Well, hello. I ran out of This invites about five minutes after I sent my last message. I got 20 more and ran out immediately again. So, if you received an email back from me with an invite, lucky you. If you haven't: I'm sorry! I've got you all saved into a waitlist. We're trying to work something out so that we don't overwhelm the hatchling network. Stand by. 

1. Epic storytelling about nuclear waste, the puniness of human time, and Yucca Mountain.

"Thomas Sebeok, the linguist consulted by the Human Interference Task Force, goes into further detail in a separate report. He proposes seeding and nurturing a body of folklore around Yucca Mountain, and even inventing annual rituals where these stories could be retold. These folktales need not explain the science of radiation; they simply need to hint at a great danger. 'The actual ‘truth’ would be entrusted exclusively to—what we might call for dramatic emphasis—an 'atomic priesthood,'' Sebeok writes. This group, he says, would need to include'“a commission of knowledgeable physicists, experts in radiation sickness, anthropologists, linguists, psychologists, semioticians, and whatever additional expertise may be called for now and in the future.'"

+ That's from Sarah Zhang. Watch out for her. Few writers in science/tech are on her level. 

2. There's a big new report out from a presidential advisory committee on the security of the Internet of things.

"The other study concludes the federal government must rush to address cybersecurity gaps created by the Internet of Things before they become long-term, intractable problems. 'There is a small – and rapidly closing – window to ensure that [the Internet of Things] is adopted in a way that maximizes security and minimizes risk,' the report states. 'If the country fails to do so, it will be coping with the consequences for generations.'"

3. The Day of the Dolphin, a real movie that was made in 1973 by Mike Nichols (may he rest in peace).

"A brilliant and driven scientist, Jake Terrell, and his young and beautiful wife, Maggie, train dolphins to communicate with humans. This is done by teaching the dolphins to speak English in dolphin-like voices. Two of his dolphins, Alpha ("Fa") and Beta ("Bea"), are stolen by officials of the shadowy Franklin Foundation headed by Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver), the supportive backer of the Terrells' research. After the dolphins are kidnapped, an investigation by an undercover government agent for hire, Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino), reveals that the Institute is planning to further train the dolphins to carry out a political assassination by having them place a limpet mine on the hull of the yacht of the President of the United States."

4. A new Princeton University Press book exploring the reality and semiotics of "Amazon women."

"Real nomadic horsewomen archers of the steppes. The historical reality of Amazon-like women contemporary with the ancient Greeks is now fully documented by archaeological evidence. The lives of these once-living counterparts of mythic and legendary Amazons are accessible to us through excavations of burials, scientific analysis of bodily remains and grave goods, comparative ethnological studies, linguistics, and historical sources both ancient and modern."

5. Some of what will be lost because of climate change will not be replaceable.

"The problem, though, is that England or Tasmania is probably not going to be able to ever reach the level of output as the great traditional wine regions of the world. There’s the additional problem of styles. As wine writer Jancis Robinson points out to me, these newer regions 'make completely different sorts of wine. Cool-climate wines are very different in style from those produced in the hot, dry regions under threat.' The latter produce larger-bodied reds. Most importantly, though, whereas the French or the Italians or the Spanish have been perfecting what they do for centuries — and wine is an integral part of each of those cultures — these new wine regions are in their relative infancies. People are still figuring out what works best and where, and that trial and error can take lifetimes."

Today's 1957 American English Language Tip

continual, continuous. That is continual which either is always going on or recurs at short intervals & never comes (or is regarded as never coming) to an end. That is continuous in which no break occurs between the beginning & the (not necessarily or even presumably long-deferred) end. His continual nagging; a continuous line.

The Credits:  1. methodquarterly.com  2. insidecybersecurity.com  3. wikipedia.org 4. princeton.edu / @carolinelawrenc 5. buzzfeed.com

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Trial and Error Can Take Lifetimes