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A Geek On Everest
mysterious_mark writes "Recently I was recruited by Altitude Films to be the IT geek for a filming expedition to the north side of Mount Everest. I have written an account of my experience. It is a tale of high latency, low bandwidth, blown hard drives, and frozen fingers. Summit day is June 14th. See the expedition's site for the overall picture (caution: total Flash site)."
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"Half way up mount everest, you insensitive clod".
If it was me, I wouldn't have filmed on the side of Mt. Everest. If I ever get the time and money, I'm going to climb to the top of The Mountain with a laptop and a monster of a directional wifi antenna, sit at its peak, come to slashdot, and comment "frist pots frum EVEREST."
You will all envy me. Or mod me as troll. I'M THE MOUNTAIN TROLL.
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
From the article:
Apparently all he's missing a cape with a big fat S on his chest.
I don't want to sound like an ass but they're only currently at an advanced base camp according to their flash site. They've traveled (vertically) 1,200m so far and they have another 2,400m to go. It only gets worse and steeper the higher up you climb too. So you've spent 30 days so far according to your clock & you want to hit that summit by June 14th? Good luck and may god (of your choice) be with you, hundreds of people have lost their lives due to stupidity & ill preparation.
I can't say I've ever done anything like this, though I've read a lot of books about it. For public consumption, I heavily recommend "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. Read it before the movie comes out--movies are always so much worse than books.
And depending on the make and model, the second failure mode, the batteries bursting into flames, will keep you warm on those chilly Everest nights.
It is safe to say that climbing Everest has no more significance now than parking your car. Every year, a cavalcade of people charge up the mountain, to the point there are actual people jams at the approach to the summit. Ho hum.
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We should all know by now if he were truly a geek he would have at least spelled 31337 correctly.
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I liked the article, but I really wanted to hear more about the particular problems he experienced with the equipment, and what (if any) type of workaround he used to get them back into shape. In such extreme weather, he HAD to have more failures or problems other than that one hard drive. On the other hand, he didn't go above a certain altitude, and maybe everything was fine and dandy. For that, I can think of the ads now: "ABC Corp's hard disks survived EVEREST - put them to work in your demanding data center today!"
df -h
Anybody else read that when they saw the headline? I was like "A Geek on Everquest? Tell me something I don't know!" :-D
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Meanwhile, a bunch of IT dorks who a) have a 70% chance of developing a basic LAMP site correctly at sea level and b) a 15% chance of walking around the block without stopping for breath are sneering at him for -- using Flash.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's been done before, but I can't imagine it being cheap. 29k is awfully high for a helicopter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest
Throw the bums out!
According to the article, Flash is used for video footage because it compresses well and their outbound bandwidth is tiny.
There may be better ways of doing it, and I'm not sure why the whole site has to be Flash, but the decision wasn't completely arbitrary.
Don't be so quick to discount this site based on its use of Flash. It's user interface is incredibly well designed and a great example of how Flash can be used to improve the user experience. It's more of an interactive media site than a traditional text-based Web site. And, amazingly, it works on my old 500 MHz G4 running Safari (very few "Web 2.0" sites work on this configuration - even most Google apps perform poorly).
Skip to the route map to get an idea of the effort they put into the site (http://www.ueverest.com/route_map.html). It's Java, not Flash (which also suggests the designers understand how to choose the right technology for the job).
Anyway, as someone who tends to have the anti-Flash bias, I was surpised by this site. Even if you're not into mountaineering, it's worth looking at to see the potential of interactive Web applications.
-Chris
(And what's up with moderators moding the anti-Flash parent as 'Insightful'?)
A geek on Everest??? Why is his moms basement all the way up there?!
Alrighty, who wants to chip in for a helicopter ride!?!!
2005 - Helicopter landing
On 14 May 2005, pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS 350 B3 Helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest[19] and remained there for two minutes. (His rotors were continually engaged; this is known as a "hover landing".) His subsequent take-off set the world record for highest take-off of a rotorcraft -- a record that of course cannot be beaten.[20] Delsalle had also performed a take-off two days earlier from the South Col, leading to some confusion in the press about the validity of the summit claim. This event does not count as an "ascent" in the usual fashion. [wikipedia]
"a record that of course cannot be beaten."
Btw, I don't like claims likes that. Who's to say that I couldn't fly up to the summit in my helicopter with a bunch of materials, build an elevated landing pad, then take off from that thus setting a new altitude record! Who's with me?! Any billionaires out there with cash burning a hole in their pocket, please contact me as I proclaim exclusive, patented, trademarked, and copyrighted rights to this idea!
Beats previous 2006 record of 480 summits. Gets pretty crowded on top when the 1-2 week weather window opens in late May. This year the window was unusally long, so more peole had second chances. Theres a second, much smaller season in October for a handful of remaining summits.
The factor that greater increased climbers was the entry of cut-rate Chinese climbing companies from the north. Nepal permits cost about $10K per climber, total expedition is $20K - $60K. China cost be below $10K, thus attracting hordes. 2006 had the second highest death total (8), mostly blamed on the shortcuts and inexperience of Chinese companies. I saw (6) so far in 2007.
Since their HD failure rate is so high due to the thin, cold air, why are they even using them? You can buy fully solid state flash hard drives these days. The capacity is limited and they are expensive, but it's nothing compared to a trip up Everest. Buy a bunch of the 64GB ones, spend some time cutting down a copy of Windows to the absolute mininmum that you can work with and you'll still have space for Photoshop, some video editing stuff and the content.
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Non-Flamebait: A lot of interesting information in the website, and the photographs are excellent, good luck with the expedition!
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Too high for a regular helecopter, but you could easily design one that would get to Everest easily. You'd basically need the powerful jet engines driving a larger than usual rotor. Not difficult really.
NASA is even looking at helecopters for Mars because the thin atmosphere makes fixed wing aircraft difficult to design. Flying fixed wing on Mars is easy, but the problem is that the speed of sound is very slow in the thin air. And, because the air is thin, you've got to fly fast to generate lift. This means that on Mars you end up landing your plane at higher than Mach 1, a difficult proposition. A helecopter just needs a large rotor spun very fast, and you don't have to land with such a large horizontal speed.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Using inexpensive off-the-shelf gear they managed to broadcast a live video of the protest before the Chinese "People's Armed Police" caught wind of the "evil Freedom banner" they were holding and quickly grabbed them into custody. But the video had already been streamed into safety and in near real-time uploaded to various video-streaming sites.
Being protected by foreign passports the protesters had to only endure verbal threats, separation from fellow protesters, sleep depravation etc. for less then three days before being deported from the Chinese-occupied Tibet. However for the exiled Tibetan member of the crew the price of taking part in the protest was far heavier since he would now be banned from returning to his homeland... until Tibet regains it freedom, or at least until the Chinese people change their criminal and expansionist CCP regime to one which doesn't commit systematic genocide against China's historical neighbours.
For indigenous Tibetans living under Chinese oppression any action calling for freedom in Tibet will without exception result in far more horrifying treatment involving unimaginable forms of torture and years, even decades of imprisonment in one of the many Chinese concentration camps like Drapchi outside Lhasa. More than a few Tibetans - often young buddhist nuns or monks - have died in the Chinese gulags and this horror show has continued for several decades. Even people like the visiting EU Commissioner for Human Rights is denied access to these Tibetan prisoners of conscience.
More information about this Base Camp protest and the Tibetan struggle in general can be found from the Students For A Free Tibet and Phayul websites.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?