Live data from Hacker News

They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

nytimes.com

81–90 of 199 posts

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#81

Boss Lowe wrote about doping with xenon gas more than a decade ago: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon Also, and quite interestingly, xenon isn't the only element that does this. Cobalt does something very similar: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/ Athletic use is probably more common than people think. And I'd be absolutely shocked if Xe gas weren't already being used in race…

It’s kinda curious that xenon can be used both for performance enhancement _and_ as a general anaesthetic.

And as a dessert topping!

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#82
post #64

Why does mountaineering need a future ? Mountaineering should just be done. Stop. The mountains have been scaled. All of them. We've been there, website seen what's to be seen. It's done, it's over. Just leave these grandiose wonders alone rather than destroying the natural beauty in the name of an ego boost.

Only the people that have been there have seen it. Why should experiences not be repeatable? Humanity doesn’t share a to-do list; you doing something doesn’t give me those experiences. If you want to pivot to the wear-and-tear or how people aren’t adhering to leave-no-trace that’s fine but a different argument

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.

Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…

Most business is about providing value by delivering goods or services that people want and are willing to pay for. Visit your local shops, how many of them are convincing people to buy proverbial tulips and leaving their customers holding the bag? Look at the most valuable companies in the world; they all do or make stuff people happily pay for because they actually find value in it.

Certainly there are people who succeed in business by doing what you say, but it’s not how most success happens.

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#84
Isn't Xenon very expensive?

I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature.

So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#85

LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest, why bother ?

>LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest

That isn't true now. But it might be in a few years, if Tesla's genius CEO continues to alienate his customers.

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.

Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…

you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their way into much better opportunities will out-earn you by orders of magnitude?

Unethical people tend to get themselves better opportunities regardless of how society is organized.

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#87

Isn't Xenon very expensive? I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature. So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.

> Isn't Xenon very expensive?

Climbing Everest costs $50-100K though. If you can reduce the time each 'climber' spends on the mountain, its probably cost effective.

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.

Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their wa…

> And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground

That's not why, particularly. They do so for various reasons:

- they compare the reality of capitalism with a nonexistent nirvana, rather than the reality of the alternatives. They haven't run the real counterfactual

- they gravitate to any philosophy that they're familiar with instinctively: most students are young, and they conceptualise "fairness" in terms of a loving parental figure with resources meting things out to them, and they think of the government in a similar way

- they believe countries they have heard are nice to live in, normally Scandinavian countries, aren't capitalist

- they don't know the realities of real non-capitalist countries such as the USSR or pre-capitalist China, or present-day Venezuela (not truly non-capitalist, but the central planning around their oil is their main problem), or East Germany, or Cuba

- they have gone to university, the only place where bad ideas can survive and be propogated out into the world

Re: They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

#90
post #78
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you are the arbiter of whats worth doing.

Sure. Here's my full criteria: Is it a net positive for the world at large? It's worth doing. That's it. Go out unto the world and do with that as you will

Wouldn't the most beneficial thing then just be to kill myself? Overpopulation and such

Going skydiving, auto racing, sailing, working out... All pointless if I'm understanding this logic.

Post reply on HN