I guess there are no nightclubs at McMurdo. Because, fire code@!
There’s 2/3 bars and a bunch of different parties thrown on different weekends. No wall to wall people though most people need to get up early.
Doors of McMurdo
101–110 of 131 posts
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#102I'm curious why many of the doors have deadbolts. In an environment where you presumably know every single human on the site and there are probably no other humans in any direction for 1000 km, is there a need for locks on anything other than bedrooms and bathrooms?
The threat is not from strangers, but from fully vetted and trusted community members having some kind of psychological event that leads them to bad actions. The various entities working at McMurdo do pretty thorough pre-deployment psych evals to try to catch the kinds of people who would break vital equipment (think furnaces, or water-treatment equipment or high-cost/one-of-a-kind research equipment) or equipment ne…
They don’t do psych assessments anymore I believe
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can help! I went through it 7 times. FSTP, prounounced "F-stop" like the camera setting, was the "field safety training program" and basically it refers to the group of mountaineers that the US Antarctic Program's contractor hires to live in Antarctica and help out with fieldwork. It also refers to the classes that they teach in McMurdo. Basic FSTP "snow school" used to be required for everyone at McMurdo, and for…
I think this is called ‘happy camper’ and there is a light version where you just learn basics so you can go travel off station.
Right. So when I first went (2010-11), everybody going to mcmurdo had to sleep out on sea ice one night (and it was called "happy camper" or "snow school"). They gradually scaled back the program; added lesser versions and made it so your group had to request it. Maybe meanings of "snow school" and "happy camper" diverged at some point.
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#104Re: Doors of McMurdo
#105This is not a master-planned community. Rather, it is a series of organic responses to evolving operational needs. over time i have become more and more convinced that this state of affairs is _better_.
it's better as long as everybody realizes how they got to the current situation, and is willing to continue to make experimental, ad-hoc adjustements to suit the current needs as they change. the problem happens when somebody decides a design that was arrived upon by spontaneous growth is perfect as-is, and when needs change instead of just fixing it, you need a 6-month study and a planning commission to make a chang…
I don't favor arbitrary requirement for studies but I think it's fair to acknowledge that whatever has grown organically over the years does have legitimate reasons why it's the way that it is, even if it wasn't master planned (arguably it probably makes more sense if it evolved) and so you cant really assume that the status quo can be dismissed just because it's not consciously deliberate
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#106The simple type of handle, if anyone is interested, is extremely similar to a shipboard "dog" for a hatch. Very practical and simple.
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#107I'm a bit interested to know whether locks that face the outdoors in this place have special considerations against freezing up?
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate the beauty that comes with the organic evolution of these buildings but if it leads to a "break lock in emergency" door, it is definitely not better.
That door's state is due to the key being lost, not due to organic growth.
I think but could be wrong that the article alludes to but does not explicitly state but that door is in fact a joke for instance it is a door that has a file cabinet on the other side and they didn't want people to go through it and they made a joke by labeling it thus and pretending the keys are lost. McMurdo feels like the type of place where someone could acquire a crowbar in under 10 seconds and that is the true key for that door if you ever in fact needed to use it.
A place I used to go to as a kid used to have a giant throw switch which said it would turn off the waterfall if thrown which was a joke they played on kids. It was in fact just the old Master throw switch for the house when they originally electric it up.
Re: Doors of McMurdo
#109Re: Doors of McMurdo
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s 2/3 bars and a bunch of different parties thrown on different weekends. No wall to wall people though most people need to get up early.
Sadly the bars no longer serve liquor, due to incidents.
Citation needed. My counter evidence is from 2022:
https://drunkard.com/08-04-
southpole/