Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate(supplychainbrain.com) |
Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate(supplychainbrain.com) |
One anecdote I remember from Levinson's book is about a scottish whisky distiller exporting to the US being very excited about being able to ship whisky in a giant stainless steel vessel inside a container instead of shipping individual bottles inside wooden crates (imagine the theft during loading/unloading...).
That said, shipping containers were not adopted because they reduced theft and damage (consequently the cost of insuring cargo), they were adopted because they offered much lower costs to shippers (after enough investment in ships and ports and cranes and trucks and changes to transport regulation to provide the infrastructure to move containers around efficiently without double-handling them or unloading and repacking them for technical/labour/regulatory reasons).
Marc Levinson's book _The Box_ about the history of the shipping container is worth a read -- https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/th...
It reminds me of a quote about warfare: "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics"
cough
Any more links (books or otherwise) you could share?
With the completion of the Erie Canal, buffalo, cattle and wheat from the Great Plains could arrive in Chicago, be butchered, kept in giant ice warehouses then shipped in box cars and boats lined with ice across the lakes, down the canal, out NY harbour and across to a Europe that was experiencing a massive population growth (1848 revolutions).
This first wave of globalisation dropped food prices globally causing (by the 1870s) massive economic collapses and shifts away from failing farmlands. British landed gentry never recovered, and the links to WWI are clear.
The US civil war would have been very different without the Erie canal if the worlds food supply went south down the Missiippi to get out to the Atlantic
All because someone liked Christoph in Frozen and want to sell ice.
Bryson is a brilliant author and this one of his best.
Umm... we have end of April (the article is dated April 29th) or 1/3rd of the year. The last time I checked a third of 3000 is around 1000.
Anyway, nowhere in the article I see any numbers to support that there is a "sudden rise in accidents". Even the graphs themselves seem to show entirely different picture -- that this might just be a fluke.
The graph for 2020 is roughly double what you'd see in every year except 2013, and 2021 has already matched most other years.
I think they're trying to make too much of a trend out of years dominated by one major accident, but the data definitely shows two worse than usual years in a row.
Oceanographers were able to collaborate with beachcombers in the western US (and eventually as far away as the UK) to validate their models of how the currents would move the ducks.
They had places they’d go after bad weather, knowing that’s where wrecks ended up.
Sometimes local traditon encuraged potential salvage, by setting up false lights.
edit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(shipwreck)
but wikipedia actually says, this might be a urban legend, as there is no clear evidence this ever happened
Rather than shifting this cost to the shippers, they are essentially shifting it to the insurers and then paying more in premiums as a result.
Slow Steaming is going to cause some of this because ships will be en route longer and therefore more at risk of weather delay. Maybe they should apply the principle of General Average and simply charge for weather delays, shift this cost to the shippers.
Exactly. Single ship holding 30k loosing 10 means just 0.03%... It's nothing.
cough
It's a very know fact that e.g Mærsk has changed their top tier crew from being Danish to chineese, indian, phillipine etc.
I am only implying that education might be part of it.
Some blame may lie with those who tell the computer how tall it should stack the containers, but another big problem in shipping is that stevedores in many ports simply can't be bothered to secure the cargo according to the instructions. Deck officers (even western ones) don't take the problem seriously, leave port in an unseaworthy state, and leave the able-bodied seamen with the dangerous task of re-lashing everything under way. That is if they can even reach the cargo, which is less likely on a container ship.
Computers do NOT make the stowage layout. The stowage layout is the responsibility of stowage planners. The captain of the ship has final say. There are various computer programs that assist with the stowage layout. However, they are _not_ sufficient. If you'd take out the stowage planner the shipping company would have a lot of additional costs. These programs do help to check for loads of problems, plus the initial inefficient stowage plan.
How tall something is stacked is too simplistic. What matters is that it isn't stacked as a box. Further, certain twist locks cannot handle too much wind.
Source: used to sit next to a stowage planner, who'd be in the office around 1x/month. The planner mostly talked during these visits.
https://www.yachtingworld.com/news/could-a-floating-shipping...
A fascinating record we leave the next explorers.
And hopefully somebody figures out how to find my glasses.
I'm sure that that's how we've found lots of really old stuff and continue to do so. Just imagine all the stuff that we haven't found yet.
https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/loss-of-cargo-containers-ove...
The Ever Smart (yes, owned by Evergreen's UK subsidiary)- 44 containers lost.
https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/loss-of-cargo-containers-ove...
The CMA CGM G. Washington- 137 containers lost.
However, on second thought, I suppose some people would have more and larger sentimental items than I do, like large vases or antique pieces of furniture and so forth.
Is it possible to pay extra to have a very large flotation device attached to your shipping container? :P
edit: According to https://stats.unctad.org/handbook/MaritimeTransport/Indicato... container shipments increased steadily over years.
https://www.ship-technology.com/features/featurecargo-overbo...
But given we can't even put those on half a billion dollar airplanes - I'm not holding my breath.
WW1 pretty much proved that wrong.
Europe was trading a lot with each other. That didn't stop all the rivalries from starting up and causing the general "Great Game" feeling between powers.
For now, it seems like DEMOCRACY is the best thing to prevent wars. Democracies don't like fighting against other democracies: it seems like in most cases, convincing the other country through communication yields actual results.
The leading global purveyor of DEMOCRACY is deeply embedded in the dangerous game you describe
If you have counter-arguments other than "But, but, but that FEELS wrong", i am sure she'd like to hear them, her email is on the site"
"So war does not necessarily stop trade. And thus trade is no prophylactic to war." Seatbelts do not stop people dying in car accidents. But seatbelts do reduce the chances of dying in a car accident. I know I'm being pedantic, but it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Even a prophylactic that works 1% of the time is better than nothing.
They are, indeed, a hazard for other boats, though they generally won't "lurk below the surface." Either they're floating from buoyancy of what's in them, or they sink. The increasing water pressure as you descend makes "floating below the surface" a particularly unstable place.
"Depending on whether they are full or empty, and on the nature of the cargo inside, containers may float at the surface for several days or weeks prior to sinking. Containers are not generally entirely watertight; while an empty container is likely to sink due to water ingress, a full container will likely float until air trapped in the cargo has escaped.’"
I'm assuming that if it sinks in deep water it's gone, but even there maybe there's an opportunity to salvage containers off the sea floor with the right equipment. Probably not worthwhile economically, but who knows?
Maybe the best case for this could be made for ships that normally at sea doing other things to be ready to divert from their ordinary tasks to collect containers if they don't have anything more pressing. (Coast Guard ships or Navy support vessels perhaps?)
Also, Russia to this day uses its own gauge, because they’re terrified of being invaded via rail from Europe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/08/bruges-pipe-dr...
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190908-a-shipwreck-worth-b...
In the UK there is some dispute about 'finders keepers' in any case, there was a case last year where a couple of guys got jail time for stealing a hoard
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-50516...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/1999/06/08/books/the-da...
>Computers do NOT make the stowage layout. The stowage layout is the responsibility of stowage planners.
Yes, that's what I meant by "those who tell the computer..."
>how tall something is stacked is too simplistic.
And that's why I went on to expand on the dynamics of timetables, third party contractors and the correct execution of lashing instructions.
It's true that the captain has the final say, but realistically for large ships and the combinatorial explosion that comes with them the captain and his deck officers simply doesn't have time to check and correct the work of either the stowage planners or the stevedores. Even if they are all western Europeans and Americans with genuine documents.
Perhaps the perpetually open two way valves of your container are obsolete?
These kinds of events are rare, even if something is causing more systemic risk there's no way to predict how many more will happen this year. I'm not handwaving anything away, I'm saying projections aren't useful.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003F3FJGY/
Is that the one you're talking about? Thanks!
IIRC Frederick Tudor is only one chapter. The rest of the book is also excellent.
3000 containers/(1 year * 5 oceans) = 1 drop/ocean
Therefore 1 drop equals 600 containers/year.
Have a nice day and stay silly :)
Perhaps nobody is losing enough money to really care about the problem. The graph in the linked article suggests that 11 out of the last 13 years, losses have amounted to around $80 million or less. A lot of money, but perhaps not a lot of money to the shipping industry and/or their insurers?
The "Great Game" was a huge reason why WW1 broke out. Back then, social Darwinism was considered a good thing. To win a war and prove that you're superior was honorable. Imperialism was reaching its highest points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
Under the "Great Game" mindset: war between powers was good. War encourages innovation. War encourages progress. Its why World War 1 happened: so many political powers believed that humanity would be advanced by fighting.
Why are we talking about "winning" the next century if, as you allege, democracy has superseded geopolitical competition?
We may affect more opposition to war in the present day, and we may wage it more subtly, but by no means has it ceased
Social Darwinism is a mostly dead philosophy. There are some radical subgroups who push social Darwinism today, but its well accepted to be a "dead" philosophy and a terrible one at that. Nonetheless, the awful philosophy of Social Darwinism (and "Great Game") was clearly evident throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s. So these philosophies have huge cultural significance to the time period being discussed.
My point, with regards to the original post, is that the "mercantilist peace theory" was overridden by 1900s "Great Game" and "Social Darwinism" philosophies. There were mercantilist peace theorists back then, but they were NOT the ones in power (and they were EXTREMELY wrong about the nature of trade and peace... as the 1910s came about and war broke out between trade partners).
I remember this 300-year-old Spanish shipwreck that was dredged up by a private company. The Spanish government then sued and won. They had to give back ~500k coins. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44302476
I'm not sure how I feel about the outcome. In particular it seems odd that Spain could indefinitely claim ownership, even if they have no intention of recovering the wreck. That being said, I don't strictly believe "finders keepers" applies here either.
I'm having trouble imagining many things that would still be valuable. Even things in sealed containers might be crushed by the water pressure. Other than gold bars, what would still be useful? Construction-grade lumber, maybe?
I could imagine this being a rich person's hobby. And maybe the basis of a Netflix series or something, like shows about the gold miners in Alaska.
There is no deployment scenario that is not heavily dependant on logistics. This is more true in protracted land deployments of troops across large distances, not less so. No matter the strategy, logistics must match it or success is significantly more difficult.
Take Napoleon w/ Russia, where Napoleon's ambition out ran his logistics. His strategy and tactics had yielded results until then, and despite a large effort to supply his troops, he was woefully under prepared and in the end it was his logistics that failed him: Russia's retreating scorched-earth strategy meant Russia was retreating into friendly territory with resupply, the French were extending into a no man's land. The Napoleonic forces originally outnumbered Russian forces about 2.5 to 1, but forced marches through barren terrain and cities left stripped of resources, ahead of their supply lines and the limited supply buffer they'd planned, resulted in failure. 200,000 troops, about 1/3 of his total, died from starvation or froze to death, far more than actually died in battle. Napoleon won or fought the Russians to a standstill in pretty much all battles, yet lost the war for lack of supply and other planning for the rigors of campaigning in that area of the world.
A few thousand years of military history offer plenty of examples of what happens when a force fails to consolidate gains and outruns or otherwise has inadequate supply lines. This is has not changed from ancient times through to modern warfare.
Or in the case of Napoleon in Russia when they ran out of supplies, it marches on the 200,000 dead corpses of starved and frozen to death soldiers, with some help from countless slaughtered horses killed for food; and boot leather boiled soft enough to chew.
That's what you get when your supply plan buffers 50 days for rapid assault & victory while the enemy retreats, retreats, retreats, scorched-earth all the way. Hell, the Russians torched the entire city of Moscow to deny it to the enemy so it couldn't be used as a stop over on the way to St. Petersburg.
That was pretty much the end of Napoleon's campaign in Russia, and the beginning of his downfall. You don't get 500,000 troops killed in a single campaign and come home to fanfare and accolades.
In fact his failures during that campaign foreshadowed his downfall with a (failed) military coup. This was actually slightly convenient for Napoleon, giving him a reason to get the heck out of Russia before the final end came: extremely fortunate since the very small remaining body of troops retreating back west were not especially happy with their failed commander.
The running, value-producing software that lives in the data-center requires many kinds of resources, like people do. Electricity is the air of the robot armies. The network is something like having legs and eyes. Data is food because it has to be gathered, stored, and moved to the right place at the right time, and it is certainly the hardest thing for a process to get!
I wonder if the online marketplace by it self still doesn’t turn profit. Probably impossible to figure out with additions of services like Prime and Amazon Fresh.
As far as profit goes, you have a stronger argument — $6 billion vs. $4 billion for AWS alone. AWS has a 30% operating margin, jesus.
[1] page 19 of https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2021/q1/...
> For now, it seems like DEMOCRACY is the best thing to prevent wars.
I'm not interested in throwing punches, however I don't think your claim is coherent
Twice now you respond with a loosely related objection about the definitions of terms used to describe 20th century philosophy and geopolitics
You claim a certain locus of power is best able to prevent war- I point out that this same power has been at war across the globe, in some form or another, for almost a century- is this not a contradiction you see fit to address?
The democracy point is a side-point. But if you're interested in it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
My main point is:
1. Trade is NOT a useful deterrent for war.
2. We have a (seemingly) superior recipe for peace: the Democracy Peace Theory. I don't think its perfect, but its a superior theory to the Trade-Peace Theory.
If you disagree with #2, that's fine. It doesn't change the fact that its a well regarded theory of peace. Either way, it doesn't really change my #1 point about the Trade-Peace Theory seemingly being busted.
-------------
The point is that democracies do not go to war WITH OTHER DEMOCRACIES. That's the democracy peace theory, and so far it has held true.
Respectfully, since you affirm your convictions re: #2, my goal here is to get you to think critically about why "democratic" nations do not go to war with one another, and whether it may be helpful to consider theories of war which do not so transparently "take a side" in present-day geopolitics, and which can account for decades of warfare waged by democracies
If a "recipe for peace" permits its favored system of governance to war with rival systems for political and economic dominance, perhaps it's not really a comprehensive theory of war and peace
Perhaps it's more about justifying "democracy"
Sale and distribution of things is probably much milder in its variations, and the expenses seem like they'd be more strongly correlated with revenue.
(All of this is a speculative attempt at explaining the figures, not an authoritative source on strategy. Say I have a 70 % belief.)
