Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Last Flight Out

brr.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 322 posts

Re: Last Flight Out

#71

Post by foobarbecue »

dpflan wrote: post #65
foobarbecue wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

I suppose we're a little more adventurous on average than a random sample of Americans? Big spread there, though. Everyone's different.

Re: Last Flight Out

#72

Post by foobarbecue »

dpflan wrote: post #69
foobarbecue wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting, doing field research?

Yeah, here's a taste: https://aaroncurt.is/frozenplanet.html

Re: Last Flight Out

#73

Post by Forgeties79 »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #39
dpflan wrote: post #16

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.c…

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

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.

Re: Last Flight Out

#74

Post by biztos »

stinkytaco wrote: post #43
joe_lin wrote: post #41

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.

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

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.)

Re: Last Flight Out

#75

Post by stickfigure »

ta1243 wrote: post #40

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.

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.

Re: Last Flight Out

#76

Post by hgsgm »

ta1243 wrote: post #40

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.

2 people in a shower doesn't effectively decrease water usage per person, and the logistics overhead would eat into the 4 minutes.

Re: Last Flight Out

#77

Post by dpflan »

foobarbecue wrote: post #72
dpflan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, doing field research?

Yeah, here's a taste: https://aaroncurt.is/frozenplanet.html

(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?

Re: Last Flight Out

#78

Post by hgsgm »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #18

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.

It's ~5000 people per year, 1 in a million humans per year (and of course most humans aren't interested in going)

Re: Last Flight Out

#79

Post by hgsgm »

dahart wrote: post #61

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?

The South Pole is also closer to the center of the earth than the equator. Not sure how that effects altitude:temperature relationship .

Re: Last Flight Out

#80

Post by sph »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #39
dpflan wrote: post #16

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.c…

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

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.

Post reply on HN