everybody knows everyone eh?

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)

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

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

They're going Green and recycling!!

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

Sometime you just get "lucky" I guess

I wonder what they do in space?

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

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

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

uhhhggg,,,

"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...

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.

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?

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.

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

And we wouldn't want that.

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.

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!

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...

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...

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

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.

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

Not in those temperatures!

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.

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.

I think that was the opening for Barbarella :)

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