Top all-time · #662
brr
Personal blog · brr.fyiculturecareer
brr is a personal blog at brr.fyi about culture and career. Since 2022, 95 different Hacker News readers have linked it 126 times, most often “Brr: An Antarctica Blog”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 9 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link brr.fyi, a blog by someone who spent over a year working at the South Pole and McMurdo, for its details on Antarctic infrastructure, daily life, and engineering for slow internet. Commenters often recommend it.
- Recommended for · 9 comments
- One commenter calls it a really good read; others say it is cool, interesting or worth checking out, and one enjoyed its three-part series on re-entering normal
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Observations on US Antarctic infrastructure. Anecdotes from daily life for USAP support staff. Focused on McMurdo Station and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Most-linked posts?
- Brr: An Antarctica Blog16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2023-01-21
- /7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2023-03-12
- Engineering for Slow Internet7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-05-31
- Credit Card Shenanigans5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-10-31
- Pressure Altitude5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-08-06
- Redeployment Part Two4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-13
- Sunset at the South Pole4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-04-09
- Redeployment Part Three4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-18
- Coming home from the South Pole4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-10
- Frost4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-02-11
What Hacker News says?
Those I recognize (from interface, branding, strings, etc.): * Slack -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/load-err... * Signal (main screen) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d... * 1Password (config/about page) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d... * Zoom (updater screen on Mac) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d…
Comment linking /media/engineering-for-slow-internet/hardcoded-timeout-02.png
on “Engineering for Slow Internet”Submitted Engineering for Slow Internet as a story · 1008 points
HN discussionNice post! There's a lot of stuff here that I had no idea was in built-in already. I tried making a standalone executable with the command provided, but it produced a .blob which I believe still requires the Node runtime to run. I was able to make a true executable with postject per the Node docs[1], but a simple Hello World resulted in a 110 MB binary. This is probably a drawback worth mentioning. Also, seeing thos…
Comment linking /posts/engineering-for-slow-internet
on “Modern Node.js Patterns”Submitted The Beer Can (2023) as a story · 312 points
HN discussionIt's a shame we can't ask someone at the North Pole right now, a few days before the equinox, if the sun is up. For what it's worth, brr.fyi documents a sunset at the South Pole: ( https://brr.fyi/posts/sunset ) and a sunrise ( https://brr.fyi/posts/redeployment-part-one )
Comment linking /posts/redeployment-part-one
on “How fast the days are getting longer (2023)”Submitted South Pole Water Infrastructure as a story · 249 points
HN discussionIt can have severe performance implications in some areas with very bad internet bandwidth. Also it makes instantiating a global cache more difficult. See: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/08/07/securing-sites... Another POV: https://brr.fyi/posts/engineering-for-slow-internet And https://danluu.com/web-bloat/ also has some minor numbers
Comment linking /posts/engineering-for-slow-internet
on “Web page annoyances that I don't inflict on you”Submitted The McMurdo Wastewater Treatment Plant as a story · 232 points
HN discussion> Good enough for a demo and it would have been difficult to come up with an alternative explanation for the patterns in the data. For fun edge cases, there's always Antarctica, where you can travel from a US base (which looks like you're in the US) to a NZ base (which looks like you're in NZ) in a couple of minutes: https://brr.fyi/posts/credit-card-shenanigans
Comment linking /posts/credit-card-shenanigans
on “Data brokers are selling flight information to CBP and ICE”Submitted SMS Multifactor Authentication in Antarctica as a story · 231 points
HN discussionwhat an amazing read! slightly unrelated to the post: does anyone know any similar blog posts as such about people writing about their life? especially in areas of the world that is less known of? another one that i really like is https://brr.fyi/ where he posts life working at the antarctica
Comment linking /
on “Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)”Submitted Coming home from the South Pole as a story · 147 points
HN discussionAnd then https://brr.fyi/ breaks the Internet!
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What's your "it's not stupid if it works" story?”Submitted Brr Wants a Job as a story · 117 points
HN discussionWhy don’t you? https://brr.fyi/subscribe
Comment linking /subscribe
on “The Beer Can (2023)”Submitted Voting from Antarctica as a story · 106 points
HN discussionWhat prevents unbounded frosty ice buildup in the unheated areas? https://brr.fyi/media/beer-can/ice-tunnel-01-small.webp
Comment linking /media/beer-can/ice-tunnel-01-small.webp
on “The Beer Can (2023)”Submitted Laundry at the end of the world as a story · 106 points
HN discussionHere is the wastewater treatment plant at McMurdo. https://brr.fyi/posts/wastewater-plant
Comment linking /posts/wastewater-plant
on “The Beer Can (2023)”Submitted Redeployment Part Three as a story · 87 points
HN discussionWind driven snow and drifting will continue to bury things. Check out the South Pole Topography post (and the rest of the blog) https://brr.fyi/posts/south-pole-topography
Comment linking /posts/south-pole-topography
on “The Beer Can (2023)”Submitted Doors of McMurdo as a story · 16 points
HN discussionInteresting that the status dashboard had to be redacted, not only the URL but the data itself: https://brr.fyi/media/wastewater-plant/status-dashboard.jpg I was watching a documentary on cruise ships the other day where I noticed they similarly blurred out a screen in the ship’s wastewater processing room. Why is this information sensitive?
Comment linking /media/wastewater-plant/status-dashboard.jpg
on “The McMurdo Wastewater Treatment Plant”Submitted Redeployment Part One as a story · 10 points
HN discussionI appreciated their other article: where OP explains how there are two segments of the antarctic research station: an American one, and an NZ one. Their bank loses their mind when their bank card is physically used in America and then in NZ 30 minutes later and OP has to clear up how that isn't impossible. > Being in Antarctica is weird, because you can travel back and forth between the “United States” (McMurdo) and…
Comment linking /posts/credit-card-shenanigans
on “The McMurdo Wastewater Treatment Plant”Submitted Credit Card Shenanigans as a story · 10 points
HN discussionhttps://brr.fyi/posts/brr-wants-a-job#anonymity
Comment linking /posts/brr-wants-a-job
on “Ask HN: Favorite blog in 2024?”Submitted Engineering for Slow Internet (2024) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://brr.fyi/ - Blog posts from someone who spent over a year in the Antarctic. Lots of interesting details about how the infrastructure works and what life is like working there.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite blog in 2024?”Submitted Redeployment Part Three as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
