Century Old Antarctic Expedition Notebook Found Underneath Ice 63
An anonymous reader writes During his second expedition to Antarctica, British explorer Robert Scott—and most of his team—died from overexposure to the elements. Over 100 years after their deaths, an artifact from his journey has surfaced. New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust reports that they have found a notebook which tracked Scott's last Terra Nova Expedition. According to the Antarctic Heritage Trust, the notebook belonged to a surgeon, photographer and zoologist named George Murray Levick, who accompanied Scott at the unfortunate Terra Nova expedition. Executive Director Nigel Watson said, "It's an exciting find. The notebook is a missing part of the official expedition record. After spending seven years conserving Scott's last expedition building and collection, we are delighted to still be finding new artifacts."
100 Year Old MacBook (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Haha. I read that as a lap(top/py) too. :)
Re:Bennett! Bennett! Rah! Rah! Rah! (Score:5, Funny)
At least the notebook's logs weren't written in a cryptic binary format like systemd's logs. Because they're in plain text, we can still easily understand them over a century later.
Re: (Score:2)
At least the notebook's logs weren't written in a cryptic binary format like systemd's logs. Because they're in plain text, we can still easily understand them over a century later.
While I laughed at the joke, this is actually a serious problem.
If you don't explicitly transfer electronic data from one generation of media/format to the next then it becomes so much harder to recover it with each technical generation that you skip. Which means that in the future when people digital media hidden away in some shoebox that belonged to their great-grandpa, they are more likely to throw it away than to try and figure out what it is.
Re: (Score:2)
find .. when people find digital media
re: Except for the slashdotters (Score:3)
Since historians work with whatever data is most prevalent, they would conclude this era was f
Re: (Score:1)
If nothing else they're going to hit the same brick wall that displays did when they stalled at 1080p ten years ago: Good Enough Syndrome...
1080p is far, FAR from good enough when you're talking about working on a monitor. Double or triple it and maybe give us more monitor space and we'll maybe agree that it's good enough.
Re: (Score:2)
harder? maybe.
maybe not.
you can play pretty much all, even very obscure, arcade games with information taken from them being ran in your modern computer. in the long term, things tend to work out for this stuff. once you can easily train some algos to run emulation of old sw and "manually" move over data you wont even be having trouble with spreadsheets, databases in crazy formats or any of that. I'd worry more about the short term readability and preservation.. like, currently I can't run most of program
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ezekiel 23:20
Now I know the kind of porn you're into :)
Re: (Score:1)
Oh stfu kid, systemd is not that bad. Yes, it goes against a deeply rooted ideology of doing one thing and doing it right, but it also bridges a lot of things together (thus breaking the boundaries between many distros) which most of you ignorant fucks fail to recognize.
Out with the old, in with the new and if you can't deal with it, then die!
Re: (Score:3)
I hear they're planning to change it to XML for easy reading and parsing, here's a preview of it:
I think the readability is much improved with the upcoming plaintext file format.
Re: (Score:2)
whoops, wrong mod, sorry :(
Re: (Score:3)
At least the notebook's logs weren't written in a cryptic binary format like systemd's logs. Because they're in plain text, we can still easily understand them over a century later.
Language's themselves are abstract constructs. We still can't decipher many extinct languages and there is no way to be sure that in the future anyone will still have knowledge of English or any other human language currently in use
Is overexposure worse than exposure? (Score:2)
Inquiring minds want to know
Re:Is overexposure worse than exposure? (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Scott (Score:5, Funny)
In Britain he is generally known as "Captain Scott" or "Scott of the errr is it the Artic or the other one?"
We deify people who try really hard but come second and Scott is no exception being beaten to the South Pole by the Norwegian Amundsen, but he cheated by knowing more about the environment and being properly equipped.
Re: (Score:1)
How is knowing more about the environment and being properly equipped cheating, exactly? It just sounds that Amundsen was just a better explorer and leader, to me. He knew that the dogs were the best option and focused on them, instead of coming up with a ridiculous combination of dogs, ponies and motorised vehicles. The motor vehicles were not robust enough and Scott had to carry the horse food all the way. Scott also relied on his orders being followed to the letter, and he got properly screwed by his mat
Re:Captain Scott (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to British Sarcasm, lesson 1 (not 101, this ain't fucking America).
Re: (Score:2)
I blame the Slashdot mods for not moderating the GP as 'funny' in a timely fashion, thereby letting me ridicule myself.
I think 'Whooooosh' is in order.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're not cheating you aren't trying hard enough.
Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip (Score:5, Funny)
The British fondly revere those who can maintain a stiff upper lip under trying circumstances.
Captain Scott's upper lip was decidedly stiff at the end of his expedition, as was his lower lip and the rest of him for that matter.
Re:Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip (Score:4, Insightful)
The British don't like to make a fuss if we win. "Oh, well glad that nonsense is all over. Game of cricket, anyone?"
To quote Dambusters:
"You say you need a Wellington Bomber for test drops. They're worth their weight in gold. Do you really think the authorities will lend you one? What possible argument could I put forward to get you a Wellington?
Barnes Wallace: Well, if you told them I designed it, do you think that might help?"
But we also don't mind to see people lose. But only if they do it with the same kind of style. And that's "classy" style, not over-the-top "WOOHOO!!" American "style".
Hence, Scott wins because even though he lost - he managed to lose saying "Things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint" where everyone knows his internal monologue is saying something more akin to "Oh, bollocks, we're fucked. And I'm all out of dogs."
Also, Oates' "I may be some time" is up there with "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" and "Hang on lads, I've got an idea.... Erm..." (and if you know where that one's from... Frankly, my dear....)
We don't care if we win or lose. So long as we do it with style. Amundsen didn't have style. He's just a winner. It's an entirely different class of person.
To understand that, you probably have to be British.
Re: (Score:2)
Extracts from the Notebook (Score:4, Funny)
March 18th 1912: We got Pete for dinner.
March 19th 1912: We got Pete again for dinner. He was a little bit more frozen than yesterday.
March 20th 1912: Pete is good, but now it is three days in a row and I am starting to think Tom could be a valuable replacement and upgrade to our diet.
Re: (Score:2)
Not a fan of morbid humor?
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps he misspelled paté?
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, that was more or less the problem. With no understanding of nutrition (just like today, nutrition experts knew nothing), they packed in a bunch of protein and few calories. Meat was thought to be more foodly than veggies, more food per pound, but they effectively starved to death on their Atkins diet.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I insist on meat AND potatoes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've read Amundsen's account. The problem with Scott's party wasn't the type of food (Amundsen's party largely ate their surplus sled dogs on the return route, which was planned as a way of not having to haul as much weight on the return leg) but that Scott simply didn't bring =enough= food, and they were unable to find some of their caches on the return route. More than that, their clothing was inadequate, especially their footgear.
Re: (Score:2)
It does, but it also takes the most calories to digest. In that sense, it's the least calorie dense of the three.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dear Sir,
I am glad to hear that your studio audience disapproves of the last skit as strongly as I. As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area. And what do you think the Argylls ate in Aden. Arabs?
Yours etc. Captain B.J. Smethwick in a white wine sauce with shallots, mushrooms and garlic.
It's always ... (Score:2)
Actually.... (Score:1)
"During his second expedition to Antarctica, British explorer Robert Scott—and most of his team—died from overexposure to the elements."
"Most of his team"?
Actually ALL of the polar party - Scott, Oates, Bowers, Wilson, PO Evans - died, but this was far from the majoirity of the team that went to the Antarctic.
And they almst certain died of scurvy, not exposure.
Good try.
Re:Actually.... (Score:4, Funny)
And they almst certain died of scurvy, not exposure.
So basically, they didn't die of overexposure to the elements, they died of underexposure to the compounds?
And inside the notebook... (Score:2)
...is a clue that leads to the FreeMason treasure! (Hint, it's behind Mt. Rushmore. ;^)
I bet the tale of the expedition... (Score:3)
was a pretty cool read.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh that was cold.
Re: (Score:2)
A good start for a Lovecraftian story (Score:2)
An expedition to Antarctica that didn't end well, a notebook left behind. It's all too easy to make parallels with The Mountains of Madness.
And just in time for Halloween too.
A Century Old Notebook? (Score:1)
Adds a whole new meaning to Blue Screen of Death, eh?
(Or was it a palm device like a Newton?)