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It seems ships have had a decent tracking system in place for a while now. See https://www.marinetraffic.com/ .. many update every 2 minutes.
With planes I could track almost real-time a relative's long-haul flight. So something already exists for aircraft too. The change here must therefore be that the ping is wired-in mandatory and not subject to a pilot flipping the switch to off.

Here's the ship version.

It is one of the most heavily trafficked stretches of ocean in the world
https://www.marinetraffic.com/...

Actually it is not. The place is close to empty to those areas that really have dense shipping routes. At the moment of me writing this, there are just a few dozen ships. Of course you have to zoom into the area manually. Compare it with the Mediterranean Sea or West Africa or the street of Malacca.

Therein lies the problem. No one will work together as long as it is beneficial to offload costs to the commons for their own selfish interests and economic advantage. Those countries that do work together to clean up their act will be outstripped by cheap energy/polluting countries.

When you get right down to it the main problems are globalization and population. That you can "make" goods cheaper on the other side of the world and ship them to the opposite side of the planet "cheaply" completely ignores the environmental cost of all of the vessels used to provide that logistical train, fuel it, support it, etc.. Furthermore, that goods need to be shipped in to support the population of a certain area just means there are too many people in that area.

A globally competitive market destroys the world. Take a look at this map: https://www.marinetraffic.com/...

Zoom out if necessary, and really look at that shit. Its fucking nuts. It can't be sustainable.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if any other species in the history of this planet achieved "intelligence" similar to humans they realized their threat to the existence of life on the planet and quickly re-engineered themselves back into a state of balance with nature, self-consciousness ejected from the corpus like a possessing demon.

Okay, that was mildly amusing... but I literally LOLed at this. ;) See it on a live map here.

Different ship. The ship stuck in Montreal is the USS Little Rock. There's a visual of ice conditions at http://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-... -- clearly not moving for a while. Its current status is at http://www.marinetraffic.com/e...

While there are worse places to be stuck than Montreal, but one wonders if the ship was properly designed and provisioned to winter-over comfortably in Montreal's sub-arctic Winter. There's a picture at https://i.cbc.ca/1.4501115.151...

The article clearly states that it is the GPS position that is being tampered with. AIS is the means by which the positions are reported, it is not the system for determining positions. These ships are reporting bad positions that they are getting from their GPS systems. The ship captains seem to be aware that their GPS positions are incorrect. As I type this the ship KAREEM JUNIOR is reporting that it is sitting on land at the Gelendzhik airport ( https://www.marinetraffic.com/... ). Before it jumped onto land it's reported path zig-zagged at sea off the Russian port of Tuapse. The link I provided will show any other ships that find themselves reporting positions at the Gelendzhik airport in the future.

Yeah, I monitor AIS to help decide where to take my boat fishing (track where the charter sportfishing boats are going). It's fairly common to see glitches in AIS tracks. Ships traveling at warp speed are pretty frequent too. My guess is AIS glitches and reports the same GPS position for a while (as if the ship is stationary). Then all of a sudden it reports the correct location and it looks like the ship has traveled at high speed to the new location.

GPS only tells me where I am, and nothing else (of course it calculates heading and speed from repeated positions), in particular it does not tell me anything about other traffic.

Right, - then there is this https://www.marinetraffic.com/...

This whole GPS versus Loran business is for some facacta reason, is presented in range war fashion, yet what Loran does is give us land based location that is one way. It's a fine adjunct to GPS and last resort sextant use.

But the concept that so many have fallen into (not you, as this is a general observation) is that if we lose GPS, that Loran will be one of "the old ways are the best ways, and get off my lawn while you are at it" memes. Not even remotely. It is one way, and doesn't allow for the sort of tracking that is a big help for coordination. It allows the ships to figure out where they are. A tracking system. It could possibly be built into a Loran system, but it doesn't have the universality that GPS does.

Then there are the loran stations. Right by the ocean because that's where they are used, and I can verify that the towers are very tall. and very tough. That salt air makes for a real maintenance headache. They are a strategic target as well.

It's no panacea, and if GPS is lost, won't do half the useful stuff. But all that being said, Loran is a good tool in the toolbox.

>Probably has more to do with international trade being halted since December

You know international trade is not halted, yet you said it anyway. That makes you a liar.

LOLZ, as of this moment there is less than 10 cargo ships operating on the entire planet, the rest are moored. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences, and they are already here. How about them train profits last month huh? No biggy on those 100 wally worlds shut down this week either huh? Your lack of perception does not make me a liar, just makes you fit right in on the bus load of retards.

http://www.snopes.com/cargo-sh...

You should take the pills the psychiatrist prescribes.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

You should probably get rid of those rose colored glasses.

Read the Snopes article to which I linked which explains how that website only shows coastal traffic and so it doesn't give any information on shipping out at sea.

Our family business has been importing goods from Europe without interruption. We had a shipment arrive from Ireland yesterday. You are not showing good judgement in what and who you believe.

I take into account a lot of factors and read between the lines as we all know that media sources are doing a lot of BS'ing, profit loss in the train based shipping industry over the last month does appear to support cargo shipping has a serious problem that ultimately reflects on health of the world economy and there have been interviews with people in that industry that capitulate truth to the fact international shipping has fallen just short of halted as they would have to operate at a loss, oil industry has also taken notice and stopped gouging as much but at $20 a barrel the cost of fuel should be lower than it is, Wal-Marts in the hundreds closing is not a good sign at all either. Federal reserve closure of the NYC location and moved over to Chicago could likely be to cut costs to continue to present the illusion of a healthy economy by buying up stock when the NYSE/NASDAC starts to tank. Doctored figures on the actual unemployment rates. Pretty sure by the looks of the over all picture will be shown in the trucking industry next. Being that there is federal law that dictates the money in your account that is in the bank belongs to them in the event of a financial meltdown of the banking industry (again), the money belongs to the bank. Based upon what we saw in Greece, knowing there really isn't anywhere for the federal reserve system to kick the can this time, I myself would not trust the banks with the money. Sure, even the president stated that those who have stated the economy is in bad shape are full of it, but how often have you seen the government be honest about pretty much any situation days. There is too much real data to reference publicly available to support that the president is one that is full of it. It is also understood that it is an election year and the economy does experience an element of uncertainty during this process but this appears to be a bit more than just an element.

You've gone off the deep end. Start swimming the other way.

Can't float the economy on smoke and mirrors, that bottom line thing always gets in the way. The mind control doesn't seem to have any effect on it when the people are financially sunk, the banksters already ran with the gold and stuck us all with a big fat dinner check to the tune of about 20 trillion playing on the paper. But you know what? I'll leave you to your fantasy smoking Rockefeller's and Rothschild's Khazarian mafia sausage, you seem to be quite content with it, go make a big deposit.

>Probably has more to do with international trade being halted since December

You know international trade is not halted, yet you said it anyway. That makes you a liar.

LOLZ, as of this moment there is less than 10 cargo ships operating on the entire planet, the rest are moored. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences, and they are already here. How about them train profits last month huh? No biggy on those 100 wally worlds shut down this week either huh? Your lack of perception does not make me a liar, just makes you fit right in on the bus load of retards.

http://www.snopes.com/cargo-sh...

You should take the pills the psychiatrist prescribes.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

You should probably get rid of those rose colored glasses.

Read the Snopes article to which I linked which explains how that website only shows coastal traffic and so it doesn't give any information on shipping out at sea.

Our family business has been importing goods from Europe without interruption. We had a shipment arrive from Ireland yesterday. You are not showing good judgement in what and who you believe.

I take into account a lot of factors and read between the lines as we all know that media sources are doing a lot of BS'ing, profit loss in the train based shipping industry over the last month does appear to support cargo shipping has a serious problem that ultimately reflects on health of the world economy and there have been interviews with people in that industry that capitulate truth to the fact international shipping has fallen just short of halted as they would have to operate at a loss, oil industry has also taken notice and stopped gouging as much but at $20 a barrel the cost of fuel should be lower than it is, Wal-Marts in the hundreds closing is not a good sign at all either. Federal reserve closure of the NYC location and moved over to Chicago could likely be to cut costs to continue to present the illusion of a healthy economy by buying up stock when the NYSE/NASDAC starts to tank. Doctored figures on the actual unemployment rates. Pretty sure by the looks of the over all picture will be shown in the trucking industry next. Being that there is federal law that dictates the money in your account that is in the bank belongs to them in the event of a financial meltdown of the banking industry (again), the money belongs to the bank. Based upon what we saw in Greece, knowing there really isn't anywhere for the federal reserve system to kick the can this time, I myself would not trust the banks with the money. Sure, even the president stated that those who have stated the economy is in bad shape are full of it, but how often have you seen the government be honest about pretty much any situation days. There is too much real data to reference publicly available to support that the president is one that is full of it. It is also understood that it is an election year and the economy does experience an element of uncertainty during this process but this appears to be a bit more than just an element.

You've gone off the deep end. Start swimming the other way.

>Probably has more to do with international trade being halted since December

You know international trade is not halted, yet you said it anyway. That makes you a liar.

LOLZ, as of this moment there is less than 10 cargo ships operating on the entire planet, the rest are moored. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences, and they are already here. How about them train profits last month huh? No biggy on those 100 wally worlds shut down this week either huh? Your lack of perception does not make me a liar, just makes you fit right in on the bus load of retards.

http://www.snopes.com/cargo-sh...

You should take the pills the psychiatrist prescribes.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

You should probably get rid of those rose colored glasses.

Read the Snopes article to which I linked which explains how that website only shows coastal traffic and so it doesn't give any information on shipping out at sea.

Our family business has been importing goods from Europe without interruption. We had a shipment arrive from Ireland yesterday. You are not showing good judgement in what and who you believe.

I take into account a lot of factors and read between the lines as we all know that media sources are doing a lot of BS'ing, profit loss in the train based shipping industry over the last month does appear to support cargo shipping has a serious problem that ultimately reflects on health of the world economy and there have been interviews with people in that industry that capitulate truth to the fact international shipping has fallen just short of halted as they would have to operate at a loss, oil industry has also taken notice and stopped gouging as much but at $20 a barrel the cost of fuel should be lower than it is, Wal-Marts in the hundreds closing is not a good sign at all either. Federal reserve closure of the NYC location and moved over to Chicago could likely be to cut costs to continue to present the illusion of a healthy economy by buying up stock when the NYSE/NASDAC starts to tank. Doctored figures on the actual unemployment rates. Pretty sure by the looks of the over all picture will be shown in the trucking industry next. Being that there is federal law that dictates the money in your account that is in the bank belongs to them in the event of a financial meltdown of the banking industry (again), the money belongs to the bank. Based upon what we saw in Greece, knowing there really isn't anywhere for the federal reserve system to kick the can this time, I myself would not trust the banks with the money. Sure, even the president stated that those who have stated the economy is in bad shape are full of it, but how often have you seen the government be honest about pretty much any situation days. There is too much real data to reference publicly available to support that the president is one that is full of it. It is also understood that it is an election year and the economy does experience an element of uncertainty during this process but this appears to be a bit more than just an element.

>Probably has more to do with international trade being halted since December

You know international trade is not halted, yet you said it anyway. That makes you a liar.

LOLZ, as of this moment there is less than 10 cargo ships operating on the entire planet, the rest are moored. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences, and they are already here. How about them train profits last month huh? No biggy on those 100 wally worlds shut down this week either huh? Your lack of perception does not make me a liar, just makes you fit right in on the bus load of retards.

http://www.snopes.com/cargo-sh...

You should take the pills the psychiatrist prescribes.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

You should probably get rid of those rose colored glasses.

Read the Snopes article to which I linked which explains how that website only shows coastal traffic and so it doesn't give any information on shipping out at sea.

Our family business has been importing goods from Europe without interruption. We had a shipment arrive from Ireland yesterday. You are not showing good judgement in what and who you believe.
 

>Probably has more to do with international trade being halted since December

You know international trade is not halted, yet you said it anyway. That makes you a liar.

LOLZ, as of this moment there is less than 10 cargo ships operating on the entire planet, the rest are moored. You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences, and they are already here. How about them train profits last month huh? No biggy on those 100 wally worlds shut down this week either huh? Your lack of perception does not make me a liar, just makes you fit right in on the bus load of retards.

http://www.snopes.com/cargo-sh...

You should take the pills the psychiatrist prescribes.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

You should probably get rid of those rose colored glasses.

Large ships also are required to carry transponders which report to a public real-time database:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/e...

really pisses off the treasure hunters, but if a large fishing vessel were tracked into a reserve, or had its transponder go silent long enough for it to be in a reserve area, that could merit further investigation, fines, imprisonment of the captain, flogging of the crew (in Singapore), etc.

This one, I presume: https://www.marinetraffic.com/...

Nothing wrong with a little tidal power but just looking at the geography it will never be a significant source of power.

Another problem is the cost. The prices listed in the summary are very expensive electricity ... and those are the lowball figures used to get the project approved, not the "real" numbers. Offshore wind would be cheaper, and have far less environmental impact.

As an traditional power plant engineer, offshore wind costs seem staggeringly high to me. A 90m (300ft) tall tower in the middle of the ocean supporting a nacelle that weighs about 520 metric tons (1.15 million pounds) doesn't come cheap. Have you seen rate sheets for the cranes that are needed to assemble these turbines? On land, they average in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per day.

At sea, with the need for a large vessel and all the crew that a large vessel requires to keep it operating, the cost is staggering. I spent a couple weeks aboard the Tolteca, a Mexican heavy-lift ship with a 2000 ton crane and a crew of about 250. Even using labor from the developing world, the costs are astronomical. We invoiced them millions of dollars of work and they didn't even blink. An offshore supply boat rents out (in good oil-boom times, maybe not right now) for hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. A heavy crane ship is probably in the millions per day. That's just for erecting the wind turbine, which is probably at least a 24 hour lift. You also need specialized vessels to lay high voltage cable across the sea floor. Adding "marine" or "offshore" to the name of anything is an excellent way to multiply the cost by at least 3.

If I published a "how to" guide to real Somali-style piracy, with handy links to the latest ship locations, wouldn't this be considered a crime?

You mean like this?

enough space to transport 864 million bananas I'm so happy to see we have finally converted to the banana scale. I've been waiting for this since horsepower was invented!

Maybe someone thought they were being clever, but in reality they are just very ignorant. Bananas are almost always transported by vertically-integrated companies who own their own ships. It's like this because generally Bananas are coming from a port which has little to ship aside from bananas, and the bananas generally go to a small number of special ripening warehouses where they ripen for a while. They're a kind of special cargo, not a general cargo to be put on any container ship. Just as an example, Dole owns at least 6 ships. Chiquita and the other banana companies almost always have their own ships too.

... Aurora Australis hasn't been reporting its location since Christmas day.

The latest reported location for that vessel was recorded at 2013-12-25 07:33:00 (UTC), while it was at the latitude/longitude of: -65.78115 / 109.8082, with speed and course of 13.8 kn / 4Â, according to http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:109.8082/centery:-65.78115/zoom:8/oldmmsi:503043000/olddate:lastknown

If you want to follow them live on the map, go to marinetraffic.com and type in "sputnik" as vessel. It should appear as "Sputnik" [DK] Cargo.

PS: The launch is dependent on local weather conditions, but they hope to make an attempt on Friday. In the mean time, they're based in the port of Nexø on the island of Bornholm (dubbed "Spaceport Nexø" or SPN by the crew).

All of the world's marine traffic in real-time is already on Google... (ok, its basically just overlayed AIS data, but still its effing cool ! just try to find an application that is cooler! or is it wetter?)

Doesn't that make it a bit easy for pirates?

I predict they will cruise around the world taking photos of every harbour, ship and shoreline.

I also predict they will get into trouble for doing that.

All of the world's marine traffic in real-time is already on Google... (ok, its basically just overlayed AIS data, but still its effing cool ! just try to find an application that is cooler! or is it wetter?)

Here's the map of existing coverage. The continental US, Europe, and Japan, have full coastal coverage. The port coasts of China and Australia are covered. Beyond that, not so much.

This isn't a safety system. It's for traffic and port management. Vessels show up in the system around the time when ports need to start thinking about where to put them.

There are several websites that show at least coastal traffic of all AIS equipped vessels. I like http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/

As noted later in the same wikipedia entry The SS Condoleeza Rice was renamed the Altair Voyager. It's currently headed for Brisbane, it seems.