A tunnel collapsed in the 200 Area of Washington State’s Hanford Reservation. The 200 Area is where fuel elements from Hanford’s reactors were processed to recover the plutonium that went into American nuclear weapons. I was not aware of an underground rail system there. The system is probably in the 200 area only because the reactors are much too far away to make an underground system possible.
The trains apparently transported the fuel rods to the processing plant, the long building shown in the photo. Update: I am guessing that the fuel rods were partially removed from the casks in which they would have been transported by truck from the reactors. That means that there was slightly more chance for them to have been contaminated. The rail system extends to the reactors but is in tunnels as it approaches the plant.
Some reports are saying that the trains were full of radioactive waste and are buried in the tunnels. I doubt that. Having worked on DOE cleanups, I have seen exaggerations of this kind, urban legends of the DOE complex. Update: Apparently there are radioactive parts from the processing facility in the cars. This is not the kind of waste that is likely to be mobilized into the air.
The official Hanford site says that the collapse was 20 by 20 feet and there is no indication of a release of contamination. That’s not enough to release significant quantities of anything, unless there is pure plutonium oxide uncontained in the tunnels. (Hint: there isn’t. I don’t know that for a fact, but I would bet large sums of money on that, and I am not a betting person.)
People at the site have been told to take cover in buildings and secure the ventilation systems. This is the reasonable first response. Always better to take precautions than to get contaminated.
Looks to me like no big deal. The site bulletins should be updated. I’ll update this post as warranted.
Update: Hanford reps will be going live on Facebook shortly.
#HanfordEmergency Update: for questions during our Facebook live, please continue to call (509) 376-3322 Media or (509) 376-8116 Public
— Hanford Site (@HanfordSite) May 9, 2017
A robot is being deployed to check for contamination.
Update: TALON robot deployed to search for potential contamination near site of the @HanfordSite tunnel collapse.https://t.co/gzWsQK28vx
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel) May 9, 2017
#HanfordEmergency Update: picture shows 20 ft X 20 ft hole in roof of tunnel. For more info visit https://t.co/o11YHxEAkB #hanfordsite pic.twitter.com/TqEjKucJdB
— Hanford Site (@HanfordSite) May 9, 2017
Best available news article on the collapse.
Keith G
Hope you are correct. We are poisoned enough already.
TenguPhule
And yet you posted it here.
/Cue panic and mass hysteria from the commenters.
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: We’re all gonna die.
Mike J
It would be nice if congress would appropriate the money to actually get the cleanup done.
scav
@TenguPhule: Well, it’s not as though a structurally non-hysterical source of information is going to be found the in the standard media sources.
ETA: Besides, we do hysterics with more vocabulary and elan. Why share?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@TenguPhule: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We are all going to DIIIIIIEEEEE! (lights self on fire and runs screaming around the blog)
The Moar You Know
OMGOMGOMGOMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE
I just wanted to type that. This is really not a big deal, but I know my Facebook feed is about to see a geyser of needlessly panicked posts. This country has really done a shit job of educating people about nuclear power.
The Moar You Know
@Mike J: They did. 19 billion spent. Zero waste cleaned/removed.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: True statement. Details however, remain devilish.
Major Major Major Major
Technically, we are all going to die. Even the most optimistic transhumanists don’t think a human mind, digitized or not, can last much longer than sixteen thousand years.
ETA: And thanks, Cheryl. I look forward to reacting in a calm and measured manner while meanwhile my dumbass friends post anti-nuke hysteria on the book of faces.
Doug R
Last week’s episode of The Last Man on Earth now looks strangely prescient.
Cheryl Rofer
That’s why I posted it. To get out in front of the hysteria, which is already showing up in a couple of the news articles I’ve linked. Don’t know if that’s possible any more. ?
hovercraft
I hope you’re right.
In the meantime, lets see if the media freaks out and if they do how the brand new team of the “best people” handle this.
Cheryl Rofer
@The Moar You Know: Hey, hey! I can’t speak for Hanford, but I know my crews cleaned up a number of sites at Los Alamos!
schrodingers_cat
I read in the morning that Cambridge Analytica was going to eat us alive.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I thought Peter Thiel was going to live forever, no?
? Martin
Well, this sounds bad, but thankfully we have Rick Perry on the job.
Origuy
Did the gigantic mutated mole people tunnel into the area? Send the new Secretary of Energy there to supervise the response.
Jeffro
.
hovercraft
@? Martin:
That’s so true, and usefully the Seahawks have a giant stadium he can use to pray for rain to wash away any icky radiation or whatever that leaks. WIN! See Twitler knew what he was doing!
Alain the site fixer
Sorry for the bump folks. All better now.
I think I improved the Reply function’s spacing and so it shouldn’t get stuck in/on links or links in blockquotes.
Of course it’s up to you folks to trigger the issue because my limited testing showed it working on my test site, but that’s not a copy of this site, just a basic site for dev and testing and so it wasn’t a perfect test of the improved spacing. I’m working on some plans for a full-time test server for Balloon-Juice so I can try some new plugins to improve your experience.
That all said, I’m pushing off the theme update but hope to add one or more small tweaks today.
One thing I know folks will appreciate is improved comment buttons. They work and look great on my test site and so in a few minutes, I’m going to disable the current buttons and load the new ones. If they work, they will stay on. If they don’t, I’ll turn the old ones back on and then figure out the remaining issue another time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: Priorities. Tax cuts for Trump spawn and Mercers first.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Sorry, I should have included ‘intelligent’ (despite some of their beliefs).
Citizen_X
@Origuy: There you go! Enough of the 80s-style environmentalist panics. Let’s have more 50s-style monster movie panics!
Mnemosyne
Alain, I’m not seeing a “reply” button on my iPhone. Just FYI since I know you’re still fiddling with the controls.
Gravenstone
@? Martin: Helping …. ur doin’ it rong.
jacy
@Major Major Major Major:
Optomistic Transhumanist is my new band name.
Had a conversation with my currant teenager wherein he stated that death didn’t worry him, because by the time he was an adult, his consciousness could just be downloaded and he’d basically be immortal. Sigh. Teenagers already think they’re immortal.
SiubhanDuinne
@? Martin:
AAAAAGGGHHHH!! OMGOMGOMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE WE’RE AL
Alain the site fixer
@Mnemosyne: in the desktop site or the mobile one? What I changed shouldn’t have affected the mobile site, but since I forked a long-dead plugin, I updated its name and so perhaps the mobile site is missing it when it worked earlier? Let me know. Can you try closing the browser tab and then reloading it?
Corner Stone
@Origuy:
Clearly this was due to an accident that occurred during the filming of Tremors XII: The Ones Under Your Bed
Alain the site fixer
ok removing old buttons and prepare for new ones!
EXCITING!
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: Hold me.
Oh, dammit. Why did this have to happen while you’re still in restricted movement of rehab?!
Frankensteinbeck
I am suddenly so grateful you are here. The panic on BJ over the scary words involved in Fukushima’s accident drove me nuts. We need a front pager and authority who can tell us exactly how bad things are or are not.
Weaselone
@Major Major Major Major:
If you can get it to last 16,000 years, exactly what would be the barrier to have it lasting longer? Or are we just talking about the fact at that timescale, accidents or suicide would be limiting factors?
Gin & Tonic
@Alain the site fixer:
The only thing folks will appreciate about “improved” comment buttons is if they are a NOOP for some people who come here.
Alain the site fixer
WAHOO
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: I can hold you with my left hand.
Spanky
Well, it doesn’t even show up on CNN’s front page, and their lead store is
so we’ve got that going for us.
And yeah, “wrong” is not the same as “lied”, but the latter is pretty hard to prove. Not likely to have been done at this point, but I can pretend that diligent research will soon show that he did lie, right?
Corner Stone
@scav:
“structurally non-hysterical”….I’ve been pondering what this would look like for a few minutes now.
jacy
@Origuy:
Perhaps the Mole People are in league with the Lizard People who live under the Denver Airport and secretly run the government. That’s a thing.
Mike J
@The Moar You Know:
$19B of a projected $110 Billion. Right now they’re spending about $2B/yr, but it really needs to go to about $3B/yr
But about one fourth of the cleanup is done.
Alain the site fixer
it just got better!
raven
Wait till Rachel gets ahold of this!
Mnemosyne
@Alain the site fixer:
The reply button is back and I’m getting the pretty new comment formatting, but the text is very small for us middle-aged folks who are resisting reading glasses.
Cheryl Rofer
Can’t take panicky Twitter any longer. Going to make lunch.
chopper
oh well that’s just fucking great.
Alain the site fixer
Now once I get my test server up and running, perhaps before, I can explore a few more additions to the commenting experience (like tracking replies to your comments, good stuff like that).
For now, I think these buttons and controls are a great improvement.
Major Major Major Major
My reply button isn’t putting anything in the textarea and my input text has serifs. Oh, man, you are not going to want all those formatting buttons.
ETA: Apparently the loss of ‘reply’ functionality is due to my troll filter script. I imagine cleek will need to update that.
Gin & Tonic
Test.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
My favorite quote on that is still from Thomas Lynch, a poet and mortician: “The mortality rate for the human race is holding steady at 100 percent.”
Alain the site fixer
Which text?
hovercraft
Alain the site fixer
Okay I wanted to echo your WAHOO, but the reply button doesn’t work, but I do love the new buttons. So
WAHOOGin & Tonic
I’m with M^4. You don’t want people posting in Comic Sans, truly.
Spanky
Hey! What’re all these extra buttons for on the comments?
ETA: Heyyyyy, all those extra buttons work while the comment is being constructed, but nothing shows up once submitted. I call shenanigans.
jacy
You’re going to confuse us all with new options for commenting? Chaos.
I’m old and I hate change.
Major Major Major Major
@Weaselone it’s some theoretical hard-ish limit on processing, I think I read it in an Eliezer Yudkowsky paper or something.
Alain the site fixer
Crap reply is borked. Resetting it back the way it was. Thanks M4. I’m adjusting the font family info for the plugin. I could even allow shortcodes for video or pix or better tweets, etc. Lots to explore. But let me fix reply first!
jacy
G&T: The first thing I was going to do was reply in Comic Sans. Now you’ve ruined it. Thanks.
Spanky
Testing. A-one, and-a two ….
(And “Wingdings” gives me no joy.)
Miss Bianca
Not getting “reply” on the reply button, and now my comments are showing up in a serif font in the comment-y box, but other than that, everything appears functional as usual!
Mike J
No papyrus in the font list? How am I supposed to be annoying now?
Spanky
Meanwhile, in other fourth-tier who-gives-a-fuck celebrity news:
It’s at CNN, if you really give half a shit.
ETA: Invisible blockquoting is cumbersome.
ETA2: “”Welcome to the world Atlee Bay,” she wrote in the caption.”
Mother “Bristol”, father “Dakota”, baby “Atlee Bay”. Do these yahoos have nothing but world atlases as reading material?
jacy
Spanky: We could have “Wingdings Wednesday” where all comments must be in Wingdings. That would confound the trolls.
mapaghimagsik
And, we’re out of coffee
TenguPhule
Reply button is busted, Alain.
Ab_Normal
Whee. My first job out of college back in 1988 was for the OPM doing security clearance background checks at the Hanford site (lasted a whole six months; introverts don’t make good investigators). From that I have “fond” memories of the 200 area. From that limited experience, and 20 years lived in the Tri-Cities, and lots of friends who work at the Site, I co-sign Cheryl’s analysis. :D
chopper
and here i thought we were gonna have comic sans.
hovercraft
So I ran a test to see if I could post a link, and it was eated ; (
@TenguPhule:
It just worked for me, but he knows and is working on it ; )
Alain the site fixer
@Miss Bianca: dammit. It appears to be a conflict between the reply plugin and the new buttons.
So for now, those new buttons were a future preview. I will put this on the “get working on the test server before going live”.
Sorry to be a tease! That’s it for me today on BJ – no more site changes as I’ve got enough behind-the-scenes stuff to setup and prepare.
A Ghost To Most
@jacy:
Teenagers have always thought they were immortal. It’s part of what makes that age so fun.
But, you are only immortal for a limited time. Sigh.
Gin & Tonic
@jacy:
I’m so old I can remember when the term for that was “conservative.”
Mnemosyne
@Spanky:
I lost track of that whole thing — did she end up marrying the guy who she was originally engaged to but broke up with? The rumor was that he was suspicious the baby wasn’t his, but who knows with that family.
zhena gogolia
@Alain the site fixer:
I’m testing whether I can post in Cyrillic. Давай посмотрим.
ETA: Okay, good — the other night it disappeared, as it used to do.
Mnemosyne
@Alain the site fixer:
My eyes thank you for switching back. You wouldn’t think that a change from 8 point to 6 point type would be a big deal, but it kinda was.
Alain the site fixer
Ok, so for everyone wondering what happened (i.e., those late to the conversation), I launched some new buttons that are awesome for comment formatting, etc., but they conflicted with the Reply button. So I removed them.
So I at least fixed the “reply button in/on links/blockquotes” issue and solved a back-end issue. I will update theme and add in these buttons hopefully another time.
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia: Who is that actually for, btw? Google Translate usually chokes on it so it’s either wasted, for a very limited audience or self-masturbation.
Mike J
M^4
16,383, max life is stored in a 14bit int.
Alain the site fixer
@Mnemosyne: so it was the tiny comment text when you were composing the comments, as seen on the mobile site view, correct? Let me know for sure so I can add ameliorating that detail to my goals for testing/launch.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
How about looking at the “back button” and page positioning functions? Been screwy on both desktop (Firefox, Win10) and mobile (Chrome, Android) sites for about a week. I.e., when the page is refreshed or when you try to go back to your last anchored position you end up somewhere (very loosely) in the vicinity but not at the right spot.
jacy
@Gin & Tonic:
The Boyfriend and I were just talking the other night and were upset to realize that both of us have fallen into the habit of calling anybody under 35 a “kid.” But we’ve also convinced ourselves that since between the two of us we still have three kids under the age of 13, we are NOT OLD.
Wjs
More importantly, this happened because of her emails, right?
Spanky
@Mnemosyne: Just for you, darlin’, I forced myself to finish the article.
I left out Grandma’s quotes. There are some things I won’t do for anybody.
Alain the site fixer
@Steeplejack: I’ll put it on the short-term list, but since I’ve changed nothing on that front recently, I suspect it’s some changes in the browser side of things. But so many changes here affect something “over there” that until I dig in, I can’t say for sure.
FYI, you’re one of the top 5 people I want to give some input once the test site is up and running as that will be our experiment-bed. So stay tuned, I’ll be emailing you sometime in the not-too-distant future!
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
It’s not letting one post links at the moment.
ETA: TEST
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/donald-trumps-fear-the-russia-scandal-becomes-more-obvious
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: how are you entering them? :Let me turn off the other part of the new buttons in case it is causing that side-effect.
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
So it let me add the link in edit, I’m going to try it the usual way.
TEST
Donald Trump’s fear of the Russia scandal becomes more obvious
05/09/17 12:57 PM—Updated 05/09/17 01:16 PM
By Steve Benen
ETA: The usual way, and it just worked, so maybe it’s fine now?
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: After your edit, I turned off the other component. So if links work now, let me know so I can turn it back on and see if they still work or if it indeed causes some issues.
prob50
“Slippery Rock”??
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: Please let me know affirmatively that links work as they did. Then I will re-enable the second plugin, let you know, and you can test again.
We don’t want link issues when we launch the new buttons so now’s the time to evaluate the link issue!
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
TEST
Trump Associate Complains Journalists ‘Are Nosy’ And ‘Throw The Eggs’
Anthony Scaramucci, an associate of President Donald Trump, on Tuesday defended Jared Kushner’s sister for kicking journalists out of a business meeting. The move raised questions about potential conflicts of interest for the President’s son-in-law and top adviser.
“Journalists are nosy, and journalists throw the eggs,” Scaramucci said in an interview on CNN’s “New Day.”
ETA: Seems to be back to normal, thanks ; )
satby
I don’t have reply buttons at all now. I’m on a Kindle, which is Android based.
satby
@satby: ok, the only reply button showing is the one on the comment I just made. That’s weird.
Alain the site fixer
@satby: refresh the page, they should be back now!
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
In case I was not clear, it’s back to normal.
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: Ok. I just re-enabled the second plugin. Can you test your links to ensure all is well again?
satby
Nope, refreshed, closed window and reopened, etc. Only reply buttons on my own comment, which is why I didn’t directly reply to you.
hovercraft
@Alain the site fixer:
Spicer: WH Slow To Act On Yates’ Warning Because She Was ‘Political Opponent’
ETA: Back to normal, THANKS.
ArchTeryx
@chopper: Don’t mess with Sans. He’s an absolute bastard in a fight.
satby
@satby: damn, this is the first time anything has ever been broken on the Kindle.
Spanky
@prob50: Higher probability for “Rolling Rock”.
Alain the site fixer
@hovercraft: fantastic! I’m stepping away from the site now so if there are issues, please feel free to use the form in Quick Links. Thanks for your help!
Millard Filmore
@Mnemosyne:
If you are on a real computer running Firefox or Explorer (most likely any browser), Control-plus will goose the font size and Control-minus will reduce it. This works even if you normally need to shift to get the “+” character.
ryanayr
Former Richland resident here, with parents who worked in the area.
The trains are/were in tunnel(s) within Gable mountain which is not within the 200 area. They used trains because you could use them remote control relatively easily – those trains couldn’t be used by people because the extraction canyons (the long structure in the photo) were far too radioactive for anyone to ever enter them.
Alain the site fixer
@Millard Filmore: the good news about her plight is that I’ve identified where I can control that font size (and type, for those anti-serifs out there) for the comment box and so it is bigger and has a nice, clean Verdana. Again, those new buttons will launch another day and hopefully there won’t be any remaining font size issues.
satby
And it’s not that they’re there but invisible, nothing responds when I tap where they should be (yes, I do shit like that)
Frankensteinbeck
@ArchTeryx:
Anyone who has to learn that deserves to have a bad day.
Steeplejack
@hovercraft:
In other news: disappointed that on PBS tonight what I misread as Victorian Slut House is really Victorian Slum House.
Jay S
From Hanford’s emergency information link
So it apparently it is storage for contaminated equipment,
hovercraft
@Steeplejack:
Well duh, if it was what you thought it was, it would have been called: Victorian Bawdy House
I saw a preview of it the other day, but haven’t watched it, if you do let me know if it’s any good.
Cheryl Rofer
@ryanayr: The tunnel in question is on the south side of the long PUREX building in the photo. I’ve just added a tweet with a photo of the collapse.
satby
@satby: rebooted and still no reply buttons on any comments but my own.
The Kindle browser is called Silk, system is an Android based, and I will be despondent if I have to go back to reading the blog on my laptop. I haven’t read the desktop site since the tender ministrations of the person who shall not be named that Alain spent a lot of time fixing.
Ab_Normal
@ryanayr: Mildly radioactive Tri-Cities high five ;)
Cheryl Rofer
@Jay S: Yes – here’s a link to the description. It’s contaminated equipment, so not the sort of thing that can be easily mobilized.
satby
Wow, now the reply buttons to my old comments are gone too, they seem to only last as long as the edit window.
Major Major Major Major
I also have no reply buttons.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
This sounds like about the worst program evah.
fuckwit
what if nuclear power was a valid art form, and music was a source of energy?
hovercraft
Speaking of radioactive:
What is she already tired of all the WINNING!! Why are you peons so ungrateful?
trollhattan
@? Martin:
Yeah, that really sucked having a Nobel Laureate physicist as head of DoE. Thank god we escaped that terror.
But Donny wants to reopen Yucca Mountain, which will please all the Vegas assholes who voted for him, and that Adelson feller.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@scav:
Nice… I take it you’ve studied w/ the Actors’ Studio?
Unfortunately, the cameras weren’t set up yet… once they’re ready, you’re gonna have to set yourself on fire again so we get some decent footage for the 5:00 news…
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I presume gin will be drunk. Perhaps hilarity will ensue. Or maybe they will work in Jack the Ripper.
Uncle Cosmo
@hovercraft: Scaramucci, Scaramucci, as he does the fan-dang-oh…
@ArchTeryx: Those desert lawmen…I meant, sand sherrifs…
hovercraft
@zhena gogolia:
From the preview, it’s a reenactment of the living conditions in the slums, as I said it didn’t inspire me to want to watch.
ETA: It seems to be reality TV taken to the next level. Shoot me now, Naked and Afraid is bad enough, but whole families now?
CarolPW
@Ab_Normal: I live in RIchland (been here since 2000). It’s an odd part of the state. I’m 25 miles from PUREX, but the breeze is blowing from its normal direction so, as usual, it’s the down-winders that will get any impact. It would probably help keep the dust down if it rained, but that’s not going to happen until Wednesday night and that’s only a 30% chance.
Ridnik Chrome
@Spanky: Someone should make a Palin Baby Name Generator…
raven
@hovercraft: Not much different from Dickens or Call the Midwife.
HinTN
Chrome on android = No reply button
Ab_Normal
@CarolPW: Poor downwind bastards.
hovercraft
@raven:
I enjoy Dickens and Call the Midwife, but those actors get to go home at the end of the day, this is as I said reality taken to a new extreme.
Via the Vichy Times:
bago
Eh, Hanford has always been a bit of a nuclear dumping ground.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
I think they’re setting up Joanne Froggatt for playing a Victorian poisoner in a couple of weeks. Just getting us in the mood. I read an amazing book of case studies — Victorian women were always poisoning their husbands. Slowly, imperceptibly, with various household substances.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Victorian England is the aspirational model of the R SOBs
Thru the Looking Glass...
What? No pick pockets or street prostitutes?
How can they possibly think this is an accurate depiction of 1860’s London?
Major Major Major Major
@Major Major Major Major: OK, I’m back at my big-boy computer now and the lack of reply buttons is only on Safari on ios.
schrodingers_cat
Speaking of TV, folks who watch “The Americans”, does Paige and her constipated eyebrow annoy you? She is sooo boring.
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat:
Shut up, I love Paige! And now that Henry has acquired a personality, time to see how good old mom and dad screw him up too.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Did you see there was a spate of new stories about Cambridge Analytica. Many of the claims of what the software can do, seem like tall tales to me. What do you think.
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: Really? Her constipated eyebrow and the worried look has been working overtime, in my opinion, plus that cross that dangles from her neck. Churchy Paige is so yawn worthy.
Yutsano
@trollhattan:
That ain’t many. I think he only got around 30% in Las Vegas.
I’m sitting in my office about 30 miles away completely unbovvered.
Redshift
They did mention in the first episode that prostitution was one of the major occupations for women.
Peale
So is this in a part of the state where the resulting mutant superheroes would be likely to be added the forces of liberal good or conservative villainy?>
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: No, I haven’t seen, but if it’s anything like the previous reporting then I’ll probably be similarly incredulous.
Steeplejack
@hovercraft:
They already did a “middle-class” show, The 1900 House, a few years ago, and American PBS followed that with Frontier House. I thought maybe they were going for that coveted late-night Cinemax demographic with this one.
Mnemosyne
Alain, my “reply” link vanished again on the iPhone using the mobile site. The font was fine in the comments box, but was very small for reading what other people were saying. The gray bars between each comment looked really nice, though!
Shalimar
@Ridnik Chrome: Search Palin Baby Name Generator. There are at least half a dozen already in existence.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
“Reply” button is still missing on mobile site (Chrome, Android).
Alain the site fixer
Ugh. Thanks to Satby and Majorx4. On mobile sites reply was off. It’s back now but I want to try to adjust one small thing since I just did mobile site updates too.
jacy
@Steeplejack:
PBS also did The 1940s House, which was about living in England during The Blitz. It was fascinating. One of the heartbreaking factoids about that time was that many people gave up their pets, because there was no way to care for them with the extent of rationing.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
I just got it back a second ago. Try refreshing the page or going to a different one.
Jay S
@Peale: Benton County, home of Hanford voted 58% Trump 32% Clinton, 6% Johnson. 78% of 107,775 registered voter turnout.
Not sure if that gives you a mutant good/bad probability.
ETA fix for comment reply. The reply button gave me the wrong link.
trollhattan
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m guessing you don’t have a teenage girl critter at home. Paige’s character relies on nuance and what’s not said, unlike 95% of teen female characters who are written as chatterboxes who deliver zingers on cue and don’t let anyone else get in a word.
Alain the site fixer
Ok I undid the reply button edits as it solves an uncommon issue while making the reply button go away for all mobile users. Joy joy.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
I remember The 1900 House and being flabbergasted at how much labo(u)r simple things took. I especially recall them dismantling then cleaning and re-sewing clothing. The heck?
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: Isn’t web development fun?
Alain the site fixer
Old reply buttons may or may not be correct. So refresh the page now and ensure that he code generating them is correct. I’m not touching reply again today.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Also the whole family involved WW2 house show (drawing a blank on the proper title at the moment).
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
Who gets to play the person with tuberculosis who infects the rest of the family? At what point do you have half of the residents die of cholera from the contaminated communal water supply?
? Martin
@schrodingers_cat: I can’t speak to the details of it, but broadly speaking I think it does work, at least enough. Remember, you’re not trying to convince half the population that 2+2=5. You’re only trying to convince 1-2% of the population that Clinton’s emails were of sufficient issue that they should turn out and vote against her, or that she’s going to hire on wall street types to run the country. And you don’t need direct access to a media outlet to do it. The upside to things like social media is that the end users determine what things they are interested in seeing, but the flipside is that while you can now carve out Fox News or MSNBC from directly controlling the message of what you actually see, you’ve invited in the ability of some unknowable entity in who can manipulate that simply by shaping where that message goes and then amplifying that through some kind of automated tools. And because that entity is unknowable, there is no social check on their maliciousness.
In a way, Trump is the very evidence that it can work. I don’t see Trump as some malicious entity, rather he’s an amorphous figure, grounded in nothing other than his own ego, that will advance whatever agenda someone hands him with enough ego stroking. Does Trump believe a 400lb loser hacked the DNC? Or did someone plant that idea with him knowing he could broadcast it to the world first through twitter, then through campaign events, and now from the oval office? If you accept that Trump can be manipulated in that way, then it’s really a matter of access – how to do you get that message to him structured in the right way, with the right personal incentive that they will run with it.
That’s really what Facebook is. Facebook isn’t about truth and honesty, it’s about projecting what you want others to think about you. It’s about advancing an agenda, even if its as trivial as how cute your kids are or how successful you are. If you can find a way to convince regular individuals to advance that message on your behalf, you can flip an election. And there’s a fucking mountain of data out there designed to identify exactly that – exactly what you or I are interested in and motivated by. There are systems out there specifically designed to do sentiment analysis (whether you view something positively or negatively or neutrally) that are just as good as humans, as well as systems to do affective analysis (how that thing makes you feel). You can then build a kind of radar plot for different topics, with each person’s sentiment and affect. That then tells you where to plant a message that will resonate most emotionally with the person and is best aligned with their views so that they can advocate for it on your behalf. At that point, your job is done. That person will take on your issue for you for free, and they will be passionate about it because you’ve measured that.
The stuff I’ve seen in the wild is interesting, but limited (I’ve seen systems designed to evaluate topics where students are most interested and to gauge how receptive they are to how that content is presented to them. Those systems are extremely rudimentary to the stuff I know some people are working on. And they don’t lean on the kind of knowledge that psyops has relied on. But we know it works. I have a colleague that can pretty quickly plant an arbitrary memory into your head and you will 100% believe you experienced it and present it to everyone you know that it happened. We are way more vulnerable to these kinds of efforts than we want to believe.
Jay S
href=”#comment-6369402″>Peale: Ah the reply is under the comment and it isn’t showing up for the last post on Win 10 Chrome. ETA And refresh seems to have fixed it.
Mike J
on topic: map of Hanford & purex site, distance to Richland:
https://twitter.com/waEMD/status/862041243810840576
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: oh yes. And I’m pretty much done for today, just a few personal program and tech issues to resolve….it. never. ends.
sharl
OT, expat Korean “T.K.” – the person behind “Ask A Korean” – has been calling out U.S. pundits for being idiots about the ROK Presidential election, as a scroll through his twitter feed will show.
I know you all are shocked to learn that anyone could even think that about our pundits, but I’m afraid it is true.
For example, take WaPo’s Josh Rogin; from a T.K. retweet:
In a subsequent tweet Greitens provided an English-language excerpt of an interview of ROK’s President-elect which hardly sounds anti-American (though anti-U.S. sentiments certainly exist in South Korea). It is a screen capture, so I cannot blockquote the text here (I did a half-assed internet search, but couldn’t find the original; I’m sure it’s out there though).
Frustrations in ROK with US paternalism – whether perceived or real (mostly the latter IMO) – existed well before the Orange Shitgibbon became our Prez, though he certainly unnecessarily aggravated the situation, as is his wont.
Regardless of what the fools and loons in DC do, I hope US military command in ROK, as well as our diplomats (whatever is left of them) will prepare for the possibility that in the future maybe they cannot continue to just leave everything to ROK security forces in dealing with protesters and those with legitimate concerns with our presence there. Not an easy path, but maybe one where we will have no choice. [Ditto for our facilities in Okinawa Japan.]
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
This is quality work. Well done.
Alain the site fixer
@Jay S: what happens if you refresh the page and try again? I see reply all the way up.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steeplejack:
Okay, “Reply” button is back on mobile (Chrome, Android), and the “back” function has mysteriously healed itself. Good work, Alain.
Jay S
@Alain the site fixer: Answered while you were asking, refresh fixed the last comment issue. @Jay S:
Alain the site fixer
@Steeplejack (phone): I’ll call that a plus – one problem solved, one solution unsolved, but at least I know what to poke around and play with. The reply functionality is using a long-dead plugin that’s been customized. I’ll give it another go but I’m afraid that for now, it will likely return to ill-behavior when near links and/’or blockquoted links.
C’est la vie!
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
I haven’t even started wondering what the process will be for deciding which of the kids will be picked to work as child prostitutes. It can’t just be girls — that wouldn’t be historically accurate.
NotMax
Ah, Hanford. Home of the notorious Green Run deliberate release.
Elizabelle
I think we need a fresh thread, with a frosty picture of a pet or chicken or something on it.
Do you think our beloved greennotGreen wants to look at a toxic waste site for hours? I think not.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: I am wondering how a thread about a industrial nuclear waste accident became a consideration about the desired attributes in an actor playing a child prostitute.
That’s just how we roll in Balloon Juice?
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
But enough about her bedpan.
Just one more canuck
@Spanky: it could be worse – they could be using names from Archie comics – although come to think of it, Jughead Palin has a certain appropriateness to it
schrodingers_cat
@trollhattan: She may be realistic, but that doesn’t make her interesting to watch.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne:
It’s set in 1860s. The Broad Street pump outbreak was in 1854, and cholera became less likely to kill hundreds after they knew what caused it.
NotMax
@TenguPhule
Highly recommended novel for late Victorian era detail and color (albeit taking place in NYC) is Caleb Carr’s The Alienist. Cracking good detective tale.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack (phone):
“Back” function still screwy on desktop (Chrome, Android). Page-refresh positioning still screwy on both mobile and desktop (Chrome, Android). Haven’t checked Firefox/Win10.
Shana
@Steeplejack: The first episode was really interesting.
satby
@Alain the site fixer: thanks Alain, they’re back! Well done.
And that’s why I finally ran away (screaming) from my 20+ years in IT.
Well, that and getting made redundant.
Death Panel Truck
I live in Pasco, about 20 miles downwind of this. Just a few minutes ago I had to go into a dark closet to get something, and I didn’t have to turn on the light. Seems I glow in the dark now. Weird.
Shana
There’s also “How to be a Victorian” by Ruth Goodman, a fascinating book about all things Victorian, clothing, heating or lack thereof, tooth brushing, cleaning, cooking. A friend gave it to me a couple of years ago and I loved it.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Redshift: Isn’t that where the name ‘Moll Cutpurse’ comes from? But I believe it’s older than Victorian England…
Ab_Normal
@NotMax: +1 for knowing about the Green Run.
@Death Panel Truck: Hey, you don’t get to glow in the dark if I don’t get super-powers. ;p
Seanly
I know a few people who worked at the Hanson site over the years. I think my company was one of many spending that $19 billion on the cleanup.
Pete Mack
Thanks Cheryl. I suspected strongly this was overplayed in the media. That said, the big deal in contamination isn’t air. That falls out fast. It isn’t land: people don’t eat dirt (though it’s hard on the farmers whose crops are contaminated.) It’s groundwater. Groundwater contamination is the most problematic by far–it’s persistent, almost impossible to clean, and the effect can spread for pretty long distances. Destroying wells is a big deal.