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A Floating Home For Tech Start-ups
JoeMerchant writes "Max Marty, founder of Blueseed, thinks immigration laws in the U.S. make it too difficult for entrepreneurs from other countries to come to the U.S. and develop new technologies. In order to solve this, he's trying to buy a large ship he can anchor off the coast of California, in international waters, which he can then turn into a start-up incubator, fostering a 'year-long hack-a-thon.' From the article: 'With a B-1 visa, visitors can freely travel to the United States for meetings, conferences, and even training seminars. B-1 visas are relatively easy to get, and can be valid for as long as 10 years. Blueseed plans to provide regular ferry service between the ship to the United States. While Blueseed residents would need to do their actual work—such as writing code—on the ship, Marty envisions them making regular trips to Silicon Valley to meet with clients, investors, and business partners. With the ship only 12 miles offshore, it should be practical to make a day trip to the mainland and return in the evening. A B-1 visa also permits overnight stays.'"
It sounds like this would be an irresistible target for someone with a boat or a plane packed with explosives. Sadly, that's the type of world we live in. You would need anti-aircraft turrets and security boat patrols. Actually, that sounds kind of cool.
Why would this be a more attractive target than say, Apple or Google headquarters? A truck (or even motorcycle) filled with explosives driving into the corporate cafeteria at lunchtime would do much more economic damage and garner much more news coverage than taking out some unknown up-and-coming startup executives on a ship. It would take more than a cessna filled with explosives to take out a sturdy oceangoing vessel. Likewise, a small boat filled with explosives will only take out a watertight compartment or two on the large ship, presumably on the less desirable lower decks where you won't find the high valued targets doing deals up on the lido deck.
If the terrorists could procure a torpedo, then they might have a chance at sinking the vessel.
Intel wasn't.
Andy Grove was born in Budapest
It sounds like someone read the last half of Snow Crash and thought that this was somehow a good idea. Either that, or the Wikipedia article on L. Ron Hubbard, and figured he could get a lot of underage girls that way.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Since they are hacking US immigration law, I can see the Coast Guard taking a dim view on rescuing such people.
My Coast Guard friends would take that as quite an insult. These people risk their lives to help others on a regular basis--they don't deserve to have such petty motives attributed to them.
I suspect the OP meant coding gulag, where you won't own anything you develop, essentially a code sweatshop.
Good luck getting off that boat for the promised visits to the US if the US authorities decide they don't like the
activities going on out there, or simply become suspicious of the place being uses a an industrial espionage platform
with all the trips back and forth to "conferences" etc.
Just because its 12 miles off shore doesn't put it outside of the US Economic Exclusion Zone, which covers far more than fisheries and oil production these days.
Then there is the maintenance issue. A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money. A big boat is a big hole.
It has to be maintained, generators must run, bilges must be pumped. Laundry, kitchens, telecoms. Its expensive.
A captain and crew must be onboard 24/7 in case of the emergency, storms, or whatever.
Since the developers are cooped up on board 24/7 you would be occasionally entertained, exercised as well. I can't see this being
a fun place to work. The possibility of abuse, is high, and who do you appeal to? How do you get paid?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The highly skilled people take jobs Americans want.
The uneducated immigrants, all media hyperbole aside, take jobs Americans don't.
Its as simple as that.
Why does the US have a system where illegal is the norm? It makes no sense! Naturalize them, bring them into the system, and have them pay their share of the taxes. Having so many people in this grey area is ridiculous.
Because slave labor kicks ass, that's why.
weinersmith