HN Explorer

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wyclif
Very cool, short video. This guy has the right idea, esp. since the housing market is collapsing and lending is going to get really tight, not to mention the low environmental footprint of this "island."

One thing I wish they had asked him, though. What happens when the bottles/nets begin to deteriorate? (Does he replace bottles on a revolving basis?)

chandler
The logical solution would be to have a depth marker of some kind, and to simply add new sacks of bottles whenever it drops below some value (regardless of the cause of the drop).
eru
Yes, and to be environment friendly you should also clean up stray bottles.
chandler
If bottle failures are contained within the sacks this shouldn't be necessary. If bottle failures aren't contained within the sacks...well, good luck.
eru
Add a GPS receiver to each bottle.

Ok, you have to wait at least a few years until the receivers have become cheap enough to make this worthwile. Perhaps RFID will be there faster. Perhaps bottles will even come with RFID chips from the factory.

whatusername
The sacks are fishing nets... Degraded plastic would probably slip through. Popped bottles should be contained though.
jaycee
Plastics degrade into smaller plastic particles. Assuming the land mass above them is sufficiently rough to entangle rising particles, the degraded material would still provide buoyancy, and simply contribute to the underlayer of the island.
stupiduser
Plastic is heavier than water; are you suggesting that plastic bottles degrade into smaller plastic bottles?
Tichy
That would be so cute!!!
hugh
Ah, so that's why those homeless people keep stealing bottles out of my trash.
maxklein
Where does he have the money to do this from? It must be quite expensive. Does he work in insurance or something, and this is his hobby?
dkokelley
The video says he moved to Mexico and started collecting bottles for cash. I imagine that at first he wanted a super-simple lifestyle and then decided that this would make a great hobby.

I don't think he has much money but he has a lot of time and the skills (he was a carpenter) to make it happen.

xccx
I met this guy Richie in Tulum in 2005, just after hurricane Gilberto tore up his first island. He plays guitar. His plan to rebuild his island was to charge admission. I imagine that's how he's paying for it, but he started by hand. From the video, sounds like the Mexican government wants a piece of the tourism action, so sounds like Richie wants to teach his island to travel.
dkokelley
What I want to know is this:

What kind of internet speeds does he get on his island?