Another interesting fact about Chile is: no compass is needed. The mountains show where the East is. If the East is to your right you are facing North, otherwise you are facing South.
Why is Chile so long?
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Re: Why is Chile so long?
#22Is there a name for this simple style of writing? It reminds me of the style of pop science books written in the late 19th and early 20th century. There's a nice charm in it, like it's trying not to be pretentiously complex.
I read it before on Twitter, it’s probably adapted to fit into the 280-character limit.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I repented. Publicly, to be an example.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#24The article mentions it, but I only learned recently that Bolivia did not used to be landlocked. Chile took Bolivia's coastline somewhat recently (late 1800s/early 1900s). > The dispute began in 1879, when Chile invaded the Antofagasta port city on its northern border with Bolivia as part of a dispute over taxes. Within four years Chileans had redrawn the map of South America by taking almost 50,000 square miles of B…
Disclaimer: I live in Chile, but not a Chilean national(nor of similar ethnicity), and certainly not a historian.
The dispute is seen differently in Chile and is not as simplistic as Chile invading a port. In general i've gotten the sense that the general populace believes that Bolivia(with its secret alliance with Peru) had other intentions.
>In February 1878, Bolivia increased taxes on the Chilean mining company Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta [es] (CSFA), in violation of the Boundary Treaty of 1874 which established the border between both countries and prohibited tax increases for mining. Chile protested the violation of the treaty and requested international arbitration, but the Bolivian government, presided by Hilarión Daza, considered this an internal issue subject to the jurisdiction of the Bolivian courts. Chile insisted that the breach of the treaty would mean that the territorial borders denoted in it were no longer settled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pacific
>Ill-defined borders and oppressive measures allegedly taken against the Chilean migrant population in these territories furnished Chile with a pretext for invasion.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Chile/The-War-of-the-Pacifi...
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#25When I went to Chile I was about to undertake a cross-country move across the US. Everybody I spoke to in Santiago couldn't imagine a country where you can drive a massive distance like that and move from one major metropolis to another. At the time, I thought they were just reflecting on the fact that Chile is a country where 40% of all people live in one metro area, so there isn't another huge metro area to move to.
Looking at those maps, I understand their incredulity. Because of the shape of Chile, you can drive a similar distance and basically cover the entire country, rural, urban, and suburban. It's both a large country and a small one at the same time.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#26Originally posted on X: https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1807380049605091537
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#27This site owner is living the small-web fantasy we HN'rs keep talking about.
There are lots of substack sites like this. Probably the new blogspot. The newsletter modal is because that's a choose piece of substack.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I repented. Publicly, to be an example.
Everyone who doesn't post these is already a public example.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#29Another interesting fact about Chile is: no compass is needed. The mountains show where the East is. If the East is to your right you are facing North, otherwise you are facing South.
I had a similar feel driving through Croatia, although not as extreme: If you don't hit the sea or a border crossing, you are going in the right direction! (With a tau/2 ambiguity you can resolve using the sun)
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#30The Atacama Desert is so dry NASA uses it to stimulate Mars.
Wikipedia also lists five (!) observatories (one under construction, to be home to the Extremely Large Telescope), including the Very Large Telescope (built), ALMA (built), and others.[1]
It's basically as close as you can get to space while being on the ground on Earth.
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#Astronomical_observatories