Wired Magazine has released a fun online game based on a recent article titled “Cutthroat Capitalism” which explores piracy off the coast of Somalia from a business standpoint.  You can read Cutthroat Capitalism HERE

In the game, you are a pirate commander tasked with bringing home the greatest profit to your shoreside investors.  In order to do so, you must head out and target a ship for attack,  successfully hijack the vessel and then negotiate a ransom with the shipowner.  Of course, the amount of ransom paid depends on the type of ship, number of crew members and negotiating tactic.  Just make sure your sure your skills are strong, as you do not want to blow through all your stake money and be drummed out of the pirate league.  I guess it’s best explained by checking out the game for yourself HERE.

Regardless of your opinions on the article or whether Somali pirates could ever (even jokingly) be classed as “businessmen”, you have to admit that the game is at least entertaining.  My highest earning was $2M.

Wired Magazine is featuring a post on the salvage of the car carrier Cougar Ace. Here are the first two paragraphs of the post:

Latitude 48° 14 North. Longitude 174° 26 West.

Almost midnight on the North Pacific, about 230 miles south of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. A heavy fog blankets the sea. There’s nothing but the wind spinning eddies through the mist.

Out of the darkness, a rumble grows. The water begins to vibrate. Suddenly, the prow of a massive ship splits the fog. Its steel hull rises seven stories above the water and stretches two football fields back into the night. A 15,683-horsepower engine roars through the holds, pushing 55,328 tons of steel. Crisp white capital letters — COUGAR ACE — spell the ship’s name above the ocean froth. A deep-sea car transport, its 14 decks are packed with 4,703 new Mazdas bound for North America. Estimated cargo value: $103 million.

The post, titled, “Techno-Cowboys of the Deep Sea: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace,” chronicles the mustering of a salvage crew from across the globe, the challenge of the salvage, and the death of a team member. The article is replete with Coast Guard footage and diagrams. Reading like a Spike Walker book, this piece gives the non mariner a unique look into the forces that makes our work elusive.

Don’t miss this compelling read by Joshua Davis and stunning infographics from Dan Foley.

The full Wired Magazine post:

• Article
• Video
• Captain’s Journal
• Salvage Team Bios

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd

If we only had one technology related wish for 2008 it would be that every mariner watched this video. Reminder: This is important people!

FROM WIRED:

While micro-messaging service Twitter may be one of the best tools for citizen reporting in emergencies such as the Southern California wildfires, the service’s real usefulness is its ability to get messages to users’ friends and family and provide evacuation updates — even when cell networks are overloaded, according to homeland security consultant W. David Stephenson.

As important as the updates you wrote about, they’re nowhere near as important as using Twitter to let your family know you’re ok (instead of cell calls, which every time they’re used in disasters end up crashing the network — and don’t get through, either): because they’re packet based, they’re cued up until they can route around obstacles or gaps in the network, and the 140-character limit means they take up a tiny amount of bandwidth, leaving it for those who need it most.

Even cooler, Stephenson tells THREAT LEVEL, are the Red Cross’s Twitter channels.

* The redcross channel lets them push information during a mass evacuation. Since cellphone customers can sign up for Twitter ‘on the fly,’ they will encourage evacuees to text ‘FOLLOW REDCROSS’ to 40404, and sign up for updates. The messages will include information about where the shelters are, distribution sites, and other contact info.

* The safeandwell channel is used more for inbound communication. Those who text ‘FOLLOW SAFEANDWELL’ to 40404 will automatically be followed back. That means they can send their private information as a Direct Message to the American Red Cross. (’D SAFEANDWELL Larry Melman, 205-xxx-xxxx, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Bay Minette, is safe in a shelter.’) That maintains the privacy of the individual, and also serves to funnel the information to a centralized database.

Stephenson shows how to use Twitter in emergencies in this episode of his video series 21st Century Disaster Tips You Won’t Hear From Officials:

Thanks to Jesse Robbins for the find.

gCaptain’s Twitter Page

Wired has an interesting article on portable emergency housing. Some of the ideas make use of shipping containers. The tell us;

One of the biggest obstacles to emergency-shelter design is finding the right balance between providing a temporary shelter like a tent and working to rebuild permanent homes.

“You can’t design for disaster after the fact,” notes Kate Stohr, co-founder of the nonprofit humanitarian design firm Architecture for Humanity. “Unless it’s strategically thought about in advance of disaster, these ideas don’t work.”Shipping containers, found in abundance all over the world, form the basis for the Future Shack, a self-contained, modular refugee-housing unit. It can be mass-produced with a minimum of materials and is easily stockpiled, making it a versatile emergency-housing unit.

You can find the slideshow and attached article HERE.