
Men rescued from Pacific island after writing SOS in sand - hooboy
https://apnews.com/1566b3c6a377ee907a0f2e143a5b26c9
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contingencies
What is interesting is that they set out from Puluwat[0], which was the site
at which one of the pacific's last master navigators was interviewed by modern
anthropologists in _We: The Navigators_ [1]. See the _Wa_ [2] local vessel
page I co-authored to front page featured article status on Wikipedia for more
details, including the amazing expanse of traditional voyaging.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poluwat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poluwat)
[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/758833.We_the_Navigators](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/758833.We_the_Navigators)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(watercraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_\(watercraft\))

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staplung
Reminds me of the Farside comic:
[https://imgur.com/r/TheFarSide/hQAT2Go](https://imgur.com/r/TheFarSide/hQAT2Go)

~~~
checkyoursudo
I feel like I remember a Gilligan's Island episode where they try to write SOS
on the beach and it ends up messed up somehow and ignored, though I can't find
anything with a quick search and it's possible that my memory from childhood
is faulty.

~~~
kahirsch
[https://gilligan.fandom.com/wiki/Splashdown](https://gilligan.fandom.com/wiki/Splashdown)

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koudelka
How often is the best earth-facing satellite imagery updated?

It'd be really cool to sic handwriting recognition on it to continuously look
for "SOS".

~~~
7952
Planet are looking to offer multiple times per day. Although I think that
requires the camera to be slewed and a site targeted rather than being able to
cover the whole earth every single orbit.

Remember that cloud cover is really common in a lot of places. The UK in
January averages less than 2 hours per day of sunlight. You need enough
satellites to image everywhere several times per day to allow for that. And
even then you may have overcast weather for several days at a time.

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dhsysusbsjsi
Interestingly the international ground air code for requiring help is normally
an X or a V.

But I would still write SOS or HELP.

You can imagine the scenario: “Hey Jane check out that - looks like a V in the
sand” “Heh yeah”. “Weird”.

or

“Hey Jane does that say HELP?” “Heh yeah. Wanna check it out?” “Yeah let’s
take a look”.

~~~
esperent
How cross culture are HELP or SOS? We're talking about being on a tiny remote
island here. There's no guarantee that the people who see your message speak
English, or have much exposure to western culture at all. Is SOS known to all
cultures?

~~~
rapnie
"No, I can't read what it says. Let's fly ahead." :)

~~~
esperent
Well, yeah. But then any message would work. The person I was responding to
said you should write SOS or HELP instead of the international air codes for
help (X or V), which any pilot is almost certain to know.

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supernova87a
Is it me, or does it rather instead look like they arranged tree branches +
leaves to make the word, not dug in sand?

And on another note, when you see things from an island scale, you can see
that even at the size they drew those letters, it might've been missed. The
world is big...

~~~
loco5niner
I imagine those tree branches are "in" the sand though...

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throwaway5752
Call this a freely given and viable but hard to monetize idea - this is a very
tractable area for software and drones. Same with locating people in lost
wilderness areas. You have a programmatic way to organize coverage areas, you
have access to above-human audio and video capabilities, and it reduces the
resources/time ratio that is critical in rescues.

This was the tragic and avoidable story that convinced me this was possible -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/missing-hiker-
geraldin...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/missing-hiker-geraldine-
largay-appalachian-trail-maine.html)

There was a limited geographical footprint and coordinated, modestly sized
fleet of quadcopters with mics and/or thermal imaging could probably cover 20
square miles/day. Same couple be applied with optical/higher altitude drones
for people lost at sea. You could supplement sensors with basic face/voice
recognition in less remote settings. You could supplement with something like
Planet in more remote/ocean settings.

Does something like that exist already?

~~~
oh_sigh
Well, there are just personal locator beacons which you can rent and tell
rescue personnel exactly where you are if you need a rescue.

~~~
vosper
They're not even expensive to buy. I picked one up for a few hundred dollars
for hiking. I believe it's good for 10 years, until the battery needs
replacing.

I don't even do particularly intense hikes, usually not even overnight, but I
read a few stories and realised how easy it is to end up in a situation where
you need one. You just have to slip over and land badly, that's all it takes.

Or maybe it won't be me, but someone else on the trail who needs help.

~~~
jessriedel
A few hundred dollars seems fastastically expensive to me. What is possibly
inside it that justifies that price?

~~~
ghaff
It’s a satellite commS device. You also need a service for it to be useful.

I do find it somewhat amusing to read a comment that a device that locates me
anywhere on the planet and can communicate that information via satellite
costs a few hundred dollars! to be vaguely amusing.

~~~
jcrawfordor
There are really two different options here. Some devices, variously called
EPIRBs, PLBs, and ELTs depending on the exact device and application, report
to a system called COSPAS-SARSAT which is a free service operated by an
international collaboration. You do not need to pay any service fee for these,
although you are required to register them with a local authority (the Coast
Guard in the US) so that they have contact info for you.

These devices tend to be expensive because most of them are manufactured to
either FAA or Coast Guard standards that are pretty strict and require things
like a multi-year permanent battery, water intrusion and impact tests, etc.

On the other hand you can get a couple of different consumer-pointing
satellite communicators that rely on commercial networks, mostly GlobalStar.
Spot X and Garmin InReach are the two big ones. Both are cheaper up front but
require a monthly service plan. They do tend to have fancy features that PLBs
can't offer like two-way text messaging, but they're not generally built to
any particular standard for durability, so you wouldn't want to use them, say,
at sea or in an airplane.

The COSPAS-SARSAT system also generally has better coverage than GlobalStar
but there are tradeoffs, esp. depending on the different capability levels.

The thought that they're pricey seems like a reasonable thing when you compare
e.g. a $400 EPIRB to the $200 Spot X, but the EPIRB is tested to work in water
whereas the Spot X has janky firmware that doesn't always work great anywhere
(I love mine but... it has rough edges).

~~~
jjav
> ...mostly GlobalStar. Spot X and Garmin InReach are the two big ones

These are different though. SPOT works on globalstar which has gaps in
coverage, particularly large parts of the Pacific. A coverage map is here:
[https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-
services/coverage-...](https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-
services/coverage-maps)

The inReach works on iridum and claims 100% world-wide coverage.

Personally I carry an EPIRB for the boat, a PLB on the lifejacket and an
inReach for texting. Cheap insurance.

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superfamicom
I am happy they were found, but I often wonder if I would live out my
"Castaway on the Moon" fantasy or make a giant SOS if I found myself in this
predicament.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castaway_on_the_Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castaway_on_the_Moon)

~~~
prawn
Write SOS, then begin Castaway fantasy. If help arrives before you've had
enough, ask if they could please come back and rescue you in a couple of weeks
because you're trying to build a treehouse or setup irrigation channels for
basic farming and you haven't even managed to spear your first fish yet.

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staycoolboy
I think the days of being stranded on islands are over. But what about oceans
and being lost at sea? Would the film "Cast Away" make sense with today's
satellite and object detection technology?

~~~
jonny_eh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370)

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LockAndLol
> The men were found about 190 kilometers (118 miles) from where they had set
> out.

Wow, that's quite a detour. Pretty lucky to get spotted so far off course.

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mryall
Lucky guys. Surprising they didn’t have an EPIRB (emergency beacon). Most
seagoing vessels have one as a standard safety feature.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

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lgrebe
Good news. Thanks for that!

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kdtop
I'm just glad Gilligan didn't run through the markings and mess it up!

