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<title><![CDATA[Comments for entry "Barge World" at Dilbert.com Blog]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/92]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Regular thoughts and updates from Dilbert.com]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from baldone]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/9166]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Too late. The Uros of Peru beat you to it. Sort of. Plus, the weather is not exactly Corona-friendly.  But, if you get pissed off at your neighbor, just cut your island in half and shove off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uros]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Leora]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/9010]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Just one word....seasickness.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Demere]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8989]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Buy an island.

]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from larskj]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8984]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[It's all already been planned- but with a large boat for a multitude of rich people (hence captain=government) but the cruising for lift thing works- also makes the waste treatment easier as this is hugely simplified by scale. This will of course NOT be solar powered (boats would have too small a surface area to sail at a decent speed with solar powered engines- you may have to fight currents). Barge cities would NOT be particularly storm proff- and a lot of them would probably sink every year unless they are in closed coastal waters (hence governement- ups you screwed). Generally you also get the problem with living on boats- houses go UP in value over time (hence not just home- investment) whereas boats go DOWN- so unless your personal income is big enough that you tax dodging pays the offset of not having real estate income it'll be bad economics.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from abdollrerin]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8975]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Won't it get to a point where it's exactly like how we live now? (As far as governments and taxes and police and so on are concerned.)

Even the weather chasing won't be that different. The good spots would get crowded, so only the rich could live in or visit them (just like Turtle Island!)]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Brant]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8974]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I've always wanted to convert a supertanker into a private yacht. French chateau, formal and English gardens, a ten story apartment block for the staff and a bridal path. And that's only the top deck. And that's just the top deck. My idea comes with the kind of fuel tanks you need to motor around looking for the best weather.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from paramveer]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8972]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Pirates will not be a problem. They are going to be extinct because of global warming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#Examples

]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from radhead]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8970]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I really like the tramps from today's strip! Especially the guy on the right with the overbite... Scott, can you please give them a recurring role in a future strip? Maybe they could work in sales, or security.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Shadowrider]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8967]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Well, if you have a group of people who are wealthy enough not to have to work, this works OK but I think the cruise ships already have that market cornered.
If you are talking about the vast, seething masses of humanity whose numbers are rapidly approaching 10 billion and desperately need places to live then you also have to have something to do for them to make a living or for investors to build such a place.  How about algae farming?  Grow the right algae and they can be up to 77% oil.  Instead of drilling off the coast, we could be farming off the coast.  Yeah, I know I already posted on that but it sounds like such a great solution...energy from sunlight that you can sell on the global oil market.
Alternatively, we all know that it is better to be a pirate than a merchant in the Caribbean and a Smoker in Waterworld so why not just provide them with some nice quick amphibious vessels so they can do their own piracy or at least keep their day jobs on land?  A hybrid jet ski/motorcycle or carboat would keep people from having to shell out to marinas in expensive real estate markets like San Diego, L.A. , New York etc and you could provide affordable housing to the masses.  One to two hundred thousand for a condo adds up pretty quick.  I can't believe that the engineering hurdles can't be worked out for that much.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from antonywardle]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8966]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[it mis all irrelavant when cows are on the war path

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4662095a11.html

kiwi]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from quantum_flux]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8965]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[This is sort of a complementary idea to one of my halfbaked ideas entitled &quot;City In the Skies Above&quot; which is about people living in giant cities with interconnected helium/hot air balloons.  One of the advantages of balloon cities is that the air is cooler as you gain altitude.

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/City_20in_20the_20Skies_20above#1200438074]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from quantum_flux]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8964]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Waste treatment!?  Well, the reason it's called the &quot;Poop&quot; deck is because it's in the back of the boat where pirates used to ...]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from spaz]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8961]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I like the idea of no government.

If you think pissed off ex  lovers and neighborly disputes can be bad now, just wait until there's no governing body to throw anyone in jail.

On the plus side, population control won't be a problem.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TueAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Fire@will]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8954]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Interesting idea - but not practical for all the reasons others have pointed out.

One modification - instead of moving your barge to a new location, just move the contents to another barge.  You could either have more than one barge, or do some sort of time share, or just keep buying a new one when you get tired of the old location.  Barges on the open ocean are a bad idea.

]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from dsg]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8950]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Hi Scott,

Barge cities are a neat idea, but do not seem practical. Storms, rough seas, and pirates will not be a big issue at all. Since these barges will be thousands of feet in length and displace billions of tons of water, the hundred foot waves of the North Sea will be but a ripple. The biggest cost of maintaining a large vessel is cleaning it. The most corrosive environment on earth are the oceans, and the warmer ones with higher salinity are much worse. These barges will quickly become floating reefs covered with all sorts annoying sea life. Then they will start to corrode. The non-stop effort to keep these vessels sea worthy would cost a fortune. Barges for the most part are disposable. When they are no longer useful, they are either scraped or sunk as artificial reefs. They will not make a good long term building material. Everything on these barges will have dramatically shortened lives. Electronics and salt water do not mix. The point being, the big blue eats anything that stays out there too long. A floating city will need to have an extremely long life to be commercially viable, the cost to keep it afloat will be way too expensive. Landfills and new islands are the best we can do, think Boston or The Palm Islands off Dubai.

Keep your barges the hell off my waters.

dsg]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from lesaneace]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8948]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Some people are already doing this in a way.  I went on a cruise a couple of years ago &amp; met quite a few retirees who literally cruise all year.  They do Alaska and/or Europe in the summer and the Southern hemisphere in the winter.  They have no fixed address, aside from PO boxes in various ports.  One couple told me that it was actually less expensive to cruise all year than to maintain an apartment in LA.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TueAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Trickypickle]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8947]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I can see problems with supplies. Not that they'd be inaccessible, but frequently consumed items would be pricey, especially if resupply happens only once every few weeks. There would most CERTAINLY be taxes, as maintenance on such a superstructure would be massive and ongoing. I like Freedomship's idea for propulsion. Instead of using giant engines with 50ft screws, they use hundreds of tiny propellers, under the flat hull of the ship, which have independent 360 deg. rotation, and require far less power than traditional propulsion. Much slower, but much cheaper too. Piracy is less of a problem in my mind, as even a small country can have a standing Navy. Who wants to attack a barge city with three or four cruisers armed to the teeth patrolling around when there are so many unattended cargo ships around? The security is another expense that'd have to be paid by taxes. In the end, the tax level may be the largest prohibition. A setup like this will cost a bomb, both to create and to run.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from ednashops]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8946]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[waste treatment...  I can't help the image that pops into mind of the residents peeing off the side of their barges]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TueAMCDTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from ednashops]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8945]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[No government?!

So I have a barge side plot and a new McBarge ties up on my shore line.  With no zoning panel to appeal to, I extend my deck accross the new neigbors lawn to restore my ocean view.  He begins to seriously consider torching it, but I warn him that he ain't getting any deliveries from the market accross my barge, etc etc.

Look, you are either formulating a communist world, or an anarchist one.  and I would hold off on the 'no strategic value' assesment until you see how fishing rights and geographic rights for cleanest water, best solar insolation for power and best climate play out.  

Plus, regretebly, a large portion of the population will do what they can get away with and with no revenue for public service, it will be insane.  This model can be forcast from the dynamics of ealry settlements in newly explored areas.  What makes the best ones work.  Community planning, balance of commercial tax revenue, freedom, protection.  
]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from rbgos]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/8944]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I'd need a regular weekly visit from a travelling supermarket, probably based on a large Spruce Goose-like flying boat.  I'd get frustrated if the only fruit I could eat was tinned or dried, and there's limited scope for growing your own, even if you followed the nice weather, without a substantial orchard barge.]]></description>
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