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Ch-Ch-Chatting With the South Pole's IT Manager
Have you ever thought about working at a place where the main worry is keeping the equipment from getting too cold? An excellent detailed interview with the IT manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Getting service is a little tough. They try to maintain at least a year's worth of spare parts.
Includes an interesting set of photos.
The reason the guy keeps referring to his people back in Denver is because logistics and support for the South Pole station (and McMurdo, too, I think) are run by Raytheon Polar Services, which is based in Colorado. The Antarctic program is run out of Washington by the National Science Foundation, but they contract out the actual infrastructure, operations, and other support.
It's sort of the weather. It's cold and windy during the winter, sure. But, it's also dark - completely and utterly dark for months at a time during the dead of winter. There aren't any lights on the runway, or air traffic radar either, so there's a good chance the plane will smack onto the snow rather than land. It's very difficult to compact and maintain the snow/ice runway during the winter. If a plane were to land, they would have to keep the engines revved up and the plane moving - if they were to stop and shutdown the skis would freeze to the runway and the engines would refuse to restart.
also bear in mind that any plane they sent up there would almost certainly have to go through McMurdo. They generally use modified C-130s for their heavy transport, and they don't have tremendous range on one tank of gas. So, you'd need to get a plane first to McMurdo, which has its own difficulties of winter flying, and then head to the South Pole.
None of this is to say that they can't fly in during the winter. If the station were to blow up, for instance, they'd get some daring pilots to head in for a rescue. A few years back there was someone on the over-winter crew that needed treatment for breast cancer (it was the doctor, ironically enough), and they did some dicey flights for that (to send supplies, then for an early extraction). It's mostly that they prefer to not have to, because it's logistically difficult and mighty risky.
It's from John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing...rent it, horror/sci-fi classic. Great great stuff. Even by today's standards, the special effects are decent. Also notable for not having a single female in the entire movie (unless you count the voice of the chess computer early on in the movie)
Living With a Nerd
I don't know, but it might not be a good idea. According to http://healthandenergy.com/suggested_indoor_air_pressure.htm,
Of course, the next section of this page appears to contradict this....
http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/vol31_2/index.asp#control has more on this. Summary: It's complicated, man.
I asked about maintaining a positive pressure differential when we had an ERV installed (for reasons similar to those suggested by the PP); the technician indicated that while a nice theory, it could cause the ERV to ice up. They had been instructed to create a slightly negative pressure differential for this reason.
So my modern, plastic sealed house has slightly negative pressure relative to the outside. Several years and counting, and no negative side effects as far as I can tell.
Oh, and that's in Ottawa: Summer highs in the 40s, and very humid, winter lows in the -30s, and very dry. Nothing too extreme....
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.