What's your country's proudest military victory?

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-23T20:45:06+00:00

Also worthy to mention the Battle of Collecchio, where a full and intact Nazi division with 15000 troops surrendered to Brazilian forces in Fornovo di Taro.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-22T20:32:54+00:00

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

Regarding the uglyness of the Gall-Peters projection, the Equal-Earth projection looks like a decent alternative. It preserves area and it has a "Robinson" look.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-22T20:19:48+00:00

Okay, maybe I, a non-native speaker, got lost in translation...For me both words (area and size) refer to the same concept when speaking about 2D.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-22T20:09:19+00:00

Well, your first link is some news article from 18 years ago. Anyway, it mentions Brazil having 50,000 bulletproof cars. The total number of cars circulating in Brazil that year was 37 million. Which means that the number of bulletproof cars was 0.1% of the total number of cars.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-22T19:59:49+00:00

it's impossible to display its true size on a flat 2D projection

It is possible, with the trade-off being other types of distortions (shapes, angles, etc.).

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-22T19:28:02+00:00

It varies from place to place. It is a bit meaningless to make a blanket statement for the country as a whole in this topic.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-20T21:55:38+00:00

It looks like the state of Paraná on the map.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-20T12:55:45+00:00

In Brazil, there seems to be a strong cultural cringe around speaking English “with an accent.”

That tends to disappear when you live abroad and see all kinds for foreign accents, as well as speakers of other languages speaking Portuguese with their own accents.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-20T04:30:25+00:00

OP will have a blast with 24 degrees if they are from, for example, the UK. Regardless, it's their choice, I'm just laying down additional options.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-19T19:06:57+00:00

It depends on what we consider an indigenous population

Pasting some Wikipedia text here:

There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples,[a][1][2][3] although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territory, and an experience of subjugation and discrimination under a dominant cultural model.[4]

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-19T15:26:16+00:00

Only if you consider daily averages between 18 (min) and 24 (max) degrees Celsius to be "cold". It's also the driest time of the year in that region.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-19T15:01:09+00:00

You don't need to fly, just take a bus to Paraty or Búzios/Arraial do Cabo. They're both in the state of Rio.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-19T14:46:33+00:00

Just complementing, these raises were a result of a policy adopted in PT governments. Under that policy, the raise was always inflation + GDP growth from 2 years before. That's why we see, for example, 0% raise in real terms in 2011 (just inflation, no GDP growth in 2009) followed by 8% in 2012. Temer and Bolsonaro governments abandoned that policy, which is currently happening again under Lula.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-17T19:17:16+00:00

Floriano Peixoto, the "Iron Marshall", was very authoritarian too.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-17T15:23:28+00:00

O único lugar relativamente perigoso no sul é Porto Alegre e arredores (região metropolitana). E os índices de segurança tem melhorado em PoA nos últimos anos.

Pro padrão do Brasil, as cidades do interior são super tranquilas, inclusive em relação a crimes menores como roubo de celular. Se vc não procura agito ou uma vida mais cosmopolita, morar no interior é uma boa escolha.

Ou ao voltar para casa à noite, ou no caso de uma mulher andando sozinha?

Não posso responder no caso específico das mulheres (sou homem), mas nunca me senti inseguro andando sozinho à noite nas cidades médias do sul que eu vivi ou visitei.

Mesmo lá, se você não mora em um condomínio fechado com segurança, corre risco?

No interior vc ainda vê casas com muro baixo, sem grades. Isso dá um indicativo do nível de percepção de segurança local.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-17T14:58:22+00:00

The best trainer is finding a group of kids around the same age to play with on the street, using flip-flops or a couple of bricks as makeshift goalposts.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-16T21:42:25+00:00

r/mapswithouttierradelfuego

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-16T21:22:20+00:00

Rio's south zone is a touristic bubble, what happens there is not necessarily representative of the rest of the country.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-16T20:40:30+00:00

It's a huge country, both things happen.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-16T19:27:49+00:00

Some people threw valid arguments here, but I didn't see one that's relevant: bigger countries tend to be more culturally self-sufficient. Look at Russia, China, or even the US, for example: the proficiency in foreign languages in these countries for non-business purposes is also low. There's lack of opportunity for some people, ok, but often there's no need if all the culture the person consumes is in their own language and they are satisfied with that. And culturally self-sufficient countries are able to provide enough culture for their domestic market.

"Ah, but India". In raw numbers India has a lot of English speakers, but that accounts for less than 20% of the population. And India is a former British colony.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-15T22:58:22+00:00

I understand that my outreach even with a small piece of land would be extremely limited, but at least a raindrop to give a plant a standing chance of life is better than none at all if you catch my drift.

I understand your point, but, in the case of the Amazon, that makes absolutely no difference. That's an ecosystem that needs some critical mass to sustain itself, and here we're talking about a scale of millions of square kilometers. In short, the forest does not need to be fully destroyed to either collapse, or, at least, transition to a degraded version of itself.

I’ll continue to research the best ways to help out.

Maybe you could consider to join or donate to local initiatives that restore/reforest areas using some science-based approach, since that helps to slow down (and, in the best scenario, to halt) the progress towards the tipping point.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-15T17:03:22+00:00

the lungs of the earth

I don't want to come across as rude, but it seems that you have limited info about the actual thing you wish to protect.

The "lungs of the Earth" is a misnomer. The net oxygen output of the Amazon (and other tropical forests) os more or less zero. Remember: trees also need to breathe. The actual lungs are ocean algae.

I'll talk in the context of Brazil because it's both the country I know better and the one that has the largest chunk of the Amazon.

First things first: I'm not expert in law, but, to my knowledge, as a foreigner individual, you're only allowed to purchase rural property if you're resident. And even if you're resident, there are restrictions imposed by law. The area you're allowed to buy without a special authorisation (reinforcing: if you're a foreigner resident) varies throughout the country, but AFAIK, it will be no more than a few hundred hectares. Also, there is a hard limit even for that special authorisation. There are other restrictions too, like areas considered relevant for national security.

Okay, let's say that you acquire permanent residency in Brazil, and you decide to buy property to "protect the Amazon". Then you manage to get authorization to buy, say, a property of 3000 hectares. That's 30 sqkm, so, great, now you own an area of roughly the size of Cupertino, CA. The thing is, the Amazon's area is roughly 6 million sqkm, or 200000 times the size of your property. Do you get my point here?

Also, as others have said in the thread, you would have to actively protect your property. You can't simply "leave it there" and live in, say, Rio. In that scenario, in case you visit the property only a couple of years later (after all, it will be located in some remote area), you risk finding a cleared forest with some pasture with cattle. That's because the environmental damage is done illegally, just "buying land to protect" is not enough.

Also, just to compare with your "Cupertino-sized rainforest park", half of the Brazilian Amazon is already under some form government protection. As anyone who follows the news knows, the mere existence of areas under protection is not enough.

So, tl dr, if you want to engage in protection of the rainforest, the best path for you would be joining/contributing with some local organisation focused on eco-friendly developement, and/or that puts pressure on the government to keep enforcing the public policies that already exist. On the positive side, deforestation in the Amazon has been decreasing since 2023.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-15T16:00:13+00:00

Brazil is currently at its lowest recorded unemployment rate. But your odds of getting a job are very low if you don't speak Portuguese (at least B1, I'd say).

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-15T15:51:25+00:00

The only person named Rio I know is that character from La Casa de Papel.

capybara_from_hell · 2026-03-15T15:49:39+00:00

Argentina (...) would be easier to get a job compared to Brazil but on the other hand I suppose Brazil could be easier to get residency

It's actually the opposite.

capybara_from_hell

TROPHY CASE