby the IMO, USCG and port states to mandate the new system.
As I said, the technology already exists to do some amazing things… it’s getting the technology approved, purchased and installed that is difficult.
Hi John,
11 Mil? Count me in, If google’s a little short I can help! We only need to get rid of about 183 Mates for a year and we’re in the black!!! That’s not counting money saved by avoiding things like Costa Concordia at $600000000, or so… 600 mil /11 =.0183333333. Nice return. Throw in a Balsa 37 or two and we’re golden… All’s we need is sweat and grease to keep her going…
Cheers
I bet we can get sweat & grease to run things in exchange for a lifetime supply of barley and hops for his home brewery plus a case of backwoods cigars 
But getting Micky Arison to pay up after we save his next ship from running aground… That might be more difficult.