Verus sis is futurus
October 7, 2015 12:44 PM   Subscribe

The University of Antarctica has a central campus consisting of 400 acres in a built-up area around University Peak, Victoria Land. The official founding occured on Antarctic Independence Day (23 June 1961), when it became Antarctica's first (and still its only) university.
posted by Johnny Assay (29 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
1) It seems the website was also created in 1961.

2) I love how they use a stock photo for the 'students' on the homepage, showing a sunny, verdant campus behind them.
posted by signal at 12:47 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


So this is completely fake right?
posted by crazy with stars at 12:50 PM on October 7, 2015


I would sign up for this class in a hot second:

ZOO 202 Dogs and Cats
posted by something something at 1:08 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


crazy with stars: "So this is completely fake right?"

Nope, here's an obviously legit external verifying article.
posted by signal at 1:10 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Love the "study abroad" page.
posted by Melismata at 1:17 PM on October 7, 2015


Mmmmm. Film Club Schedule 2015. No mention of The Thing. Mmm.
posted by valkane at 1:22 PM on October 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Go Fighting Emperors!!!
posted by Thorzdad at 1:23 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Don't miss Occupy Antarctica: A Special Report—great photos!
posted by languagehat at 1:27 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


So this is completely fake right?

Yep.

Life at McMurdo Station is surprisingly bustling, though. It's way bigger and more populous than I realized—I had always pictured a few huts and maybe two dozen haggard scientists, but it's practically a small city, with up to 1,300 residents during the warmer months. Antarctica: A Year on Ice is a really great documentary if you want to learn more. I've been half-seriously entertaining the idea of getting a job down there ever since I watched it.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:33 PM on October 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


"Severe Weather Warning" LOL
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:37 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


This keeps getting funnier and funnier. "Winter Olympics Bid"! ROTFL!
posted by Melismata at 1:39 PM on October 7, 2015


At the bottom-right of that page is a small link reading "Scifi Canon."
posted by duffell at 1:42 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are they hiring?
posted by mmmbacon at 1:44 PM on October 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Also quite arresting: the text under "Wheel of Power" on this page. "Take off your clothing or at least roll it back, I've got an apetite to initiate intercourse protocols"
posted by duffell at 1:46 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Are they hiring?

I'm glad this doesn't exist, because the fact that they would see 200+ applications for every faculty opening would make me even sadder at the state of the academy. Hell, I bet they'd have adjuncts. Humanities PhDs will indeed move to Antarctica just for the slim chance of tenure.
posted by dis_integration at 1:47 PM on October 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


I'm trying to figure out whether the terrible design is as naïve as it appears, or whether someone painstakingly crafted it to look like a GeoCities site from 1994.

It looks like it was created with Dreamweaver in WYSIWYG mode, so I'm leaning toward the former. Looks like the domain was registered in 2007. Someone needs to update their web skills :)

It's obviously meant as a joke, but it's a deeply weird site. The crazy design, the tangential pages that aren't really part of the joke or part of anything else (like the SF canon), the privacy policy... It's somewhere between a joke, an exercise in ARG fantasy world-building, and a Time-Cube-esque sites whose internal logic is apparent only to its creator.

I'm not hatin'; I'm glad this kind of weirdness still exists on the web.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:57 PM on October 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


Well, I definitely know what affiliation I'm listing on my submissions to the scam journals that keep emailing me.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:09 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


if you look at source to the front page there's a broken search form referring to http://search.admin.usf.edu/search.aspx and the wayback archive for USF from 2000 is left aligned with a similar layout. so i guess they grabbed some pages and edited them. the privacy policy might be from there, if you're willing to search...
posted by andrewcooke at 2:10 PM on October 7, 2015


Holy balls. There's a massive section of sci-fi art—hundreds of pages, it looks like—which is bigger than the actual UANT site. I only discovered it by clicking on a random "back" link several clicks deep in the SF canon. (Click on a white link on the left nav, then click on the big blue title to actually enter the section.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:22 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay, 170 pages. Still.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:24 PM on October 7, 2015


At the bottom-right of that page is a small link reading "Scifi Canon."

Thanks to the pictures, I just found out that Kim Stanley Robinson is male. Whaddya know.

Uh, guess I'll have to quit bringing up the Mars trilogy in "women in sci-fi" discussions.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:42 PM on October 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Since turnabout is fair play, I've signed up for their expedition to explore and make dark discoveries in the Miskatonic River area of Arkham, Mass.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:47 PM on October 7, 2015


Tuition payments are naturally only accepted in Antarctic Dream Dollars.
posted by 1adam12 at 5:28 PM on October 7, 2015


Can someone with a better understanding of Latin help me out with the motto, "Verus sis is futurus"? Playing with dictionaries and Google translate leads me to believe it's a play on words that might be translated something like "real if you want it to be" or also "absurd if you want it to be" but I'm out of my depth.
posted by traveler_ at 5:32 PM on October 7, 2015


This is really cool. I like it a lot. I feel that whoever created this, really warmed to the task and "went for it." It's crazy how much detail went into, of all things, the page devoted to the University Ombudsman:

CURRENTLY IN ARBITRATION

Szabadzag V. Webstor : One student wants to use another's sms message as evidence against a third student. Dr. Beasley is weighing if the sms message is public or private when legal infringements may be decided by its disclosure.

Moliero V. University : A student was disciplined by her professor for having electronics in her possession during an online class. The professor knew because she had a webcam and the professor saw her breaking the rules. She is arguing to Dr. Beasley that the professor had no right to look at what she was doing.

Aasif Ali Soab V. University : Mr. Soab took two online biology courses before reading on the university website that UANT credits do not transfer to the university system of his country of origin (Jordan) and wants his time back- in the form of a lump sum payment from the University. Dr. Beasley is considering whether the literature Soab received from the Office of International Relations was clear or if it was not.

Mikayla Afenasentov V. Navoyka Restaurant : A student-employee claims food she took out at the end of her working shift made her stomach sick the following day. Management disputed the claim and fired the worker. Dr. Beasley's investigation will cover the entire workplace ethics domain.

Qin Shihuangdi V. Matthew Dellbridge : This case has passed arbitration as of 3/7/15. Dellbridge while acting as a staff member of the University entered into the confidence of Mr. Qin and gained access to his credit card numbers. When none of them worked in Antarctica Dellbridge contacted James Hanson in Canada, who used all of the money on the card in Canada. Dr. Beasley understands the proliferation of personal information such as this leads to identity theft and took measures to prevent it from happening again.

Sabrina Sontag, Unidentified Student #1, Unidentified Student #2, Varga Jeno Dormitory Administration V. Prof. Bobby Zvonchenko, esq.: [Censored pending arbitration].

posted by jayder at 6:31 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh, and I see now that someone noted the bizarre-but-brilliant account of the various kinds of abuse under the image of the Power Wheel. Damn.

What's interesting is that the text appears to be original: searching for a snippet, "completely different muscularity regime," turns up no other google hits.
posted by jayder at 6:36 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Darn I really wanted an associate degree from the University of Antarctica to give my resume a bit more pizzazz.
posted by Joe Chip at 6:42 PM on October 7, 2015


Can someone with a better understanding of Latin help me out with the motto, "Verus sis is futurus"? Playing with dictionaries and Google translate leads me to believe it's a play on words that might be translated something like "real if you want it to be" ...

I consulted a Latin-speaking colleague after posting this, and he confirms that this is more or less correct (he translated it as "True if you wish it to be.")
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:44 PM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Postal code: THX 1138
posted by Mitheral at 12:19 AM on October 8, 2015


« Older "...and I was licking the baby's face."   |   The stage is set... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments