sequestered or the long now

Via the Presurfer, we learn about the resting place outside of the city of Chicago where the first nuclear reactor and associated waste was interred. Researchers at the University of Chicago, working under a top secret commission to bring the powerhouse on-line before the Axis Powers, under the supervision of Enrico Fermi, achieved this first sustainable, controlled reaction at the woodland laboratory in 1942.
The experimental Chicago Piles (CP-1 through CP-3) ran for about a decade until brought off-line and buried in situ—marked with granite blocks and the warning to potential grave-robbers that digging is not advised—though safe for visitors due to the low yield and shielding used for this prototype. Reading this postcard reminded me of the call for submissions several years back on how to handle the nuclear waste of contemporary times, which is much longer-lived and far more deadly and poses a significant problem that the next ten thousand generations of Earthlings will need to contend with. From a vantage point far older than human civilisation itself, how could we ensure that the message of danger and to keep away from today’s nuclear waste disposal sites are imparted to the future? Proposals included a defensive, infernal landscape with sand berms and giant totems of tortured souls, giant steely thorns like the sort that enveloped Sleeping Beauty’s castle, or even a priesthood of sorts to bridge the millennia and warn off the curious and scavengers that indeed you will be struck down by beams of invisible energy if you defile this ancient temple. Can you think of a way to signal danger that won’t be liable to misinterpretation, or is our bequest an unmarked grave?

seal of approval

Via Boing Boing, comes a dystopian but probably very prescient look at how the ecology of robots and social media has changed after the disastrous and messy hook and crook of an experimental chatbot from Hugh Hancock that posits in the near future, not only will everyone enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame, they’ll also be attended by flights of chatty mobs—potentially making human presence on-line, at least in certain, defined circles, not a very pleasant or varied experience.
Public-relation firms could deploy armies of minions that could rival any mortal army of the most vitriolic and determined army of internet comment-trolls. Such flea-circuses, no matter how rudimentary or sophisticated, could soon manipulate the news and censor what might go against the current of the trending issue of the day by scale and inertia, elevating the flattering and burying the unbecoming. What do you think? Is it like a public garden being occupied by vandals and hooligans or might this never come to pass? Once these pests get into the wild, I am betting that human-users won’t be easily able to cull this invasive species.

the crustacean college of sea-monkey knowledge

Author and contributor to Public Radio’s This American Life Jack Hitt, writing for the New York Times, transports us to the magical undersea kingdom of novelty toy impresario and master-marketer Harold von Braunhut, inventor of the Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys and countless other mail-order items, by visiting his widowed-bride Yolanda, former campy pictures vixen, at the Maryland estate that was built by hawking and playful humbug. Yolanda is currently fighting a breach of contract by the toy distributor that assumed control of sales (Sea-Monkeys are still doing a brisk business) for using a Chinese supplier of brine-shrimp, instead of those packaged by von Braunhut herself with a secret process that guarantees reanimation, but the comprehensive article delves into the colourful (and sometimes dark) careers and backstory that brought the interview and the interviewee together for this fascinating remembrance.

galgenhumor

H and I are temporarily displaced while our home is being fumigated for woodworm. Though we disagree with the necessity and method and it was hard work rescuing all the plants in the jungle and such—and worry that the swallows might not come back to roost—the operation and efficiency are impressive. Checking up on the company, operating out of Nürnburg, to see if it had a reasonable reputation, we noticed that all the publicity photos of mostly churches and other historic structures were tented in the same flag colours. I guessed it was supposed to be some cute, patriotic statement or maybe there was a sale on that particular pattern. I didn’t go down, I suppose, the obvious route—associating gassing with Germany, until one of H’s colleagues brought it up.

parity or difficulty-setting: hard

Thanks to Messy Nessy Chic’s for spotting this 1970 reimagining of the board game Monopoly in Blacks & Whites: The Role Identity & Neighbourhood Action Game—by the brain-trust at Psychology Today.  The purpose of this game, debuted not long after the was to illustrate to adult players lessons about racial-relations, privilege, economic disparity and the opportunity gap.  White game pieces are afforded considerable advantages and for them the rules about going to jail are rather more fluid.  The goal of playing, more in the spirit of the original concept for Monopoly, was not to accumulate the most money and property and causing one’s opponents to give up but rather to achieve an economic-balance, one which the game’s rules made impossible.