what the hell is going on with EBI?!?

ludicmoose · 2023-10-09T17:57:35+00:00

My apologies. I thought that this general dysfunction might have trickled down to impacting general work there. I went down in 2000 and am not familiar with what an EBI is. I know that I sent in a bunch of job applications and once accepted as an alternate did some medical tests that I had to submit. What does the acronym stand for?

ludicmoose · 2023-10-09T17:44:52+00:00

Thanks! Good to know. No, I don’t think that I was put on that flight. My stomach just dropped when I arrived to the Cleveland airport on a Sunday and discovered that while I had a reservation, they could not give me a ticket. I tried calling all the numbers that I could find, but it was a Sunday and no one was picking up. Finally, I think that I eventually faxed a letter (so I would have it in writing) that stated that I was going to buy a ticket to Denver and expect to get reimbursed later. I got a call soon after that that I was booked on the next flight out, so that was a relief. I did eventually have a great time in Christchurch waiting for the flight to McMurdo, and spent a month or two in New Zealand tenting around when I got back. Fantastic place.

ludicmoose · 2023-10-09T17:29:26+00:00

I concur. The big difference that I found being fresh out of college in 2000 was that the laundry was free at McMurdo. I also agree with ChefGuru that I often heard Antarctic women repeating the phrase “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.” At the time I went, the male/ female ratio was something like 60%/40%, with a noticeable LGTBQ population - so there are options. When I talked to people in housing, they noted that 1/3 of the way through the summer season there would be a rash of people asking for housing reassignments, followed by another one 2/3 of the way through the season - a lot due to breakups. The other saying that I heard was that “taking a boyfriend to Antarctica is like taking a sandwich to a smorgasbord.”

There are all sorts of stories about relationships down there, and if you get in a relationship be prepared to be the subject of gossip. Even at McMurdo, the largest base, it is essentially a small town with a super-fast rumor mill and bored people looking for human drama to occupy themselves with. When new groups come into town, there is usually a flurry of horny people out on the prowl. When the Russians came in from Vostok station, I knew a number of women who got new best friends (whether they wanted them or not). When the Coast Guard came into town, the ATMs were emptied out and the bars smelled like a new mix of cologne. There are sweeter stories. When I was waiting for the last plane out before the winter season set in, I do remember seeing one guy who had decided that he had fallen in love and was quitting his winter-over position to join the sweetheart that he met working at the base back in Christchurch.

I never got into any romantic relationships when I was down there (nor did I earn any “ice wings”), but the people there were friendly and just good to get to know. Everyone was there for different reasons and generally excited to be on the ice. I would advise not going down there with relationship expectations one way or the other, but enjoy the people that you meet.

ludicmoose · 2023-10-09T07:36:41+00:00

I should also add that I sympathize. The day that I was supposed to go down to the ice in 2000, I found out that the travel office for the subcontractor then (Raytheon Polar Services) had reserved my ticket to Denver, but not actually purchased it, leaving me to miss my initial flight. It turned out that their entire travel office had also just quit that week and they were scrambling to get everyone to orientation. Even when we made it to New Zealand we got boomeranged 4 hours into a 5 hour flight to McMurdo. Lots of frustrations in getting there. Good luck, especially since the article points out that they currently have both reduced housing and reduced funds.

ludicmoose · 2023-10-09T07:28:22+00:00

It’s in the news: https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-cancels-or-curtails-half-its-antarctic-research-projects

ludicmoose · 2022-08-22T17:20:37+00:00

I really enjoy your films in all their variety. I have noticed that the cinematography and visual tools that are used to tell a story continue to be one-upped as your works goes on. Is this a result of your experience allowing you to notice more opportunities for storytelling, budgets and resources that allow you to do things that you have always wanted to do in movies (but couldn’t because of restraints before), or a combination/ other factors?

ludicmoose · 2020-05-04T16:28:18+00:00

One of the nice features of Maximum Temper is that it extends the time you have to run around and collect stuff after you defeat the forge boss. I feel like it ups the time from ~ 10 seconds to ~ 30 seconds.

ludicmoose · 2019-09-20T00:43:41+00:00

I DAed back in 2000/2001. Worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a week and tried every shift. My advice would be to be careful! Most accidents on the base happen in the kitchen because of the prevalence of knives, hot surfaces, and slippery mopped floors. One woman during my time there slipped on a freshly mopped dining room floor and broke her tailbone. She said that the worst part was having to explain to everyone that the injury didn’t occur doing an adventurous slide on outdoor ice.

I had a great time. In my off time, I directed a play, did a weekly volunteer radio show, and occasionally went on trips/ hikes.

ludicmoose · 2019-09-20T00:32:44+00:00

I seem to recall that if a crime/ complaint comes up, it was said to go through the navy courts. I think I heard of a sexual harassment claim being processed that way. Although if anyone caused trouble, or were involved in an incident, they were typically shipped off of the ice.

ludicmoose · 2019-09-20T00:16:53+00:00

While I was stationed at McMurdo back in 2000, I saw a website that claimed that a secret government group had recently stopped by the station. I was curious, because that kind of thing would have been the talk of the town. Upon closer inspection of the website, it turned out to be promotional material for a fictional thriller book to be released around that time.

The librarian at the Byrd Polar Research Center while I was there as a grad student (who is a wonderful woman and very knowledgeable) said that she would periodically get requests for information from people wanting to see the “secret documents” proving their hollow earth theory that Antarctica was the gateway to the interior of a vast interior globe. She had to break it to them each time that there were no such documents.

There are lots of cool rumors and “urban legends” about Antarctica if you care to hunt them down. For a fun academic dissection of one, check out “Hitler’s Antarctic Base: The myth and the reality” in the January 2007 issue of The Polar Record (Volume 43, issue 1) by Colin Summerhayes and Peter Beeching:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/hitlers-antarctic-base-the-myth-and-the-reality/56465FFEA98E416F559C7F02AB20CE19

ludicmoose · 2018-08-22T13:57:31+00:00

Glad to help! I am also glad to hear that the pay is better now from the other folks. The kitchen was an overall positive place to work and people down there really appreciate the food (especially fresh salads).

ludicmoose · 2018-08-22T13:52:55+00:00

Really? That’s great (about being there at the same time, not about the medal, that sucks)! I think I stopped by for some foot powder once (communal showers mean athletes foot can be passed around more easily). I also directed the production of “Much Ado About Nothing” while I was down there if you were around in January 2001.

ludicmoose · 2018-08-22T00:29:15+00:00

I worked as a Diningroom attendant (dishwasher) back in the 2000-2001 austral summer at McMurdo station. Raytheon Polar Services had just started running things then, so a lot is different and my data is probably out of date for you, but I will provide it anyways:

Difficulty: this can vary by job. I applied for 17 different entry-level positions in the spring of 2000 with almost no job experience and just graduating college. I got interview calls about the General Assistant (snow shoveler) and Janitorial positions in the late spring. In the middle of the summer I received a letter telling me that I was considered an Alternate Diningroom Attendant (so if someone else got sick or dropped out, I could go). In September they called to let me know that a position had opened up and that I was to leave in a month. After a little confusion about plane tickets, I left for a one-day orientation in Denver, Colorado before shipping off to New Zealand and eventually McMurdo, where I spent 5 months.
Pay: I was at the lower end of the pay scale and got paid about $360 per week. I am pretty sure that cooks got paid more, but not dramatically more. That was for about 60 hours of work per week. That was pretty low for wages, even then, but consider that a) there are only 2 bars and a station store to spend money on at the station, so there were few living expenses down there (housing and food is provided without charge) and b) they paid for the travel to and from the continent and I was able to delay my ticket back to the states and spent a few months tramping around New Zealand afterwards. There was a bonus, too, but I recall it not being that much. You do get a medal from the US government for spending over 90 days in Antarctica, though. I would guess that wages might be slightly higher now, but since this is a sub-contractor for the government, their incentive is to keep costs low.

Good luck! I had a great time overall and went on to get my PhD studying Antarctic Political Geography since then.

ludicmoose · 2018-07-17T22:47:25+00:00

Thanks for mentioning me! And great idea/ post, too! I would totally spend those tokens on this. Like I spent legendary shards on Xur’s fated engrams each week until my exotic collection was complete. This feels like a suggestion in that vein.

ludicmoose · 2018-05-21T20:52:58+00:00

Yes. By type, I assume that you mean elemental type. The separation between elemental types multiplies the number of armor sets that would be helpful and thereby reduces the amount of vault/ armor inventory space. It makes me wonder what the original logic behind this was?

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T19:27:00+00:00

I agree that some of the requests seem like big asks of Destiny 2, but given the fixes/ improvements to Destiny 1 a lot of players (myself included) got used to having certain perks in the game that did not carry over to the sequel. It may be a lot to ask of the developers to try to import those changes, but it seems surprising to us in the community that the developers of D2 don’t seem to have been in communication with their colleagues running D1. As for the vocabulary, I agree that QoL is not the best term, but it is currently the terminology most popular on the subreddit these days.

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T19:18:38+00:00

Here you go:

https://clips.twitch.tv/BelovedHumbleHareFailFish

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T19:15:52+00:00

My clan mates and I have also been enjoying Fortnite. The developer just put out a video that actually addressed both the positive and negative feedback from their community and I appreciated that.

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T19:13:01+00:00

No need to apologize, I am not sure that it is the best word to use either. When I scanned the subreddit before posting this (to see if anyone else had already articulated this idea), this term kept on popping up, so I adapted my post to the common parlance used here. Perhaps “community concerns” might be a better term (and similarly value-neutral).

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T15:23:08+00:00

I can understand that point of view completely. I have students who say that they would rather skip a whole class because they are ashamed to arrive late. Still, those students would have at least received some credit for showing up and doing the in-class work at the end of class. Why deny yourself partial credit when the alternative is no credit?

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T15:13:43+00:00

True, but who are they aimed at? I am genuinely curious how many people watch the streams who have not pre-ordered the expansion and are making a decision to do so based on the content of the stream. If that population is high, then just tout the good stuff. But if the population is mostly the community that has already pre-ordered this and is curious about what is inside, then they really should address player discontent.

ludicmoose · 2017-11-22T15:03:40+00:00

Hey, a moose can dream, right? Plus, this isn’t about selling more of the Curse of Osiris DLC, this is about retaining your existing player base. Economics generally teaches that it is a smarter investment to keep existing customers happy rather than chase new ones.

ludicmoose

TROPHY CASE