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Laundry at the end of the world
- m463 4y agoI wonder, even with the etymology of antarctica, if there are no bears.
- gumby 4y agoThe article points out that they would have to have been brought in by ship. OTOH there are plenty of penguins and puffins, while the number of penguins in the arctic is vanishingly small.
- beebmam 4y agogiven that there's tens of thousands of humans traveling to Antarctica every year, you'd expect there to be at least a few ants, as stowaways
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y agoThe Argentine Ant (1) is quite invasive "ranked among the world's 100 worst invasive animal species", and has firmly established itself in the area of Cape Town, South Africa, where Antarctica-bound supply ships do leave from. However I see no record of these ants in Antarctica: "They have since spread to all continents except Antarctica" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ant
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mastercheif 4y agoI wonder why they went with top loader washers. Front loaders use less water cause less damage to clothing. Maybe it's a reliability thing? Repairability? Cost?
- post_break 4y agoThey look like maytag or speed queen commercial ones. Reliability is probably the biggest priority.
- hadlock 4y agoSpeed Queen laundry machines are sort of legendary for their reliability. They use standard parts. A 18" box can probably hold spare parts for a dozen speed queens. They are a known quantity which ultimately is what you want in Antarctica, even if the cost is 10% more. You can plan around eventualities with a device like that. vs buying a random machine off the floor at best buy on discount.
- walrus01 4y agoCommercial coin laundromat front loading washers also match all those criteria.
- richardhod 4y agoI think it's more that this is an American base and people in the United States seem to use antediluvian top loaders a lot, possibly because of a historical surfeit of space, and possibly never prevalence of shared machine rooms in apartment blocks. Europeans visiting the United States are often bemused by the antiquated looking, advanced electronics-free top loading washing machines everywhere. I'm sure somebody has written a good article on why this remains the case largely in the United States. If you want a really reliable, modern front loading washing machine, you buy German. Miele, Bosch really are the gold standard and are built to last 20-years rather than the planned obsolescence of most washing machines.
- iwillbenice 4y ago
- Symbiote 4y agoIn this video from 5 years ago at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (at the south pole, not to be confused with the article which is from McMurdo on the coast, next to Scott base on the coast), the narrator specifically said water efficiency is a concern. They have front-loading machines. But as she says, fuel has to be flown in, presumably it comes by ship to McMurdo. https://youtu.be/vrPiVT23MhA?t=404 https://youtu.be/vrPiVT23MhA?t=404
- yawnxyz 4y agoWhat's the deal with those lamps that are sitting in the floor on every picture?
- Symbiote 4y agoWith Antarctic light/darkness, the need for lamps would vary considerably throughout the year. Probably these have been moved out of the way for the summer.
- mariojv 4y agoAnother fun post from this blog: https://brr.fyi/posts/credit-card-shenanigans https://brr.fyi/posts/credit-card-shenanigans In Antarctica different bases run infrastructure through their own countries, so you can generate credit card charges that look like they're from the US and New Zealand one after the other, which triggers bank companies' fraud systems. Interesting!
- KineticLensman 4y agoThis came up on HN a few days ago. IIRC the warning flag for fraud detection is that the card appears to move from (say) the US to NZ in just a few minutes, which is (obviously!) impossible in the real world.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoI would have thought the card terminals would have a GPS chip in them just for those cases where terminals from multiple countries are used side-by-side.
- hiidrew 4y agothought the two-factor SMS post was interesting as well! links like these are one of the reasons why I love HN.
- Tempest1981 4y agoWhere do the dryer vents lead? Is that heat captured and used?
- walrus01 4y agoUnlikely, dryer output is very humid, unless you have a tropical greenhouse next door.
- irdc 4y agoOn the other hand, letting all that water condense onto a cold surface should be easy.
- AdamN 4y agoI have a dryer in my apt (miele) and it has no externally routed vent. Heat/humidity is ejected to the sewer line. Aside from the lower energy consumption, this seems useful for an Antarctic base for heat re-use.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoAntarctic air is very dry, so I doubt the humidity would ever rise to dangerous levels in a well ventilated room, even if the dryers were running 16 hours a day.
- kinbiko 4y agoStarted reading about laundry but ended up reading the entire blog… Very interesting stuff!
- extragood 4y agoThis post made me curious about which plug type is used in Antarctica. Looks like it's type C (same as most of Europe) http://www.bergadventures.com/v3_main/trip-preparations/electrical-outlets.php http://www.bergadventures.com/v3_main/trip-preparations/elec...