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I enjoyed reading your article.

You could also imagine that Titanic's new tech actually was the problem. If the wireless tech was less advanced then the operators would not be tasked with sending personal messages to lands far away and greater attention could have been diverted to local warnings instead of brushing them off in a manner that wold rebuff operators in other boats, hindering their response.

good read

Your story reinforces a myth that Jack Phillips is somehow responsible for now passing along reports of ice from the Californian. In fact, this has been completely disproved. The wireless operator interupted, or "jammed" Phillips while he was receiving another message, so he told him to shut up. The Titanic had already had numerous reports of ice in the area, the captain had been notified, and notices posted. Another report of ice would not have made a difference. Experts agree that Jack Phillips did not do anything wrong, and was, in fact, a hero.

JohnBooker, on 13 April 2012 - 09:04 AM, said:

The Californian did not have any new information. There had already been several ice reports, and they had been communicated to the captain. An excellent resource is:

"To mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the BBC's Sean Coughlan narrates one of the most authentic versions of events in existence. Using voice synthesis to re-create the strange, twitter-like, mechanical brevity of the original Morse code, this programme brings to life the tragedy through the ears of the wireless operators in the area that night."

-- http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/p00q89fy

It's time PC World hired some English only speaking copy writers....

"Their electrical control panel, to us, would seem enormous, complicated and wasteful," said Tim Trower, a self-styled maritime historian who focuses his research on the Titanic. "It would be pretty primitive today. A simple desktop computer would handle everything that was down (should be DONE) on this massive control panel."

Every other PC World article has these grammatical English errors...or so it seems!

Also, the Californian did wake their captain at 12:45 AM when they saw the flares of the Titanic, but the captain ignored them and went back to sleep.

shinzon48, on 14 April 2012 - 01:29 AM, said:

Thanks for the link Shinzon48, it is spooky/interesting to listen to voiceovers of morse code communications between the Titanic and potential rescue ships. I think one of the questions here to debate is whether Titanic's operators were too stressed from sending personal messages abroad, which may have, according to this article, in part, contributed to Jack Phillips' momentarily poor attitude when dealing with the Californian causing the Californian's wireless operator to, "...go to bed after being rebuffed about the iceberg warning." Shinzon48 asserts that Phillips told the Californian operator to "shut up" because he was jamming another message Phillips was trying to receive, so we should take this into consideration as well though a linked source would add even greater strength to that point. (I wonder what this "other message" exactly was? Iceberg warnings? Did the Californian operator knowingly jam Phillips?) My following question(s) are,

1) Did Phillips have poor manners or was he stressed out or bugged by the Californian operator or did the number of other iceberg warnings lower Phillips' attention to the Californian's message?
2) Did the Californian operator retire to bed because of Phillips remark and if he had not retired would the Californian be better positioned to respond to the Titanic's sinking?

Note, I think it would be appropriate to commend Phillips for sticking with the Titanic while it was sinking in order to attract help for the other passengers while questioning his prior behavior.

This post has been edited by JohnBooker: 14 April 2012 - 06:23 AM

This is a very interesting article.

Of course, today, we have all sorts of "high-tech" marvels on ships.

But they didn't help the Costa Concordia! You can't "high-tech" your way around human stupidity.

The real cause of the Titanic's sinking was because of Captain Smith's recklessness. Yes, he MIGHT have been pressured to keep up speed, but he was SOLELY responsible for the ship and its safety - just as Captain Schettino was responsible for the Costa Concordia.

Humans will NEVER solve the problem of human foolishness.

Yes, Carpathia did the right thing and waited out the night. Titanic had a reputation to create and recklessly pushed forward.
Some reputation it created!

Amidst all the hoopla of late on the sinking of the Titanic not once did I see any mention what would happen if that ship were to go down today.
A thought I have had several times before is;
In this day of equality and equal opportunity would it be politically incorrect to allow the women to go first to the lifeboats?
I think we'd all agree to give the children a chance at life so no argument from most of us there.
But how about the women?
After clamoring for equal justice, rights, pay, opportunity and access would they clamor for the right to perish shoulder to shoulder with men as the ship sank from under them?
Or would they resort to those age old ways and wiles of women and claim some sort of privilege for being first into the boats?
I'm not talking about what you fellows would do for your wives mind you.
I'm mostly wondering what the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Shultz or even Sarah Palin would have to say on the matter.