Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

99percentinvisible.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 59 posts

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#21

Post by jdwithit »

Sebb767 wrote: post #17
nanna wrote: post #5

Surely someone will make a movie or a series out of this in the future. For posterity, how long will that take? I'll start the bidding at ten years.

What would you do as a plot? The pilot episode with the start of the war would surely be interesting, but the wait+party time of the next 8 years would probably not make for a good plot. Except if you'd want to make a party movie, but that would probably go against the spirit of the GBLA.

There's certainly been successful films made around much less. Hell, Castaway is basically 3 hours of Tom Hanks talking to a coconut and it grossed over $400 million.

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#22

Post by ceejayoz »

pjmlp wrote: post #20
mckirk wrote: post #2

I was fully expecting this to be about a micronation founded by the crews of the stranded freighters last week. Wouldn't have been the strangest thing to happen recently.

Me too, it would be bound to happen if they would start to be stuck longer that they did.

Without a second ship at the other end to trap people in, no one was gonna be stuck more than a couple weeks; they'd all eventually decide to unload at a port or go around Africa.

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#23

Post by aasasd »

IIRC Sealand sells post cards, as part of its general merchandise thing (along with nobility titles). Not sure about stamps though.

Another quasi-governmental curio is that, again IIRC, Spain has several, maybe even a dozen or something, local currencies. All being traded just fine in their communities. (I think the US also has or had at least a couple, though those were essentially just checks of some co-op banks, and thus nothing new in the country.)

Also I remember reading about a currency established by a gang that controlled a part of a city—and which currency ended up being used more actively in the city than the country's currency, because it was more stable. Don't recall where it was: possibly northern Africa, maybe Ethiopia or Eritrea.

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#25

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mckirk wrote: post #2

I was fully expecting this to be about a micronation founded by the crews of the stranded freighters last week. Wouldn't have been the strangest thing to happen recently.

I did see a few ships that were attached to each other; would not be surprised if the crews had a get-together on there. I mean they would all have been quarantined for weeks already (broadly speaking), so low chance of getting the 'rona.

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#26

Post by Cthulhu_ »

boringg wrote: post #24

Didn't know what I was clicking on here... totally worth it. Great little piece of history. I love this kind of weird ripple effect that happens in the world.

Same, I don't have an interest in stamp collection in general, but owning a formal memorabilium from something like this is great.

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#27

Post by mckirk »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #25
mckirk wrote: post #2

I was fully expecting this to be about a micronation founded by the crews of the stranded freighters last week. Wouldn't have been the strangest thing to happen recently.

I did see a few ships that were attached to each other; would not be surprised if the crews had a get-together on there. I mean they would all have been quarantined for weeks already (broadly speaking), so low chance of getting the 'rona.

I had seen one comment on here suggesting we fly over there and start a Burning Man Middle East[1].

> Days of partying in the desert, opening random containers, driving little excavators.

Oh what could have been...

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590033

Re: Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in the Suez Canal

#29

Post by Cerium »

lmilcin wrote: post #28

> It runs vertically between Egypt and the rest of the Middle East (...) Pretty sure it runs horizontally. Vertical channel would be called waterfall.

The Panama canal has some vertical portions, but the Suez has none.
Post reply on HN