tardigrade cosmonaut honored

During a brief ceremony held in a former outdoor smoking shelter behind the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pastor Tina, CA, scientists preparing for an impending launch stood still during a moment of silence ahead of the upcoming launch of a hearty tardigrade. Selected from a group of other hypsibius gagarinorum, the tiny traveler, like intrepid Laika before it, was chosen due to a proven ability to survive in harsh conditions such as extreme cold and prolonged deprivation. Exploiting the animal’s natural cryptobiosis, or suspended metabolism, gives NASA scientists hope that at least one hypsibius gagarinorum tun will reach another star system, most likely the cluster humans call Alpha Centauri.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

solar farm built

Ground was broken today on the second of three solar farms planned to be built this decade in the Great Dune Sea north-west of the city of Gar Nuuzsh, in eastern Grigovia. Solar energy will be used to heat salt to roughly 300 degrees Celsius. Then, the molten salt - a mixture of nitrates calcium, potassium, and sodium - will flow through insulated underground pipes into concrete storage tanks situated throughout Gar Nuuzsh.

Once all three farms are operational, nearly half of the city’s 100,000 residents will be able to draw both electricity and heat from the storage tanks. Unassuming silos that resemble conventional oil storage tanks, the heat sinks will be topped with viewing platforms and surrounded by community gardens. External sections of each sink will be set aside for graffiti and the application of other spontaneously-occurring works of public art.

By 2030, Gar Nuuzsh plans to cover all of its electrical and heating needs from six such solar farms. Additionally, parabolic dish Stirling solar energy conversion systems installed on rooftops around the city will feed heat into the sinks and electricity into the local power grid. Cities in more mountainous western Grigovia generate a good portion of their electricity using wind and geothermal deposits.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

on Grigovian energy

Vast wind farms abound on the Great Barren Plain where few people live and thus fewer complain. They're built to high standards of technology, can capture such gusts as would barely move trees. Deep wells also tap into geo-therm heat (through cycles that are on an endless repeat) by pulling hot water from deep underground and using its steam to send turbines around. Solar collectors dot the Great Dune Sea, all gathering photons by day, silently, but these must be washed and always cleaned of dust lest they should develop a light-blocking crust. There's coal in our mountains, some wide seams of it, but we're not much into just burning the shit. We'd rather turn algae into diesel fuel or harness sources that are renewable. All things that make power are owned and belong to each native person born in the Yiptlong, or brought to life within our national borders – to all of Grigovia's fine sons and daughters. We've set up a true non-profit corporation to make sure that all electricity won gets doled out and shared without too much corruption lest there should flare up a vast social eruption. GriSol is its shortened, legitimate name, to honor the source whence all life truly came, invest in our future and make our land great, together we can all mankind elevate.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on crazy daisies

The Glorious Republic of Grigovia, having recognized the impending shift in the sun's polar alignment and the affect that shift is having on the minds of normally sane people, declared the remainder of 2013 and the first half of 2014 Crazy Days. During the next 11 months, anyone feeling mad, nutty, wacko, strange, loopy, loony, crazy, wigged-out, or just plain odd is advised to pin a daisy to his or her shift-collar and have the fuck at it. Persons seeking to avoid the sight of or unwanted consequences from contact with People Acting Strangely – i.e. Crazy Daisies – are advised to do their grocery shopping during the day and to stay away from crowded areas. Last decade, during Crazy Days, a mere 9 persons were killed by other humans, with 147 non-fatal injuries and 18 deaths resulting from falls and animal assaults. (Compare this to Crazy Days 1900, when hundreds of lunatics died trying to gain entrance into the Homes for Orphans of Imperialistic Overreach that dot Grig, the nation's capital. Fiercely defended by crews of machine-pistol-toting babushkas, not one of the Homes was ever fully breached.) The Ministry of Information, which approves this message, understands the futility of trying to reason with people who are off their rockers; nevertheless it urges all citizens to remember that deep, conscious breathing and cold baths are two effective ways to combat a case of the crazies, and that mace or pepper spray (both of which are available upon request at any Grigovian National Police station) are effective in holding off encroaching buffoons until help arrives. As always, dear Grigovians, stay safe out there, and don't forget to check for flowers.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

man rations watts

Stretching his personal daily allotment of watts to the limit, 52 year-old unemployed former systems administrator Rhieyan Humplesdorf avoided excessive toilet-flushing and unnecessary illumination in order to have enough electricity left over to watch his favorite television show. “It's really important to me to be able to catch Blazing and Crashing, a reality show, every other Thursday night, and, so, I spend time in the dark and only cook during off-peak hours, such as before dawn.” Mr. Humplesdorf is not alone in his quest to save wattage: reports indicate that millions of everyday Americans save their daily, weekly, and even monthly rations of electrical power (referred to here, and measured in, watts), using the precious commodity on special activities such as watching a movie at home, cooking during the breakfast hour, or powering a wireless router in order to access the world-wide-web.

America's capacity to provide a constant, seemingly-limitless stream of watts to its inhabitants waned shortly after the turn of the 2nd Millennium (Common Error), when several major dams were drained after having been declared structurally unsound and its supplies of coal and natural gas dried up or became too environmentally costly to tap. Since then, persons such as Rhieyan have tried to take matters into their own hands, setting up man-portable banks of solar panels and installing small battery farms in large, weather-proof plastic containers. “It's hard, sometimes, to recharge everyone's batteries,” said mother-of-four Vickie Hu-Eignot, former vice president for marketing at a communications firm. “What with our second oldest entering school and needing to charge his netbook battery competing for watts with our oldest, who has a bigger laptop, and then the two twins – our youngest – wanting to recharge everything from flashlights to portable gaming systems, and of course everyone needing to charge their cellphone batteries on a nearly daily basis, well, we quickly run out of watts, even with the bonus my husband receives for working twice a month on Community Labor Days.”

Similar to ration cards used in America while it was fighting both the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire, today's watt ration cards are a stark reminder that nothing is free in life, that few things come easily, and that TANSTAAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch). “We thank the fine citizens of this land for being patient while we install more large-scale wind and solar farms, and for queuing patiently at their local power stations, waiting in both rain and shine with drained deep-cycle marine batteries balancing on skateboards or loaded into shopping carts,” said Thurmond P. Ristlethrace, spokesman for the federal Department of Energy. “It is true that the previous administration should have been focusing more on sustainable energy systems and less on waging war in order to gain access to fossil fuels such as crude oil, but, I am confident that the current administration is on the right track toward making this nation totally and 100% energy independent.” Reports of wide-spread looting of hardware previously used to transmit electricity from coal-fired power plants could not be officially confirmed, but sources did indicate that many communities had been erecting Wardenclyffe Towers to harvest the electricity that water creates naturally when it flows through subterranean limestone aquifers.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit