A recent article in Slate.com characterized seasteading thus:
Seasteading, a movement to create law-free floating communes based on voluntary association. Led by Milton Friedman’s pajama-wearing grandson, this may be the most elaborate effort ever devised by a group of computer nerds to get invited to an orgy.
The Oceanographer position has been updated. Qualified candidates will have some academic education in oceanography or related disciplines. In addition, applicants should have a moderate level of knowledge and experience working with GIS. The position is also now a 6-month project (up from 3-month).
For more information about the Oceanography/GIS Researcher position, please visit the official job posting.
Patri Friedman recently gave a talk at The Feast, a social entrepreneurship conference. Patri talks seasteading in general and discusses TSI’s core challenges, strategy, and timeline for the next decade.
If we want to create a Very Large Floating Structure, VLFS, in the open ocean, and as commented in the previous blog, we need a type of structure that attenuates the waves. Semisubmersibles are ideal for that, as in the MOB. But other ideas and technologies are also being developed. The very well known Pneumatically Stabilized Platform, PSP, is a very promising structure.
Very large floating structure(s) (VLFS(s)) (or, as some literature refers to them, very large floating platform(s), VLFP(s) for short) can be constructed to create floating airports, bridges, breakwaters, piers and docks, storage facilities (for oil & natural gas), wind and solar power plants, for military purposes, to create industrial space, emergency bases, entertainment facilities (such as casinos), recreation parks, mobile offshore structures and even for habitation.
One of the main criteria in our location study is the worst-case wave height. Oceanography student Martin emailed us the KNMI Wave Atlas, which is a global heatmap of wave & wind data, trends, and variability, based on data from 1957 – 2006, at 1.5×1.5 degree resolution.
TSI has officially doubled all of the Sink or Swim Business Contest prizes. The grand prize is now $5,000 up from $2,500, and the other prizes have gone up proportionately. The total prize pool is now $10,000! Word about this increase is still getting out, so we’ve also gone and extended the draft deadline by two full weeks! The total number of registered contestants is still low, so high quality entries will be very competitive.
A new development in the cruise ship industry is that of full-time residency. Currently there is only one residential cruise ship in operation, The World of ResidenSea. There are several more under development, including some with a Letter Of Intent for shipbuilding: Utopia Residences under Samsumg Heavy Industries, and Magellan under the STX-Europe yard of Saint Nazaire, France.
