Inside The Search For Jim Gray

An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek adds some interesting new details to the story of unprecedented grass-roots search for Jim Gray, the Turing Award-winning database guru who helped set up Microsoft Research's San Francisco lab. Gray disappeared Jan. 26 after sailing out of San Francisco Bay to scatter his mother's ashes at the Farallon Islands, 27 miles offshore. Once the Coast Guard had given up its massive search, Gray's friends rallied the tech community — including people like Google co-founder Sergey Brin — into action. 12,000 volunteers spent 3 days examining 1.6 million hi-res images of ocean gathered by a NASA pilot who flew a U2 low over the area where Gray was thought to have disappeared. But it was all for naught. As Sendmail creator Eric Allman notes, Gray was expert at 'stripping away mystery by making things simple. It's an irony to me that he should end in a mystery.'"

If you are an expert at taking mystery and...

[3seas (184403)]

...demistifying it to the simple then you are also an expert at the reverse.

Though it is possible tragedy happened, it is also possible that he "Simply" decided to vanish.

Simplest explanation - he fell overboard

[by Anonymous Coward]

The Pacific Ocean off California is cold. You don't have long in that water before hypothermia sets in. And remember that couple that fell off a cruise ship a few weeks ago? Well, the crew knew they fell overboard, and it still took hours and hours to find them.

Most people have no clue about how damn big the ocean is and how hard it is to spot a person in the swells. When you have thousands and thousands of square miles to search, getting within 1/2 mile of the target is close. And how likely are you t

Re:

[dissy (172727)]

While I do agree, falling overboard is a likely answer, and everything you said about that is true.

There is still one question... Where is the boat?

They started the search a couple days after he went out, basically once people noticed he wasnt back.
As I remember, a week or something like that later there was concern for a storm coming in.
One would think a spotter plane would atleast find the boat, before that storm came in.

Granted after a storm, which even if not a week later, im sure at least once between

Re:

[kestasjk (933987)]

Occam's razor (a.k.a common sense) tells us that if a guy is out sailing alone and disappears, chances are he's not partying in Mexico...

Re:

[kestasjk (933987)]

That's the silliest thing I've heard all day..

Re:

[Score Whore (32328)]

Not half so silly as 12,000 people forming a search and rescue team then going down to the local starbucks to sip coffee and look at pictures. Way to go nerds!

Low Flying?

[reality-bytes (119275)]

...gathered by a NASA pilot who flew a U2 low over the area where Gray was thought to have disappeared.

I'd have thought a U2 would be more useful at high altitude taking super high resolution shots of wide areas than at low level where something like a private turboprop and an 'average' DSLR would be just as useful.

FTR: My captcha was 'sailed'.

Re:Low Flying?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I was one of the people who analyzed the U2 (actually ER-2) images. According to the headers, the images were obtained at 50,000 feet. Perhaps that is "low" for an ER-2. By the way, the footprint ofthe ER-2 images was small compared to the satellite images, which in turn were somewhat smaller than to the area searched by the Coast Guard

Re:Low Flying?

[Gerhardius (446265)]

The camera array on NASA's ER2 is a tad more sophisticated than simply a DSLR or two. The relatively limited and older IRIS system covers a strip approximately 40 nautical miles wide: exactly what kind of setup could accomplish this on a turboprop? I am not saying it could not be done, but it would take more than a few days of work. The possible selection of cameras on the ER-2 is listed in the first link, the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scales for civilian and military usage are 2nd and 3rd:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/AirSci /ER-2/cameras.html [nasa.gov]
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs_c/guide.htm [fas.org]
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/niirs.htm [fas.org]

Re:

[Animats (122034)]

Convenience, basically. NASA has an old U-2 based at Ames, it has the right cameras for the job, and they have pilots who can fly a U-2.

Re:

[Score Whore (32328)]

So are they going to break it out everytime someone is lost? Or is this more of that equal treatment where some people are more equal than others?

Re:

[be-fan (61476)]

Rich people (especially smart rich people) are more important than everyone else. What's so hard about that to understand?

Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[Tsu Dho Nimh (663417)]

I remember a freighter that came into Charleston harbor with a SAIL snarled in the anchor. The crew never heard or felt a thing, but the sailboat was never found. Their best guess was that the collision happened off the coast of Spain.

If Gray's boat was run over by an outgoing freighter, he would have had little time to escape. The sailboat would have been sucked under the freighter and may or may not have come to the surface after the freighter's hull and propellers got through chewing on it.

Re:

[hejog (816106)]

thats why you don't sail in shipping lanes. ever.

Re:

[Tsu Dho Nimh (663417)]

thats why you don't sail in shipping lanes. ever.

Coming and going from the Farallons ... that's impossible to do because all shipping has to go under the bridge. From the islands you have to cross the shipping lanes to get to the coast of Califoenia.

Re:Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[MarkSyms (167054)]

If he was in any way an experience Yacht master then there is no way that would happen. The only way you're ever going to get that type of collision is if the skipper in charge of the yacht is seriously inexperienced or there is zero visibility. Given that he was heading out to scatter his mother's ashes I doubt it was bad vis, that's the sort of trip you want to do in perfect conditions as you want it be a memorable experience.

First rule of the sea, it is your responsibility to avoid a collision, regardless if the other vessel should give way to you.

Re:Collided with a Freighter, Sucked Under

[TiredOfCrap (885340)]

You are so wrong!

I nearly got nailed by a tanker leaving Charlestown harbor at about 2:00 am.

The tanker came out of Charlestown roads and immediately altered course straight in my direction.

I had no engine and was totally reliant on sail, so my ability to get out of his way was restricted. I used flashlamps focussed on the bridge of the tanker, but nothing changed.

In the end I had to use a distress flare, and the tanker missed me by about 20 feet.

What many people don't realize is that modern ships are comouter driven, thereby only requiring one person on watch when under voyage. That person could have been taking a leak, studying a chart, whatever.

When a tanker bears down on you at 15 knots, you don't have much time to react, and if you panic, what you DO do could be considered as counter productive, to say the least!

Re:

[MarkSyms (167054)]

And had he hit you and had it gone to maritime court, you would likely have been found to be the guilty party. I am fully aware of the lack of maneuvering ability of modern ships. Power gives way to sail is a myth. It is your responsibility as master of your vessel to ensure that a collision does not occur, which it sounds like you managed through the use of pyrotechnics. Pure sail with no auxiliary engine has no business being in a busy shipping lane at night, and I speak as a certified yacht skipper so I

Re:

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

I remember a freighter that came into Charleston harbor with a SAIL snarled in the anchor. The crew never heard or felt a thing, but the sailboat was never found.

When I first got my sea kayak I used to paddle around the harbour area taking a close look at the docked freighters. Until one day I noticed a ship being prepped to leave. One check they do is to drop the anchor. Makes sense, just don't be underneath when it happens because they don't winch it down. They drop it.

Incidently this is the first menti

Simple query.

[by Anonymous Coward]

SELECT [Location] FROM [MissingPeople] WHERE [FirstName] = 'Jim' AND [LastName] = 'Gray'

Results: NULL

Oh my.

Wisdom of Crowds (of geeks)

[(Robo_Bro) (1009507)]

FTFA:

I decided I'd organize a group that would predict where an object would drift in that period

If anyone's read James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds", they'd be familiar with a story in which a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience). This technique is roughly based on the idea of nature's bell-curve; collect enough guesses and the mean will be RIGHT ON. Anyways, I was simply curious if this technique was employed. How poetic would it be for Jim to be found because of a database's average?

Re:Wisdom of Crowds (of geeks)

[Jussi K. Kojootti (646145)]

If anyone's read James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds", they'd be familiar with a story in which a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience). This technique is roughly based on the idea of nature's bell-curve; collect enough guesses and the mean will be RIGHT ON.

No offense, but if your description of the technique is correct, it's based on sheer luck, not on "the idea of nature's bell-curve"...

Re:

[westlake (615356)]

If anyone's read James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds", they'd be familiar with a story in which a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience)

So, how many times has this "experiment" been replicated?

How is the problem defined and explained for the non-specialist? In a random throw of the darts, I can usually hit the bull's eye. If you make the target big enough and let me move up real close.

Re:

[multisync (218450)]

I haven't read the book, but this is from its wiki page [wikipedia.org]:

The opening anecdote relates Francis Galton's surprise that the crowd at a county fair accurately guessed the butchered or the "slaughtered and dressed" weight of an ox when their individual guesses were averaged (the average was closer to the ox's true butchered weight than the estimates of most crowd members, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by cattle experts).

So it's not really "luck," as was suggested by the poster above you.

Re:

[Jussi K. Kojootti (646145)]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting Wisdom of the Crowds generally is based on luck, just that locating a ship on sea with that method is... well, idiotic.

Re:

[TerranFury (726743)]

>a lost ship was located by tabulating/averaging the guesses from individuals (most with no search and rescue experience).

I... don't believe this. This sounds exactly like the "Emperor's Nose" fallacy. See this [imaginatorium.org].

(better link)

[TerranFury (726743)]

This [twoplustwo.com] is a better explanation. And I remember now that I first heard this parable mentioned in one of Richard Feynman's books; the chapter can be found here [textbookleague.org].

Re:

[Skreems (598317)]

You should probably clarify that these aren't pure guesses, but estimates based on as much data as was available at the time. And even then, it's relatively shaky logic to carry one instance through to the rest of reality.

I don't suppose that...

[master_p (608214)]

...he went near the new CERN's accelerator, did he?

How low can you go?

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

And just what is "low" for a U2?

All this effort/time/money

[nurb432 (527695)]

To find a *body*.

Its nice to know there are no missing children these days.

Useful methods will help future searchers

[geekotourist (80163)]

Remember the search for the Kim family, lost on a snowy mountain pass in Oregon?

At the time, people wrote about potential ways to make searching distributed [4brad.com]: "traditional aerial photography is far better, because it's higher resolution, higher contrast, can be done under clouds, can be done at other than a directly overhead angle, is generally cheaper and on top of all this can possibly be done from existing searchplanes." And if the lost person has a cell phone, then the plane can also have "a small mini-cell base station (for all cell technologies) that could be mounted in a regular airplane and flown over the area." Traditional aerial searches are limited to only a couple of pairs of eyes, but continuous hi-res photos can lead to thousands of viewers. Of course, there was the question of what to do with gigabytes of photos- how to automate distribution.

The Jim Gray search team found a way to distribute aerial photo searches. Using Mechanical Turk was a good idea, because the infrastructure was already there.

Now, for the next lost family, or lost child, it'll be much faster to get photos up and examined.

They're helping physical search enter the 21st century, not because he or his friends were money rich, but because his and his colleagues were data rich. i.e. if you look up petabyte science, Jim Gray's name shows up a bunch. If there was any quid pro quo it wasn't because the searchers were giving agencies money, it was because they gave new methods.

Re:

[nurb432 (527695)]

Thanks for missing my point totally. Idiot.

Strangely worthwhile

[bstadil (7110)]

I participated in this search and spend approx 10 hours looking at the pictures. It was strangely satisfying to do, like a meaningful scavenger hunt. I later discovered Stardust@home [berkeley.edu] using the same Amazon Mechanical turk technology. You are helping the scientists find star dust particles in a aerogel. It takes 15min to qualify via a test but is it quite fun and as I said earlier strangely rewarding.

Re:Colour me apathetic.

[ulzeraj (1009869)]

Despise his work for Microsoft that guy developed brilliant systems. Microsoft's way is evil shit and all that stuff... but in the end I think that we're all geeks and/or scientists and we should forget this software wars sometimes and work together for a common good and Gray's work with scientific databases is a common good.

I would not work with him developing a Microsoft product for example, but I would be honoured by joining him in some scientific research;

Well, I don't usually post because of my poor english... but sometimes I must reply. Sorry for the bad english.

Re:

[peragrin (659227)]

I can't stand MSFT products, I see them as cheap rip offs of other peoples ideas for most of their products.

That being said it takes a lot of really smart people to keep windows from cracking all together. The people who keep windows running have to be smart, in order to do some of the hacks and workaround that they do. Those guys could build a kick arse OS if they were allowed to by management and marketing.

Re:

[j-pimp (177072)]

I can't stand MSFT products, I see them as cheap rip offs of other peoples ideas for most of their products.

As opposed to Linux or FreeBSD? Apache was a derivative work of the original httpd. HTML was SGML simplified. Everyone steals ideas, Open Source projects just don't print there works cited page in 8 point type.

Re:Colour me apathetic.

[Goaway (82658)]

Wow, you are a fucking psychopath. Congratulations.

Re:

[k1e0x (1040314)]

People at Microsoft are not bad. (this coming from me, who loathes windows is quite a bit.) Some of them are quite full of themselves and rather blind nut that does not make them bad.

When you work for a corporation.. nobody works for any such person.. all of them work for this legal fiction called a corporation and its is not like a person.. its not able to make moral choices, the only thing it can do is make money.

Don't be blinded by hate. It's fine and dandy to hate a thing, but never hate on a person.

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

But what about all the good things Hitler did?

Re:

[SocietyoftheFist (316444)]

OK, Caspian. Find one Company that you are sure hasn't committed any unethical, illegal, or immoral acts and report back with certainty about it. What nationality are you?

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

Please, don't feed the Trolls.

Re:

[LingNoi (1066278)]

This guy could have worked for just about any high-tech company, but he chose to work for Microsoft. That speaks volumes.

Yes because everyone who works for Microsoft deserves to die.

You're such a nut job.

Re:

[aussie_a (778472)]

If I told my parents "Jim Gray died" they'd say "so?" If I went on to explain what he did they'd go "oh, okay."

Not everyone cares about some random person dying. Because I've got news for you, Antonio died today. Do you care? I doubt it.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

... and don't mod me down, it's really what I think.

Not trolling here, but why should that be a reason not to mod you down?

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

"upducted"? That's hilarious.

Re:

[LynnwoodRooster (966895)]

Obviously your technological understanding is lacking... Upducted is what THEY do when THEY use the alien technology found at Roswell to beam you aboard THEIR aircraft...

Seriously, man, readjust your tinfoil hat, it's letting sanity sink in!

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Thank you. I stand corrected. I did notice a tiny tear in the outer foil layer ... that must have been it. A small amount of mind-control radiation was getting inside. But I'm okay now.

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

It's worse than that ... you're dead, Jim!

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm still trying to get my head round relational database concepts - if he disappeared while scattering his mother's ashes, would this be an example of a one-tomb-many-relation?

Maybe he was drinking... A one too many relationship.