Assigning an equal weight to everybody capable of moving is probably the optimal approach in many disasters. However, with slow developing ones like the Titanic, in the 21st century, we should be able to do better.
We can’t tell from Costa Concordia because while the death rate wasn’t that high, it conveniently happened onshore. The Deutschland disaster in the 19th century happened on a shoal and about a quarter were killed. What would have happened if the Concordia had had a Titanic style accident? I wonder if we would have learned from history?
Given how the Costa Concordia showed how top-heavy those ships are now, I’d say no. I mean, on the bridge (radar, better communication protocols) and below decks, yes, and nowadays we have lifeboat drills and sufficient lifeboats. But learning from the Titanic means nothing if new structural problems are introduced.
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Oh I must see that. Priceless.
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So, I’m really interested in how feminism has been depicted in motion-picture and TV; are they reflections of actual feminism, or subtle pushes towards a feminist concept, no matter what the gender of the creator(s)?
This show has me somewhat baffled. It was only one for one season in the mid-1960s, as Ann Sheridan (I have yet to see her play some sob-sister who needs to be rescued) died near the end of filming of that season. At any rate, what I’m getting is…I don’t KNOW, lol! The women aren’t treated like goddesses, yet they’re obviously more competent then the men; and the men are foolish, but aren’t ridiculed for it, they’re treated more like impish children. Also: The definition of the word “sissy” - watch for it!
FYI: Douglas Fowley plays Grandpa; he was Kim Fowley’s father off-screen.
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I fucking love this thread.
That is all.
<3
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And this thread, and everyone in it loves you!
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It’s true, we do!
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If only the watertight bulkheads had had, y’know, watertight ceilings or something!
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quick update–
i checked back at the blog where i saw it. i haven’t been there for a while and they’ve migrated their comments to a new platform which has effectively wiped out all of their old comments. then i spent a fruitless hour or so searching youtube and vimeo for it. if i find it again i will definitely post it here.
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But you’ll surely need to have a man around to explain it to you.
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Extreme pedantry note: the ceilings on a ship are what landlubbers* would call the floor. The floors are the joists that come out of the keel. What you mean is w/t tank tops. (Feel free to hate me).
However, the design of passenger ships is always problematic, largely due to those pesky passengers. How high do you make the w/t bulkheads? Hindsight is wonderful.
For instance, the Germans technically won the battle of Skagerrack/Jutland (thought they lost the war) for a variety of reasons one of which was that their ships had a much better system of w/t compartments. But they were not designed for extended voyages. British battlecruisers were, and this makes it very difficult to have German levels of compartmentalisation. **
As a small scale example, when I had a boat I decided to put a w/t barrier between the engine compartment and the main one up to a height well over the level to which the stern would sink if that compartment flooded. The original height was only up to the bottom of the sump. The downside was that if the bilge pump in the engine compartment failed, the amount of water required to flood and stop the engine was much less. The boat would not sink, but it would cease to manoeuvre. As it was for river use, this was an acceptable tradeoff.
Now extend little technicalities like this on a weekender to a full size passenger ship and start to imagine the tradeoffs. It is not surprising that naval architecture is one of the most demanding professions of all.
(Aircraft too, I guess. The Hudson landing revealed a weakness in design for water landing - nobody thought to include some kind of automatic shutoff or alarm for the rear air vent, so the cabin began to flood from the rear. Had things not gone as well as they did, Sullenberger’s brilliant landing might still have ended in disaster. But, as usual, I digress.)
*No, I have never heard the word landlubber used except ironically.
**Ventilation for one thing, movement of supplies being another.
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Not today! I always appreciate accurate pedantry.
Well there are always lessons to learn. Certainly it was good to learn that the state of the art in 1912 had plenty of room for improvement. Bummer it cost so much to find out, though. I devoutly hope the takeaway is that there is still always room for improvement.
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I guess the only lesson to learn in engineering is that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is actually very bad advice in the long term.
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Does that mean that I won’t be shunned for being an accessory to multiple derailings? Now I love this thread even more.
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Feminism is intersectional!
All topics relate in some way! 
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And men are allowed to join in. Double win.
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Someday—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday—I will quote that back at you. 
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I’ve been struggling with something lately, and I’m not sure how to work through it. Are any of you women open source software developers or maintainers of other OS resources (i.e. lessons, technical help forums)?
I’ve been struggling with is the balance between helping people, particularly novices, and also managing workloads for our workers, and protecting our workers’ time and sanity. I’ve always enforced a code of conduct for both people asking for help and the developers. Things like non-harassment, but also things like how a software user can pose a useful question and what needs to be included in the question. For example, how to include a reproducible example of a bug. I don’t include negative examples on the user side, but I do include (made up) examples of violations in the developer notes, including examples of irreproducible questions, and the directive that staff aren’t obligated to interact with those types of questions (I typically handle by copying and pasting in a response about how to ask an appropriate question).
I saw a Twitter dust-up the other day about this exact thing, saying it was unwelcoming to new people to enforce community standards when they ask for help, and that someone must always personally interact with that person and shepard them through submitting a question. The point was also made that women and people of color will be especially discouraged because they’re already more susceptible to feeling like they don’t belong in science.
I’m really struggling with this because, while I agree that no one should be mocked or made to feel bad for asking a question, I don’t think that expecting personal hand-holding is fair, either. And I especially see that the women on my team get a way outsized number of queries directed to them, as opposed to the men. I know, for a fact, that for some women in my social circle, the huge, uncompensated obligations of maintaining open source scientific software caused them to steer towards being involved in fewer projects.
To me, that’s the ultimate point: that increasing the obligations will decrease the amount of women who become leaders in OSS development. I don’t think I should change my community standards to obligate the team to reply to all requests, even poorly formed ones. I think that type of obligation will increase the workload, and disproportionately hit women workers.
Thoughts?
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Where I work we are very fond of forms. Fill out the form, which includes helpful instructions every stop of the way. The more filled-out your form, the better quality (usually) help you get. Forms not filled out to minimum standards cannot be submitted, but they will provide more helpful text about what’s left to include and what you can do if you can’t provide those things.
Mind you, mostly it’s IT people talking to other IT people, so we can all empathise.
Writing job aids/wizards is difficult, but can be worth it. I love Service Ontario’s self-service web site. You can do things like renew your driver’s licence, and it’s all super-friendly but precise. Amazing job for a government, public-facing web site.
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I think that’s a really interesting issue you are raising. Women do the load of helping work, but might also be the ones most needing of help.
Reminds me a bit of this research I read. Not sure how to advise you except it sounds like you are already handholding them and supporting with good examples you have taken the care to document in advance.
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