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Rust is a $6B problem for the Navy, cruise ships and more
- spiderfarmer 7y agoI don't get the point of this article. I think most people know what rust is, probably from other things than your shower head, which is a weird association as most people have plastic shower heads nowadays. And yes, metal rusts, we've known that for millennia. It's a problem for everyone, including the navy and if you have a lot of metal, it gets expensive. This is no surprise and I think organisations like the navy have rust prevention factored in in the cost of maintenance? Exactly what point is the author trying to make?
- mnd999 7y agoPerhaps the rust fanboi bot that automatically submits rust articles to hacker news got confused.
- SQueeeeeL 7y agoOh shit, I just realized this was probably a bot Edit: The comment above me mentioned how this article was probably accidently posted to HN because it had the word "Rust" in it
- ssully 7y agoIt's an interesting little piece on how something as common as rust, can be such a big and expensive problem for a certain industry. This article would probably interest people the same way a show like Dirty Jobs would.
- jbob2000 7y agoThe purpose of this article is to generate fear. It could be a company that is trying to influence decision-makers to purchase their rust-proofing solution, it could be a political arm hoping to influence voters, or it could be a geo-political enemy hoping to sow distrust in the American military. But ultimately, since the article does nothing but waffle between all the different ways that rust can mess with things, it's really just here to make you scared.
- angry_octet 7y agoThere is a simpler explanation: rust is a real problem, but the author couldn't find a good way to convey that to a general LA Times audience.
- tom_ 7y agoMaybe it just doesn't rain enough in California for rust to be enough of a problem that people become especially familiar with it.
- a3n 7y agoPart of the point of the article was to highlight the book about rust mentioned inside. It sounds like an interesting book. Many things that disappear from our curiosity are fascinating when someone does a deep dive.
- loopz 7y agoNot sure how Golang will fix this, so yes, pretty pointless indeed!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- h2odragon 7y agoExcept they're talking about actual corrosion, where the rust on your showerhead is more likely to be a byproduct of biological action.
- 0xFFFE 7y agoI am really curious to know how rust is a byproduct of biological action, could you elaborate?
- h2odragon 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-oxidizing_bacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-oxidizing_bacteria It may a different thing for people with municipal water; out here in the sticks everyone is on wells and this stuff keeps our white laundry brown and leaves lovely patterns on the insides of pipes.
- pintxo 7y agoIs this really the level of reading skills the LA Times is targeting: "a dry dock, a special facility with high walls where ships are lifted out of the water"?
- happytoexplain 7y agoThis seems elitist for no reason. I wouldn't classify the knowledge of the functionality of a dry dock as "reading skills". Personally, I knew what a dry dock was in a general sense, but appreciated the visual to refresh/corroborate my understanding of the exact function.
- pintxo 7y agoI specifically found the description not very helpful. A facility with high walls? Like a warehouse? A barn? A factory?
- blaser-waffle 7y agoHuge chunks of their readership -- like the HN crowd currently looking at this article -- may not live anywhere near water and/or may not know anything about boats, docks, and shipbuilding. Good journalism provides basic context.
- jokoon 7y agoI would not expect to see articles about that kind of rust on hacker news. That was a nice chuckle.
- potta_coffee 7y agoSaw title, came to make a joke about Rust programming language, remembered that HN doesn't appreciate jokes.
- gear54rus 7y agoWell it only takes 4 or so downvotes to hide the comment, it doesn't mean everyone is stuck up :)
- hombre_fatal 7y agoWe appreciate funny jokes. The act of merely spotting a basic homonym or pun, something surely everyone did here, isn't all that funny, though.
- jksmith 7y agoThis just in: Rust team writes "Jelly" library to encourage adoption by Navy for dev projects.
- m4r35n357 7y agoWow, who would have thought it? While we are all here: water wet.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoAre they using the borrow checker properly? Oh wait, never mind.
- TecoAndJix 7y agoFor topside steel, the Navy uses needle guns to keep things from going out of control [0]. You have to prime over it the same day or you get the privilege of doing it all over again! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJmI7R9DgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJmI7R9DgM
- angry_octet 7y agoBarnacles are far more interesting than rust. Not least because they are hermaphrodites, that also have the longest penises of any species. Barnacles (and algal slime and so on) create significant hydrodynamic drag and damage paint, leading to rust also. Toxic chemicals are added to hull paint in order to repel them, but it is of limited efficacy and very bad for the environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/science/barnacles-ships-coating.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/science/barnacles-ships-c... I have often mused on the possibility of a small barnacle cleaning robot. Something the clamped and crawled with an electromagnet, a crushing/scraping barnacle doom. A number of systems out there, but none seem to have cracked the problem. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.5772/62060 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.5772/62060 https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-121416-161958/unrestricted/USCG_Final_2016.pdf https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-12141...
- tandr 7y agoWould electrifying hull, or making some high frequency electric zaps to the hull make these barnacles to fall off/not to attach? (just thinking out loud, it is probably have been tried given how common this problem is...)
- angry_octet 7y agoWhen you say electrifying, what are the places there is a potential across? Because salt water is an excellent conductor. I have wondered whether a microwave would do the trick. Basically cooking the algae. The trick is then to access all the books and crannies, e.g. near the propeller. Unfortunately it probably wouldn't remove any barnacle polymer cement or other buildup, like the awful tube worms, you'd still need mechanical scrubbing. With electrical techniques you also have to avoid magnetising the hull, which on navy vessels has been carefully degaussed.
- tandr 7y agoThank you. I totally forgot about degaussed hulls...
- british_india 7y agoThey should have chosen Java.
- virgilp 7y agoThey only have a problem with rust because of the C. (excuse me, I'll see myself out. Couldn't help it, my initial reaction was "how can Rust possibly create problems for the navy???")