Antipodes

Harriet Alexander learns a lesson about software instruction on site in Antarctica:

The second day was Python, which we typically teach by introducing some packages using the Conda packaging system. Anaconda is about 300 megabytes. That doesn’t sound like much — but when you’re in Antarctica, where the Internet is very slow, it’s huge. I ended up downloading Miniconda, a stripped-down version of 35 megabytes, and it took me probably 2.5 days. But I forgot that Miniconda has to download other stuff, so there was no way it was going to work.

Bottom line: if you’re going to be teaching somewhere remote, download what you need before you get there.