Santiago (Chile) as well - I hate it with a passion …
Believe me you nearly $hit a brick when a (aprox. 4") cannon fires at you from 50m distance in - what is today - a very confined space. Especially if you aren’t mentally prepared for that and it catches you off-guard.
That bloody thing is so lould, they stopped using it after the big feb 27th 2010 earthquake as they feared the sonic boom might have “shaky” buildings collapse - but now its back, probably for tourist’s reasons…
here a touristy video … fast-forward to 2:40
still true today for mechanical wristwatches. If the watches are “Chonometer certified” (few are, as this is a costly process - as you need to have higher quality components and a stringent (pre-) evaluation process in different positions (dial up/down, crown up/down,…)), they are guaranteed to run between (-4 / +6 seconds) precise per day “at the day of the certification” - which might be weeks/months/years before they are sold.
today, my goto source is: www.time.is … big, senior-citizen approved time, also a few other citie’s time and checks how much your computer’s internal watch is off.
quite possible the inventors of “SaaS” (software-as-a-service), one could argue (you’d pay them 1x month and the person would agree to come to your business for the whole month
And now I realize, this thread is not minutes/hours or days old, but a decade!!! … tempos fugit facepalm