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One of my favorite Wired articles ever was back in '08, "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas"[1] which is about the Titan Salvage crew saving a massive sinking c

One of my favorite Wired articles ever was back in '08, "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas"[1] which is about the Titan Salvage crew saving a massive sinking cargo vessel off the coast of Alaska. Titan Salvage is one of the lead teams on the Costa salvage operation today. It's a really thrilling read, with some great insight into the technical aspects of ship salvage. [1] http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_s...

cdjk 13y ago
I was thinking about that article too - I've read it a couple times, and it's always interesting. Reading about things like this makes me question whether I should call myself a software engineer or programmer - somehow what I do doesn't seem in the same category of things these people do.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
There is a lot to be said for really big engineering projects :-). I found the cassions idea to be particulary cool although welding on a bunch of cassions on the damaged side seems like it will be quite challenging. Now that the "hard" part is done though, the rest should be pretty boring from an external perspective.
david_shaw 13y ago
> One of my favorite Wired articles ever was back in '08, "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas"[1] I actually came to post about this, and was pleased to see your comment in the top spot. The writers of this article (and many other great reads) have since started their own magazine--called Epic Magazine--and feature this story as one of their primary attractors. Perhaps more relevant to the Hacker News crowd, they use a really neat display format for their amazing (but true) stories: http://epicmagazine.com/2013/08/deep-sea-cowboys/ http://epicmagazine.com/2013/08/deep-sea-cowboys/ Highly recommended.
krisoft 13y ago
I so love that article! On multiple occasions I have played with the thought of turning Titan Salvage into a physics based simulation game. Haven't got the right vibe yet tough.
smoyer 13y ago
I read it too ... and that article also points out how dangerous it can be (one of the Titan workers died when he slipped on the wildly tilted deck).

cdjk 13y ago

I was thinking about that article too - I've read it a couple times, and it's always interesting. Reading about things like this makes me question whether I should call myself a software engineer or programmer - somehow what I do doesn't seem in the same category of things these people do.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

There is a lot to be said for really big engineering projects :-). I found the cassions idea to be particulary cool although welding on a bunch of cassions on the damaged side seems like it will be quite challenging. Now that the "hard" part is done though, the rest should be pretty boring from an external perspective.

david_shaw 13y ago

> One of my favorite Wired articles ever was back in '08, "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas"[1] I actually came to post about this, and was pleased to see your comment in the top spot. The writers of this article (and many other great reads) have since started their own magazine--called Epic Magazine--and feature this story as one of their primary attractors. Perhaps more relevant to the Hacker News crowd, they use a really neat display format for their amazing (but true) stories: http://epicmagazine.com/2013/08/deep-sea-cowboys/ http://epicmagazine.com/2013/08/deep-sea-cowboys/ Highly recommended.

krisoft 13y ago

I so love that article! On multiple occasions I have played with the thought of turning Titan Salvage into a physics based simulation game. Haven't got the right vibe yet tough.

smoyer 13y ago

I read it too ... and that article also points out how dangerous it can be (one of the Titan workers died when he slipped on the wildly tilted deck).