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  • BBsGarage

    June 10, 2008 9:23 a.m. BBsGarage Reader

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080609/od_nm/condoms_dc_1

    Mon Jun 9, 1:24 PM ET

    WELLINGTON (Reuters) - One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

    Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

    The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

    "Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

    About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at McMurdo base, the largest community in Antarctica, during the winter months when there is constant darkness.

    The first sunrise will occur on August 20 and McMurdo's population will start to increase again in September when supply flights resume, peaking at more than 1,000 during the summer period.

    (Reporting by Kazunori Takada, editing by Miral Fahmy)

  • Tim Baxter

    June 10, 2008 9:24 a.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor

    I can't believe you beat Wally to that story.

  • GlennS

    June 10, 2008 9:39 a.m. GlennS Reader

    thats only .36 condoms a day per person. HOW DO THEY LIVE!

  • carguy123

    June 10, 2008 10:27 a.m. carguy123 Reader

    They're going Green and recycling!!

  • BBsGarage

    June 10, 2008 10:49 a.m. BBsGarage Reader

    Tim Baxter wrote: I can't believe you beat Wally to that story.

    Sometime you just get "lucky" I guess

  • confuZion3

    June 10, 2008 10:56 a.m. confuZion3 Reader

    I wonder what they do in space?

    "In space, noone can hear you, um, berkeley?"

  • John Brown

    June 10, 2008 11:36 a.m. John Brown SuperDork

    I can't believe anyone other than Wally beat Wally.

  • grtechguy

    June 10, 2008 11:43 a.m. grtechguy Dork

    carguy123 wrote: They're going Green and recycling!!

    uhhhggg,,,

  • June 10, 2008 12:28 p.m. GeneralHavoc None

    "Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

    Hmm. To know, like, in the biblical sense? They might need some more condoms...

  • Salanis

    June 10, 2008 12:36 p.m. Salanis HalfDork

    confuZion3 wrote: I wonder what they do in space?

    "In space, noone can hear you, um, berkeley?"

    Think of the potential mess in Zero-G. Or don't.

  • Dr. Hess

    June 10, 2008 12:44 p.m. Dr. Hess SuperDork

    Actually, I once saw a reference to NASA conducting that "experiment." Don't know if it was true or not, but I bet it was. I mean, if we're gonna colonize space, babies gotta come from somewhere and we need to know if it works like it does here on the ground. Probably more important than knowing how spiders spin a web in zero-G, huh?

  • bludroptop

    June 10, 2008 1:22 p.m. bludroptop Dork

    GlennS wrote: thats only .36 condoms a day per person. HOW DO THEY LIVE!

    Working under certain assumptions:

    1. The supply is intended to last from mid-May to mid-September, according to information in the article. That's a period of about 4 months - about 120 days.

    2. There are 125 people there.

    3. For the sake of simplicity (and recognizing that it is the friggin' Antarctic, fer cryin' out loud), disregard the population's distribution by sex, but assume that anybody flying solo would not need a condom. Thus, we need one condom for each two people engaged in each, um.... 'event'. Larger group activities skew the numbers but let's assume that's not statistically relevant.

    4. So now for some arithmetic: 16,500 units divided by 120 days is 137.5 condoms per day. 125 people - okay, let's assume on any given day that one person has a headache - so 62 pairings (if you will).

    5. So in order to consume the supply, each person, and every person (except for the guy with the headache) has to engage in an average of 2.2 events per day, every day, 7 days a week, for 4 months.

    6. If 25% of the population is either celebate, or engaged in female only events (thus lacking the required apparatus), the demand requirement increases to 3 events each day for the remaining population.

    You can take it further than that, but then it gets silly.

  • Tim Baxter

    June 10, 2008 1:25 p.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor

    You can take it further than that, but then it gets silly.

    And we wouldn't want that.

  • Mental

    June 10, 2008 2:10 p.m. Mental SuperDork

    carguy123 wrote: They're going Green and recycling!!

    Do ya know how to recycle a condom? Turn it inside out and shake the berkley out of it.

  • PHeller

    June 10, 2008 2:17 p.m. PHeller New Reader

    Dr. Hess wrote: Actually, I once saw a reference to NASA conducting that "experiment." Don't know if it was true or not, but I bet it was. I mean, if we're gonna colonize space, babies gotta come from somewhere and we need to know if it works like it does here on the ground. Probably more important than knowing how spiders spin a web in zero-G, huh?

    thinks oh god...

    thinks oh my...hehe

    thinks ...that sounds like fun..

    THE POSITIONS ARE ENDLESS!

  • Salanis

    June 10, 2008 2:47 p.m. Salanis HalfDork

    Apparently they're more limited than you think. Since there's no gravity, there's no up or down for reference. So no top/bottom.

    But still... zero-g porn...

  • Capt Slow

    June 10, 2008 3:07 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

    Salanis wrote: Apparently they're more limited than you think. Since there's no gravity, there's no up or down for reference. So no top/bottom.

    But still... zero-g porn...

    my crazy russian boss once mentioned encountering some one at nasa that was working on some kind of apparatus to um "aid" the endevior...

    I didn't belive him at the time...

    from what I remember it involed a lot of elastic bands...

  • Woodyhfd

    June 10, 2008 8:34 p.m. Woodyhfd HalfDork

    I bet the running joke on distribution day in Antarctica is, "Uh, do you have any Magnums?".

  • nervousdog

    June 10, 2008 9:06 p.m. nervousdog None

    Mental wrote:
    carguy123 wrote: They're going Green and recycling!!

    Do ya know how to recycle a condom? Turn it inside out and shake the berkley out of it.

    Or you could melt down 365 of them, make a tire, and call it a Good Year.

  • Osterkraut

    June 10, 2008 9:24 p.m. Osterkraut New Reader

    Woodyhfd wrote: I bet the running joke on distribution day in Antarctica is, "Uh, do you have any Magnums?".

    Not in those temperatures!

  • rebelgtp

    June 10, 2008 9:32 p.m. rebelgtp HalfDork

    lol you know I've been thinking of applying for a research position down there...

    Actually I have the primary contractor for the research facility setup to send me listings of the open positions down there (no pun intended). Once I've finished school thats one of the areas I'd like to go down to work at.

  • June 11, 2008 7:58 a.m. Purplehaze New Reader

    All right, it's settled in my mind.

    Previous NASA exploration? Mere dabbling. The human race has not truly arrived in space until they make the first real Zero G porno.

  • Keith

    June 11, 2008 10:49 a.m. Keith SuperDork

    I think that was the opening for Barbarella :)

  • Wally

    June 11, 2008 7:15 p.m. Wally SuperDork

    Woodyhfd wrote: I bet the running joke on distribution day in Antarctica is, "Uh, do you have any Magnums?".

    Their profesionals, surely they know about shrinkage

 
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