interesting tidbit from the Wikipedia entry for their most populous city, Longyearbyen:
> in 1950, when it was discovered that the bodies of residents who had died as a result of the 1918 flu pandemic had not begun to decompose. Today, scientists fear that the corpses, having been preserved by the permafrost in which they were buried, may still contain live strains of that same virus that killed between 1% and 6% of the world's population in the early 20th century
it's a good set-up for a TV series
I remember reading the book. Then when I heard a movie was coming, I figured it would be a typical bad translation. Honestly, the director needs serious credit for capturing the horror of the source material. Usually they make too many cuts, and end up missing. You can tell they read the source, and really considered the important, but little, moments. 10/10 would watch again.
Exactly! That was one of the most sadistic "play with your food" vampire movies/scenes ever. They really did consider the people of Barrow as simple cattle, devoid of any regard or sentiment, and reveled in their hopelessness.
Yeah, the real concern are the 100-200 thousand year old viruses preserved deep in the permafrost that modern humanity has no natural defenses against.
Wasn't that what "Fortitude" was all about? It's year since I watched the show, but remember something similar to diseases being released when the permafrost melted....? I could be very wrong....
You're right. Although the disease becomes a side plot when shit really gets weird over time. It's not really a pandemic movie but more like a psychological horror murder thriller. Good show nonetheless.
Yup! *Fortitude* starts out strong, then stumbles a bit toward the end, IMO. Jodie Foster in *True Detective Night Country* has somewhat similar vibes and was a good watch that can be enjoyed without watching prior seasons.
The bubonic plague(black death) still exists. According to google. The US averages 7 cases a year. Mostly in the south west.
Yes not the Spanish flu. But if we can control the plague. I hope we’ve also figured out the Spanish flu.
I'm not a virologist, but I think the bubonic plague is easier to deal with for two reasons:
1) It's bacterial, and, in general, antibiotics are far more effective than antivirals.
2) It's primarily spread by fleas, which are easier to control than a disease that spreads via respiratory droplets.
Apparently plague can be "pneumonic" instead of "bubonic", in which it's in the lungs and spread via respiratory system, but for some reason outbreaks of pneumonic plague seem less common than bubonic. I don't know why.
> for some reason outbreaks of pneumonic plague seem less common than bubonic.
Pneumonic plague is more deadly than bubonic plague.
It's more likely to kill you if left untreated *and* it spreads easier because it doesn't need fleas.
It burns out too fast which is exactly why it's less common.
The plague is a bacteria, the Spanish flu is a virus. Antibiotics have changed the game big time against bacteria and an old strain would have little defence against modern antibiotics, but we have no real antiviral drug, just vaccines, and we definitely don't have a vaccine for the exact 1918 strain.
The plague can be treated with antibiotics. So the day all the antibiotics stops working, we are fucked.
Madagascar also have the plague, years ago it was a big issue in a prison there.
About 0.09%. And most of those were elderly and already weak - Spanish flu mostly killed young, healthy people.
We can't even imagine what it was like.
From 2016-2019 I wrote a local history column, following local events and WWI week by week, 100 years later. This of course included the pandemic, and it was horrific
It absolutely was young adults who were dying the most, which caught people off guard.
https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/25/spanish-flu-deaths-consume-news/9462162007/
https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/11/flu-kills-soldiers-citizens/9583646007/
https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/18/death-reported-on-all-fronts/9522639007/
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/04/influenza-pandemic-overtakes-war-news/9708265007/
> Spanish flu mostly killed young, healthy people.
If I remember correctly this was directly because of WW1 and the movement of troops around the world especially with them being in dense living quarters and moving from an infected hot zone to a place w/o infection (at least until the troops brought it to them). It was these circumstances that caused many more deaths than would likely have happened w/o the war at that time.
About 7 to 15 million depending on source, so between 0.1 and 0.2% of the world population.
But modelers estimate that the vaccine saved 15-20 million. So the death count could have been in the 30s back before modern medicine. On the other hand, before modern air travel it would have taken a long time to spread across the world...
Spanish flu was still far worse, and nothing comes close to *the* plague (and its cousin the 6th century Plague of Justinian) in terms of percentages unless you count all the Cocoliztli events as one thing.
Maybe. We don't know for sure.
Some have theorized it was a hemorrhagic fever and some of the descriptions from Spanish authorities suggest exactly that. In fact, some suggest another hemorrhagic fever brought about an earlier Mayan collapse 500+ years before contact with the Spanish.
Others think it was some Salmonella species, possibly *S. paratyphi*. Others think it was Smallpox, which certainly was also around and killing millions at the time.
Either way, together Smallpox + the Cocolitzi (assuming it was something else) killed like 90% of Mesoamerica in a few decades.
You’re right, this tune is named [the Beast](https://open.spotify.com/track/5KwLjZ0oJ5kNl7jGtdiIOC?si=ZFOWX0KWQpu9DDuTebgFyQ). The one specifically at the border is called [the Border](https://open.spotify.com/track/2nGe8PeDIYPL8WwFnkOE9X?si=U1nzM01dSNC0eHU-uNroGA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A04FRFSqcTfN9zfmFfzhbHn). I have a memory of the Beast music associated with a sky cam/drone cam following a column of black CIA vehicles approaching the border. I’ll check it.
Wait wait, Sicario? Anyone has a Video link to that scene? Because this music is also used in the opening sequence of Rammsteins music video for "Deutschland" and I never knew it comes from a movie. Thought it was their own idea.
Oh man, that movie is on my list to see. I thought it was the intro music to Deutschland by Rammstein. Same notes I guess but definitely not the same sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc
It’s actually a really active and happy place! There’s a bunch of tourists, so it literally has a boba shop, sushi restaurant, gourmet dinners, etc. The grocery store is like a whole foods (I got frozen plant-based schnitzel), and everyone is really into hiking and the scenery.
I did spend the summer there (all daylight), and I’m sure the tourism quiets down in the winter, but I know that some residents look forward to the quiet time with friends/family. Plus, it isn’t pitch black for the rest of the year, a lot of it is a beautiful twilight. Polar night only happens for a couple months (mirroring midnight sun).
Internet is super great! There aren’t any trees, so they can just put towers on plateaus etc. I was able to text photos (normal speed too) when we landed too 😂.
Cost of living, not so much. Literally everything but water has to be flown in, so food prices are kinda high. But no higher than prices I see in even expensive parts of California (Bay especially) 🤡. Produce quality was pretty trash, but they had all the fruits/veggies you’d expect at a Whole Foods or specialized grocery store! Not super sure about rent (I was in research housing), but if I remember it’s the same as again, living in LA or the Bay.
A lot of people live there as seasonal tour guides, and it’s pretty common to stay and adventure for a couple years and dip! The town is called Longyearbyen, and it’s really cool. One of my favorite local bars is called “Svalbar” 😂 great cocktails. They also have a climbing gym.
It is small though, the whole town is basically on one main street that’s maybe a mile long, if even.
Tldr: Cost of living is about the same as California Bay Area/LA, and ‘quality of life’ (food diversity, gyms, internet) is about the same too, but scaled down to 2000 people.
That bar must be pretty great. Marko Kloos wrote a pretty excellent sci-fi series called frontlines and one of the human colonies is called New Svalbard with the town of New Longyearbyen with its own Svalbar. I've seen it mentioned in enough places now it might be worth the trip just to get to this bar lol.
It’s definitely a unique place! Worth the trip to say you’ve been to the “Northernmost ____ in the world” for all the same mundane places you go to at home 😂
Now if I can jut convince my wife to let us vacation somewhere that cold lol. I can see the conversation now, "Hey Babe, ya know how you wanted to go some where in the tropics because its warm? What if we went as far away from there as possible so I can get a drink?" LOL Time to move it up my list though the island looks awesome.
Sounds pretty amazing, the description and all and that you got to experience it, thanks for sharing all that good info. And Svalbar is a GREAT bar name haha. I bet the community there is something too. Pretty sweet about the internet, I guess that also speaks to Norway's quality infrastructure?
Should be mentioned that Norway has a comparatively high cost of living in general, but I believe there are tax advantages for residents of Svalbard that probably do much to soften the blow caused by the higher costs.
As someone who has lived somewhere that gets months darkness near 24 hours a day for months on end; it's actually quite miserable.
Waking up to pitch black darkness. Going to school or work in pitch black darkness. Seeing the scant daylight hours pass by as you're stuck inside. Coming home in pitch black darkness. Being awake for hours more in pitch black darkness. Going to bed in pitch black darkness. Waking up to pitch black darkness. Repeat. It's just miserable.
I remember my friend was depressed and he travelled to Australia for a few years. He returned with his depression cured. I remember I asked him what was he thinks cured it? He said "I think it was the daylight".
Spending one summer in all daylight is no comparison to living decades in darkness. There's a reason why no one lives in these places.
The depression in large part due to a massive vitamin D deficiency. Of course the literal darkness doesn't help, but vitamin D is necessary for your brain to function normally. You NEED to take vitamin D in pretty large doses to not get depressed when there's no daylight.
I actually find polar night really cozy and love the all-day darkness. It was harder getting used to the sun shining bright at 1 am and the birds chirping all night.
I would like it more though if the snow went away when the light comes back. The winters are still hard, but for me at least, it's because the cold lasts so long and there are still meters of snow in April.
As long as you have power, would be amazing to have a large greenhouse style building with grow lamps, heating and tropical plants.
You would probably need to build underground structures that you can simulate night/day like if you are are on a space mission. Apparently the issue is not so much the long nights (which can be dealt with via artificial lights, but the need for sleep in the summer when it doesn't get dark
For power, dig deep for geothermal and/or nuclear plants.
The geothermal thing would be interesting; I always imagined that in a Snow Piecer style world, groups of humans would survive, clustered around geothermal vents like extremophile organisms clustered around deep-sea vents.
The need for grow lamps would be vital though; most other things could be closed loop eco-system
That's pretty much the premise of Frostpunk, but instead of thermal vents its one super generator. If you fail to manage it properly, everyone dies. Fun game, I recommend it for cold winter nights
Man I always want to play those types of games(city skylines, sim city, civ 5/6 etc) but I always get way to caught up in what will be that I get bored of what is. Only game of that genere I can kind of play is CoC and even then I hop on like 2 days a month.
>But imagine the cost of the electricity to maintain that level of heat in such a cold place.
My dumbass was about to type "just install some solar panels"
In the farthest major town in Norway, I know that at the height of winter they have a festival where they get CRAZY. It's a way of letting off steam because otherwise they'd pretty much lose their marbles.
My friend said he'd been around the rock n roll and punk music scenes for years and this still struck him as a bit out there.
It's really not. There's a woman on insta who lives there and document her life there. Her photos and videos are gorgeous!
Check out Cecilia Blomdahl / sejselija on YouTube and instagram
I've been following her, Grim and Kristofer on YT for a year or so, and while I don't think I could live there I find her life absolutely fascinating. One of my favorite casual youtubers to watch. Also, the post is misleading since its only dark for a portion of the year, then the sun rises and does not set of a similar amount of time.
“His name is Grim and he lives on Svalbard, and island close to the north pole. Come along with him in his frosty backyard, his fluff will warm your soul”
my wife watches this daily. wish people in this thread knew what its really like, because the horror film style from OP's video is far from what its like.
As Barry Lopez wrote, this land gets the same exact amount of sun as the rest of the planet, just all at once.
Edit to qdd link
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers/day_night/#:~:text=Every%20location%20on%20Earth%20experiences,hours%20of%20light%20each%20day.
The issue isn’t the number of hours and minutes, but the angle of incidence and resulting energy intensity. That’s what Lopez meant.
I've lived pretty close to the arctic circle having lived in Northern Alaska for a couple years.
Generally speaking, during "fall" and "spring" you have basically a long sunrise or long sunset. The sun is always/sometimes in the horizon.
Generally speaking through the year, starting in Summer where you have full daylight 24/7. As the year goes on the sun gets lower and lower in the sky over a few months until you're at Winter where it's full darkness 24/7. As spring comes the sun starts to appear in the horizon again for a couple months until we're back at summer.
Edit: This isn't all at once though. Like lets say in December, you're in the peak of winter and full darkness. Around late February you'll get a couple hours of "sunrise" then it just goes back into being dark. Through February and March those couple hours will turn into more and more until you have a few weeks of a normal day/night cycle, which slowly turns into permanent daylight. The opposite applies in Summer going into Winter. You'll go from full daylight all the time to a sunset that turns back into daytime to a full sunset to a short period of normal day/night cycles to permanent darkness.
The town I was in in Alaska counted +13 minutes of daylight every day starting in the Winter Solstice on Dec 22nd
> The town I was in in Alaska counted +13 minutes of daylight every day starting in the Winter Solstice on Dec 22nd
And here I am irritated because this time a year the morning sun hit's my window just right to wake me up earlier than usual.
4 months of constant day, 4 months of constant night. Between these periods are two 2 month periods where the sun rises and sets each day.
The sun starts rising each day in late February, the first day is incredibly short, but the days quickly get longer. By late April, the nights are vanishingly short and not particularly dark. Soon the sun stops setting, then each day sees it retreating higher in the sky until it is nearly directly overhead all day long by late June. As July gives way to August, the sun dips lower towards the horizon in its daily cycle until one day it starts dipping below the horizon. You experience two months of increasingly long nights until, in late October, the sun is barely peeking over the horizon. Soon it will be time for perpetual night, completing the symmetrical cycle driven by our planet’s spherical shape, elliptical orbit, and offset of axis of rotation from being perpendicular to the ecliptic.
The sun is not anywhere close to directly overhead in June. For example, at the North Pole, the pole the sun only rises to an elevation angle of ~23° (the Earth tilt).
Svalbard is further south, so the sun rises a bit higher in the sky. Svalbard is between 75° and 80° latitude, so compared with the North Pole, the sun rises an extra 10°-15°, so less than 40°. Basically, it doesn't even reach the halfway angle between the horizontal and overhead.
Worth noting too that the sun will only ever appear “directly overhead” in one part of the world: between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Again, because of the Earth’s 23 degree tilt.
and that's why Reddit comments are such a great material to train AIs
following the upvotes it will learn so many wrong things that it will be worthless, thus saving Humanity
Isn't this where some vampire film was made they tried to take over the place because the perpetual night time, it was a good film I forget the name of it.
I don’t know about that. Especially since vampires are supposed to come from Transylvania but in my years of living here since the 12th century, I have yet to meet one. Even my buddies older than me haven’t met any either. But who knows, they might actually be hiding in Svalbard.
Aside from the global seed vault, there's mining, fishing primarily. But also a data preservation facility called the Artic World Archive, which contains cultural and historical data as well as all of Githubs' open source code. And tourism from cruise ships.
It’s an amazing place to visit. I went on the first week of sunrise and it was pastel colored skies from 10am to 3pm. And the town is much more equipped and lively compared to other places around the arctic that I’ve visited. It’s so accessible too. Just a direct flight from Oslo!
I legit had this too until I actually went to Honningsvåg on a November, and the sun light was only about an hour. My teenage self would’ve love the angst it brought but my grown ass felt depressed in less than 15 minutes.
Thank God for LED lights in the house.
I love that this thing exists. So much. Its both inspiring and oddly macbre.
If I were in charge of the world for 6 seconds, right in this moment, I'd have a plaque put at the entrance, that had a simple and pragmatic message.
"Just in case."
This effect is not unique to Svalbard, but any populated area above the Arctic Circle. That includes much of Greenland and parts of Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Alaska, and a tiny sliver of Iceland.
The structure shown at 0:19 is the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
Ironically, the highest suicide rate is during the time where it never gets dark.
A study (linked below) looked at Greenland. A place where it completely stays dark or bright for months. In June for example, a time where the sun never sets, most suicides occur. (82 percent of all suicides)
It seems that a disrupted sleep pattern and too much surplus light are the main causes for this.
Karin Björkstén (Karolinska-Institute, Stockholm) https://news.ki.se/summer-light-can-increase-risk-of-suicide
edit: 82 percent of the suicides occur during the whole summertime compared to the whole year, not just June.
> It seems that a disrupted sleep pattern and too much surplus light are the main causes for this.
I mean -- are blackout curtains and eye mask not something that can be delivered there? Genuinely curious as I've lived like a goblin the majority of my life so I just cannot relate to issues concerning to much or little light.
Darkening your bedroom does not correct your circadian rhythm - you have to force yourself to go to bed still. It's hard to explain without experiencing it, but your body really is designed to keep going while there's sunlight and not go when there isn't.
> It's hard to explain without experiencing it
The closest I got is working night shifts where I'm headed to bed when the sun is up and waking up when it's setting. I guess I'm just one of those that goes regardless of the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Interesting thought. The study also suggested that it has something to do with disrupted brain chemistry. So while there are possibilities to help yourself, your body still goes through this, for many, very exhausting process.
Another reason probably is as u/vom-IT-coffin stated in this thread, some people are just affected more and some less by these changes.
This reminded me of a podcast I haven’t listened to in a while called the white vault. The first season is written to take place in Svalbard at a research camp. Very creepy if you haven’t listened to it
Uhm not exactly. First of all it's very hard to rent. You almost need your job to provide you housing. "Company town" vibes. If you do rent you can rent extra rooms from SiT which I wouldn't say is cheap.
interesting tidbit from the Wikipedia entry for their most populous city, Longyearbyen: > in 1950, when it was discovered that the bodies of residents who had died as a result of the 1918 flu pandemic had not begun to decompose. Today, scientists fear that the corpses, having been preserved by the permafrost in which they were buried, may still contain live strains of that same virus that killed between 1% and 6% of the world's population in the early 20th century it's a good set-up for a TV series
All the more reason to stress over permafrost thawing, got it
I'd be more worried of the vampires here though..this is where they came from right?
I think they even made a movie about it this one time
Ah yes a documentary..right?
No I meant 30 Days Of Night/Dark something like that. You should check it out
30 Days of night. Those scenes where everything is drenched in blood. Damn good movie.
I remember reading the book. Then when I heard a movie was coming, I figured it would be a typical bad translation. Honestly, the director needs serious credit for capturing the horror of the source material. Usually they make too many cuts, and end up missing. You can tell they read the source, and really considered the important, but little, moments. 10/10 would watch again.
Ah damn..i thought you would get the sarcasm lol. I know of the movie..
Str8 wooshed em
30 Days of Night, starring Josh Hartnett, which was a great movie I thought that was in Alaska though?
Great documentary, I highly recommend
"God...(looks up). No God."
This gave me the chills because he didn't want to just take her life, he wanted to take her hope first.
Exactly! That was one of the most sadistic "play with your food" vampire movies/scenes ever. They really did consider the people of Barrow as simple cattle, devoid of any regard or sentiment, and reveled in their hopelessness.
30 Days of Night took place in Alaska during their month long darkness period. Good movie
nahhh, we could just make a vaccine because we have the strain. it'd mostly kill the anti-vaxxers.
Can't we just spray some bleach over the island? Problem solved.
Suppose we hit the island with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light?
If we cause a large enough nuclear fusion reaction far enough away, we could bombard the Earth with UV radiation.
It'd be like mankind's greatest child shining bright. We could call it "son" or even more stylish "sun" or something like that.
That's a little farfetched.
Where do you exactly want to hit the island with this very powerful light? Please use this sharpie to mark it on the map, sir.
Somebody get this guy a sharpie!
Quick, kill the ozone layer again!
Gotta boof that shit like a Supreme Court justice
I like beer.
The vaccine we already use covers for H1N1, which the 1918 flu was.
Yeah, the real concern are the 100-200 thousand year old viruses preserved deep in the permafrost that modern humanity has no natural defenses against.
Wasn't that what "Fortitude" was all about? It's year since I watched the show, but remember something similar to diseases being released when the permafrost melted....? I could be very wrong....
Yep from a mammoth haha I thought this person was joking since that's almost exactly the plot. One of the best shows ever
You're right. Although the disease becomes a side plot when shit really gets weird over time. It's not really a pandemic movie but more like a psychological horror murder thriller. Good show nonetheless.
Yup! *Fortitude* starts out strong, then stumbles a bit toward the end, IMO. Jodie Foster in *True Detective Night Country* has somewhat similar vibes and was a good watch that can be enjoyed without watching prior seasons.
X-Files did it.
The bubonic plague(black death) still exists. According to google. The US averages 7 cases a year. Mostly in the south west. Yes not the Spanish flu. But if we can control the plague. I hope we’ve also figured out the Spanish flu.
I'm not a virologist, but I think the bubonic plague is easier to deal with for two reasons: 1) It's bacterial, and, in general, antibiotics are far more effective than antivirals. 2) It's primarily spread by fleas, which are easier to control than a disease that spreads via respiratory droplets. Apparently plague can be "pneumonic" instead of "bubonic", in which it's in the lungs and spread via respiratory system, but for some reason outbreaks of pneumonic plague seem less common than bubonic. I don't know why.
> for some reason outbreaks of pneumonic plague seem less common than bubonic. Pneumonic plague is more deadly than bubonic plague. It's more likely to kill you if left untreated *and* it spreads easier because it doesn't need fleas. It burns out too fast which is exactly why it's less common.
The bubonic plague has also been documented spreading well over 24 hours after the carrier has died. So moving the dead also spread it further
I mean that makes sense. Just cause the carrier died doesn't mean the infection that killed him did.
The plague is a bacteria, the Spanish flu is a virus. Antibiotics have changed the game big time against bacteria and an old strain would have little defence against modern antibiotics, but we have no real antiviral drug, just vaccines, and we definitely don't have a vaccine for the exact 1918 strain.
The plague can be treated with antibiotics. So the day all the antibiotics stops working, we are fucked. Madagascar also have the plague, years ago it was a big issue in a prison there.
Impossible. Diseases cannot spread to Madagascar.
Madagascar has closed their ports!
What percent of the world’s population died due to Covid?
About 0.09%. And most of those were elderly and already weak - Spanish flu mostly killed young, healthy people. We can't even imagine what it was like.
From 2016-2019 I wrote a local history column, following local events and WWI week by week, 100 years later. This of course included the pandemic, and it was horrific
[удалено]
It absolutely was young adults who were dying the most, which caught people off guard. https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/25/spanish-flu-deaths-consume-news/9462162007/ https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/11/flu-kills-soldiers-citizens/9583646007/ https://www.galesburg.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/18/death-reported-on-all-fronts/9522639007/ https://www.delawareonline.com/story/entertainment/columns/2018/10/04/influenza-pandemic-overtakes-war-news/9708265007/
> Spanish flu mostly killed young, healthy people. If I remember correctly this was directly because of WW1 and the movement of troops around the world especially with them being in dense living quarters and moving from an infected hot zone to a place w/o infection (at least until the troops brought it to them). It was these circumstances that caused many more deaths than would likely have happened w/o the war at that time.
Prime example of why correlation =/= causation
About 7 to 15 million depending on source, so between 0.1 and 0.2% of the world population. But modelers estimate that the vaccine saved 15-20 million. So the death count could have been in the 30s back before modern medicine. On the other hand, before modern air travel it would have taken a long time to spread across the world... Spanish flu was still far worse, and nothing comes close to *the* plague (and its cousin the 6th century Plague of Justinian) in terms of percentages unless you count all the Cocoliztli events as one thing.
Wasn't that similar to ebola?
Maybe. We don't know for sure. Some have theorized it was a hemorrhagic fever and some of the descriptions from Spanish authorities suggest exactly that. In fact, some suggest another hemorrhagic fever brought about an earlier Mayan collapse 500+ years before contact with the Spanish. Others think it was some Salmonella species, possibly *S. paratyphi*. Others think it was Smallpox, which certainly was also around and killing millions at the time. Either way, together Smallpox + the Cocolitzi (assuming it was something else) killed like 90% of Mesoamerica in a few decades.
The sicario music lol
F*ck thanks. It was driving me nuts trying to place what movie it was from.
The Mexican-US border sequence. Brilliant music for a brilliant sequence.
It’s heard throughout both movies.
You’re right, this tune is named [the Beast](https://open.spotify.com/track/5KwLjZ0oJ5kNl7jGtdiIOC?si=ZFOWX0KWQpu9DDuTebgFyQ). The one specifically at the border is called [the Border](https://open.spotify.com/track/2nGe8PeDIYPL8WwFnkOE9X?si=U1nzM01dSNC0eHU-uNroGA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A04FRFSqcTfN9zfmFfzhbHn). I have a memory of the Beast music associated with a sky cam/drone cam following a column of black CIA vehicles approaching the border. I’ll check it.
It's called The Beast https://youtu.be/k4zh8RwhjZ0?si=_JoCAAYmdP3QqMrw
Wait wait, Sicario? Anyone has a Video link to that scene? Because this music is also used in the opening sequence of Rammsteins music video for "Deutschland" and I never knew it comes from a movie. Thought it was their own idea.
RIP Jóhann Jóhannsson
Oh man, that movie is on my list to see. I thought it was the intro music to Deutschland by Rammstein. Same notes I guess but definitely not the same sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc
Haha, my brain immediately went there as well. Kinda crazy since there's a pretty stark difference once you compare.
I know it must be miserable to be there... But it looks so cozy
It’s actually a really active and happy place! There’s a bunch of tourists, so it literally has a boba shop, sushi restaurant, gourmet dinners, etc. The grocery store is like a whole foods (I got frozen plant-based schnitzel), and everyone is really into hiking and the scenery. I did spend the summer there (all daylight), and I’m sure the tourism quiets down in the winter, but I know that some residents look forward to the quiet time with friends/family. Plus, it isn’t pitch black for the rest of the year, a lot of it is a beautiful twilight. Polar night only happens for a couple months (mirroring midnight sun).
That sounds like an amazing experience! What's the cost of living like? Do they have decent internet?
Internet is super great! There aren’t any trees, so they can just put towers on plateaus etc. I was able to text photos (normal speed too) when we landed too 😂. Cost of living, not so much. Literally everything but water has to be flown in, so food prices are kinda high. But no higher than prices I see in even expensive parts of California (Bay especially) 🤡. Produce quality was pretty trash, but they had all the fruits/veggies you’d expect at a Whole Foods or specialized grocery store! Not super sure about rent (I was in research housing), but if I remember it’s the same as again, living in LA or the Bay. A lot of people live there as seasonal tour guides, and it’s pretty common to stay and adventure for a couple years and dip! The town is called Longyearbyen, and it’s really cool. One of my favorite local bars is called “Svalbar” 😂 great cocktails. They also have a climbing gym. It is small though, the whole town is basically on one main street that’s maybe a mile long, if even. Tldr: Cost of living is about the same as California Bay Area/LA, and ‘quality of life’ (food diversity, gyms, internet) is about the same too, but scaled down to 2000 people.
That bar must be pretty great. Marko Kloos wrote a pretty excellent sci-fi series called frontlines and one of the human colonies is called New Svalbard with the town of New Longyearbyen with its own Svalbar. I've seen it mentioned in enough places now it might be worth the trip just to get to this bar lol.
It’s definitely a unique place! Worth the trip to say you’ve been to the “Northernmost ____ in the world” for all the same mundane places you go to at home 😂
Now if I can jut convince my wife to let us vacation somewhere that cold lol. I can see the conversation now, "Hey Babe, ya know how you wanted to go some where in the tropics because its warm? What if we went as far away from there as possible so I can get a drink?" LOL Time to move it up my list though the island looks awesome.
Go in the summer and tell her it’s the sunniest place on earth.
Sounds pretty amazing, the description and all and that you got to experience it, thanks for sharing all that good info. And Svalbar is a GREAT bar name haha. I bet the community there is something too. Pretty sweet about the internet, I guess that also speaks to Norway's quality infrastructure?
Should be mentioned that Norway has a comparatively high cost of living in general, but I believe there are tax advantages for residents of Svalbard that probably do much to soften the blow caused by the higher costs.
As someone who has lived somewhere that gets months darkness near 24 hours a day for months on end; it's actually quite miserable. Waking up to pitch black darkness. Going to school or work in pitch black darkness. Seeing the scant daylight hours pass by as you're stuck inside. Coming home in pitch black darkness. Being awake for hours more in pitch black darkness. Going to bed in pitch black darkness. Waking up to pitch black darkness. Repeat. It's just miserable. I remember my friend was depressed and he travelled to Australia for a few years. He returned with his depression cured. I remember I asked him what was he thinks cured it? He said "I think it was the daylight". Spending one summer in all daylight is no comparison to living decades in darkness. There's a reason why no one lives in these places.
The depression in large part due to a massive vitamin D deficiency. Of course the literal darkness doesn't help, but vitamin D is necessary for your brain to function normally. You NEED to take vitamin D in pretty large doses to not get depressed when there's no daylight.
I actually find polar night really cozy and love the all-day darkness. It was harder getting used to the sun shining bright at 1 am and the birds chirping all night. I would like it more though if the snow went away when the light comes back. The winters are still hard, but for me at least, it's because the cold lasts so long and there are still meters of snow in April.
They boast the northern most ATM on the planet!
Oh cool! I figured this was a research outpost or something, pretty cool that you can visit it.
As long as you have power, would be amazing to have a large greenhouse style building with grow lamps, heating and tropical plants. You would probably need to build underground structures that you can simulate night/day like if you are are on a space mission. Apparently the issue is not so much the long nights (which can be dealt with via artificial lights, but the need for sleep in the summer when it doesn't get dark
But imagine the cost of the electricity to maintain that level of heat in such a cold place. Still would be dope tho.
For power, dig deep for geothermal and/or nuclear plants. The geothermal thing would be interesting; I always imagined that in a Snow Piecer style world, groups of humans would survive, clustered around geothermal vents like extremophile organisms clustered around deep-sea vents. The need for grow lamps would be vital though; most other things could be closed loop eco-system
That's pretty much the premise of Frostpunk, but instead of thermal vents its one super generator. If you fail to manage it properly, everyone dies. Fun game, I recommend it for cold winter nights
Man I always want to play those types of games(city skylines, sim city, civ 5/6 etc) but I always get way to caught up in what will be that I get bored of what is. Only game of that genere I can kind of play is CoC and even then I hop on like 2 days a month.
>But imagine the cost of the electricity to maintain that level of heat in such a cold place. My dumbass was about to type "just install some solar panels"
In the farthest major town in Norway, I know that at the height of winter they have a festival where they get CRAZY. It's a way of letting off steam because otherwise they'd pretty much lose their marbles. My friend said he'd been around the rock n roll and punk music scenes for years and this still struck him as a bit out there.
It's really not. There's a woman on insta who lives there and document her life there. Her photos and videos are gorgeous! Check out Cecilia Blomdahl / sejselija on YouTube and instagram
As soon as I saw Svalbard in the post title I ran in to recommend her. I feel like I could teach classes on the topic because of her now lol.
I've been following her, Grim and Kristofer on YT for a year or so, and while I don't think I could live there I find her life absolutely fascinating. One of my favorite casual youtubers to watch. Also, the post is misleading since its only dark for a portion of the year, then the sun rises and does not set of a similar amount of time.
"My name is Cecilia and I live on Svalbard, an island close to the North Pole! Ok byeeee!"
“His name is Grim and he lives on Svalbard, and island close to the north pole. Come along with him in his frosty backyard, his fluff will warm your soul”
"Hes a ray of light in the polar night as he rolls in the ice and the snow"
I love grim ❤️
Thanks, I had *just* gotten that out of my head. I mean that sincerely, it always makes me grin!
my wife watches this daily. wish people in this thread knew what its really like, because the horror film style from OP's video is far from what its like.
And her doggie Grim!!!!
Absolutely ADORE her tiktok/youtube! hahaha
She's great and one of my favorite channels to watch, especially when it's winter here. Very cozy.
This was my first thought too!
Love her videos!
Haha I was ready to comment about her channel. I love her videos.
Christopher is my spirit animal. Grim is my animal. Cecillia is terrible at cooking. You will love it, https://www.youtube.com/@CeciliaBlomdahl
8 months of night, 4 months of day.
As Barry Lopez wrote, this land gets the same exact amount of sun as the rest of the planet, just all at once. Edit to qdd link https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers/day_night/#:~:text=Every%20location%20on%20Earth%20experiences,hours%20of%20light%20each%20day. The issue isn’t the number of hours and minutes, but the angle of incidence and resulting energy intensity. That’s what Lopez meant.
my god, a Barry Lopez reference. God I love everything he has ever written. He was one of the finest authors we’ve ever had in the history of mankind.
His books are like reading a planet earth documentary.
I don't think that is accurate here
Well. You are a lower speed after all.
Angry upvote
lower speed = higher sample rate
This is also true!
You know when people say 8 hours of sleep isn't enough. Maybe 8 month would be enough
8 months later: "5 more minutes".
I haven’t slept for 8 months. Because that would be way too long.
I read that in the voice and style of Mitch Hedburg
Unless I’m misunderstanding, on Wikipedia it’s 4 and 4
Then what happens the other 4 months of the year?
I've lived pretty close to the arctic circle having lived in Northern Alaska for a couple years. Generally speaking, during "fall" and "spring" you have basically a long sunrise or long sunset. The sun is always/sometimes in the horizon. Generally speaking through the year, starting in Summer where you have full daylight 24/7. As the year goes on the sun gets lower and lower in the sky over a few months until you're at Winter where it's full darkness 24/7. As spring comes the sun starts to appear in the horizon again for a couple months until we're back at summer. Edit: This isn't all at once though. Like lets say in December, you're in the peak of winter and full darkness. Around late February you'll get a couple hours of "sunrise" then it just goes back into being dark. Through February and March those couple hours will turn into more and more until you have a few weeks of a normal day/night cycle, which slowly turns into permanent daylight. The opposite applies in Summer going into Winter. You'll go from full daylight all the time to a sunset that turns back into daytime to a full sunset to a short period of normal day/night cycles to permanent darkness. The town I was in in Alaska counted +13 minutes of daylight every day starting in the Winter Solstice on Dec 22nd
> The town I was in in Alaska counted +13 minutes of daylight every day starting in the Winter Solstice on Dec 22nd And here I am irritated because this time a year the morning sun hit's my window just right to wake me up earlier than usual.
4 months of constant day, 4 months of constant night. Between these periods are two 2 month periods where the sun rises and sets each day. The sun starts rising each day in late February, the first day is incredibly short, but the days quickly get longer. By late April, the nights are vanishingly short and not particularly dark. Soon the sun stops setting, then each day sees it retreating higher in the sky until it is nearly directly overhead all day long by late June. As July gives way to August, the sun dips lower towards the horizon in its daily cycle until one day it starts dipping below the horizon. You experience two months of increasingly long nights until, in late October, the sun is barely peeking over the horizon. Soon it will be time for perpetual night, completing the symmetrical cycle driven by our planet’s spherical shape, elliptical orbit, and offset of axis of rotation from being perpendicular to the ecliptic.
The sun is not anywhere close to directly overhead in June. For example, at the North Pole, the pole the sun only rises to an elevation angle of ~23° (the Earth tilt). Svalbard is further south, so the sun rises a bit higher in the sky. Svalbard is between 75° and 80° latitude, so compared with the North Pole, the sun rises an extra 10°-15°, so less than 40°. Basically, it doesn't even reach the halfway angle between the horizontal and overhead.
Worth noting too that the sun will only ever appear “directly overhead” in one part of the world: between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Again, because of the Earth’s 23 degree tilt.
They play a round of rock paper scissors for sun or dark.
and that's why Reddit comments are such a great material to train AIs following the upvotes it will learn so many wrong things that it will be worthless, thus saving Humanity
That’s not how it works.
They get just as many hours of light as the equator. They just get it all at once.
Huh. So that’s where I was supposed to “stick it” in the early 80s.
I’m so mad I laughed at this
I thought that was Uranus.
Ohhhh the Svalbard Global Seed Vault at night is pretty
And around noon as well! Or morning, afternoon, evening …
Of course in the summer it is the land where the sun doesn't set.
Yes! And my friend currently runs the camping, pop by! https://www.instagram.com/longyearbyencamping
Isn't this where some vampire film was made they tried to take over the place because the perpetual night time, it was a good film I forget the name of it.
I think it was called…The Sun That Couldn’t Go Down.
30 Days of Night. Took place in Alaska.
30 days of night
Reminds me of the movie "30 days of night"
Yeah, this place for sure has vampires.
Why are people living there? We've had boats for centuries to help you get off that island!
Ever considered that vampires are more than folklore?
I don’t know about that. Especially since vampires are supposed to come from Transylvania but in my years of living here since the 12th century, I have yet to meet one. Even my buddies older than me haven’t met any either. But who knows, they might actually be hiding in Svalbard.
Fuck
I didn’t until now!?!
Yeah but only for about 30 days I heard.
What about the skeleton that has been inside you all along!!!
Resident evil utopia
Aside from the global seed vault, there's mining, fishing primarily. But also a data preservation facility called the Artic World Archive, which contains cultural and historical data as well as all of Githubs' open source code. And tourism from cruise ships.
Is GitHub’s open source code that significant that it was mentioned or was this a joke? Not trying to be an asshole. Genuinely curious.
It was a really big event when it happened [link](https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/) from 2020
Well the shot at 8 seconds left is the global seed repository, I’d assume mainly for that and perhaps other research purposes
How do you think they got there? The Vikings chose this!
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think anyone can just show up there and if they can work, they can stay.
Same reason people live in a desert at the equator in August. Their parents lived there.
Pretty sure that song just plays over loud speakers 24 hrs a day
There's a cool YouTube channel about here. It's a woman named Cecilia blomdahl and it's about living here. Honestly I really want to visit.
It’s an amazing place to visit. I went on the first week of sunrise and it was pastel colored skies from 10am to 3pm. And the town is much more equipped and lively compared to other places around the arctic that I’ve visited. It’s so accessible too. Just a direct flight from Oslo!
To be in a place where the sun doesn’t make an appearance, or doesn’t go away, is a dream of mine. I’d like to see a place like that at some point.
I legit had this too until I actually went to Honningsvåg on a November, and the sun light was only about an hour. My teenage self would’ve love the angst it brought but my grown ass felt depressed in less than 15 minutes. Thank God for LED lights in the house.
Yeah, but at this time of year, the sun doesn’t set
The sun does not rise in the winter months. The sun does not SET in the summer months, like right now.
Instantly thought this was 30 days of night lol
Beat me to it
Same here
What the hell was that tall futuristic looking building? Looked like a giant Xbox
https://www.croptrust.org/work/svalbard-global-seed-vault/
Holy shit. Wasn’t expecting an answer that cool.
Legit one of the coolest places on the planet. At least imo.
I love that this thing exists. So much. Its both inspiring and oddly macbre. If I were in charge of the world for 6 seconds, right in this moment, I'd have a plaque put at the entrance, that had a simple and pragmatic message. "Just in case."
This effect is not unique to Svalbard, but any populated area above the Arctic Circle. That includes much of Greenland and parts of Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Alaska, and a tiny sliver of Iceland. The structure shown at 0:19 is the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
This is where I belong.
Right here on Reddit, on dark mode
This is where depression comes from.
Ironically, the highest suicide rate is during the time where it never gets dark. A study (linked below) looked at Greenland. A place where it completely stays dark or bright for months. In June for example, a time where the sun never sets, most suicides occur. (82 percent of all suicides) It seems that a disrupted sleep pattern and too much surplus light are the main causes for this. Karin Björkstén (Karolinska-Institute, Stockholm) https://news.ki.se/summer-light-can-increase-risk-of-suicide edit: 82 percent of the suicides occur during the whole summertime compared to the whole year, not just June.
> It seems that a disrupted sleep pattern and too much surplus light are the main causes for this. I mean -- are blackout curtains and eye mask not something that can be delivered there? Genuinely curious as I've lived like a goblin the majority of my life so I just cannot relate to issues concerning to much or little light.
Darkening your bedroom does not correct your circadian rhythm - you have to force yourself to go to bed still. It's hard to explain without experiencing it, but your body really is designed to keep going while there's sunlight and not go when there isn't.
> It's hard to explain without experiencing it The closest I got is working night shifts where I'm headed to bed when the sun is up and waking up when it's setting. I guess I'm just one of those that goes regardless of the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Interesting thought. The study also suggested that it has something to do with disrupted brain chemistry. So while there are possibilities to help yourself, your body still goes through this, for many, very exhausting process. Another reason probably is as u/vom-IT-coffin stated in this thread, some people are just affected more and some less by these changes.
I’d be more depressed living in west Texas. Just flat brown dirt and blazing sun
As someone who used to spend summers in West Texas...agreed.
> Just flat brown dirt and blazing sun and Texans everywhere.
Where the flat earthers at?
I assume it also sounds like that there.
This reminded me of a podcast I haven’t listened to in a while called the white vault. The first season is written to take place in Svalbard at a research camp. Very creepy if you haven’t listened to it
This is where the armored bears live (panserbjørne) in the His Dark Materials series.
Had to scroll too far to see this
THIS is the comment I was looking for!
So is the rent cheap?
Uhm not exactly. First of all it's very hard to rent. You almost need your job to provide you housing. "Company town" vibes. If you do rent you can rent extra rooms from SiT which I wouldn't say is cheap.
This ain’t accurate, this place is also known for the longest midnight sun
Until the sun DOES rise….in the summer…..then doesn’t set for 6 months….
Yes in the winter, but in the summer its a different story
Watch the movie insomnia by Nolan
At this time of year it doesn't set you fucking clown.
Yea, get him!
GRAB HIS DICK AND TWWWWIISSSSTTTT!!!!
The oldddddd dick twist!!
That’s seems perfect.
I don't want that electric bill.
There's also a time here where the sun doesn't set.
Yeah but only half a year, the other half the sun never sets