The elegant timing contraption of the Nenana Ice Classic | Hacker News Reader

The elegant timing contraption of the Nenana Ice Classic

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40 pointsfold8 comments

I can't miss this chance so: When someone uses the word debacle to describe a minor problem I get to rebut with my favorite joke (that only works when you are in Alaska and a nerd): Namely "That's not a debacle the Nena Ice Classic is a debacle."

See definition 3: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/debacle

Also: It's not nearly as good with "bets on a debacle", but it a good bit more accurate.

Also: Yes all of my friends hate my sense of humor.

I found this article fairly confusing. It seems to be geared towards readers are already very familiar with the whole Punxsutawney-Phil-esque event, eschewing any establishing pictures and bringing up "the tripod" and leaving me to puzzle whether it was part of "the tower" or not, etc.

It's a type of lottery.

A large wooden "tripod" (it actually has four legs) is placed on the frozen river in winter. When the ice breaks up in spring and the river starts flowing, the current carries the tripod downstream, pulling a rope attached to a tower built on land to trigger the mechanism described in the article to stop the clock.

People buy tickets to place bets on the exact minute the clock will be stopped. The closest bet wins, and if there are multiple bets on the winning time, the winners split the prize. The prize has been over a quarter million dollars in recent years.

I understood that it was a lottery, I'm just grousing that 5% more set-up would've made it much more approachable.

It doesn't quite say what happens when the slack runs out on the other ropes, come to think of it. Unless the cleaver cuts them all at once somehow.

I lived in Nenana as a child. I had no idea it was this complicated. I figured it just pulled a pin to stop the clock.

I actually won this one year.

I was in a pool of 14 people and we spread our guesses across the most likely times on the most likely days. Of course, that's what most people do, so there were several winning tickets. It wound up being a few hundred bucks.

I don't understand what the stopped clock is supposed to signify. It's a device that show the current time except off by a bit—the number of large changes in the ice flow? like my microwave?

There's a yearly lottery pool based on who guesses closest to the time when the Nenana ice jam breaks up. The tripod falling over signifies when the river's moving.

http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/

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