Comment by eggy
6 months ago
I guess I am biased to like the article including it's presentation, since I spent 6 years as a technical diver fixing underwater hydraulics and electrical systems, but at much shallower depths than the undersea cables. A buddy of mine is an ROV operator for pipe-laying ships. Cool stuff, big stuff, and lots of crazy stuff involved (seeing weird, unidentifiable living creatures quickly and blurrily cross in front of the ROV's camera, etc.).
I remained hidden below water as a technical show diver, while 1800 to 2000 audience members topside were getting impatient with a "technical delay" show pause. Typically, we were checking for faults in safety systems on underwater lifts, or for a potential hydraulics leak. We'd exit under the audience seating and go back to work after clearing the issue.
In a world filled with high-tech desk jobs, finance, and non-tangible products, and having grown up working class, I have great respect for all the people behind the scenes physically keeping our tenuous world together. Some of this became readily apparent with once invisible food delivery and restaurant workers during COVID. Healthcare workers obviously came into their own too, but so many other workers were still taken for granted.
I visualize a person huffing when their internet is slow or intermittent with a guy out to sea working during a storm or under difficult conditions and I laugh at the juxtaposition and perspective of both. I also do rope work and had to resort to doing more of it during COVID because my 'desk work' dried up a bit. Hanging 300ft off of a building with a black balaclava and mask with all-black rigging equipment in NJ doing a facade inspection across from the FBI building was certainly a memorable one. (Note: all-black equipment is standard for theater and entertainment work to stay hidden. I did confirm the FBI building people were informed there would be 4 guys on ropes that day. You never know!). I have been programming since 1978, but I have always had to have some physicality to my work in order to be satisfied. I guess it's having a more tangible connection to the world not abstracted away several layers.
> I have always had to have some physicality to my work in order to be satisfied
This also describes me pretty well. I was trained as a merchant ship's deck officer but opted to not go to sea as a career. Instead, I've spent my career building embedded systems. Every so often, I build a desktop app or a web application, but it lacks the satisfaction of being able to touch the hardware and actually watch my code affect something in the physical world.
I am currently working on a control system from low-level, bare metal to high-level HMI/GUI for a cool, new hoist primarily for shows, but with applications in other industries. Shooting for high-integrity, safety-critical certifications above and beyond similar machines. I have been doing electromechanical stuff since the late 80s/early 90s. Hydraulic, pneumatic, electro-mechanical, air muscles, etc. I did animatronics (Christmas windows back in the day in NYC). Before Arduino, I went from purely relay logic circuits to the Parallax Basic Stamp in the 90s to Pic chips, to other 8-16-32-bit chips. I am, we are, looking for an Ada/SPARK2014 software engineer/developer for this control system. Any HN'ers with SPARK2014 experience? I've reached out to AdaCore too. I have been a CNC and manual machinist (built my own CNC router table machine in 2002), welder, technical diver, industrial rope access tech (SPRAT certified). I am currently enamored with Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) as something more than mechatronics. I have been riding motorcycles since the 80s, but now the highly integrated software on motos is next level. My current bike (2021 KTM Duke 890R) has power throughout the gears/rpms and amazing ride modes with supermoto ABS settings, and I am looking at the new Ducati 698 Hypermotard. The Ducati's software uses inputs and inertial motion sensors are integrated to allow beginner/intermediate riders to more confidently wheelie or do supermoto slide outs of the rear tire. Human-Machine Interface taking on a whole new meaning without the cyborg trope.
> affect something in the physical world.
This is satisfying. Especially anything electromechanical.
In a similar tangent, I believe social media isn't really social since you don't have people face to face talking to each other. The physical touch and facial expressions are quite important.
Even though I started programming in 1978 (Commodore PET 2001), I avoided doing full-time IT or software work. It's always been adjacent to my work - embedded systems, CNC machines, robotics, animatronics - but I lost any appetite for going all-in after being an assistant DBA full-time for a couple of years. Computers and programming were always tools for me to use for other purposes. Troubleshooting code or wiring on a 45-ton underwater lift and then moving it just has a great payoff for me. I was a pressure junkie too. The show would have a technical fault, and it meant I was either jumping into a wetsuit and gear for a dive, or I was in the basement in front of a cabinet with thousands of wires trying to isolate and fix the fault while the audience grew understandably frustrated. Fortunately, we honed the system and these happened less frequently, but I have to admit in hindsight it really got my juices flowing.
What sort of shows were these that you worked on as a technical diver? Is this a Seaworld-type of situation? But not sure why they would need underwater lifts.
The House of Dancing Water in Macau. There is O at Bellagio, LV, NV, Le Reve closed at Wynn Las Vegas, The House of Dancing Water, Macau (where I worked), and there's another one in Wuhan, China (yes, Wuhan). The lifts had 8m hydraulic actuators to allow them to go down 7m and rise above pool level +1m. There were 11 stage lifts. The high-dive act was from 24m up. 17m liters of water.
Here's a video during construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35WJDSoA8Ag&t=13s
And you can check YouTube out for more of the motorcycle act, Russian Swings, high-dive, and other acts.
O by Cirque du Soleil has underwater lifts not sure about other shows
Great story. Worthy of a blog post or several.
Thanks, not really a blogger. I should really, since I have tried to pass down my experience or mentor, but unfortunately, a lot of people younger than myself, were intrigued but went on to chase safer and more lucrative salaried work. In Macau for instance, the government subsidizes the citizen residents with an annual stipend, free transportation, and medical care. One of my trainees after a couple of years left to take a government office job with benefits, and collect his $1k+ USD annual stipend. He remarked how much he learned, and how exciting it was to overcome his fear of being underwater, and how the new job would not really challenge him. But he still left it all behind. My older son picked up some of my eclectic background but has recently taken a tech job in software engineering. I am developing a protable, power dense, novel wirerope hoist with an old friend, and I am hoping it takes off and I can drag him into the business. There he can exercise many skills and still program. We are going with Ada/SPARK2014 for the high-integrity, safety-critical aspects. Rust hasn't standardized yet and doesn't have the verification tools yet, but it's heading that way. Maybe in 5 to 10 more years it will have a legacy in this field to compete.