The US Navy will replace the touchscreen throttle and helm controls currently installed in its destroyers with mechanical ones starting in 2020, says USNI News. The move comes after the National Transportation Safety Board released an accident report from a 2017 collision, which cites the design of the ship’s controls as a factor in the accident.
On August 21st, 2017, the USS John S. McCain collided with the Alnic MC, a Liberian oil tanker, off the coast of Singapore. The report provides a detailed overview of the actions that led to the collision: when crew members tried to split throttle and steering control between consoles, they lost control of the ship, putting it into the path of the tanker. The crash killed 10 sailors and injured 48 aboard the McCain.
The report says that while fatigue and lack of training played a role in the accident, the design of the ship’s control console were also contributing factors. Located in the middle of the McCain’s bridge, the Ship’s Control Console (SCC) features a pair of touch-screens on both the Helm and Lee Helm stations, through which the crew could steer and propel the ship. Investigators found that the crew had placed it in “backup manual mode,” which removed computer-assisted help, because it allowed for “more direct form of communication between steering and the SSC.” That setting meant that any crew member at another station could take over steering operations, and when the crew tried to regain control of the ship from multiple stations, control “shifted from the lee helm, to aft steering, to the helm, and back to aft steering.”
The NTSB report calls out the configuration of the bridge’s systems, pointing out that the decision to transfer controls while in the strait helped lead to the accident, and that the procedures for transferring the controls from one station to another were complicated, further contributing to the confusion. Specifically, the board points to the touchscreens on the bridge, noting that mechanical throttles are generally preferred because “they provide both immediate and tactile feedback to the operator.” The report notes that had mechanical controls been present, the helmsmen would have likely been alerted that there was an issue early on, and recommends that the Navy better adhere to better design standards.
[...] Touchscreens weren’t the only issue in the collision: the report calls out that several crew members on the bridge at the time weren’t familiar with the systems that they were overseeing and were inexperienced in their roles, and that many were fatigued, with an average of 4.9 hours of sleep between the 14 crew members present. The report recommended that the Navy conduct better training for the bridge systems, update the controls and associated documentation, and ensure that Navy personnel aren’t tired when they’re on the job.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday August 12 2019, @04:00PM (31 children)
A better question is why they use grease screens, I mean touch screens in the first place.
It's all fucking consumer hype, there is zilch technical reason for touch screens. Everyone has known touch screens are stupid since the 1983 HP-150.
There was some sci-fi type TV show on a few months back where they pulled some "futuristic" "high-tech" car out of their butts. Aside from doing some physically impossible things, the "futuristic" part of the design coasted entirely of a bright blue LED glow under the car, AND A FUCKING TABLET TOUCH SCREEN that controlled every aspect of the car.
If that were a real car, it would be an accident waiting to happen because in reality, they would have to constantly look at it to do anything rather than just feeling physical controls that don't rearrange. And yea, I know there are some media center pieces of crap like that. Things should be sued out of existence, but drooling consumertards think it is cool.
Will reading from 1980s overhead transparency paper be in style next year?
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Monday August 12 2019, @04:07PM (1 child)
Except for a physical Steering input, Brake and Go pedals, you've basically described the inside of a Tesla.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday August 12 2019, @06:14PM
Which is one reason why I’ll never buy a Tesla. Being able to adjust a control without having to look at it is a good thing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @04:08PM (3 children)
Yup. Touchscreens are a shitty interface. Always. Sometimes they're less shitty than any viable alternative but this is quite rare.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @06:00PM (1 child)
When I was involved in the design of electronics for the military*, our briefing included the words "remember the guy using this equipment may be upside down in a ditch with people shooting at him. He will not be able to read anything. All controls must be not just identifiable by touch while disoriented, but also usable".
OK, so that was in the 1970's and there were no touch screens.
* Obligatory: If I told you what it did, I would have to kill you.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:48AM
> Obligatory: If I told you what it did, I would have to kill you.
Automated flush in the portaloos?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Freeman on Monday August 12 2019, @06:30PM
I like the touchscreen on my Nook, but I love the page turn buttons on the side.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday August 12 2019, @04:15PM (18 children)
A defense contractor can charge 50k for a "digital control interface" and only 2k for "a button"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @04:21PM (3 children)
but but ... you need MORE buttons to replace one touchscreen (maybe)?
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday August 12 2019, @05:28PM (2 children)
If you need that many more buttons, you probably need to re-think what you are trying to do with the system in the first place, especially on a critical system.
The bigger issue is too often requirements are along the line of "we want a fancy gadget, but we don't know what we want to do with it". Which means everything has to be software oriented. So controls wind up being generic mouse/keyboard/touch/whatever input.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 12 2019, @06:35PM
The bigger issue is too often requirements are along the line of "we want a fancy gadget, but we don't know what we want to do with it".
What you need is the Annihilator 2000 [youtube.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 12 2019, @10:35PM
Tell this to jet liner manufacturer, the bloody bastards clearly didn't get to the wisdom of replacing all those buttons and throttles and whatnot with a single scroll wheel [theonion.com] (grin).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @04:24PM (13 children)
Nah, you're not up on your military doublespeak. A button is a digital control interface.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 12 2019, @04:35PM (12 children)
I very much "digital interface with optically aligned high density liquid crystal rasterization buffer, including non-haptic capacitive sensor grid linked to central control MCU framework" and up the price to 200k
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @05:26PM (11 children)
Good from a marketing angle but it would need to have a shorter name to be called internally to the military. Any more than four words is pushing it. Like I could totally see "human-septic interface toggle" as the name for a military toilet flush lever. Short, technically accurate, and bloody stupid are the three characteristics you're going for in naming. Bonus points for short, letter/number combo model names, like the "OPENER, CAN, HAND, FOLDING, TYPE I", which is also known as the P38 can opener [wikipedia.org].
Side note, that last is one sweet piece of equipment. It's smaller than your thumb, folds flat, can fit on a keychain, and can open most any can in ten seconds or less in experienced hands.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @07:36PM (3 children)
septic-human interface toggle, AKA SHIT. How the actual hell did you miss that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @07:43PM
^^ Nobody gets one past *you*.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:57AM (1 child)
Fighting a cold. I tip my hat to you for the rebound though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 13 2019, @07:53AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @11:15PM (1 child)
This is the thing that most people who make fun of, "lol, a $5000 hammer" don't understand. Military stuff has weird requirements, being meant to be used in extreme circumstances, sometimes with literally life-and-death consequences. Sure having an extra 3 ounces doesn't sound like a big deal, and if it breaks just get a new one... until you are carrying it all day every day, and if it breaks from being run over by a truck and there is literally no replacement within 50 miles.
I'd rather have a $5000 hammer guaranteed (and tested) to never produce a spark if I need to work around jet fuel. Sure that $5 one I can get from my local Home Depot might work 99.9% of the time, but would you want to use it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:22AM
Odds are good the military is paying $50 for the hammer, and $4950 for the spy satellite.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:10AM (2 children)
Hah! We even got that P38 in Sweden! The short lever action made it a bit of a pain on the more solid cans, but overall it's a very elegant tool. Damn near unbreakable too.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
P51 is larger and stronger, with two crimped-in “backbone” stiffeners instead of one. Much easier to use without breaking your fingers on heavy or large cans. Highly recommended over the original P38 can opener.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday August 14 2019, @01:44AM
I was not aware of its existence - thanks for pointing it out!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:41AM (1 child)
Russian method [ammunitionstore.com] is more economical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @04:07PM
You can open any modern can using only a sturdy knife, which comes as a standard equipment in any country's military.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 12 2019, @06:55PM (1 child)
So politicians can feel like they are on the starship Enterprise when they come and visit and then know where all the billions of tax money went.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @08:08PM
...and it goes "ping".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @08:23PM (1 child)
In fairness, that does sound very futuristic. The, "form before function" was pioneered by Apple (remember the "iMac, it comes in different colors!"), and is very much a modern invention. Boring-but-practical was so 1980s. The future has been "shiny, but impractical to use" for some time now.
Futuristic doesn't mean "better," and if I draw a straight-line forecast, a car with sleek-looking-but-useless LEDs and touchscreen-everything sounds very reasonable. Depressing, but reasonable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EEMac on Tuesday August 13 2019, @12:15AM
I LOVED my "space egg" iMac! That thing looked absolutely fantastic with all the components in once place. Just plug in power, the keyboard, and the phone jack, and I was on the internet! So neat, so clean!
. . . for about a month. Over the next two years, I added:
1. A better keyboard, which meant the mouse needed its own extension cord.
2. A DVD burner so I could actually, you know, back stuff up
3. A video capture device to input photos and videos to friends
4. Speakers better than the (admittedly decent) ones included
5. A printer
6. A webcam
7. A connection for my digital camera
By the time I was done, I had a spaghetti system of cables all over the place. Kind of like a PC tower or PowerMac, but without the power or expandability.
My most recent computer is a PC tower. The boring-but-practical 1980s would be proud! Sure, there's cables. But they're there for a reason, and buying something prettier doesn't get rid of them.
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Tuesday August 13 2019, @12:29AM
Touch screens are FANTASTIC where they make options visible and available. Touch screens are AWFUL when they replace physical controls that worked better.
Car stereo examples:
Touch screen radio station selection? Can be done very well. You no longer need to remember which button maps to which station - it shows you on the screen before you choose.
Touch screen Bluetooth pairing? Not a terrible idea.
Touch screen graphic equalizer? If it's not adjusted often, I'm on board.
Touch screen volume control? OH HELL NO.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:27AM
Here's another reason: in a damp environment (which the ocean sorta is) electronic controls fail a lot sooner and less predictably than do mechanical controls, because dampness plus microcircuits equals corrosion in progress.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday August 12 2019, @04:04PM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @06:42PM
There is a shortage of men, only soy-cucks are abundant.
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Monday August 12 2019, @04:08PM (3 children)
No tactility, they break, and are uncomfortable for extended operation. The biggest benefactors of touch screens are manufacturers. Gimme old fashion switches I can find and operate by feel.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday August 12 2019, @04:37PM (2 children)
Sorry, successful operation of the ship in pursuit of its missions is quite secondary to looting the US treasury in terms of design goals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @05:36PM (1 child)
Heck, it is tertiary. First priority is to loot the Treasury on this ship. Second is to loot the Treasury on the next one. Don't worry if this ship doesn't do its job very well, its been "fixed" in the next iteration. Don't be surprised when changing out the controls requires an extensive, and expensive, refit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:23AM
I assure you we're all really surprised. \sarc
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 12 2019, @04:09PM (4 children)
We're all nerds, geeks, whatever, right? Tactile feedback from a keyboard is pretty important to a lot of us, right?
Who here, thinks that such tactile feedback might be less important to a bunch of squids, trying to navigate a ship? Split screens? Huh? WTF? Every station on the bridge has a proper place. Dude with the helm stands here where he has the least obstructed view of the sea. Navigator's station is here where he can see all of the navigation devices, with access to the charts. For generations, all of the bridge crew has had a place to occupy, with good reasons for the placement of that place. The Captain's chair is right here where he can see every other station on the bridge, as well as everything forward and to both sides of the ship.
Splitting screens? Again, I ask, WTF? You roll some kid out of his rack in the middle of the night, tell him he's got the watch. He arrives on the bridge, and he's first got to figure out what the previous watchstander did with the screens? It may well take three cups of coffee to figure that shit out. Hard, physical controls with tactile feedback are essential.
Who, here, wants to steer their car through the city with a touchscreen? I sure as hell don't! Did I understeer? Oversteer? I want to FEEL what my steering tires are doing beneath me, not only via the suspension, but feedback through the steering column. I much prefer not to have power steering as well, but good luck finding such a vehicle today.
There are times and places for computers, touch screens, joysticks, and the like. But, never ever take away a mariner's tactile feedback from whatever controls he is operating.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @04:35PM (2 children)
The tactile interface should be two live female breasts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @05:38PM (1 child)
This is the U.S. Navy we are talking about. Everyone knows they prefer "joysticks" over the alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @07:54PM
I don't know about that. Most of the Navy consists of motorboats. You need the proper interface for motorboatin'.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:38AM
A tale of two pickup trucks, both with power steering:
Mine has hydraulic assist. You can feel every bloody thing it does, almost like having a hand on the road.
The other has electrical assist. You can't feel a damn thing from the road (well, unless you fall in a hole, at which point it's a little late).
Took me til this instant to realise that when the owner of the latter drove my truck, and bitched about the steering being loose (it's not)... the real problem was that she's not used to feeling the road, and mistook that for slop in the steering. Which may explain why some people tend to wander all over the road even when they're paying attention -- they can't really feel where they're going.
I shudder to think of running something the size of a ship without tactile feedback.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @04:18PM
i like the screen that integrate button.
the buttons are at the bottom and the side of the screen.
the screen tells you what each button does (it can change accordingly but mostly hardwired).
anyways ... the us military being the worlds biggest spender on military hardware their soending decisions influence what vets developed and then mass produced ... thus indirectly settings standards.
so insisting on knobs and dials is probably a good investment if hostile military equipment falls into their hands chances are better the equipment can be made to work if they have buttons and knobs and dials instead of touchscreens in chinese gibberish and chilli sauce all over them ^_^
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday August 12 2019, @04:54PM (5 children)
There seem to be two issues here: tactile feedback, and too many ways to reconfigure it.
While everyone here is ready to jump on the "we need tactile feedback" train, the configuration issue is more important. The very idea that you would want to reconfigure the interface is a huge part of the issue here.
Reconfigurable interfaces, though, are not just about touch screens. I'll bet every nerd here has their own preferred coding setup, and I'll bet that the older you are, the less anybody else is able to use it.
Yes, I am attacking the design philosophy of tools like emacs: give the user all the levers to reconfigure their tools to be more productive. It's a reasonable approach for researchers, but at the end of the day, we would all be more productive if our tools had decades of experience and refinement baked into their unchangeable configuration.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shipofgold on Monday August 12 2019, @05:16PM
While I agree with you for the most part, you are locking yourself into "this is the way we have always done it" mentality which tends to stifle innovation. What missing is the return channel so that when someone does stumble on an improvement in a user interface it can be baked back into the the mainline code.
"Skinning", just for the sake of moving buttons around. has never been my cup of tea and I tend to stick with the stock interfaces of most things. But when I have an extra button or two that I want, I have been known to add it to 'my' interface.
There needs to be a method for the actual users of an interface to make improvements/suggestions and have them heard.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 12 2019, @10:50PM (1 child)
What is good for one person may not be good for an entire team that need to work together and transfer the configuration in real-time.
E.g. don't be surprised if one member of the team goes from frustrated to ballistic when he needs to use the IDE in the configuration of a colleague.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:28AM
Like what? What's been discussed so far is personal preferences in IDEs. There's no scenario where you have to use someone else's configuration longer than a few minutes.
Then don't do that.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:57AM (1 child)
> Yes, I am attacking the design philosophy of tools like emacs:
Disagree - what is sensible for one use case may not be for another.
Just as a simple example, if I am working on a code that has tab indentation then I need to be able to do tab indentation well. Another code, which uses space indentation, not so much. What about Fortran70 (7 spaces everywhere)?
If I am doing some complicated latex document, no doubt there is a different optimisation than if I am writing fortran.
Probably what you say is more relevant for a single dev team where people are probably using similar codes etc.
Nb: my worst nightmare is when I get a support call from a colleague who uses a Mac thanks to the horrible user interface. No right click! No Ctrl-Whatever! How can they do *anything*??
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:29PM
Editors can - and should - change configuration based on what they are editing. Most code editors these days will detect the indentation mode of the open file and adjust to fit, and/or have different indentation settings depending on file extension.
But there's a reason that every project past a certain size has code style rules. It's not because 8-space indentation is actually superior for kernel code (no matter what Linus the Furious says). But because having some code with 8-spaces, some with 7-spaces, some with tabs, some with 4-spaces, and some with no f*cking spaces at all is objectively worse than any of those options on their own.
As for Macs, sure they have their problems, but at least they still have a ubiquitous File/Edit/View/etc menu bar. Even programs that have long transcended their mortal shells like M$ Word or Photoshop are way more usable on a Mac because they still have that menu bar. At least, it's more usable if you're a mouser. If you're a keyboarder, go back to the shell and enjoy bashing around like a sane person instead of P[is]Sing around like some kind of Visual Basic script kiddie.
(I've long since given up on having a choice of OS so I have now resorted to mocking them all - have fun in $LINUX_DISTRO that rips off Windows and Mac in various quantities since apparently we don't have anything better to do anymore)
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @05:01PM (2 children)
Touchscreen interface is like e-reader, much worse than the older tech it replaced, its main virtue is being cheap.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday August 12 2019, @06:32PM
I love my Nook e-ink reader. It's super awesome for casual reading. For serious research a combination of physical, paper book and searchable e-book would be best.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday August 12 2019, @08:23PM
E-readers have real advantages. Instant delivery, and reduced weight and volume are the big ones for me. Clunky UI and vendor lock-in are drawbacks. Overall it's a good technology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @06:30PM (2 children)
Let's hear it, all together now--
NTSB! NTSB! NTSB!
It's one part of the government that (at least as far as I know) is staffed with appropriate experts and doesn't seem to be squelched politically in terms of what they publish in their accident reporting.
I'm the AC that often writes things like, "Don't speculate about the causes of that accident, wait for the NTSB to pull together all the pieces."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2019, @08:59PM (1 child)
Well, except for child car seats. Under 3 years, the research is clear that car seats are a big win. Above that, there's no consistent evidence that a special chair is better than a properly worn seatbelt. But there's big money to be made on these seats, which you must replace every few years and after every fender bender because it's even more profitable that way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:52AM
Is that NTSB? Or NHTSA? They are quite different, National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. is part of the Department of Transportation and can make rules and regulations.
Per https://www.ntsb.gov/about/history/Pages/default.aspx [ntsb.gov] NTSB investigates accidents and makes recommendations. They do not make any rules or regulations. NTSB has been around much longer, started in 1926.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Monday August 12 2019, @07:27PM
The fact that the system defaults to a computer-assisted control that the operators did not trust says a lot to me. They didn't discuss anywhere that I saw the inadequacies of the computer-assisted controls, but from context and personal experience it sounds like the system was probably designed with the idea that the operators would just give it "high level" directions and the computer would handle the specifics of the execution, but that its ability to do so was not considered trustworthy by the operators.
That right there should be a problem when you are talking about something as big as a warship. Why is the default mode of operation considered to be less reliable by the operators? Probably, either the operators are using it wrong, or it is not good enough by their standards to be considered the primary mode of operation. That does not fill me with confidence. Nobody spends as much time on a backup mode of operation; of course it has limitations...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:44AM (2 children)
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Funny) by PiMuNu on Tuesday August 13 2019, @09:01AM (1 child)
I will soak up the loss in nerd points - but which book is that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:17AM
In the beginning was the command line