# The Feds finally seek outside help on the oil spill. Guess who they call in. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 1, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558 "2010-06-01T21:54:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/41 "2010-06-03T13:55:06Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > More to the point, the “guys who actually work on underwater wells” have a terrible record of unrelenting failure, incapacity, and not-getting-it-done in this case, so I wouldn’t hold them up as particular exemplars of competence here. > > For example, in the congressional testimony, they admitted they restarted drilling with 270 failure modes showing on the blowout preventer. > . I’m pretty sure that the guys that were drilling when the explosion occurred are all dead. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/42 "2010-06-03T14:30:09Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > I’m pretty sure that the guys that were drilling when the explosion occurred are all dead. I’m pretty sure he’s talking about all the experts that have been trying and failing to fix the leak for over a month now, not the ones on the rig at the time of collapse. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/43 "2010-06-03T16:19:02Z")
I’m pretty sure when talking about “re-drilling with failure modes showing in the blow-out preventor”, Sailboat is referring to the conditions that lead to the explosion…which would mean the guys that were on the rig at the time of the explosion. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/44 "2010-06-03T17:57:04Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Probably a typo but “Hole”, [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute](http://www.whoi.edu/). Not a typo, just faulty memory, the dude stuck in my head after every episode. That and the lady with the black hair and blue eyes who did science or security or something. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/45 "2010-06-03T18:29:48Z")
[A little more detail](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/06/james-camerons-oil-spill-brainstorming-session-it-was-time-to-sound-the-horn.html): > [@](#): > > The natural reaction to hearing that Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron is helping stanch the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history is to contemplate just how screwed we really are. Blasting mud and garbage into the Gulf of Mexico didn’t plug BP’s leak, and the diamond-saw wielding underwater robots are having trouble, so we’re turning to… Hollywood? > > But this crisis casting is not as ludicrous as it sounds. Cameron, an aquatic gearhead with more than 2,500 hours logged underwater, owns his own fleet of submersibles and ocean-ready robots. This week, drawing on his contacts in the deep-sea science world, the director convened a meeting of more than 20 scientists and engineers in Washington to brainstorm fixes for the leak. > > “I know a lot of smart people who regularly work a whole lot deeper than that well,” says Cameron, referring to BP’s 5,000-foot gusher. “I figured this group of top sub guys and deep-ocean scientists and engineers could maybe come up with something constructive.” The director did not, as many news outlets reported, respond to a call from the Environmental Protection Agency, but rather organized the meeting himself, and invited government bodies including the E.P.A., the Department of Energy, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard to participate. > > Cameron says he first contacted BP a month ago, but was told they had the crisis handled. “I didn’t want to be another well-meaning idiot with a bunch of suggestions,” Cameron says. “But when the situation went on without a resolution, I figured the guys I knew had to be as smart as the engineers at BP, so it was time to sound the horn.” > > Tuesday’s 10-hour engineering brainstorming session included representatives from the federal agencies, as well as Anatoly Sagalevich, the Russian Mir sub pilot who first took Cameron to the Titanic; oceanic explorer Joe MacInnis, who participated in Cameron’s deep-sea documentary Aliens of the Deep; professors from the Universities of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara; Navy salvage contractors; and Cameron’s brother, Mike, an engineer with whom the director built a pair of mini remotely operated underwater vehicles (R.O.V.) that explored the Titanic wreck. The group made recommendations to various agencies, which will funnel them to BP. “It was fertile,” Cameron says. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/46 "2010-06-03T20:13:54Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Guys who actually work on underwater wells like this would have more experience in extreme depth ROV’s and video in their little toes than Cameron would have in his entire body. The idea that some film director who once made a movie designed to look like some of it was filmed at depth has more experience and knowledge than the guys who actually do this stuff week in week out is laughable. This is a publicity move, pure and simple. 😕 Probably brought up already, but the underwater scenes in his two _Titanic_ movies were not “designed to look like some of it was filmed depth”, they were filmed at depth. And I don’t see the PR value in it at all. So color me even more 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/47 "2010-06-03T21:06:26Z")
James Cameron? Thank God! I thought you were going to say FEMA. We have a little hope with Cameron… ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/48 "2010-06-03T23:23:28Z")
Film directors? Next thing you’ll be telling me is some 40’s actress would help patent a device that couldn’t even be built for 20 years and would eventually give us Wi-Fi networks and the like. :rolleyes: Oh, wait, > [@](#): > > [Hedy Lamarr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#Frequency-hopping_spread-spectrum_invention) (November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American actress of Jewish descent. Though known primarily for her film career as a major contract star of MGM’s “Golden Age”, she also co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications, a key to many forms of wireless communication. … > > … **Frequency-hopping spread-spectrum invention** > Avant garde composer George Antheil, a son of German immigrants and neighbor of Lamarr, had experimented with automated control of musical instruments, including his music for Ballet Mecanique, originally written for Fernand Léger’s 1924 abstract film. This score involved multiple player pianos playing simultaneously. > > Together, Antheil and Lamarr submitted the idea of a secret communication system in June 1941. On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and “Hedy Kiesler Markey”, Lamarr’s married name at the time. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. > > The idea was ahead of its time, and not feasible owing to the state of mechanical technology in 1942. It was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired. … > > … Lamarr’s and Antheil’s frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones. … CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558/49 "2010-06-15T13:17:11Z")
> [@Macnbaish](#): > > They got the wrong guy. They really wanted [Kevin Costner](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/21/nation/la-na-oil-spill-hollywood-20100521) They got [him](http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/15/oil.disaster.costner/index.html?hpt=T1). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-feds-finally-seek-outside-help-on-the-oil-spill-guess-who-they-call-in/541558.md?page=2)