[HN Gopher] Last Flight Out ___________________________________________________________________ Last Flight Out Author : bo0tzz Score : 702 points Date : 2023-02-15 12:23 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (brr.fyi) (TXT) w3m dump (brr.fyi) | geocrasher wrote: | Is there anything a C-130 cannot do? What an incredible aircraft. | That landing, complete with reverse thrust, was incredible. | 0x0000000 wrote: | Just to make it a little crazier, all LC-130s (the ones with | skis) fly out of upstate New York! | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_LC-130 | rootusrootus wrote: | A C-130 with JATO is also fun to watch. I am not sure they do | it any more, but the Blue Angels used to do a demo of it with | Fat Albert[0] during their air show appearances. | | [0] https://avgeekery.com/watch-fat-albert-rockets-into- | airshow-... | caseyohara wrote: | That is awesome! | elSidCampeador wrote: | > Our water comes from a "Rodwell", which is basically a big hole | in the ground. | | TIL some people call a borewell a "rodwell" | bizzyb wrote: | not quite a borewell. short for rodriguez. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodriguez_well | https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/rodwell/rodwell.html | hgsgm wrote: | Per the "boring rod" | | https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boring%20rod | palla89 wrote: | It feels so magic to live in places with extreme conditions. Lack | of comforts, internet on/off and the real danger that something | really important suddenly brokes, I imagine that it let you feel | more alive than ever! | | Don't know if it's something that's only poetic and beautiful | when thinking about it or if it's the real deal, but imagining | myself, after a long day with -50degC outside, to be 10k miles | from everyone and everything, just with my blanket and a book or | a movie that I waited 20 days to have fully downloaded. | ncr100 wrote: | One area of research at the opposite side, McMurdo, apparently is | around glaciers melting. | | > Warming seas are carving into massive Antarctic glacier that | could trigger sea level rise | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/1... | | Q: I wonder if the South Pole station is also involved in active | climate research or if the North Pole is somehow more | scientifically relevant to near-term climate change? | | Enlightning observation: | | > [...] researchers have determined that warm water is getting | channeled into crevasses in what the researchers called | "terraces" -- essentially, upside-down trenches -- and carving | out gaps under the ice. As the ice then flows toward the sea, | these channels enlarge and become future potential break points, | where the floating ice shelf comes apart and produces huge | icebergs. | gammarator wrote: | My favorite writing about Antarctica is "Big Dead Place": | https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-30/big-dead-place-the-wi... | | You can find the blog in the Internet Archive: | https://web.archive.org/web/20120402141259/http://www.bigdea... | or grab the book. | | Silver medal to Maciej for this one: | https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm | zbaxrl wrote: | Another blog, about the french-italian base Concordia. | | https://www.gdargaud.net/Antarctica/WinterDC1.html | fragmede wrote: | In years past there was also ABigDeadPlace.com, which has since | lapsed due to the author's unfortunate death. Thankfully it was | published as a book, _Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and | Menacing World of Antarctica_ by Nicholas Johnson. If brr.fyi | strikes your fancy, I bet that book would as well. | | https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40919 | ripley12 wrote: | 100%. I would describe the subject matter as "dysfunctional | office politics in Antarctica", which doesn't sound | fascinating but it really is! | teachrdan wrote: | I can second Big Dead Place. It's an entertaining and | slightly cynical take on the Antarctic, including such | details as the head of an American base personally removing | the "Made in China" stickers from the souvenirs in the gift | shop, and a description of how an item brought inside from | the outdoors radiates cold like a campfire radiates heat. | jpamata wrote: | Always loved reading about adventures in Antarctica. It feels | like the closest thing we can get to going to an exoplanet. | gnatman wrote: | I thought those fuel bladders were pretty cool! Never thought | about transporting volatiles in anything other than a rigid tank. | Also had to look up what AN-8 Fuel is: | | "AN8 is a special fuel blend unique to the Antarctic and Arctic. | It has a lower flash point of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which also | lowers the gelling point when extreme cold temperatures can cause | wax crystals to start forming in the fuel. AN8 will remain liquid | until about minus 72 degrees." | | https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2975 | kylehotchkiss wrote: | Now I wonder what the cost per gallon is! | Maxion wrote: | With these type of operations it becomes a bit semantic and | depends entirely on how you define costs and over what | timespan. | | You have to ship it there via tanker, store at McMurdo, and | ship across the ice on special purpose vehicles. If you | divide the whole cost of all that up per gallon of fuel you | get a price. But if you need more, the margin cost for the | next gallon is going to be an interesting one, and probably | come with a free extra 9999 gallons or something. | pmarreck wrote: | These stories are always interesting and I feel like a lot of us | have a strand within us that wouldn't mind doing a tour in a | place like that | ta1243 wrote: | The shower page was interesting, you get 4 minutes of shower time | a week | | https://brr.fyi/posts/showering-at-the-south-pole | | I'm surprised they can't just melt snow water to run things like | showers. | | Oddly no suggestions on the page about doubling up your shower | with someone else to have longer or more frequent showers. | biesnecker wrote: | There's only a few centimeters of snow per year at the pole, | it's a high desert, and digging the ice out is probably not | worth the energy? | InitialLastName wrote: | The same blog has a post referring to snow accumulation | (evidently wind-blown, not precipitated) requiring enormous | operations and infrastructural efforts to keep the station | from being buried [0]. | | There seems to be plenty of snow available, if you want to | melt it. Energy is the issue. | | [0] https://brr.fyi/posts/south-pole-topography | [deleted] | stickfigure wrote: | I'm more curious about what they do with the greywater. If you | just dumped it you'd end up with a giant, evergrowing pile of | dirty ice. | bizzyb wrote: | the rodwell where they melt the ice for their water makes a | big cavern in the ice. the previous rodwell is used for all | greywater/human waste, indeed making a giant shitcicle. when | the current freshwater rodwell is done, they start a new one | and that one becomes the new dumping one. | frosted-flakes wrote: | There's another post on his blog about visiting the sewage | treatment plant at McMurdo (not Pole, I don't know what they | do there). At McMurdo it's like any other sewage treatment | plant: they release the cleaned water into the sea. | ta1243 wrote: | Which can't be done at the pole. The options are either | drive it (and all waste) out to McMurdo, or leave it there. | hgsgm wrote: | 2 people in a shower doesn't effectively decrease water usage | per person, and the logistics overhead would eat into the 4 | minutes. | fragmede wrote: | If done with someone you find attractive, that also finds you | attractive, 2 people to a shower, that _want_ to participate | in this shared activity of showering together, increases this | thing called "fun". (Both parties wanting to participate is | requisite for this "fun" to happen. If one or both parties | does not want to, this "fun" does not happen. Even if both | parties want to, that is not a guarantee that "fun" will | happen.) Note that this "fun" is unable to spontaneously | generate water, unfortunately. However, every rules lawyer | will note that the limit is 4 minutes of water, and not a | limit of spending 4 minutes in the shower. (8 minutes of | water for two people.) Thus, two people may choose to spend | additional time in the shower with the water off. If it is | not clear to you what two consenting, attracted, naked, soapy | adults could possibly do for "fun", please find and ask an | adult that you know and trust. | eigenhombre wrote: | Previous discussion here: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34658286 | hibbelig wrote: | Doesn't that post explain that this is just what they do, and | that melting the snow is pretty involved? | seanw444 wrote: | There's also limited fuel that they have to conserve, so | infinite snow does not mean infinite water. | raisedbyninjas wrote: | With a 30 degree delta between temperature and wind chill, | I'd think they're ripe for wind turbines. | EricLeer wrote: | Unfortunatly wind turbines are also not really a big fan | of the cold. When ice grows on the blades they can become | unstable. | ratg13 wrote: | Seems like a decent opportunity to use a nuclear reactor .. | something like what you would find on a submarine. | fragmede wrote: | It was tried! | http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/ | throwanem wrote: | I wonder what it'd take to adapt NuScale's SMR design. | Probably a lot, given the unusual rigors of the Antarctic | environment, but for basically the same reasons it seems | like something that'd be worth funding. | quickthrowman wrote: | We already tried that 60 years ago in Greenland, it | didn't end well. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm | kortilla wrote: | That didn't fail because of the nuclear reactor, it | failed because the ice sheet movement deformed the | tunnels over time and collapsed ceilings. Nothing to do | with the feasibility of sitting a portable nuclear | reactor on top of the ice like the settlements in | Antarctica. | sponaugle wrote: | There is a fascinating film about that reactor: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlmOQJW5Xis | hollerith wrote: | >I'm surprised they can't just melt snow | | They do get their water by melting snow _and_ they use waste | heat from the generation of electricity to do some or all of | the melting. | | Apparently, it takes a lot of energy to melt snow. | n1b0m wrote: | I'm game if you are | jrochkind1 wrote: | > Everyone is free to stand in the physical shower stall as | long as they want! As long as they keep water flow within the | allocated quota. | | I'm going to be turning on the water to get wet, soaping up, | turning on the water to rinse. If I have some extra maybe I'll | let the water just run for some seconds to enjoy it. | | More people in the shower isn't going to help, they're just | going to get in the way. | | Also, at least 10 years ago when I heard from someone who was | there, the over-winter population at the base was super- | majority men, rather homophobic, and flaunting any | hetereosexual couplings you had was... fraught, due to issues | of jealosy and competition. | bartvk wrote: | I wonder if there are libido-inhibiting drugs you can take, | and whether that would help. | KineticLensman wrote: | The British Army allegedly used Bromide in tea for this | purpose in WW2 [0] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromide#Folk_and_passe_me | dicin... | ReptileMan wrote: | Old joke from where I live | | Two old vets (in their 90s) are sitting in a bench | | The first says - Mate, do you remember the bromide they | gave us in the military? | | The second - yeah? | | The first guy - Well it started to work. | rootusrootus wrote: | > I'm going to be turning on the water to get wet, soaping | up, turning on the water to rinse. | | Commonly called a military shower[0], and exactly what I do | in my RV when boondocking. | | [0] In the military, ironically, even in boot camp we didn't | shower this way, we just went very quickly. just the pits... | rtkwe wrote: | I've heard that specifically called a Navy shower in most | cases not generically military. | Aeolun wrote: | Strangely enough the South Pole Mega Shower is still shorter | than my average shower time. | | Maybe you can catch and reuse your own water. Then you'd just | need to bring a jerrycan and water heater every time. | joe_lin wrote: | What happens if someone has a true medical emergency? Like heart | attack or burst appendix? Are they stranded? | | I feel like this fear would be lingering over me the entire time. | panax wrote: | That's why in Villas Las Estrellas they require residents to | have their appendix to be removed: | https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180810-villas-las-estre... | stinkytaco wrote: | You could cut it out yourself [1] | | But I've read that doctors do need to have their appendix | removed, but not other people. I can't find a source on that, | however. | | [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32481442 | biztos wrote: | Probably not if it burst! | | > It was not an easy choice. Rogozov knew his appendix could | burst and if that happened, it would almost certainly kill | him - and while he considered his options, his symptoms got | worse. | | (From your link.) | GTP wrote: | Usually in such outcast places they have a room equipped for | light surgery and some emergency procedures. You won't receive | the same level of care that you would have in a proper | hospital, but they should be able to at least do some | "temporary fix" while transportation to a proper hospital is | arranged if needed. Appendectomy shouldn't be a problem. | Klonoar wrote: | >but they should be able to at least do some "temporary fix" | while transportation to a proper hospital is arranged if | needed. | | I believe the person you're responding to is moreso asking | what would happen if it was during the months where no | inbound or outbound transportation is possible. | wiml wrote: | Well, yes. There's the famous case of when a station's only | doctor had appendicitis so he removed his own [1], and another | who had to do her own cancer biopsy and chemotherapy [2]. The | equations may be simple but they are still very cold. | | [1] Leonid Rogozov, 1961. | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32481442 | | [2] Jerri Nielsen, 1998. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Nielsen | mashygpig wrote: | I just finished reading "Alone" by Richard Byrd [0]. It's about a | man who wintered alone in Antarctica during the dark night in | 1934. I found it very captivating and I think a lot of those on | HN would find it interesting; especially those who find this blog | interesting. | | [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368563 | xNeil wrote: | Thank you very much for the recommendation! I now how I'm | spending the day today :) | izolate wrote: | Fascinating. I wish I could do something similar. My personality | traits naturally favor isolation, darkness and the cold. | Unfortunately, I doubt there's any need for software engineers in | Antarctica. | faceloss wrote: | [dead] | the_duke wrote: | Don't miss it on the FAQ, it's' hilarious. | ethbr0 wrote: | If you zoom in on the first warehouse picture, you see there's | ice inside the stores warehouse. | | I guess they let everything that can tolerate it freeze? | enoch_r wrote: | I got sucked into reading a few other posts by the same author | and one is about exactly this! https://brr.fyi/posts/frost | | Pretty incredible. | dvas wrote: | Agree! Interesting read which got me thinking about how we | take our current systems (hvac, phones, laptops) / | constructions materials and the environments we use them in | with the expectation that they should work 99% of the time. | | Down the rabbit hole... how long would my phone last in | strato/meso/thermo spheres before memory starts flipping due | to cosmic rays? | | Thanks for sharing! | V__ wrote: | Check out his previous post: https://brr.fyi/posts/frost | | > We don't heat spaces unless we have to! | | > The ice isn't really "wet" per se. It has the consistency of | shattered automotive safety glass. On a related note, the snow | doesn't really behave like "frozen water crystals". It's more | like "very cold sand". | tom-from-july wrote: | Yep, see this other post: https://brr.fyi/posts/frost | anovikov wrote: | Always wondered if at least one-way resupply was possible | (containers airdropped and guided by GPS to land at precise | point)? | dahart wrote: | Not sure why I'd never learned or noticed the altitude of the | South Pole is so high, no wonder it's extra chilly. I assume the | screenshot is off by a bit maybe because it's estimating altitude | from barometric pressure or something? | hgsgm wrote: | The South Pole is also closer to the center of the earth than | the equator. Not sure how that effects altitude:temperature | relationship . | dahart wrote: | Good question. I guess that temp is driven mostly by altitude | above sea level, so proximity to Earth's center doesn't | affect temp, but I'm not certain. At least I looked it up, | and the coastline of Antarctica is about 40C warmer than the | high altitude plateau... | dmckeon wrote: | Wikipedia gives the altitude for the South Pole station as: | | > The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at | 2,835 metres (9,301 ft) above sea level. | | The screenshot shows air pressure, expressed as altitude and | pressure. 685mb is mildly thin air for humans, but the top of | Everest is about 250mb. Earth sea level is 1000mb, and the | surface of Mars would be about 6mb. BYO oxygen and pressure. | mig39 wrote: | When the author refers to AN-8 fuel, do they mean JP-8? Jet fuel | / Kerosene? | jacquesm wrote: | This is the engine: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivchenko_AI-20 | bearbin wrote: | AN-8 is kerosene, similar to JP-8, but with a lower freezing | point specification. | | https://erdc-library.erdc.dren.mil/jspui/bitstream/11681/243... | photochemsyn wrote: | No fresh food? Some Antarctic stations have hydroponics setups, | is South Pole an exception? | | https://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-operations/stations/... | ryandrake wrote: | Whenever I read about how humans are about to colonize Mars, I | think about how much logistics it takes to keep even a single | base with a handful of people populated on the South Pole. It's | like Mars, but with plentiful oxygen and atmospheric pressure, | plentiful (albeit frozen) water, shielded from radiation, low- | latency communication with civilization, and is reachable by air | and ground vehicles. Given how difficult and fraught it is to | keep a few people alive down there, how does anyone expect to | keep a few people alive on Mars, let alone build a colony there? | dekhn wrote: | humans aren't about to colonize mars. At best we could put | people on the surface for a week and return them home safely | (with some non-zero probability of death). | | What's really crazy is what it would take to build sustainable | non-earth infrastructure if earth wasn't available. I mean, | sure, start with space robots that can extrude aluminum, but | ... if you read the story of the western colonizers, it was | brutal especially if they couldn't get resupplied. | faceloss wrote: | [dead] | dylan604 wrote: | >if you read the story of the western colonizers, it was | brutal especially if they couldn't get resupplied. | | For all of the places western colonizers went, there were | always resources that Mars will never have. Skipping past the | obvious lack of atmosphere, there are no food sources. While | they have found ice meaning some water is available, it is | actually potable? | | Trying to compare early colonizers of any place on Earth to | the experiences of whatever will happen on Mars is just pure | folly. | dekhn wrote: | THe point is to say that if we can't win the game on easy | mode, probably best not to try to win it on hard mode. | gpm wrote: | We've had permanent bases in the south pole for 120 years now. | It's not particularly fraught. It's not free, but with a small | investment of money we're perfectly able to do it. | | We can't colonize it of course, because The Antarctic Treaty | forbids territorial claims. Not because we aren't able to build | things in the conditions that exist there. | | Mars introduces a lot of new challenges, but 120 years of | technological development gives us a lot of new tools to | address them. | hannasanarion wrote: | How do you figure 120 years? The first South Pole Station was | Old Amudsen Scott which started operations in 1957 (65 years | ago), the winter of 57-58 was the first time humans stayed | through the long night at the pole. | gpm wrote: | Wikipedia is claiming that the Omond House - 1903 - was the | first permanent base. Renamed to Orcadas Base in 1904 and | permanently inhabited since. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcadas_Base | dogsgobork wrote: | That's not even within the Antarctic circle, I don't | think I'd consider it a "South Pole" outpost. | jjtheblunt wrote: | i think your observation is excellent. | | but the entire Mars thing, the last several years, smells like | Elon Musk trying to drum up interest to force government | funding that he hopes to channel his way. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _how difficult and fraught it is to keep a few people alive | down there, how does anyone expect to keep a few people alive | on Mars, let alone build a colony there?_ | | Necessity is the mother of invention. It makes no sense to use | precious Antarctic time and space growing all the food when | it's cheaper to ship it in. Similar to how civilizations with a | history of littoral shipbuilding figured out ocean-faring--if | you're always a day from port, you don't bother baking hard | tack. That doesn't mean you can't. | wwweston wrote: | This is a statement about the absence of immediate first- | order incentives. | | But there are other incentives, for example, being interested | in the problems of actually settling Mars. | | Necessity is certainly motivating, but people serious about | their ambitions often don't wait for it to motivate their | preparations. Would-be serious ocean-farers probably want to | become practiced in | producing/storing/carrying/consuming/restoring hard tack (or | other equivalent sustenance) before relying on it over weeks | away from port. | | The absence of self-sustaining colonies in harsh outposts on | the earth (and similar absence of more local positive | terraforming projects) indicate limits in how serious anyone | is about colonizing Mars. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _absence of self-sustaining colonies in harsh outposts on | the earth (and similar absence of more local positive | terraforming projects) indicate limits in how serious | anyone is about colonizing Mars_ | | This is a stronger argument. I agree. I think there is | serious interest in establishing permanent facilities on | Mars. But a self-sufficient, self-sustaining population | isn't being planned on because there are too many unknowns | for any definition of a plan that doesn't overlap hard | science fiction. | lisper wrote: | Something I've never even seen _mentioned_ , let along | seriously discussed, is the protocol for deciding under | what circumstances the first human will be born and | raised off-earth. I predict that will turn out to be an | intractable problem. | MagicMoonlight wrote: | When a female crew member gets nutted in on the two year | long journey to mars... | | I give it like a day before they're all having sex. | xen2xen1 wrote: | I can't imagine they won't all be fixed for that reason. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _the protocol for deciding under what circumstances the | first human will be born and raised off-earth_ | | This one's easy. We won't have one when it happens. | | > _predict that will turn out to be an intractable | problem_ | | In what ways? | lisper wrote: | Goodness, where to even begin? Maybe here... | | https://www.wired.com/2009/08/spacebabies/ | | We've never even successfully raised a _mouse_ in space. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Oh, you're talking about extraterrestrial reproduction | being intractable. Sure. I have no view on this | scientifically. That won't stop people from trying. And | I'd assume there's a massive difference between zero g | and 0.4g. | lisper wrote: | Maybe. We have zero data about this. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _have zero data about this_ | | I agree with you as much as I am certain that data have | close to no consequence for the people making the | decision. | dylan604 wrote: | Have you not read Stranger In A Strange Land? | lisper wrote: | Yes. Why do you think that's relevant? You are aware that | this was a work of fiction, yes? | dylan604 wrote: | Wait, what? Someone wasn't actually born on Mars, and | there aren't actually Martians? You're joking! /s | | Did you honestly believe that I was suggesting that the | first person born on Mars was going to be considered the | owner of Mars? | vkou wrote: | Let me pose a different question. | | If the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life- | ending disaster on Earth, why doesn't that group of people go | and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic? | | It'll get you 90% of the way there for way less than 10% of | the effort. | | Necessity is the mother of invention, and nobody is doing it | because it's not actually necessary. Martian colonisation is | more of a religion, than the product of an actual positive | cost/benefit analysis. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life- | ending disaster on Earth, why doesn 't that group of people | go and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic?_ | | There are various reasons for wanting to go to Mars. I | don't think most people's primary motivation is species- | level survival. | vkou wrote: | Like what? A research outpost? | | You have to get into a knife fight with your peers to get | a grad student who works for ramen on your lab's funding | proposal, you're not going to get the amortized cost of a | real lab on Mars approved. For that money, there's a | thousand languishing research proposals that we should be | looking into instead. | | There are no economic reasons to go there, either. It's | too far away, it's too dangerous, and shipping anything | is too much work. | | There are no military reasons to go there, either. The | military is happy to put weapons in orbit, but Mars is | too far away. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _research outpost?_ | | Sure. Tourism, too. Many of us have an exploration urge | and instinct, and I can't say it's all rational. | | > _there 's a thousand languishing research proposals | that we should be looking into instead_ | | But we're not. People are motivated by passion. I'm not | convinced every engineer at SpaceX would be engineering | without that mission in their head. I'm also certain the | capital being pumped into SpaceX isn't fungible into | other research. | | Mars, Inc. made a good pitch. It got people excited and | involved. I get the sour grapes. We all have pet projects | we'd prefer be prioritized instead. But I don't see us | fighting over a fixed-sized pie. | kwhitefoot wrote: | George Mallory's reply to why he wanted to climb Everest | will do: "Because it's there." | pclmulqdq wrote: | The "research outposts" thing was pretty much solved by | sending robots to these hostile environments. They have | some serious limitations, but it's a lot cheaper to send | a few kilograms on a robot than a few hundred kilograms | of meat to carry out a few known procedures. | fragmede wrote: | Because any calamity serious enough to threaten humanity on | that level is likely to threaten Antarctica just as | seriously. | willhslade wrote: | How is it necessary to colonize Mars? | tunesmith wrote: | TIL "littoral"... I initially misread it as a misspelling of | "literal". | localplume wrote: | Precious space? Its a pretty big continent. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Precious space? Its a pretty big continent_ | | That you can't farm on. The farmable bits are in protected, | heated shelters that are expensive to build and maintain. | otabdeveloper4 wrote: | It's roughly a million times easier to grow food on the | South Pole than it is to grow it on Mars. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _a million times easier to grow food on the South Pole | than it is to grow it on Mars_ | | And it's a million easier still to import it. So apart | from hydroponics for treats and research, it's not a | problem worth solving. | el_nahual wrote: | > it's not a problem worth solving. | | Exactly. Farming on mars is not a problem worth solving. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Exactly. Farming on mars is not a problem worth | solving_ | | I know you're being flippant, but this is a textbook | propositional fallacy. (Affirming a disjunct [1], I | think.) | | In summary, you argue: farming on Antarctica is | difficult, so we import food instead. Farming on Mars is | difficult, but we don't want to import food. Herego, we | shouldn't farm on Mars or bother with it at all. | Alternatively, if X (farming is difficult), Y (farm) or Z | (import). You're arguing neither Y or Z by, implicitly, | rejecting Z. That doesn't make sense. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_a_disjunct | 1659447091 wrote: | Exactly. We need replicators[0], problem solved. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek) | insane_dreamer wrote: | Resupply latencies not exactly comparable. | | So I would say that yes, farming on Mars is a problem | worth solving, and one that will be solved once there's a | need to do so (that doesn't mean it will be easy or | inexpensive). | sneak wrote: | The people who will be born there will likely not agree | with you. | mlindner wrote: | On Mars you have soil you can process into something | plants can use (note: needs to be washed free of its | perchlorate contamination first) whereas at the South | Pole there is no soil that is not buried under hundreds | of meters of ice. You can't just create a heated | greenhouse on top of the ice because it will melt the ice | underneath. | | They've already done tests where they've grown plants in | Martial soil simulant. | floxy wrote: | >at the South Pole there is no soil that is not buried | under hundreds of meters of ice. | | https://www.scenic.com.au/news/seasons-of-antarctica | | https://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2015/scientists- | heading-t... | | https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-antarctica- | managed-t... | mlindner wrote: | South pole. I'm not talking about Antarctica as a whole. | There's plenty of areas on Antarctica's coast where small | plants/lichen grow. | [deleted] | mach1ne wrote: | Planning, quite simply. Antarctic station is planned to be as | robust as needed, and so it is. | tegeek wrote: | Humans are not going to visit Mars anytime soon, let alone | colonize. There are not one but many unsolved technical, | economical etc. issues. | | But its a dream and a wish list. And We're the only species who | can have dreams as big as we want. | OkayPhysicist wrote: | Economical and ethical issues are the kind that would be | immediately swept away if, say, China said they were going to | beat us there. The cost is approximately trivial compared to | the US's budget. Technical issues I don't really buy. Getting | to the martian surface isn't much more complicated than going | to the moon and back. Getting back into martian orbit is | trickier, but not in a "Requires novel breakthroughs or | undiscovered science" way. | | It's perfectly reasonable to say the reason we don't | currently have anybody on Mars is because we (politically) | just don't really want to. If the Russians had beat us to the | Moon, we probably would have made it Mars decades ago. | shawndrost wrote: | I think everyone envisions Mars as harder than the South Pole. | The reason people like Elon envision colonizing Mars instead of | the South Pole is that they posit a big prize for succeeding at | the former (becoming the emperor of a large, viable landmass, | out of range of other nation-states' control and blast radius) | but not the latter. | | (I think this is an accurate observation of motives, but I | disagree with the posit.) | rzzzt wrote: | This is a latency vs. throughput / pipeline problem in | disguise. You could send a food truck's worth of food every | hour towards Mars; the first few months will be peaceful and | quiet, but things change when a food truck appears in orbit | every hour or so. | Retric wrote: | That only helps if they need lunch not some specific part or | medicine etc. | | Also, Earth Mars transfers get dramatically more expensive | outside of specific timing and of course actually sending | multiple packages gets ruinously expensive. | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit | rzzzt wrote: | Increasing the number of vehicles in the fleet lets one | consider alternative transfers, like the bi-elliptic one | mentioned in the article. | | ...though it might make matters a bit difficult that | expected durations vary between 300-ish days and 4 years | when I run the numbers in NASA's Trajectory Browser: | https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/ | Taniwha wrote: | My friend who wintered over claimed that the Pole doesn't have | "plentiful oxygen and atmospheric pressure" - it's high above | sea level, the earth's spin reduces the pressure at the poles | and if a low pressure weather system comes in people suffer | from altitude sickness | | https://www.usap.gov/USAPgov/travelAndDeployment/documents/M... | hapidjus wrote: | Compared to Mars? | Taniwha wrote: | No not compared to Mars, more compared to where humans | normally live | aaroninsf wrote: | TIL thank you, that is very interesting! | [deleted] | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Love it! | nicky0 wrote: | What a tastefully designed and executed blog site. Well done. | poxrud wrote: | I would love to try this out for a week or two, but I can't | imagine doing this for 9 months. For me the feeling of | claustrophobia and loneliness would be overwhelming. | toss1 wrote: | Perhaps contact a Tibetan Buddhist teaching center. They have | meditation and introspection programs ranging from weekend | intro courses to multi-month retreats where you isolate in a | cabin on site (but you are checked in on). I know a few who | have done it for a week or a month, and all say it's very | interesting and enlightening, tho also suggest working up to | it. The one I'm most familiar with is Karme Choling in northern | Vermont [0], and there are others. Even the short retreats | yield wonderful states of mind. Check it out! | | [0] https://www.karmecholing.org/ | | [0] https://www.karmecholing.org/ | RugnirViking wrote: | That is something i've long dreamed of doing. Would love to work | with british antarctic survey etc. Not sure if my background in | robotics/engineering would be that useful there though unless I | push in a tangential direction like radios | clarkema wrote: | There are often openings for people with electronics | engineering backgrounds for roles supporting science and met, | as opposed to comms and base IT. It doesn't hurt to apply. | | Edit: https://www.bas.ac.uk/jobs/careers-at-bas/operational- | suppor... | shagie wrote: | Another over winter opportunity - for Ice Cube | https://jobs.hr.wisc.edu/en-us/job/516435/winterover- | experim... | | > Winterovers enjoy a variety of job duties during their | estimated 12 to 13 month deployment at the South Pole. | Technical duties include operating and maintaining the | IceCube detector subsystems; operating and maintaining | complex computer data systems at the South Pole; uploading | the research data via satellite to the northern hemisphere; | analyzing and resolving problems with the detector | electronics; providing critical hardware and software | support; writing and submitting weekly reports to the | collaboration and monthly reports to the National Science | Foundation; and participating in Wisconsin IceCube Particle | Astrophysics Center outreach activities. | | (Note that if that _does_ interest someone, the application | deadline is March 1) | arethuza wrote: | If you like that kind of thing I can recommend the book _Time | on Ice: A Winter Voyage to Antarctica_ - it 's about a couple | overwintering in Antarctica in their yacht: | | https://www.amazon.com/Time-Ice-Winter-Voyage-Antarctica/dp/... | | Edit: If I remember correctly they also sailed from and back to | Sweden to do this... | moneywoes wrote: | How are the interpersonal relationships like being stuck with | others for months | pavlov wrote: | Apparently not great if you're a woman: | | https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/as-antarctic-fieldwo... | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | Jesus christ. | | "In one online survey published in PLOS ONE and covered by | Science in 2014, 71% of 512 female respondents reported being | sexually harassed during fieldwork; 84% of them were | trainees." | | "In the NSF report, one interviewee said she'd been told on | her first day at McMurdo to stay clear of a certain building | unless she "wanted to be raped." Another woman said she felt | like she was seen as "prey" no matter where she was | physically on the base." | | "Another was so "freaked out" by the pervasive sexual | harassment that she began carrying around a hammer." | | "Another survivor of sexual harassment said she didn't report | the incident for fear her employer would fire her; when she | could no longer cope, she quit." | | This fucking David Marchant guy was a fucking terror. Holy | shit. (https://www.science.org/content/article/disturbing- | allegatio...) | | "Boston University suspended prominent Antarctic geologist | David Marchant _with pay_. Multiple women had come forward | with allegations of sexual harassment against him " | | "The first complainant, Jane Willenbring, now an associate | professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of | the University of California, San Diego, alleges that | Marchant repeatedly shoved her down a steep slope, pelted her | with rocks while she was urinating in the field, called her a | "slut" and a "whore," and urged her to have sex with his | brother, who was also on the trip." | | "According to Willenbring, Marchant told her repeatedly that | his brother had a "porn-sized" penis, and said she should | have sex with him and feel lucky for the opportunity." "One | week, Willenbring alleges, David Marchant "decided that he | would throw rocks at me every time I urinated in the field." | She cut her water consumption so she could last the 12-hour | days far from camp without urinating, then drank liters at | night. She says she developed a urinary tract infection and | urinary incontinence, which has since recurred. When blood | appeared in her urine, she alleges, Marchant prohibited her | from going back to McMurdo for treatment." | | "The second complainant, Deborah Doe (a pseudonym), who was | in Antarctica for two austral summers during this era, | reports that Marchant called her a "c--t" and a "bitch" | repeatedly. She alleges that he promised to block her access | to research funding should she earn a Ph.D. She abandoned her | career dreams and left academe." | | "A third woman, Hillary Tulley, a Skokie, Illinois, high | school teacher, describes her experience in a supporting | letter filed with BU investigators. "His taunts, degrading | comments about my body, brain, and general inadequacies never | ended," she writes. She claims Marchant tried to exhaust her | into leaving Antarctica. "Every day was terrifying," she says | in an interview with Science." | gammarator wrote: | The documentary "Picture a Scientist" | https://www.pictureascientist.com/ describes some of this-- | it's gutting to watch. | seanw444 wrote: | How do you become that evil? | goldenchrome wrote: | Totally unsurprising. "Sexual harassment" is a social | construct and the definition of such changes as our society | progresses or regresses. What was normal in the 70s is | considered vile today. We have not evolved as a species. We | have just created enough abundance that we can afford to | protect women to a higher degree. 100,000 years ago I'm sure | humans didn't have a concept of sexual harassment. "If you | don't want to get raped, don't go with strange men." would be | the norm. | | We forget that we are animals and animals don't have a | culture of shaming sexual harassment by default. We enforce | the rules in our society because we can afford to. In the | Antarctic winter where resources are incredibly scarce and | the people are trapped for months a time, their local society | can't afford to have such strict standards. The animal within | each of us comes out in Antarctica more than anywhere else. | This is of course part of what makes living there so exciting | on an elemental level. | | If any of this surprises you then you've forgotten that we | are animals and our current society only exists through | abundance. | | You too would be prone to "sexually harassing" women in those | conditions. And after a while you wouldn't even see anything | wrong with it. Because in those conditions it's not wrong, | it's adaptive. | pavlov wrote: | _> "The animal within each of us comes out in Antarctica | more than anywhere else. This is of course part of what | makes living there so exciting on an elemental level."_ | | It's supposed to be a science station, not some kind of | wild survival game. I don't think any of the women | scientists signed up for "excitement on an elemental | level." | goldenchrome wrote: | That's a fine goal but it doesn't take away from the fact | that Antarctica is a hostile environment which makes it | hard to establish civilization. | | I'm describing reality, not my own personal wishes. | clarkema wrote: | We don't "establish" civilization. We take it with us. | clarkema wrote: | We enforce rules in our society because they make that | society better. Basic shared rules of behaviour are a | precondition for social cohesion and prosperity, _not_ a | luxury that we can only afford when everything else has | been taken care of. This goes 10x in small groups in | rigorous environments. | | I wouldn't call resources in the Antarctic winter | "incredibly scarce"; expeditions have been wintering South | for decades now. We know what's required, and it's | available, in quantity, with backups. It's true that people | are trapped together for months at a time; we also rely on | each other for survival. Under such circumstances, it's | entirely backwards to claim "local society can't afford to | have such strict standards." Just the opposite; strict | standards of social behaviour are _required_ for the group | cohesion and trust that's necessary for collaboration and | survival. | | A candidate who demonstrated this attitude would never get | through BAS' hiring process. If, by some mischance, they | did manage to make it South, they certainly wouldn't be | overwintering. | | Source: Wintered in Antarctica. Did not regress to the | state of a caveman clad in penguin skins, nor did I become | "prone to sexually harassing women." | goldenchrome wrote: | Yes, you have a personal anecdote but the data suggests | that people do indeed become prone to sexually harassing | women. | clarkema wrote: | I certainly won't claim that no harassment ever takes | place; every wintering team is different, and I have no | doubt that plenty of women _do_ experience some form of | harassment or unwanted attention. When you live in a | small, close-knit community with (generally) a large | gender imbalance, there will be tensions. | | What I object to is the unsubstantiated claim that | Antarctica "brings out the animal in each of us"; that | the environment is one of such privation that all those | who venture there necessarily regress to some more basic | form and that standards of civilized behaviour become | something we can't afford, sacrificed on the altar of | survival. | | This is patently false, and frankly a very limited and | limiting view of the human condition. | | What you like to dismiss as a "personal anecdote" I'd | prefer to call "multiple seasons of lived experience in | the environment under discussion." | | While I can't speak for the hiring procedures of other | nations, the majority of the interview process for the | British Antarctic Survey centres around the interpersonal | side. If you're sitting in the interview in the first | place you're assumed to be technically competent; once | that bar is passed they select primarily for people who | will survive the isolation and be able to work as | independent members of a small society. Are the results | perfect? Of course not -- failures happen and bad winters | happen. But they are well aware of how important social | dynamics are to the overall success of the winter. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | Just to recap your argument: | | > We enforce the rules in our society because we can afford | to. In the Antarctic winter where resources are incredibly | scarce and the people are trapped for months a time, their | local society can't afford to have such strict standards. | The animal within each of us comes out in Antarctica more | than anywhere else. This is of course part of what makes | living there so exciting on an elemental level. | | And your point brought home: | | > Because in those conditions it's not wrong, it's | adaptive. | | You have to be a pretty ignorant person to think "I don't | have many resources, so sexual harassment and violence is | not only normal, it's a good idea". | | Other human societies around the world live in conditions | close to those at McMurdo, and they do not have this | problem. But amazingly, McMurdo is better equipped with | more supplies, with the same seasonal inaccessibility as | those other societies. So your argument is factually | incorrect. Limited resources and an extreme environment | does not implicitly result in a culture of sexual | harassment and violence. | | Nor it is "adaptive" in any advantageous way. It is much | more likely a result of psychological breakdown, combined | with a lack of social consequence, and a position of power | over trainees who do not anticipate this treatment. | Basically, psychos who can't deal with stress and take it | out on the most vulnerable to make themselves feel better. | In no way does this reflect human society, nor normal human | behavior, as even in hunter-gatherer societies, people work | together and prevent abuse. | | You also have to be pretty morally bankrupt to suggest that | this condition of abusing other humans for fun is totally | fine. I don't think you would hold this position if you | were the one receiving the treatment. | lordswork wrote: | From the 274 page NSF report on sexual harassment/assault in | the Antarctic[1]: | | >"a very young woman, [who] had never been on the ice before. | Somehow, she slipped away from us and went out to the bar . . | . and I was like 'Oh my god, did we forget to tell her she | was prey?'" One survey respondent wrote, "I was told [of] | certain guys, by name, to stay clear of and there were | several guys who harassed me. Hell, my very first day at | McMurdo I was told to stay clear of Building [X] unless I | wanted to be raped." | | Wow, I had no idea it was this bad. Being stationed at one of | these sites is a life-long dream come true for many of these | scientists. It must be terrible for the women who learn of | this situation when they get out there. | | [1] https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/documents/USAP%20SAHPR%20Repo | rt.... | Neil44 wrote: | That's a shame. It sounds like a workplace from the 70's, or | worse. | ilamont wrote: | The prospect of a medical emergency would be terrible. I think | there was an unplanned cancer surgery at this base many years | back, but there are so many other things that can go wrong with | no ER or quick evacuation to turn to. Even a dental emergency | would be a disaster. | | ETA: The cancer emergency was in 1998 required a special air drop | but they had to wait until October to fly out the patient. | https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/1812/ | ryanisnan wrote: | Is it possible to land a plane there mid-winter, if absolutely | necessary? Obviously fraught with difficulty, and dangerous, | but... is it possible? | eastbound wrote: | A man committed self-surgery on his appendicitis (in the | 1950ies, granted), so it seems a single man's life is not | enough to warrant a full flight in winter. What would warrant | it? Escaping the apocalypse of the modern world, maybe? | colechristensen wrote: | Yes. I can't find the outcome of this attempt a while back, but | it was obviously tried. | | https://nationalpost.com/news/world/pitch-black-frigid-cold-... | kryptiskt wrote: | It went well: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- | way/2016/06/22/483121098... | Reason077 wrote: | > _" Slow and intermittent Internet access."_ | | Hmm, how long until Starlink (or similar) reaches the South Pole? | rtkwe wrote: | Starlink isn't sending many satellites into the polar orbits | because there are basically no customer there to make the extra | cost worth it. To make the whole network cover the poles you'd | need even more satellites to cover the tiny fraction of | additional customer it would bring. | | Also until recently there wasn't a way to downlink from polar | sats even if they were lofted. Most Starlink data is | immediately downlinked instead of being sent to neighboring | satellites so you need a downlink relatively close to the | customer which isn't possible on the poles. | | Now with the intra=constellation lasers online, though I think | they're still around 50% of satellites only, it could in theory | be done but the required extra birds makes it really tough | economically. | mlindner wrote: | The only Starlink satellites that can hope to reach the north | pole are the satellites that reach 82.4 degrees north/south | (orbits at inclination of 97.6 degrees) and there's currently | only 187 of those operating so very few will be in view at any | one time and the Starlink dish needs to pick an orientation so | you will only see some of them at any given time (FOV is only | part of the direction it's facing, missing at least the other | half of the satellites, if not at least 2/3 of the satellites | in view). | | Whether that makes service impossible, I'm not sure. US | government may work with SpaceX to make a customized 360 degree | antenna that can reach them. Or they may mount it on a tower. I | think a customized antenna would be needed anyway to survive | the temperatures there. Starlink is technically only rated down | to -30C though people do use it below that temperature and it | seems to work. I doubt it'd work at those -60C temps however. | ericpauley wrote: | https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-internet-service-antar... | | Edit: as someone pointed out this is McMurdo. | augusto-moura wrote: | That's McMurdo, not the South Pole, a orbit a lot easier to | achieve. | | I thought that Starlink satellites wouldn't orbit that far on | the poles, but looking on trackers [1] it does look like | there a few stragglers up there (or down there in this case, | he). Maybe there are some special talks with the military and | other countries on getting some good internet. I don't | believe polar orbits would be commercially viable otherwise | | [1]: https://satellitemap.space/?norad=48119 | kortilla wrote: | McMurdo is served by the polar orbits. They cover the South | Pole just as well. | kortilla wrote: | https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/14/spacex-satellite-internet-... | | There are polar orbits that make that possible since McMurdo is | out of view of the standard starlink orbits. It should work at | the South Pole just as well. | lxgr wrote: | Once inter-satellite links are operational, presumably. Looking | at [1], there are already some polar orbit satellites, but | without these links, that doesn't help Antarctica much. (I'm | also not sure if the polar satellites are operational for | regular traffic yet.) | | [1] https://satellitemap.space/ | orlp wrote: | Can someone explain to me how you can have geostationary | orbit around the poles? | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Can someone explain to me how you can have geostationary | orbit around the poles?_ | | You can't. For high latitudes you use highly-elliptical | orbits, like tundra or Molniya. | lxgr wrote: | Or you can use polar orbits, which is what Iridium does! | I believe that's what the antarctic stations are | currently using. | bearbin wrote: | You can't. Starlink satellites are in LEO, not | geostationary orbit. | _joel wrote: | The laser links are active, have been for a few months now | insane_dreamer wrote: | fascinating blog. just read the one article so far, but sure to | read the rest. what a great experience! | henryackerman wrote: | I just love the domain name! | tiagod wrote: | This guy is living my dream! Unlikely I'll have have the chance | to work in inland Antarctica as I'm not from a country that sends | people over there for tech stuff, but I still hope someday I'll | have the chance :) | grecy wrote: | If you really want to go, be a dishwasher or cook or something | similar. | | I've had 4 friends do exactly that. The work was crap, but the | experience was well, well worth it. | almostkorean wrote: | My grandpa did the same thing when he was 72 years old. | Applied for food services, worked in the cafeteria but did | extra stuff like DJ a radio show, drove a shuttle, and gave | tours. A couple weeks into his stay, my grandpa ended up | being the "most qualified" person at the station to take over | the greenhouse (he had an agriculture degree which he hadn't | used in 48 years) but ended up doing a good job. He travelled | a lot but Antarctica was his favorite adventure. | xNeil wrote: | How do you apply though? I'd assume vacancies would be | extremely rare - quite interesting you've had four friends do | it. | grecy wrote: | Vacancies are extremely common, they have regular old job | fairs | | Just apply with whatever country applies to you | | https://www.google.com/search?q=work+in+antarctica | | US: https://www.usap.gov/jobsandopportunities/ | | Australian: https://jobs.antarctica.gov.au/jobs-in- | antarctica/ | TrackerFF wrote: | A couple of my ex-colleagues worked on the Troll station. The | Norwegian Polar Institute usually publish the vacancies a year | ahead, as there is a lot of prep to get to right people. | | Anyway, both of 'em worked as IT/communication engineers some 10 | years apart, but told me that the first movie they watched | together (with rest of the crew) was John Carpenter's The Thing. | jedberg wrote: | Why do they make the buildings black and white? Both of those | blend in with the snow at night (which is 1/2 the year). | | Why not make them day glow yellow or something, so they are | always visible? | Maxion wrote: | Black to save on heating? | | During a polar night it gets so dark that once you're out of | flashlight range it doesn't matter. | | The issue is the wind blown snow reducing visibility. | jedberg wrote: | > During a polar night it gets so dark that once you're out | of flashlight range it doesn't matter. | | During the polar night the moon is up 1/2 the time, and it's | from 1/2 full to full to 1/2 full, so there is still a source | of light at least 1/2 the time. | | Making them black to save on heating is a good point though. | Same with wind blown snow being the main issue with | visibility. | ietktnz wrote: | International rewatch "The Thing" day | clarkema wrote: | Too early for that! "The Thing" is traditionally midwinter | viewing. | andruby wrote: | Aren't the northern-hemispherians close enough to midwinter? | bentcorner wrote: | Now I wonder if they watch other Antarctic media. I'd recommend | "A Place Further than the Universe" but I have no idea if it's | something they'd want to watch. | teepo wrote: | I feel like my Emacs setup would be perfect after the winter | isolation. :) - Has anyone studied the Antarctic winter with | respect to deep focus and personal productivity? | dpflan wrote: | Heh, As in the more extreme the cold, the deeper focus? Perhaps | ignoring the ever-looming dread of facility malfunction and | death by freezing... Perhaps other cold environments are better | suited? | alex_sf wrote: | Somewhat related, I've seen mentions here and there of people | using cruise ships for the same thing. Minimal distractions | from the outside world (via the internet anyway), and most | personal concerns out of the way (food, laundry, etc). | Aperocky wrote: | Don't think it'd be about deep focus, but definitely spiritual. | k8sToGo wrote: | Interesting. To me it sounds quite the opposite. Lonely, | depressing, and boring. | dcchambers wrote: | This is a great blog, thanks for sharing. Definitely looking | forward to following along during the winter. | | I wonder what kinds of science are done at the South Pole. | _joel wrote: | Blows me away everytime I see these bases and the amount of | 'stuff' they have there considering it's literally in the middle | of nowhere. | rdevsrex wrote: | Very cool! | dpflan wrote: | If you're interested in the people and personalities and | activities at the South Pole, the Werner Herzog film _Encounters | at the End of the World_ is a revealing and interesting | documentary. It includes a fascinating part about a deluded | penguin choosing to leave its flock and begin a fatal journey | towards the center of the island... | | - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounters_at_the_End_of_the_W... | | - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093824/ | 4gotunameagain wrote: | The famous scene[0] from this film is a masterpiece. It never | fails to sink me to my nadir, so I avoid watching it even if I | love it so much. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnTU_hJoByA | BolexNOLA wrote: | Herzog laying it on thick with the music as per usual lol but | that is a beautiful, haunting sequence nonetheless. I like to | rag on Herzog but he really is a unique mind and an | incredible documentarian. | julienchastang wrote: | Thanks. I remember that scene well. Herzog at his finest. I | had the privilege of seeing Herzog speak in person at a | conference around the time when this movie was released. | boredemployee wrote: | Amazing, thanks for sharing. | dpflan wrote: | Understandable. It struck a deep chord with me, became a | larger metaphor applicable to all life. | sph wrote: | Beautiful, thanks for sharing. | | That penguin walked to his certain death, while his mates | swam and caught fish, to their certain death. Sadness for it | and his supposed insanity only exists for a fleeting moment. | In a long enough timespan, it lived and died like any other | penguin has or ever will. | | Nihilism is not necessarily pessimistic. It presents our | universe, and life itself, as a glass half full, but it's up | to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. | | Thanks for this evening philosophical reflection. | 2-718-281-828 wrote: | at least for most of us it is not pessimistic only as long | as one can muse about it while sitting comfortably in a | warm place with a full stomach. | sph wrote: | You are mistaken. Being at peace with the universe isn't | only available to wealthy people. This is a very | materialistic view. | | There is someone out there in abject poverty that is more | content than anyone with a warm place and a full stomach. | They are hungry, they are cold, yet they are at peace. | | Likewise, I believe one can reach inner contentment even | if fed and clothed. It is not a path accessible only to | the poor. | kortilla wrote: | Food and shelter isn't materialistic. The lack of them | have have severe psychological and physiological | consequences. | zeagle wrote: | I speculate, but I imagine that that type of behavior by a | group of individuals on a long timescale where most but not | fail is one important mechanism of how remote Polynesian | islands, ice age American via Beringia, and other areas of | the world get populated. | jxramos wrote: | That's what I was thinking---the occasional outlier's | success in pioneering out into the new. | throw0101c wrote: | > _Nihilism is not necessarily pessimistic. It presents our | universe, and life itself, as a glass half full, but it 's | up to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing._ | | The _nihil_ is nihilism is Latin for "nothing". | | Nihilism says there is no meaning to existence: it does not | matter if the glass if half-full, it does not matter if the | glass is half-empty, it does not matter if the glass (or | its contents) exist at all. It does not matter if you | decide if life/universe/everything is good, or if you | decide it is bad. It does not matter what, or even if, you | decide something at all. | 2-718-281-828 wrote: | The top rated comment is spot on: | | > Werner Herzog tells a joke: | | > "Why did the penguin cross the road?" | | > "To die. Alone. Insane and unnoticed." | throw0101c wrote: | > _It never fails to sink me to my nadir, so I avoid watching | it even if I love it so much._ | | Of course the sound track to that scene is a Russian Orthodox | religious chant: | | * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LVHl3HTBoA | foobarbecue wrote: | FYI, many people who spent time at McMurdo around the filming | of Encounters are not big fans. The interviews were | intentionally set up to make people look weird. The narration | implies there's something wrong with "polar people." You might | find us dissapointingly normal. | | A Year On Ice is a more accurate representation. | | I'm in Frozen Planet, but you can't believe all the narration | in that either. | dpflan wrote: | I can see that, with only a few hours of footage to portray | the situation they want. Is there not something interesting | or an underlying personality trait that makes the voluntary | inhabitants of the frozen world different from the average | person? How much time have you spent there? | foobarbecue wrote: | I suppose we're a little more adventurous on average than a | random sample of Americans? Big spread there, though. | Everyone's different. | foobarbecue wrote: | 7 summer seasons, about 2 months each. Most of that was in | a tent up on Erebus, but about a week transitioning through | McMurdo at the beginning and end of each season. | dpflan wrote: | Interesting, doing field research? | foobarbecue wrote: | Yeah, here's a taste: | https://aaroncurt.is/frozenplanet.html | hcrisp wrote: | I remember watching this. Turns out BBC Natural History | documentaries are more theater than just documentaries. | If you watch the "making of" clips at the end of some of | the series, you do get the sense that they may not be | just captured natural footage as much as highly-scripted | activities with the actions of the cameramen, crew, etc. | edited out. Still fun to watch, but isn't being | manipulated as a viewer disingenuous for a studio that | calls itself "Natural" History? Maybe a better name would | be BBC Studios Artificial History Unit. | morsch wrote: | At this point I can't really enjoy documentaries like | that anymore. I keep thinking "they brought a steadicam | down there?" or "where is all that light coming from?" | The fourth wall is thoroughly broken. | | Thanks, I'd rather watch a poorly lit Youtube video with | a guy talking to his Gopro. I wonder what the equivalent | of that would be for animal documentaries. | foobarbecue wrote: | The sentiment resonates, but on the other hand I took a | lot of video in those caves and it's all unwatchable, so | I have enormous appreciation for what the BBC did. It's | an incredibly hard environment to film in and I was | absolutely amazed by the final product. Gavin Thurston | rigged up cables from ice screws in the cave walls and | set up a travelling robot camera thing he designed on it. | There was a huge amount of equipment and hard work; for | example for the crater shots I helped them carry up an | enormous crane system to the crater rim which didn't even | produce any useful footage. Also, the BBC guys were so | charismatic that they could talk their way around rules | and into places. For example, the helicopter pilots | flying in the crater did things that aren't normally | allowed. So in a way it's fake, but actually when it | comes to the cave visuals, their work captures the | feeling of being there, which otherwise I would never | really be able to share with anyone. It really is an | unbelivably spectacular place and almost impossible to | film. | colechristensen wrote: | I like the old Jacques Cousteau films where there's no | fourth wall to break, the people making it are also a | subject. | | I don't like the nature documentary that tries really | hard to pretend the makers don't exist. I especially | don't like how almost all of the sound is faked. | | Go ahead, bring a steadycam and a key light, just don't | stage shit like a fake reality show. Id like to see | what's actually out there. Also maybe don't take every | opportunity to say how everything you're filming is | doomed. | | https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6J1OzLHamQ8TdX5j2w3L2 | 53m... | dpflan wrote: | (Heh, a taste of fooBBQ.) Thank you for sharing. While | we're here and discussing the documentaries: care to | share a highlight anecdote of your time there? | foobarbecue wrote: | Oh man, so many stories. Well, here's a fun one. There's | unfortunately a big divide between the contractor- | employed support staff and the "beakers" (scientists like | me) and I would try and break through the barrier | sometimes. Had a brief romance with someone working in | waste management (a "wastie"), so maybe that's how it | started. But anyway, one day I was sitting in the McMurdo | cafeteria at a table with people from Fuels ("fuelies") | and people from Communications ("commies" ... yeah) | someone asked me what I do and I said "I work up on | Erebus." A fuelie looks daggers at me and goes "Oh yeah!? | Well I work on the FUCKING MOON!" and storms off. | | There were a lot of people at McMurdo for whom Antarctica | wasn't quite the adventure they'd hoped it would be. | credit_guy wrote: | That short clip is absolutely breathtaking. Thank you for | sharing. | navi0 wrote: | Just curious, what's the male:female ratio of the typical | winter crew? | davidw wrote: | Curious what that drive from McMurdo is like. Do they have a | regular ice road? Or do they just follow directions "Uh, keep | going south. Can't miss it" | qikInNdOutReply wrote: | Closest you get to the "another" world experience on this planet. | That and mount everest. | reidjs wrote: | Except that Mount Everest is full of people supposedly. | chasd00 wrote: | Mount Everest is full of trash and bodies too iirc. There's a | couple spots where you pass bodies on the way up that no one | will recover. | zikduruqe wrote: | And those bodies are waypoints. For example "green boots". | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Boots | throwboatyface wrote: | Certainly full of bodies. | qikInNdOutReply wrote: | Somebody has to be the step of the stair to success on the | motivational calendar. | DoctorDabadedoo wrote: | And trash. | mLuby wrote: | And Iceland's rocky beauty. And deserts. | macabe wrote: | This is a great read. Not sure if it is answered in another post, | but what is the story behind your decision to leave San Francisco | for the South Pole? | rodolphoarruda wrote: | The "About" page shows an interesting fact. This guy applied to | the work position in Antarctica back in 2017 and it took almost | 2k days for the hiring team to get back to him for the next steps | of the hiring process. Quite a long wait, but I guess it was | worth it. A "one in a billion" lifetime opportunity. | hgsgm wrote: | It's ~5000 people per year, 1 in a million humans per year (and | of course most humans aren't interested in going) | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | As someone who has lived rather isolated for long stretches, I | think the one thing that helps fight feeling isolated is to find | your joy and practice it. My joy is in creative outlets. When I'm | alone, I sing, woodwork, cook new recipes, garden [indoors or | out], sew. If I had a large indoor space I'd probably practice | slacklining, aerial arts, tumbling, parkour, climbing. And then | there's the computer, where I can create music and endless | programs, websites. I haven't even touched on painting, drawing, | playing music. And all that can be supplemented by podcasts, | music, movies/TV, reading, chores, working out. There's really | _so much_ to do indoors if you can cultivate a creative mindset. | Aeolun wrote: | Or, instead of all that. You can spend your entire summer at | the south pole playing a _single_ game of Factorio. | 2-718-281-828 wrote: | the joke's lost on me? I know the game (never played it, | though) but why "a single game"? | tomalpha wrote: | A single game of Factorio can take a long time. Mine | usually take around 100 hours. | | The craving to (tweak|move|refactor|grow) the base for | certain personality types that are richly represented on HN | can mean you can spend hundreds more on it too. | recursiveturtle wrote: | The...base...must...grow... | AceJohnny2 wrote: | These stories about the logistics at Amundsen-Scott are a | fascinating glimpse at the level of logistical complexity that'd | be required for an off-planet (Moon, Mars...) base. | | Every time I see people get excited about Martian human | habitation, I note a lack of discussion of the essential | intermediate step: a fully self-sustaining base in the most | inhospitable parts of Earth. | | Where are the Biosphere++ projects? | | And Amundsen-Scott has it easy: pressure, oxygen levels, and dust | aren't a problem! (granted: Martian equator has easier | temperatures). | | Also, I've long wondered what is the comparable level of yearly | insolation (for viability of solar power) in the South Pole | compares to Mars' equator? | ReptileMan wrote: | The first people on mars will be self replicating robots. Due | to the way the exponential function works - I think enough | terraforming could be done really fast. | nine_k wrote: | But will humans be welcome afterwards? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-02-15 23:00 UTC)