Wearable Computer Expedition Reaches South Pole

henrym writes: "Tom and Tina Sjogren have reached the South Pole after skiing in for two months wearing portable computers. Their web site hasn't been updated to reflect this fact, but our station manager has just come back from greeting them as they reached the pole. Details of their expedition can be found at thepoles.com. Henry Malmgren, South Pole Station Network Engineer" It's not every day we get a story submission from the South Pole.

Comments

It's hard to believe that ...

[Delirium Tremens]

Some nerds can be that obsessed with penguins?!
That, or they were desperate overclockers looking for the ultimate cooling solution.

Re:Why the South Pole

[KjetilK]

The North Pole is a lot more dangerous hike than the South Pole. When you go to the North Pole, you will not have solid ground under your feet, you'll walk on ocean ice. Sometimes it breaks up, often it floats southwards, so you may well wake up one morning, finding you have drifted further away from the pole than when you went to sleep the previous evening. You must count on falling in the icy water, or you may want top walk a long way around open ocean. However, Børge Ousland, who did the first solo crossing of the ice cap (he failed to do it unsupported, though), had a suite that he used to swim across open fields between the ice flakes. Then, there are Polar Bears. You have to be on the alert, because they are probably the only species on earth that looks upon you as their natural pray. Penguins are definitately preferable, yes... :-) Sometimes, the ice builds up to immense towers. OTOH, in Antarctica, there is colder, and the sastrugi that you may encounter can be rather vicious.

Actually, there is something about Antartica that is just very appealing to me. Not necessarily the South Pole (there are many expeditions there. If you want to do something big, though, you could try skiing there in the Winter, that would be something). But while Antarctica is appeal, the northern polar icecap seems just very, very scary. But, I guess I might change my mind about that too.

Re:Wearable computers

[hughk]

There is a special club amongst people working at the South Pole. When conditions are good, they heat up a sauna and then run naked from the sauna (except for footware) run once around the pole and back again. I believe the club is called something like the two-hundred below club, the two hundred referring to the temperature difference between the Sauna and outside in Farenheit.

Not a wearable computer in sight!!!!!!