The death of supertankers

As you might have guessed from my last post, I see supertankers on a regular basis. Our civilization depends on supertankers, because our civilization depends on oil and supertankers carry oil. What happens to these marine leviathans, these gargantuan products of industry, when they become too old to work any more? No doubt you imagine some sterile high-tech knacker’s yard, a supertanker slaughterhouse, putting these giant ships to rest.

Not at all! They are left, literally washed-up and derelict, on a beach, to be cut up piece by piece by a swarm of barefoot, illiterate workers, until nothing is left but fragments on the sand.

Take a look at this photo-essay from Foreign Policy, drawn to my attention by Wil Wheaton.

A view from Asia

Recently, I got asked to write a piece, in 300 words, about the global economy. A tall order! Bearing in mind that the target audience isn’t likely to be particularly aware of what’s going on in Asia, I couldn’t assume any prior knowledge. So, I decided to pitch it in a personal narrative format. On the basis of this, I’ve been asked to rewrite it in a longer form, with a more political spin, which I’m working on. Anyhow, here’s the original version (all rights reserved, copyright claimed, yadda yadda yadda!):

It’s 7am in Singapore. The view from my desk looks over a patch of jungle to the sea, flat and glowing gold in the early tropical sunlight. In the distance are palm-fringed islands, part of the Riau archipelago. Through the open window, the birds chirp and whoop; whiffs drift in of the incense being burned by the elderly caretaker at the Taoist altar in the car park, many floors below.

It might be a Joseph Conrad story – apart from the gargantuan cargo ship, stacked high with containers, which floats lazily just offshore. It’s one of dozens that will pass my window today on their way to China, carrying scrap metal, pig carcasses, telecoms equipment, water treatment plants, and Swiss watches: the lowest and highest ends of what Europe produces. Later, the tide will turn, and yet more ships will slip into the channel between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, heading for the Indian Ocean, and carrying – well, most of what you’re going to buy anytime soon.

Also in view is Singapore’s Art Deco railway station, the terminus of a line that will soon be able to take goods and travelers non-stop through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, up to China’s Yunnan Province. From there, one way leads to Myanmar and the new Irrawaddy shipping lanes, or on to India. Another way leads up to northern China, and onwards to the Central Asian ‘stans, or the Karakoram highway to Pakistan.

Asia is reconnecting itself, and forming once more into a market that’s been disrupted since the Europeans first arrived. As barriers fall, incomes are rising, creating an internal economy that might someday overtake the EU and US. There is a definite energy and optimism, as people look forward to a better future. Of course, there are less positive sides to this development – but there’s a lot of good news too, and today, it’s pleasant to watch the ships and trains pass on their way.

China’s not a threat

I’m just back from a short holiday in Wales, the first time I’ve been to the UK in 3.5 years. This business about Chinese hackers attacking political and military systems in the West was still all over the British papers, and airwaves. It’s all seemed a bit unlikely; I know from living there that China is full of computers running pirate versions of Windows, whose owners have less than no clue about security, firewalls, or keeping anti-malware systems up to date. The Beijing Newspeak blog put me on to a couple of well-thought pieces by Mutant Palm (hitherto unknown to me, but now on the RSS feeds) that put the ‘threat’ into perspective (ie: let’s worry more about bad reporting than PLA hackers):

• The Return of Fu Manchu – Chapter One: Heinous Hackers
• The Return of Fu Manchu – Chapter 1.5: Hackers and Spies

There are lots of good reasons to support China’s rise – amongst them: which would we rather see, China becoming a world power (and engaging in the kind of activities that world powers all do), or China failing to become a world power (and likely collapsing into chaos)? I know which one I’m rooting for…

Telepathy for $15

Yes, another title to tease you into reading, promising more than it can deliver. I’m at that head-shaking point where I can’t quite believe what I’ve just seen.

In an interview about his latest novel, novelist William Gibson points out that writing science fiction is getting harder, because:

we can’t culturally have futures the way that we used to have futures because we don’t have a present in the sense that we used to have a present. Things are moving too quickly for us to have a present to stand on from which we can say, “oh, the future, it’s over there and it looks like this.”

Here’s the perfect example:

Neurosky, a company that will let us interact with games (and tools, and machinery, and robots, and cellphones…) just by controlling our mental state, blinking, and so on through a device that will be on the market next year – and should only add $15 to the price… Incredible… who thought it would come so soon? And look at how portable the device is! Combine this with the kind of augmented reality I was talking about the other day, and we will soon be seeing some wild stuff happening out there on the streets! Are we ready for this, I wonder…? I also wonder: when will they go to IPO….?

Here’s that augmented reality clip again: watch this back-to-back with the above, and imagine the possibilities when they’re combined….

Update:

My word, and those 3-d avatars of yourself that I mentioned in that earlier post… hehehe, I should have known: they’re going to be on the market later this year!