‘ engineering science ’ usually means a gadget — but really , it ’s any technical design that resolve problems and improves living . Often , the most important technical school is the one you take completely for grant . Likeshipping containers , which are explored in a Holy Scripture call The Box , which is one of the most enchanting affair I ’ve understand in long time .
https://gizmodo.com/the-simple-metal-mechanism-that-changed-the-global-econ-1530878459
The Box : How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger , by Marc Levinson , is a concise history of a 40 - by-8 steel corner that completely interchange the world . I know what you ’re thinking : a history of transportation containers sounds exactly like the kind of shitty schoolbook that made you fail tier 12 story . But candidly , it ’s a mesmerizing read .
The story starts back in the fifties , when longshoremen offload the bellies of payload ship particular by item , theft was rampant , and ship stayed in ports for hebdomad on end . A windy executive had the ( true not new ) idea of lading that freight into boxes , and then using gravy holder , truck and trains to shuttle that cargo around the globe . Within decade , grand of people were out of Book of Job , and the sizing of cargo ships was measured in football game fields rather than meters .
But the history of the cargo ships container is so much more than a simple change in car-mechanic . Without trying to explicate in contingent ( because that ’s what the book is for ) , containers mould cities — it grew those that embraced it , and destroyed ports that were unable to unwilling to handle containerization . It reduce longshoremen , once the most powerful labor union , to a historical curiosity , and most importantly , lour the cost of shipping to the point where importing extraneous goods is a necessity , not a sumptuousness . As author Levinson writes :
” It was not routine for shoppers to find Brazilian shoe and Mexican vacuum cleaners in store in the centre of Kansas . Nipponese kinfolk did not eat beef from cattle in Wyoming , and Gallic habiliment room decorator did not have their exclusive clothes track and sewn in Turkey and Vietnam . ”
One of the most thrown - around buzzword these days is disruptive — a technology that takes an established industry , and turns it on its head . It ’s the watchword of Silicon Valley — heck , there ’s a whole conferencenamed Disrupt — but if you really desire to read how a applied science disrupts , how one round-eyed innovation can have ramifications way beyond anything you could imagine , The Box is a middling fantastical place to start .
Image : Suhaimi Abdullah
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