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

Doors of McMurdo

brr.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 131 posts

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#51

Post by odiroot »

Georgelemental wrote: post #27
hprotagonist wrote: post #5

This 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_.

You may be interested in "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott, an entire book about this subject: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/d...

It begins as a very interesting book (especially the forest management example) but boy is it slow. The author tends to repeat his point ad nauseam.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#52

Post by Eleison23 »

alksjdalkj wrote: post #50
CrazyStat wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where transit lines are run before the city builds up around them. I'm not sure even this is true. The city may not build up in the way the planners anticipated. Even if it does, it will change over time.

They aren't independent, the city will tend to build up along the transit lines due to the easy access to transit. E.g., the NYC outer boroughs and the DC metro area.

That may be true for immovable train lines, but vehicle transit such as buses have routes which are subject to change, and therefore developers cannot depend on the transit lines being there in 10-20 years.

Bus lines instead tend to follow where the traffic wants to go. Around here, many shopping malls double as bus stations because the primary aim of transit seems to be circulating consumers around places they will spend money.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#53

Post by dendrite9 »

loufe wrote: post #4
loufe wrote: post #3

I work at a large mining complex in Canada's far north. We have a mix of all types of door handles and mechanisms in outside-facing doors, like McMurdo, it would seem. Even the best of them fails to keep snow out and heat in when you get snow and ice caught in the door creases. Salt, sand, and shovel and pick are the motto. Thankfully, more doors are further off the ground because of permafrost. Having stability and…

Permafrost stilts, for reference: https://s3.amazonaws.com/greenbuildingadvisor.s3.tauntonclou...

Are the stilts connected to thermosiphons? That is a cool technology and application I learned about when reading about building larger structures in the far north. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072021/thawing-permafro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosiphon https://dot.alaska.gov/stwddes/research/assets/pdf/erdc-crre...

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#54

Post by jccooper »

dheera wrote: post #20

I'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?

Mc Murdo is not the ISS. I think it's telling that it's referred to as a "town". Plenty of unauthorized personnel.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#55

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

The first thing I think about isn't snow or handles, it's the framing. Poor framing results in door sagging which results in sticking, wearing or even broken doors. A handle you can replace pretty easily with basic tools (and a crescent wrench and square tube works as a handle in a pinch). A poorly hung door requires more skill.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#56

Post by irrational »

vikingerik wrote: post #26
irrational wrote: post #21

When I hear McMurdo Station, I think of a single solitary building with maybe a dozen people. I had no idea McMurdo was so large with so many buildings! I spent a few minutes trying to find a decent map of the entire station, but came up short.

You're thinking of South Pole Station. That's mostly one large building for a few dozen people, and very photogenic for snowbound isolation, so it's usually the picture used for Antarctica articles. (McMurdo is not at the south pole, it's on the coast near New Zealand.) (Edit since I keep getting nitpicked - near in relative terms, it's at NZ's longitude and closer to NZ than to anywhere else.)

That isn’t what I was thinking of. I wasn’t even aware there was more than one research facility in Antarctica. I was going purely off of the name.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#58

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

I find everything about McMurdo fascinating because it's such an extreme place. I looked at every one of these doors and read about them. And a friend of mine from college worked (works?) there after and has cool stories to tell.

Like penguin feces smells awful because it's predator feces raised to the fish power.

And emperor penguins are huge, and if they whack you with their wings they can break finger bones.

And people who newly arrive look "orange".

And this wasn't from him, but some other documentary: Chips left out don't go stale because the air is so dry. In fact, they may get crispier.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#59

Post by billforsternz »

vikingerik wrote: post #26
irrational wrote: post #21

When I hear McMurdo Station, I think of a single solitary building with maybe a dozen people. I had no idea McMurdo was so large with so many buildings! I spent a few minutes trying to find a decent map of the entire station, but came up short.

You're thinking of South Pole Station. That's mostly one large building for a few dozen people, and very photogenic for snowbound isolation, so it's usually the picture used for Antarctica articles. (McMurdo is not at the south pole, it's on the coast near New Zealand.) (Edit since I keep getting nitpicked - near in relative terms, it's at NZ's longitude and closer to NZ than to anywhere else.)

I'm typing this in New Zealand at latitude 42 degrees south (so about half way from the equator to the pole). So no, not near NZ, a bit less than 1/8 of the circumstance of the Earth away, maybe 1/10, more than 2000 miles.

Re: Doors of McMurdo

#60

Post by vikingerik »

irrational wrote: post #56
vikingerik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of South Pole Station. That's mostly one large building for a few dozen people, and very photogenic for snowbound isolation, so it's usually the picture used for Antarctica articles. (McMurdo is not at the south pole, it's on the coast near New Zealand.) (Edit since I keep getting nitpicked - near in relative terms, it's at NZ's longitude and closer to NZ than to anywhere else.)

That isn’t what I was thinking of. I wasn’t even aware there was more than one research facility in Antarctica. I was going purely off of the name.

That's what I meant - subconsciously you probably were thinking of the base that is the South Pole Station, since that's the one with more pictures of it and that's the location where you'd intuitively expect an antarctic base to be.
Post reply on HN