One thing I often ask myself in these situations:
What do the inhabitants on these islands actually do?
There are 259 of them in this case.
Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import? Do they live off the cruise ships they supply? And do people generally stay there or do young people generally move to mainland?
Edit: For economy, it looks like they live off exporting langustas.
connorgurney 3 hours ago [-]
I think this is one of the few things as late that makes me feel genuinely proud to be British, because, beneath the hostility that feels so rife across our country recently, we’ve so many good people making things like this happen. Bravo.
walthamstow 1 hours ago [-]
The hostility is rife across social media. I don't see much of it day to day.
andrepd 1 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately, for a few years now, social media is real life...
tomjen3 3 hours ago [-]
It certainly involved a lot of skill and expense, but how many more lives could be saved if the same money had been spent on improved traffic safety or NHS in general?
argsnd 3 hours ago [-]
Probably not that many. You underestimate how expensive either of those things are.
We have obligations to provide services like this to the people living in our overseas territories, and you won’t find many people who’ll oppose that.
Arnt 1 hours ago [-]
This is a classic. It occurs in two forms:
Wow, logistics to <remote place> are very expensive! We could spend that money better in the cities!
Wow, logistics in <city> is expensive! We could spend that money better in rural areas!
I read about a new road tunnel in London last year, a ten-digit price tag for about 1km of road IIRC. I'm 100% sure some people suggested that that money could have been better spent in rural areas.
petterroea 14 minutes ago [-]
It's a small price to pay to keep political control. Probably not the entire motivation here, but generally countries like keeping their remote islands and settlements lived in because it represents a claim of the land by proxy.
ninalanyon 2 hours ago [-]
You'd rather we ignored our overseas compatriots?
shermantanktop 2 hours ago [-]
People respond to inspiring stories that show what is possible. Inevitably that means choices that might not match what a perfect allocation looks like.
Quiet, bland execution in government will get you voted out. Technocrats tend to come in after corruption, but they don’t usually last.
benj111 2 hours ago [-]
True, but this is military expenditure. So would you rather they spend this on an exercise or on actually saving people?
fiftyacorn 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah and helps demonstrate thst Tristan is strategically important
3 hours ago [-]
kitd 52 minutes ago [-]
I'm no expert but that looks like an impressive feat of skill, coming blind through the clouds and picking out a relatively small patch to land on. Remember also it is late autumn there, pretty windy (according to TFA) and the wind would probably be doing weird things off the sea around those cliffs. All in all, very cool.
fnands 23 minutes ago [-]
That jump video is wild. Can't see the island until the last few minutes.
cbsks 4 hours ago [-]
Amazing! Tristan’s entire website is a treasure. It’s a throwback to when the web was great.
brendoelfrendo 4 hours ago [-]
Agreed. The story is great, too. A really interesting logistical challenge that arose from unusual circumstances.
There's probably something to be said for the fact that TDC is a small, remote community, so it shouldn't be surprising that its website is reminiscent of a smaller, more communal web... but I'm not going to try to read too much into it and let the story stand on its own.
argsnd 3 hours ago [-]
Until recently TDC had a very slow FCDO satellite link that required their website to be quite basic in order to actually be viewable on computers on the island.
They now have a fast Starlink connection, but I’m glad they’ve kept the website as it is.
imdsm 1 hours ago [-]
If they hosted locally, it shouldn't have been an issue, they could have had a mirror system, but that's by the by, I love the website
fnands 22 minutes ago [-]
Visiting Tristan Da Cunha is on my bucket list. Just a shame it takes so long to get there, but maybe that's part of the appeal.
rimeice 28 minutes ago [-]
Tremendous stuff. Made better by the throwback web styling. Almost broke out in to the national anthem halfway through the article.
Neil44 38 minutes ago [-]
In case you're as interested as I was, they have google street view.
dmos62 2 hours ago [-]
What a heartwarming article.
musikele 1 hours ago [-]
The only reason military should exist is to perform such life-saving, not life-ending, missions...
pasc1878 1 hours ago [-]
What if you were Ukrainian?
corford 27 minutes ago [-]
Seems consistent. Ukrainian soldiers are performing life saving missions i.e. defending their citizens from an unprovoked attack.
hambes 48 minutes ago [-]
then the military would also act life-saving, since they are defending the attacked country
wmanley 54 minutes ago [-]
Wonderful. I love the poem at the end too.
qingcharles 2 hours ago [-]
Literally one of the worst places to fall seriously ill due to the fact you are absolutely and totally stuck in the actual middle-of-nowhere.
m4rtink 3 minutes ago [-]
Polar stations are even more inaccessible during polar winter with months of total darkness and it is just too dangerous to reach them. The winter-over crews need to be completely self-sufficient until the sun rises again.
repelsteeltje 1 hours ago [-]
Free (but admittedly useless) advice when you plan to fall seriously ill:
- do not get on a cruise ship
- do not get off at a remote island
19 minutes ago [-]
stavros 1 hours ago [-]
> The plane flew between Inaccessible and Tristan
My god there actually is an island called Inaccessible Island! That's fantastic.
bananamogul 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ofrzeta 4 hours ago [-]
You did? What did you make of the word "daring" and the name "Tristan da Cunha"?
qingcharles 2 hours ago [-]
I think he was trying to make a joke about Airdrop, I guess.
Rendered at 09:47:25 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
One thing I often ask myself in these situations: What do the inhabitants on these islands actually do?
There are 259 of them in this case.
Are they self-sustaining? How do they pay for stuff the want to import? Do they live off the cruise ships they supply? And do people generally stay there or do young people generally move to mainland?
Edit: For economy, it looks like they live off exporting langustas.
We have obligations to provide services like this to the people living in our overseas territories, and you won’t find many people who’ll oppose that.
Wow, logistics to <remote place> are very expensive! We could spend that money better in the cities!
Wow, logistics in <city> is expensive! We could spend that money better in rural areas!
I read about a new road tunnel in London last year, a ten-digit price tag for about 1km of road IIRC. I'm 100% sure some people suggested that that money could have been better spent in rural areas.
Quiet, bland execution in government will get you voted out. Technocrats tend to come in after corruption, but they don’t usually last.
There's probably something to be said for the fact that TDC is a small, remote community, so it shouldn't be surprising that its website is reminiscent of a smaller, more communal web... but I'm not going to try to read too much into it and let the story stand on its own.
They now have a fast Starlink connection, but I’m glad they’ve kept the website as it is.
- do not get on a cruise ship
- do not get off at a remote island
My god there actually is an island called Inaccessible Island! That's fantastic.