CA CA - Jim Gray, 63, San Francisco, 28 January 2007

annemc2

her name is Suzanne Marie Sevakis
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Okay WSers - here's one we can work on (for some reason I really think Buzz would be great at this)

On Sunday, January 28th, 2007, Jim Gray, a renowned computer scientist was reported missing at sea. As of Thursday, Feb. 1st, the US Coast Guard has called off the search, having found no trace of the boat or any of its emergency equipment.

To help, click on accept HIT and you will get an image to search:

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=J0XZ58STDWJZ5QY4F9M0
 
This is really cool but it is harder than I thought to make decisions about the sattelite pics. I may look at some more tomorrow.
 
fascinating
would it look almost exactly like the sample pictures, or could it be broken up? anyone see anything?
 
Do you have to put money in some account to be a member of this site? I registered and saw some hits but not sure how it all works. I couldn't make out much since there were so many spots but one did look like something long as if a boat could be on it's side with a ball looking thing off to the side.
 
The boat's about the size of my cursor, so I used that to measure with. I also looked for something like the example they gave. I don't know what boat parts look like, so I am searching for the whole boat. Of course, if I see any parts that look like part of the examples, I'll say to look further.

As it was, I looked at 250 images and hit look further on about 5 of them.

This sure is a mystery, and I hope it doesn't turn out to be a tragedy.

Thanks for posting the link!
 
annemc2 said:
Okay WSers - here's one we can work on (for some reason I really think Buzz would be great at this)

On Sunday, January 28th, 2007, Jim Gray, a renowned computer scientist was reported missing at sea. As of Thursday, Feb. 1st, the US Coast Guard has called off the search, having found no trace of the boat or any of its emergency equipment.

To help, click on accept HIT and you will get an image to search:

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=J0XZ58STDWJZ5QY4F9M0
Thanks for the recommendation annemc2; I've been following the story on the local news. He just sailed completely out of sight, and despite many searches, there is no sign of him, his boat, or anything from his boat. The Coast Guard here did say that he could have easily sailed out of their search range, and they put out alerts to Mexico/Baja to watch for his boat. As of now, it is a strange case.
 
i just got an e mail saying the original sample pictures of the boat were too big. they ask that you hold down the control key and hit refresh in order to get the correct size of the object we are looking for
 
It's really hard to tell anything. I guess you really need a trained eye to look at these things. If the boat is in parts theres no way you would be able to tell parts from all the other white specks in the photos. I hope you all are doing better then I am.
 
That is so cool that they are doing this.

If I remember right, someone first suggested this when the family went missing in the snow in Oregon. I wonder if that's where the idea came from.

Also, I wonder if they have more than one person scan each image. (That made me nervous when I looked at a few of the pictures!)
 
T-Rex said:
That is so cool that they are doing this.

If I remember right, someone first suggested this when the family went missing in the snow in Oregon. I wonder if that's where the idea came from.

Also, I wonder if they have more than one person scan each image. (That made me nervous when I looked at a few of the pictures!)

I too was worried that what if I miss something and that was the only time that image woild be seen. Hopefully not.

I'm going to keep trying. I wonder if it's at all possible to see him if he's in a survival raft if his boat sank.

There's a book called "Adrift" where a man survived I think it was 78 days in his emergency raft. I don't remember where he was though.
 
OK, I don't totally get this. Is this a streaming video, or a photo that is continually updated?
 
A satellite took a whole bunch of images just after he went missing and the object is for people to scan them and see if they can see anything that looks like a boat.

What you are seeing is a picture from a satellite.
 
It's telling me that I need to qualify to accept the hit?? Then it directs me to take a Qualifications test and asks for the password that was assigned to me. I didn't get a password and I don't know why I have to qualify. Did I do something wrong??
 
It's telling me that I need to qualify to accept the hit?? Then it directs me to take a Qualifications test and asks for the password that was assigned to me. I didn't get a password and I don't know why I have to qualify. Did I do something wrong??
 
EdinburghLass said:
A satellite took a whole bunch of images just after he went missing and the object is for people to scan them and see if they can see anything that looks like a boat.

What you are seeing is a picture from a satellite.
Thanks--I knew it was from a satellite, but I wasn't sure when the photo was taken, or if it was one that was updated daily, or what....
 
itsreenw said:
It's telling me that I need to qualify to accept the hit?? Then it directs me to take a Qualifications test and asks for the password that was assigned to me. I didn't get a password and I don't know why I have to qualify. Did I do something wrong??
It didn't work for me the first time either but now it seems to work fine? Not sure why it happens
Now I can just go straight to the site and look at tiles.
 
I went to look at a few more tiles and found this -


No More Phase 1 Images at Mechnical Turk

February 6th, 2007 5:03 pm by Werner Vogels
The volunteers have processed all the 560,000 images that we made available through the Mechanical Turk Website. The images were the low-res and hi-res satellite images and the ER-2 near-infrared images. Experts continue to use Mechanical Turk for the review of the images marked by the volunteers to construct a list of high-potential candidates for hand-off to the Coast Guard for consideration.


http://openphi.net/tenacious/
 
SAN FRANCISCO
No trace of missing yachtsman on vast sea


Even with army of volunteers and high-tech gadgets, search for sailor proves difficult


Saturday, February 10, 2007


Looking for signs of a missing, 40-foot sailboat in satellite images of California's coastal waters is a bit like searching for an individual tortoise on the vast Mojave Desert.



Some 6,000 volunteers, including legions of computer scientists and image processors, have joined the search for computer scientist Jim Gray, who did not return to a San Francisco marina on Jan. 28 after taking a day cruise in good weather aboard his 40-foot sailboat, Tenacious. He told family members he was sailing to the Farallon Islands to scatter his mother's ashes.

Rarely have so many high-tech resources from the private and public sectors been marshaled in a missing person's case, especially one involving the ocean. Leading Silicon Valley firms, along with NASA scientists and the Canadian Space Agency, have pitched in to help find the missing yacht. The venture has spawned cooperation among frequent rivals who have created new software to speed the process.

It is painstaking work. "We have no trace of the boat, no debris," said Mike Olson, an Oracle vice president and friend of Gray. "It's a big ocean, so finding a boat is tricky. There are a lot of boats on the water. There's not continuous satellite imaging of any part of the Earth."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/10/BAGEVO2FS61.DTL
 
OK, I am not a sailor, so excuse my ignorance. Can anyone here answer some questions I have about sailboats, in particular Mr. Gray's sailboat? The following was listed as being on Mr. Grey's boat for electronics.

http://openphi.net/tenacious/?cat=10


Electronics

EPRIB – yes: Purchased at West Marine some years ago. It is small, self-deploying, self-activating, and not mounted outside. It is stored (not mounted) at the companionway stairs (in an open pocket). Brand and model are not known at this time. Is thought to be suitable for blue water use. It may not have been registered with the Coast Guard. The state of the batteries in the EPIRB is not known.

Radar – yes: Raymarine SL-72 display, purchased in 2000.

Fathometer – yes.

Knot Log (speedometer) – yes.

GPS - yes (several): One is a Garmin 48, purchased in 2000.

Chartplotter – yes: One of the GPSs has a chartplotter.

PC for Navigation – yes, but it was left at home.

CD/stereo radio – yes.

VHF radio – yes: VHF is the fixed mount type powered by the boat’s 12 Volt system. The antenna location for this radio is on the masthead.

Handheld VHF – yes: Standard Horizon HX-350s handheld VHF (submersible to 3 feet
for 30 minutes), purchased in 2000.

HF (single sideband) radio - probably not.

AIS Receiver – no (for tracking large ships on a PC or chart plotter).

Electronic Autopilot – yes: Autohelm that works off the boat’s house batteries.

Boat Batteries: Four 12 Volt batteries in two banks of two each. Normally used only one bank at a time. Controlled by a “1 – 2 – Both” type battery switch.

12 Volt charger for cell phone: Charge for cell phone and wireless device chargers may have been with him.

Cell phone antenna amplifier and external antenna – no





OK---so what is a EPRIB? If he had radar onboard, couldn't they track him with his radar? It appears he has a radio--is there no way he could mayday or signal for help? I read that he has a cell phone but most likely could not get service out on the water.
 

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