A nice theory, but ultimately from a novel about something completely different than poverty. It feels today like expensive things are also garbage and that paying more for something does little to ensure its longevity.
Just because patches are available does not mean that they have been applied. Legacy applications, specialized hardware, vendor shenanigans, and organizational inertia can be significant impediments to keeping operating systems at current runlevels.
Not unique to the cruise industry. Filipino crews make up a lot of the maritime industry's labor force. Container ships, tankers, offshore drilling, you name it. Some of the best food I've eaten offshore was on vessels with Filipino catering crews.
The cruise ship guys, comparatively, have it good. There are innumerable stories of entire freighter crews being marooned in third world ports by shipowners who didn't want to pay them.
The global shipping industry is, unfortunately, a race to the bottom. Every time that John McCain proposes the repeal of the Jones Act, I cringe with the thought of what it would do to what's left of the American merchant marine.
todo.txt and its accompanying structure [0] / rigor are a good starting point. Keeping the thing in a place that syncs across multiple platforms is an exercise for the reader.
