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

31–40 of 59 posts

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

#31

Post by Uberphallus »

aasasd wrote: post #23

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,…

> Spain has several, maybe even a dozen or something, local currencies. All being traded just fine in their communities.

I've lived in Spain for decades, never heard of such thing. Depending how you count you could argue there are a dozen spoken languages, but currencies? That requires a big citation.

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

#32

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

The 1.5 million beer bottles sounded like a gross exaggeration, but with 14 ships, over 8 years, that's about 34 bottles per day per ship, which makes it seem potentially plausible for a bunch of very bored sailors, depending on how big the skeleton crews were.

I like that apparently some form of agreement was reached to keep them well supplied.

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

#34

Post by JNRowe »

Uberphallus wrote: post #31
aasasd wrote: post #23

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,…

> Spain has several, maybe even a dozen or something, local currencies. All being traded just fine in their communities. I've lived in Spain for decades, never heard of such thing. Depending how you count you could argue there are a dozen spoken languages, but currencies? That requires a big citation.

Not GP, but I presume they're talking about alternative currencies¹. Things like the Ehki in Bilbao or Eusko across the border in Basque France. I'm picking those two on purpose because they make a point about it sometimes simply being about regional politics and not generic fiscal localism².

Depending on how you draw the line you could, for example, include the Barcelona Rec³ too. I think I draw the line at physical notes, but YMMV.

Edit to add: Looks like the ehki is digital only now.

¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency

² https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_localism

³ https://ca.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurs_Econòmic_Ciutadà

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

#36

Post by alphachloride »

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.

Vertically when you look at it on a map, where north is facing up.

But we both knew that.

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

#37

Post by pjmlp »

ceejayoz wrote: post #22
pjmlp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but still they would need to socielize during those weeks.

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

#39

Post by jandrese »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #4

Surprisingly interesting read, I had never heard of this. After 8 years - only the German ships where able to make it out under their own steam!

The US ship might have been able to steam out had it not been sunk by an errant missile from the neighboring war.

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

#40

Post by uoaei »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #32

The 1.5 million beer bottles sounded like a gross exaggeration, but with 14 ships, over 8 years, that's about 34 bottles per day per ship, which makes it seem potentially plausible for a bunch of very bored sailors, depending on how big the skeleton crews were. I like that apparently some form of agreement was reached to keep them well supplied.

I would imagine a surrogate market has been made using beer as a form of payment or currency.
Post reply on HN