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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)."
ip over sherpa carriers with quality of service
liqbase
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.
Infiltrated dot Net
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
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...
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?!
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.
Non-Flamebait: A lot of interesting information in the website, and the photographs are excellent, good luck with the expedition!
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer