Yeah, 'Sadly not suitable in this instance' would have been a bit better than 'He can stick it somewhere painful'...
Well, when some publicity seeking billionaire starts baselessly second guessing the qualifications of the people in charge on the ground and stirring up shit that tends to rankle other experts on site and they get understandably pissed.
@Locutus of Bored According to The Guardian, Musk's participation was initiated by an invite (via a friend) by the governor of Chiang Rai: Guardian article Presumably, MabzMagz is that friend: The tweet that started it Doesn't excuse the aftermath though
Yeah, I know. The problem is that that gentleman, as well intentioned as he was, was not in charge of the rescue, so while there's nothing wrong with him reaching out to Musk for help and Musk responding in the affirmative, at that point they should have involved the head of rescue operations and taken their correspondence private to avoid influencing the press or pubic reaction. The press kept asking the former Thai governor about Musk's sub and why it wasn't being used, forcing him to reply that it wouldn't be practical to the situation, which is what set off Musk's string of defensive reactions to anyone who questioned the practicality of the sub to the situation, which in turn prompted Unsworth's response. It was a distraction and a disservice to the rescuers. If he had just quietly offered his assistance to the people in charge after this initial Twitter outreach, and then coordinated with them and taken their parameters for what was actually needed if they requested his assistance, then that would be great, and you could promote your company all you want after the rescue is done. Musk managed to plug every one of his companies in the process, hence the "publicity seeking" remark by Unsworth: The next day he suggested that technology from his Boring Company could be useful since it “has advanced ground penetrating radar & is pretty good at digging holes.” He also pointed out that pumps equipped with Tesla’s Powerpack batteries could help to siphon water from the cave at an accelerated rate. On July 6, Musk announced that he would be sending engineers from SpaceX and the Boring Company and continued to muse about possible solutions to the problem on Twitter... https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/elon-musk-thai-soccer-team-cave-rescue-fruitless-attempt.html
Do you think those caves should be sealed off? I mean, and I don't want to sound like a jerk but in a country with lots of monsoon type rainfall caves like this are a death trap waiting to happen.
I think they simply need to 1) have a gate on the cave so people cannot enter during the rainy season 2) make the closing date earlier maybe the beginnng of June. They are looking at turning the cave into a museum with guided tours.
Whether patterns change and maybe there should be greater limitations to the extent of how far they let people go.
Excellent and well rounded coverage of the rescue mission by the Australian 4 Corners. Nearly an hour long but worth watching.