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Comment by pelagicAustral | Hacker News Reader

I know this is besides the article and all, but why would the Chilean flag be the only one to have 8px left margin? This is killing me...

    <div style="margin-left: 8px" title="Chile" class="sprites-flag_cl"></div>

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I believe such organisations tend to do such things very intentionally :-)

About ESO [1]

> We are an intergovernmental organisation established in 1962 supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), our host country Chile and strategic partners.

So Chile has a distinct status, hence the margin...?

[1]: https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/

Granted, makes sense...

Exactly. Chile has a special status as host country of the observatory!

More than a special status as a host country, as far as I understand it is explicitly not a member state, hence it's separated from the rest of the flags (Which is curious because despite being the host country, it doesn't guarantee you being a member state of ESO).

Obviously, how else would you do it rather than the standard left-margin notation for the host country :)

The flags have also all (except for Finland, which appears slightly wider?) been squeezed into a uniform 3:2 aspect ratio; some of them (e.g. Belgium, Switzerland, United Kingdom) properly ought to have different proportions. I understand they can look more aesthetically pleasing when they’re all the same size, but it’s another little detail to notice. :-)

Now I can't unsee it :/

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