Hans Rosling clarifies world demographics

YouTube link.

I have featured Hans Rosling on a number of previous posts at TYWKIWDBI because I truly admire his style of presentation.  The best hours of my academic life were spent behind or beside the podium in front of an classroom full of students, so I'm supersensitive to the nuances of lecturing.  This guy has all the skills.  He is recognized as a wizard at portraying otherwise-dry statistics in comprehensible visual forms (see his superb TED talk on the developing world).  In addition his stage presence is captivating, and his use of English (as a second language) is excellent.

I'm not blogging today, but I wanted to put this up for you.  I know everyone's life these days is one continuous TL;DR, but take my word for it, if you are interested in the world beyond your doorstep, this video is worth 15 minutes of your time.  Or at least the first five, and then see if you can stop.

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The seacoast of Bolivia

You learn something every day.  Bolivia used to have a seacoast.  That territory was lost in the War of the Pacific (1879-83):

"... fought in western South America, between Chile and allied Bolivia and Peru in a variety of terrain, including the Pacific Ocean, Atacama Desert and Peru's deserts and mountainous regions in the Andes... Chile acquired the Peruvian territory of Tarapacá, the disputed Bolivian department of Litoral (cutting Bolivia off from the sea), as well as temporary control over the Peruvian provinces of Tacna and Arica."

Modern-day Bolivians still want to reclaim that land.

For more than a century, Bolivia has done a lot of magical thinking to support its claim that this condition is only temporary. The country has a star for El Litoral (The Shore) on its coat of arms, and it hosts a yearly pageant to choose a beauty queen for the former territory. Chile, for its part, hasn’t budged.

Map credit.

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"Stan" explained

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

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Pocket globes

Sotheby's currently has auctions for several beautiful pocket globes from the 1790s and early 1800s. If you have a few grand lying around, one of these 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch beauties could be yours. Globemaking required the precise printing and placing of each gore, or strip of printed material shaped like the rind surface of a lemon wedge. In the miniature globe above, each gore represented thirty degrees of longitude and were hand-colored. The outer case was notched to hold a metal pin running through each pole for easier spinning.

Image and text from BoingBoing, where there is a link to the Sotheby's auction.

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"Doubly-landlocked"

There are two nations in the world that are "doubly-landlocked," meaning that they have no seacoast and all the countries that surround them have no seacoast.

One of these two countries is Uzbekistan, for whom the United States has purchased an armored patrol boat for it to use to patrol its rivers.

The other doubly-landlocked country is identified at the Neatorama source (hint: it's not in Asia).  Can you identify it wihout looking?

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