Comments on: Arcologies, Urbmon 116 and protocols

By: volatileant

volatileant — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:00:33 +0000

There is an insulative coating called SuperTherm that provides an RE value of 19 with one coat. There are now many, many residences in California employing shipping containers and a few in Minnesota, a testament to the versatility of the idea.

By: Nightmare

Nightmare — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:06:45 +0000

I am a member of a homesteading forum and there are a couple of people there who used shipping containers as temporary housing while building a ‘real’ house. One guy insulated his by piling hay bales around the outside. I have seen examples of homes made from shipping containers and they generally fail, simply because in an effort to up the cool factor the builders also up the cost factor.

By: Steve Bodio

Steve Bodio — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:52:24 +0000

You may or may not know that in Mongolia, even big cities, containers are used for stores, small houses, storage– and are ubiquitous. We often joke about getting one here to add to the “atmosphere”.

By: dr.hypercube

dr.hypercube — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:53:23 +0000

Thanks for the link – very interesting! I’m hoping seasteading.org is going to navigate closer to the pirate utopia ideal rather than the (agree w/ Miéville on this one) *huge air quotes* Freedom Ship.

By: Tom Bozzo

Tom Bozzo — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:44:40 +0000

FYI, here's an amusing article by China Miéville on the floating libertarian utopias.

By: Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:08:37 +0000

We’re definitely thinking about the idea of a protocol stack for seasteads, where lower layers specify the physical interconnections for modularity. This might be platforms connecting to platforms, or it might be shipping container rooms. (We’re really into modularity, so we’re considering making the buildings modular, as well as the platforms.)