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Why is Chile so long?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

211–220 of 468 posts

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#212
post #200

My key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. That’s a neat collection of graphics. I’m curious how bespoke the creation process is for each graphic or if this is something everyone just does in ArcGis or similar. That last graphic about the Western US being the o…

Not really, that would probably be the north of Chile on the Atacama desert, there's a reason why the Extremely Large Telescope, Giant Magellan Telescope and Vera C. Rubin are being built there.

Can confirm, was there in 2001. The clarity of the air owing to lack of moisture and no light pollution means you get amazing views of the milky way.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This author wrote a number of pretty influential essays during the early pandemic advocating for mask use, social distancing, and other mitigations. He's a trained educator, so the effectiveness of communication is definitely no accident: https://fortune.com/2020/08/10/the-overnight-coronavirus-exp...

My gf is a trained educator too with two masters somehow related to education. She teaches 8th grade English but has also taught highschool. She can't write or communicate at any level beyond typical hairdresser. Considering it's very hard to fail out of most upper level education unless you simply don't do the work at all, we really should stop giving people so much credit for just getting degrees. It's what you do…

Okay, fair. Some people are naturally gifted at these things, and others acquire the skills through extensive work in a non-academic context. I've been told I'm a pretty effective communicator/storyteller, and I certainly never studied it formally.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#214
post #15

One of the most interesting drives in my life was Chile from the island of Chiloe to the Tatio Geysers in the Atacama. Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity. Chiloe and Puerto Montt were damp, cold, and fog-shrouded in Summer (Jan-Feb), very similar to parts of the coastal pacific northwest. The area to its north, centered around the German-influenced town of Valdivia, was Califo…

The Atacama Desert is exceptional, the absolutely best solar energy resource on the planet.

Best place to build lithium batteries _and_ charge them!

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#216
post #68

One of the most interesting drives in my life was Chile from the island of Chiloe to the Tatio Geysers in the Atacama. Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity. Chiloe and Puerto Montt were damp, cold, and fog-shrouded in Summer (Jan-Feb), very similar to parts of the coastal pacific northwest. The area to its north, centered around the German-influenced town of Valdivia, was Califo…

I travelled to Chile earlier this year and visited Atacama and Torres de Paine. The thing that boggled my mind was that you can't drive between the two without a very long detour through Argentina. Chile has literally no road linking the northern part with the southernmost part without going outside the country. It is also mind boggling that rail is not more popular there. A long, slim country is ideal for high speed…

Looking at the map of southern Chile, it's pretty obvious why this is so. It's just immense mountains and fjords. Building a road across that terrain would be a major challenge, requiring many bridges capable of surviving harsh conditions. All to deserve a minuscule population? Chile isn't Norway...

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#217
post #34

My key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. That’s a neat collection of graphics. I’m curious how bespoke the creation process is for each graphic or if this is something everyone just does in ArcGis or similar. That last graphic about the Western US being the o…

I've been to many places around the world from the Amazon rainforest to the Atacama Desert in Chile to right around Africa. Without a shadow of a doubt, the interior of Australia is STAGGERINGLY the best for stargazing. It's not even close. This was a single 8 second exposure. [1] and I'm not a great photographer. The milky way was so bright it kept me awake in my tent. [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/CersLuLBfCz/

Can't see the pictures due to login required :-(

I've been on a dark ship in the middle of the ocean and that was pretty good for stargazing, though I guess Australia might be a tiny bit better due to less reflective surface (compared to the ocean)?

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It's way easier to take a boat to the middle of the ocean - fewer roads than even in the amazon :) and the best starry sky of my life

This is a dream of mine, to soend the night far away from land that there's nothing around but water. Did you already have sea experience, or did you just rent a boat and gave it a try?

>> just rent a boat and gave it a try?

As someone who once worked tangentially in search and rescue, please do not even consider this. The ocean is a serious thing, doubly so at night. Unless you are renting a boat large enough to come with its own staff, please do not just head over the horizon simply to see the stars. And fyi, the stars at sea move as the boat you stand on moves. They are brighter, but also more blurry.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#220

My key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. That’s a neat collection of graphics. I’m curious how bespoke the creation process is for each graphic or if this is something everyone just does in ArcGis or similar. That last graphic about the Western US being the o…

The most amazing sky I’ve ever seen was when I arrived in Urubichá in Guarayos region of Bolivia in 1998 before the electricity arrived in the area. I traveled by bus to visit my friend’s childhood home. The bus only went to the big city an hour away so I road in the back of a jeep the rest of the way, at night. I remember vividly not understanding what this super-bright light was in the sky. I know now it was either Venus or Jupiter, but it looked artificial because it was so much brighter than I was used to seeing.
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