Those of you who know me are familiar with my constant wishes for my own country. I’m pretty talented at turning any of our problems into a discussion of running your own country as a solution, even if it doesn’t really apply. The biggest problem is and always will be money; it costs a lot to run your own country. I have many many ideas, but one of them was/is to create a fleet of boats and make them really nice on top. We could use hydrogen or wave power, run a desalinization plant, etc. A sister idea to that is to use our country as a data haven to generate income. Outside the jurisdiction of any other country and unlikely to ever become a ‘real’ country, you could make a fair amount of money thumbing your nose at international copyright law and the like. Or you could just be completely legit; not having to pay standard taxes might be enough reason for some people to move their stuff over.
So, one of my friends who has been well subjected to my speeches on the subject linked me this today: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4753389.ece Apparently google is doing exactly that — not making their own country, but putting data centers on boats in international waters. Apparently they have some patents going and have a good way to use wave power for both electricity and cooling, which is clever. With their billions of dollars, I’m hoping they work out the bugs in the system and make it easier for nobodies like us to take the idea and run (sail?) with it.
You should have… er… patented your idea xD