On certain Wednesday mornings, we must contend with questions. Which is better: the new or the old? Risk or acceptance? A life of comfortable confinement—or true freedom, and its attendant dangers?
This morning, all of South Africa is grappling with these issues after two men broke into an aquarium and stole a penguin named Buddy. The pair entered Bayworld in Port Elizabeth around 3 AM on Wednesday the 21st, the Herald Livereported last week. Surveillance video shows them climbing into the penguin enclosure, taking a few selfies, bundling Buddy up in a shirt, and hightailing it out of there in a getaway car.
When zookeepers realized Buddy was missing, they assumed he was the victim of a drunken prank—like Dirk the Fairy Penguin, stolen from an Australian zoo by British tourists back in 2012. Seabird curator Cherie Lawrence warned the thieves that Buddy "only eats pilchards" and vitamin supplements, making him a high-maintenance houseguest.
But when the perpetrators came forward yesterday, they revealed a different motivation—they just wanted Buddy to be free. After busting him out of Bayworld, they released him into the Indian Ocean, via a nearby beach.
“The individuals stated that they did not agree with the penguins being kept in captivity and that their intention was to capture and then release a penguin back into the wild," Bayworld said in a statement, after they were contacted by the men's lawyer.
But Bayworld counters that Buddy lacks real-world survival skills, and had built a happy life at their facility. He had a mate, Francis, and two new baby chicks, one of which died after his father left.
Volunteers have spent the past couple of days searching for Buddy, who has a microchip embedded in his flipper and an unforgettable face. It's possible that he will be returned to Bayworld a jaded penguin, grizzled by the open sea. In the meantime, let's hope he's enjoying his freedom, and eating more than just pilchards.
Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.
Précontinent II is the last visible reminder of a series of three French underwater habitats built between 1962 and 1965. Developed by the world-famous oceanography pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the underwater "village" was supposed to be proof that it's possible for humans to live underwater without interruption for extended periods of time, at increasing depths.
The habitats were also built to explore the underwater world and conduct research for the petrol industry which financed the project. The project was named précontinent for the French word for continental shelf, the edges of a continent that are covered by ocean.
Précontinent I was the word's first underwater habitat, located in the Balearic Sea off coast from Marseille. It was completed in September 1962, two years before the American Sealab project. Two aquanauts, Albert Falco and Claude Wesly, lived in the habitat, a five-meter steel cylinder known as "Diogenes." The habitat was fixed 11 meters under the surface of the water and fed with compressed air. Hot water came through a plastic pipe from a ship, and food in waterproofed containers.
Other "furnishings" included infrared lamps used as heaters, a record player, a radio, three telephones, a video surveillance system, a library, a TV and a bed. In the bottom of the habitat was an airlock, which allowed the two men to exit into the ocean, where they built compounds for fish and studied their behavior, and took measurements for topographical underwater maps.
A year later, Précontinent II was launched about 35 km northeast, near the Sha'ab Rumi (Arabian for "Roman Reef"), off the coast of Port Sudan. The so-called Starfish House lasted for four weeks, housing a group of oceanographers as well as Madame Cousteau and the parrot Claude, who was supposed to warn the aquanauts of possible danger in the air.
A second Précontinent II habitat, the "Deep Cabin"—a smaller version of the one used in Précontinent I—was installed even deeper into the sea, at 27 meters under the surface. Other structures were built including a tool shed and an air-filled hangar containing the Hydrojet Saucer DS-2, a small submarine for two people, which was equipped with three movable outside lamps, two cameras, a radio, a tape recorder and a movable grappler.
The mission was to observe and collect fish and other organisms for exhibition and studies at the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco. Jacques-Yves Cousteau also wanted to proof that it would be more practical to anchor offshore drilling rigs at the bottom of the ocean than to place them above water, as well as prove the existence of a richness of minerals around continental shelfs.
Précontinent III was supposed to start on September 17, 1965. This time the habitat was a dome constructed on a platform, with much-improved technology and housed several aquanauts including Jacques-Yves Cousteau. However, the launch hit a snag. The habitat had already been brought to the diving place, sealed and put under pressure when the weather turned bad. It was brought back to the harbor where the aquanauts stayed in the habitat and under pressure, waited for the weather to change. Four days later the project was launched in earnest and the habitat anchored 100 meters below the surface, off the coast of Monaco near the Cap Ferrat lighthouse. The project lasted 22 days and it's mission was mainly related to oil production—for example, how to assemble a drill head under water.
This was the last mission of the Précontinent series, even though six missions in total were planed. Jacques-Yves Cousteau changed his mind and decided he didn't want to be a part of research for the petrol industry anymore. Instead he dedicated his career to the exploration and protection of the world's oceans from then on.
From the three Précontinent missions only part of Précontinent II remains underwater, and has become the site of many diving tours from Sudan and Egypt. At the anchor place of the habitat you can find the remains of the tool shed, crusted with coral growth, and the fish cages, covered with sponges. A few meters deeper are the shark cages, covered with coral and crustacean, and the hangar, which still stands anchored in the bottom of the ocean, still filled with air and possible to enter.
Back in November 2015, the Landsat 8 satellite passed over Western Australia's Gibson Desert and captured the image above. That bright orange patch was new—when the satellite had passed the month before, it wasn't there. Here's a larger view from October:
It looks like a dab of paint in an impressionist painting, or like a whale swimming through an orange sea. But, the NASA Earth Observatory says, it's a burn scar—a large one.
This area of Australia has long been home to the Pintupi people, who use fires to encourage the growth of certain edible plants or as an aid to hunting, to flush out animals or increase visibility, NASA says. The darker area around the burn scar is grown over with tufty desert grasses; in the bright orange spot, they're gone.
Once, these fires might have been smaller, but an ecologist in Western Australia has found that as the continent was colonized by the British and nomadic Pintupi people ended up in settlements, the fire scars in the desert grew. If you look at the larger images, they're all over, though not as fresh as the whale-shaped scar. The change may be due, counterintuitively, to less frequent burnings, because the brush builds up and burns more extensively.
Getting endangered animals to reproduce can be a long, slow slog, full of turkey basters and hand puppets. But scientists have a new tool to aid procreation: Genetic sequencing, which helps researchers understand an animal's vulnerabilities from the inside out, raising the likelihood of healthy offspring. Today, this high-cost tool is used sparingly—but if we could take it to the next level, mapping out the genome of every individual within a species, it could reveal a clear path towards that animal's future.
So which endangered species are we going to do this for first? The noble tiger? The all-but-doomed black rhinoceros? The beloved, if pathetic, giant panda?
Nope. The winner is that freaky-looking green bird on the top of the page. If all goes according to plan, by some time next year, the kākāpō—a nocturnal, flightless parrot native to New Zealand—will be the first species in the world to have had every one of its representatives completely sequenced.
New Zealand has only three native mammals (all bats), and the country is full of birds that have taken advantage of this lack of predators, acting more like rodents or weasels than your average winged creature. Kākāpōs are no exception. Their faces are covered in feathery whiskers, which they drag on the ground to help them navigate. They're layered with body fat, and astoundingly heavy—the largest males can weigh as much as a housecat.
Their weight keeps them from flying, but they're adept at climbing trees, scrabbling up the bark with extra-sharp claws and "parachuting" down with their wings outstretched, like hang gliders. Although technically parrots, they're so far removed from even their closest relatives that they have an entire genus all to themselves. Even their official government information page calls them "eccentric."
These eccentricities worked well in a predator-free environment. But once humans brought rats and cats to New Zealand, they decimated the formerly thriving population. Ornithologists in New Zealand got serious about the kākāpō in the late 1980s, and set up a government-sponsored Kākāpō Recovery Programme. In the decades since, the Programme has relocated the entire the entire kākāpō population to three small islands, which they've cleared of invasive predators. They have collared and named nearly every individual, and keep careful track of the bird's family tree.
Their efforts have paid off, and the kākāpō population is up to 123, nearly triple its record low. But it's still difficult to understand these weirdos. For one thing, they're simply terrible at mating—they only attempt it every two or three years, when the fruit of their favorite tree, the podocarp, is ripe. When they do try, it's often a bit pathetic. Males will climb the highest hill they can find, dig a hole, lie in it, and make a booming sound until an intrigued female wanders past.
One of the world's least likely babies—a two-month-old kākāpō chick. (Photo: Dianne Mason/CC BY 2.0)
"In general, they perform pretty badly," says David Iorns, founder of the Genetic Rescue Foundation, a nonprofit that has teamed up with the Kākāpō Recovery Programme to sequence the birds. "A lot of the time it doesn't work. It's really sad. They just sit up there all night long booming."
Listed out, these peculiarities make the bird seem like a feathery, doomed poet, too good for this world. In person, the kākāpō is somewhat less romantic. Take the video below, from the BBC Two show "Last Chance to See." "It ought to be impossible to describe a creature as looking old-fashioned," host Stephen Fry begins, as a chubby male walks slowly over the forest floor. "But that's exactly how [this kākāpō] looks, with his big sideburns and his Victorian gentleman's face."
Almost immediately, said Victorian gentleman climbs on top of Fry's companion, zoologist Mark Carwardine, and begins vigorously humping the back of his head. He attempts to mate with Carwardine's neck for a full minute, slapping his face with huge, green wings, grinning crazily, and letting out the occasional grunt-inflected screech.
Sometimes the freaky nephew gets the inheritance. Since February, Iorn and his colleagues have raised 85 percent of the $100,000 necessary to complete the project, and have steamed on ahead with the first set of sequences. For each one, scientists collect a fresh blood sample from the individual, chemically extract the DNA, and piece it together in the right order. Then, they annotate it, using completed genomes from other bird species to figure out which individual snippets match up with physical traits, like beak length or disease resistance.
Once every single individual is mapped in this way, they'll be able to make the most of the couplings that do occur, preserving important differences between local populations, or matchmaking to ensure healthy chicks.
"Many of the problems that kākāpō face are genetic problems—inbreeding, infertility, disease," says Iorns. "It's only by having genetic information as detailed and complete as possible that we can begin to unlock many of the kākāpō's secrets."
Naturecultures is a weekly column that explores the changing relationships between humanity and wilder things. Have something you want covered (or uncovered)? Send tips to cara@atlasobscura.com.
Nestled out in the Haute-Vienne department in western France you'll find one of the earliest French aristocratic homes. Château de Bonneval is the site of one thousand years of Bonneval family history, including the legend of the Devil's Tower.
Documents have dated the construction of this castle to the early 11th century. Over the years, legends of a visit from the devil have painted the castle in the spooky light. Roughly, the legend says that long ago an earthquake shook the village violently and caused one of the towers of the Bonneval residence to crumble to the ground. Shortly after, a mysterious independent traveler arrived asking to stay the night. He was granted permission to stay and later that evening told Mother Bonneval that he would use the magic he had been learning to repair the tower in 24 hours—if in return he could have her daughters hand in marriage.
The agreement was made and when the visitor finished repairing the tower as promised, the daughter begged her mother for the blessing of the priest before being married. To respect her wishes, the mother arranged for the priest to christen both the mysterious traveler and his soon-to-be wife with the holiest of waters. However, as soon as the traveler was touched by the holy water he screamed in agony and spat out a fire as the holy water revealed that he was the devil in disguise all along.
The tower he had rebuilt with his black magic started to suddenly sink into the ground along with him. The earth swallowed both him and the tower whole, and he was never to be seen again. The Tower, however, shot up out of the earth like lava forming a mountain, and in a mist of cooling down, it cracked and crumbled into the place where it has stayed ever since. The tower has ever since been known by locals and few other travelers as the Devil's Tower.
Curiously, it seems the Boneveal family did nothing to deserve such an unfortunate event, as the family has long been considered one of the most principled and virtuous of families in all of France—hence the French proverb, translated as: “Family Des Cars for Wealth, Family Bonneval for Nobility.” Perhaps this reputation inspired rumors of a visit from the devil spread by a jealous folk in attempt to discredit the family's status. It's all up for speculation, but the story has been passed down for generations.
When you go to Coussac-Bonneval, the Château de Bonneval stands out like a watchtower among the hills. You can see the castle as you walk around the charming town and neighboring graveyard. Or for 10 euro you take a tour of the preserved period rooms and get the full run down of the family history, including other mysterious legends.
Walking along the shoreline outside of this small village in the south of Sweden will reveal a number of odd, circular formations above and under the water.
What would probably have been a sign of an ancient alien civilization in any given science fiction movie does, however, have a much more down-to-earth explanation. The limestone rocks in the shoreline were once the perfect material for making millstones for nearby gristmills. The layered stone was easily accessible for mining and the millstones were made to measure before they were sent off to their destinations.
The mining stopped in the last decades of the 19th century, but the mysterious-looking holes from the finished stones can still be seen today, as well as a few stones that were never finished.
A massive storm—possibly the biggest in over 50 years—swept through South Australia on Wednesday, with lightning striking the country over 21,000 times and knocking out power to 1.7 million.
The storm had been predicted, but on Wednesday many of authorities' worst fears were confirmed. Wind gusts alone were reported at up to 75 miles per hour, though more impressive was the hail, which pelted some areas mercilessly.
The storm was moving eastward later Wednesday, into the Australian state of Victoria, where it was expected to weaken. Meanwhile, in some suburbs of the South Australia capital Adelaide, power was beginning to come back on, according to news.com.au.
The state gets a majority of its power from sources in the east of the country, and, after an important connector failed Wednesday, South Australia didn't have the resources to compensate, resulting in the entire region losing electricity, according to Reuters.
This means that after the deluge, expect some investigations.
"Serious questions will be raised that need to be answered as to how this extreme weather event could take out the whole of the electricity supply across a major state such as South Australia," one Australian official said, according to Reuters.
Imagine making your commute home, bracing yourself for the human tsunami that is sure to greet you when cutting through a busy train station. Only this time, instead of the din of a bustling crowd, you're met by an angelic chorus.
Fellow travelers silently wave you over to an open, domed hall, where the angels stand, singing in a semicircle. One is drinking a beer. Another is barefoot.
Okay, they're not actually angels. They're the Icelandic folk group Árstíðir. On this particular night, they had just finished a concert in Wuppertal, Germany, and were making their way back to their lodgings when they were struck by the station's perfect acoustics. Its arched, stone ceiling created a cathedral-like environment.
Boosted by the success of the evening, the six men broke into song. A hush immediately fell over passersby, some of whom almost certainly missed their trains to stay and listen to the beautiful harmonies.
Despite the fact that this song, "Heyr himna smiður," dates to around 1208 and the Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof station was built in the mid-19th century, the sound and the space seem perfectly suited to one another. At one point a public announcement is piped over an intercom. Instead of ruining the music it magically weaves a new voice into the harmonic tapestry.
At a Rough Riders reunion in Oklahoma City in 1900, Theodore Roosevelt watched as the 14-year-old girl galloped her horse, swinging a lasso overhead. When she roped around a running steer, she beat sun-weathered cowboys for first prize. Afterward, Roosevelt bowed to the girl and told her that none of his troops could have done a better job.
The girl's father, Zach Mulhall, later said that Roosevelt urged him to take her on the road. The country needed to see Lucille.
Lucille Mulhall was known as the first—or original—cowgirl. She introduced countless audiences to the idea that a woman could rope and ride better than men. "Although she weighs only 90 pounds she can break a broncho, lasso and brand a steer and shoot a coyote at 500 yards," wrote one reporter. Mulhall became a symbol of the Old West as it ebbed away with the turn of the century. With her ranching background and daring rodeo performances, Mulhall linked herself to open spaces and the freedom found riding astride in a divided skirt and Western saddle.
Mulhall at the 1912 Calgary Stampede. (Photo: Courtey Calgary Stampede)
In one routine, Mulhall roped eight galloping horses; in another, she lassoed a “horse thief," and then cowboys pretended to hang him. Lucille's trick horse, Governor, could kneel, play dead, ring a bell, take off Lucille's hat, and sit back while crossing his forelegs, like a bored spectator. Mulhall's company performed in New York City, and with their time off they thundered through Central Park in full Western regalia. A young Will Rogers, Mulhall's early co-star who went on to enormous fame as a performer and humorist, performed rope tricks alongside her, and Tom Mix, who would become a leading movie cowboy, rode with the Mulhalls, too.
Sometimes, things got truly wild: at one event, a steer got loose and bolted up some steps, scattering spectators. The steer then tossed an usher who tried to grab his horns, and vanished behind the box seats. Will Rogers headed the steer off and rushed him back down the steps, hooves clattering, to the ring. During all this, people heard Zach Mulhall shouting at his daughter. Why did Lucille not "follow that baby up the stairs and bring him back"?
Mulhall provided some rich fodder for the florid prose of the day. Here's a reporter describing her background in 1903: "The plucky maid of the mountains was born and brought up, a veritable child of nature, on a ranch in Oklahoma. Instead of a baby's rattle she heard the tinkle of spurs. Her cradle was the saddle. She cannot recall a time when she could not ride a horse." Mulhall gave lively quotes, too. "I feel sorry for the girls who never lived on a cattle ranch and have to attend so many teas, and be indoors so much, with never anything but artificiality about them," she told a St. Louis reporter in 1902.
President Roosevelt wanted an Oklahoma wolf, Mulhall said in 1905. But he would only accept it on the condition that she roped it herself. She promised, and sighted the wolf she wanted: a gray one, as big as a year-old steer. Mulhall chased the wolf through canyons and over prairies, and roped him once only to have him chew through her lariat and escape. Finally, he wore himself out. She captured him, and sent his pelt to a taxidermist in Saint Louis. Next, it was shipped, express, to Oyster Bay, for Roosevelt's curio room. "I have a letter from Mrs. Roosevelt telling about the arrival of Mr. Wolf," noted Mulhall. "She said that it was amusing to see the way the dogs acted when they saw him come in the house." Later, Roosevelt gave Mulhall a saddle.
By 1916, Mulhall was producing her own rodeo. Lucille Mulhall’s Big Round-Up showcased bucking horses and roping contests. With the Round-Up, Mulhall could also offer competition and employment for other cowgirls, no longer a novelty.
But for Will Rogers, Mulhall would always be the first cowgirl, he wrote in 1931: "There was no such thing or no such word up to then." That same year, Mulhall also noted a changing of the guard. "Something has passed with the old life,” she said. “This new day is probably fine, too, but I loved the unfenced range and the open prairie and the boundless friendliness of the cattle country."
Mulhall's last public appearance was in September of 1940; she died in a car accident that December. On the day of her funeral, the Oklahoma mud was so slippery that cars were useless, so a neighbor's plow horse pulled her hearse. "A machine killed Lucille Mulhall," reported the Daily Oklahoman, "but horses brought her to her final resting place."
There are parts of this abandoned cemetery in Dessau, Germany where it truly feels like stepping into a horror movie. Fallen tombstones and urns are already spooky, and the creepy reliefs on the stones just add to the dark atmosphere. Then you come across a building that looks like a small chapel. Stepping in, the realization hits: It is an abandoned crematorium.
Most parts of the historic Cemetery III in Dessau are abandoned. The cemetery is divided by a street. The larger western side is a park-like area with plenty of old graves, beautiful monuments, sometimes with quite horrid reliefs and greatly decorated wells all overgrown with ivy. Among others, you'll find a memorial for the victims of fascism and a memorial for the victims of the BAMAG-Disaster, a 1918 explosion in a workshop at a WWI munitions factory that killed 56 workers, mostly women and young girls.
There are more signs of abandonment in the eastern part of the cemetery. Here many tombstones have fallen over and stone urns lay on the ground. Nature is winning back the place in some areas, though certain monuments are still cared for; there are several monuments for the casualties of both the First and Second World War.
Then, also in the eastern part of the cemetery, you'll come across a building with a dome roof, protected as a historic monument. This domed structure is an abandoned crematorium, constructed in 1910 and in working order until the late 1980s. It's believed more than 100,000 bodies were cremated here, many buried in an adjoining urn grave field. The crematorium was later expanded with a new wing, which also stands abandoned today. Inside the older cremation system you'll see a rotary hub on tracks, and in the newer system, the bone mill and other items can still be found. Urns, number tacks and old paperwork are still here, as are the old telephones and even shoes.
The most famous person who was burned here was the social democrat and anti-fascist Wilhelm Feuerherdt, who was killed in 1932 in Zerbst during a pub fight with a group of Nazis. He died from severe stabbing wounds in the face and the back and was later cremated here. Still the abandoned crematorium has attracted attention purely for its eerie desertion. In 2012 it was visited by a Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter to shoot a film called Irgendwann (Sometimes), a documentary about abandoned and deserted places in the world, the end of humanity, and what we will leave behind.
A slim granite figure stretches its arms out towards the DC waterfront, an arresting figure with an air of mystery. It sits at the end of an out-of-the-way promenade at the northern tip of Fort McNair, and its placement seems almost accidental. Get close enough to read the inscription and the plot thickens: “To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic - April 15 1912. They gave their lives that women and children might be saved.”
So how and why did a Titanic memorial end up here, in this quiet corner by a Washington army post? The short answer is, it didn’t start out here.
The Titanic Memorial first lived further north, in a coveted spot along the Potomac. At the southern end of Rock Creek Park between Georgetown and the Lincoln Memorial, the statue first stretched those elegant arms out towards the city, with the wide river flowing just behind. It was unveiled in 1931 by Helen Herron Taft, widow of William Howard Taft who had been president at the time of the sinking.
The figure had been chosen in a competition, restricted to female artists, sponsored by a group who called themselves the Women's Titanic Memorial Association. It’s about 15 feet tall standing on a wide granite base, and was designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. She was not only an artist but a prominent socialite patron of the arts, benefitting from the double wealth whammy of being a Vanderbilt and marrying a Whitney.
Her design was chosen in 1914, two years after the disaster, but it took almost 20 years to collect the funds—which they did not from Whitney, but mostly from small dollar-by-dollar donations. (Ironically, by the time it was paid for and unveiled, it was the same year Gertrude founded the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.)
The memorial held its original ground until 1966, when it was removed as part of the plans to build the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Once knocked off it pedestal, the piece languished in storage for a couple of years, re-emerging in 1968 where it now stands. And sadly, where hardly anyone ever sees it.
There are lots of Titanic memorials, collections and museums around the world, and you can check some of them out here. This one may be a little bit neglected, but it welcomes anyone who stumble onto it with open arms.
One of most historic houses of worship is the U.S. is also a masterpiece of American architecture. This National Historic Landmark includes a 75-foot dome whose design was directly influenced by an intervention from Thomas Jefferson.
The church's original design was envisioned by America’s first bishop, John Carroll, and as planned by renowned architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (who went on to design the U.S. Capitol). After the U.S. Constitution established full freedom of religion, Carroll made America's first cathedral an unmistakable statement, choosing a design along the lines of other Neoclassical buildings that represented American freedom and democracy.
Built from 1806-1821, the Basilica reopened in November 2006 after a major restoration that returned the church to its original historic design. The newly restored basilica shows a grand porch of Greek Ionic columns, a low, copper-covered dome and walls made of a hard silver-grey local stone called "Ellicott City granite."
As America’s first Catholic cathedral, the basilica has been the elder statesman of American Catholic history, hosting significant events and high profile visitors including Saint (Mother) Teresa of Kolkata and Pope St. John Paul II, who called the building “the worldwide symbol of religious freedom.”
The basilica offers daily free tours by docents. Make sure to visit the Pope John Paul II prayer garden, it features a statue of the Holy Father with two children, based on a photograph taken during John Paul’s visit to the basilica in 1995.
When the Die drei Schwätzer, or "The Three Gossips" statue was erected in the public square of Giessen, Germany, it was immediately loved by the townsfolk, who perhaps saw a bit of themselves in these three new residents of town.
The lifesize bronze sculpture was created by Karl-Henning Seeman given to the city of Giessen by the local Volksbank for its 125th anniversary, upon which an uncommonly large number of citizens came out to greet the town's newest additions. The people of Giessan, not exactly known for embracing novelty, loved the new statue nonetheless. The sculpture had no name, but residents took to calling it The Three Gossips, and the name stuck.
Again and again the statue becomes subject to decoration. The Three Gossips can be found with cigarettes in their mouth, umbrellas or newspapers under their arms, wearing hats and glasses or carrying bags. The artist and the Volksbank achieved their goal: A statue that resembles the everyday routine in a place where people meet each other and stop to have a chat.
FTC complaints released to Robert Delaware regarding the uber-popular augmented reality game Pokemon GO run the gamut from allegations of fraud, to concerns about privacy, all the way to full-on “these pokemons are going to kill us all” hysteria.
The vast majority of complaints regarded the game’s infamously unreliable servers and how that impacted the utility of in-game purchases …
Additional Comments: I would like this company to partially refund us. We were able to use at best half of the time on our products. I can provide all the information needed to validate our accounts with this company as well. I believe accountability is something every company should focus on. Stakeholders include the customer base and our concerns that are voiced deserve answers.
The Pokemon Go mobile game privacy policy states that they access “PII such as email address” but their app requires FULL google account access to function - giving them access to all emails, calendar contents, contacts, etc. At no time when creating an account or linking the game to one’s google account does the app state the extent of the access or that the required access far exceeds that described in the privacy policy. Revoking access from one’s google account forces the game to log out and logging back into the game reinstates full google account access. This game is aimed at children and very aggressively deceives players into revealing potentially incredibly private information.
and its tendency to turn less-than-public areas into sought-after PokeStops: hospitals…
We are a small hospital in Oregon and Nintendo Pokemon Go players are descending on our halls and asking to go into private areas to take pictures and get their game points. In the process, they may see our patients in rooms and halls. Our hospital works to carefully protect patient privacy and is in a dilemma, protect privacy versus public service. We ask that Nintendo NOT allow hospitals or clinics to listed as sites where anyone may locate a Pokemon target.
campsites …
Pokemon Go is a safety hazard for children that attend our Day Camp at Plum Creek church. We have elementary aged children at our Camp and intruders are coming onto the private property while the Camp is in session. This is not a negotiable situation and should be immediately rectified!
and more than one private residence.
Consumer states that Pokemon Go has violated his rights. He states that his home is included and tagged in this game. He states that he is having people at his home at 2am playing the game.
I am deeply upset and concerned about the safety of every person playing Pokemon go especially the children. I almost killed a child today who was riding his bike and veared into the road way holding his cell phone up. I have many friends and family member who report similar instances and I see on the news it is possible a death occurred due to this game and countless injuries and even attacks on those not paying attention to their surroundings. This has to be one of the most unsafe products out! Not only for those who purchased it but for those who have not and may get in a car accident because of someone else playing it. Please please get this product off the market asap!!!! Before children are killed!!!!!!! —- Additional Comments: Recall! Get it off the market!! It is unsafe!!!
And then there’s this guy, who somehow equates Nintendo’s lack of sufficient dedicated servers with murdering children:
Additional Comments: Refund with an apology. Kids have already been shot and killed playing this game… It’s not a finished game and no where during install does it mention this.
Detroit just ain’t what it used to be. Especially according to a centuries-old, hand drawn map that was recently discovered in an Ontario, Canada home.
As the Detroit Free Press is reporting, the map was discovered by an Ontario family, having been originally purchased by one of the family members back in the 1930s. The 21-x-40-inch map paints the borders of the city of Detroit as they would have been in 1790. The strip of America had been claimed by the founder of Detroit, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac back in 1701, and the historic map shows the east and west boundaries of the parcel he knew as the “Domain.”
In addition to being delicately illustrated and lovely, the map depicts an otherwise unknown period in the history of the city, just before the British were to evacuate, leaving the land to the burgeoning United States. The thin-lined map also shows locations of planned military fortifications that never saw fruition, but the plans for which, hint at the defensive mindset of the Detroit citizens of the day.
Now the map resides in the collection of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, where it will stay, to remind us of heritage of one of America’s most historic cities.
If you've ever registered a website, you may have dealt with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), but for a lot of others, it remains an obscure part of the internet—only crucial when battling to secure a dream URL.
ICANN is the nonprofit that, among other duties, oversees top-level domains, which are the parts of URLs that you find at the very end: dot-com, most commonly, but also thousands of others. ICANN was founded in 1998 to be the steward of such top-level domains, known as TLDs, and it has been overseen since then by the U.S. government.
But on Saturday, the government, in a long-planned move, is set to give up its oversight of the organization, leaving it in the hands of a diverse group of international stakeholders, including an advisory panel that is composed of an array of representatives from governments across the world.
This has some people, like the Republican Senator Ted Cruz, upset. (“Don’t Let Obama Give Away the Internet,” a press release on Cruz’s website blared in August.) Cruz's concerns, such as they are, are a mixture of make-America-great-again style bombast coupled with a more serious warning, that putting ICANN in the hands of the world could undermine American national security. How? By potentially giving foreign governments the capacity to undermine or sabotage our internet infrastructure.
There are many reasons why that probably won't happen, but the most persuasive might be the simplest: ICANN, despite the fact that it controls TLDs, is less a key cog propping up the internet than a vast, mostly administrative registry. Think of it more like a library's card catalog, a place that helps keeps track of a lot of information, but has almost nothing to do with the information itself.
Still, Cruz's concerns do shine a somewhat uncomfortable light on an organization that has had a swift 17-year rise, as the infrastructure behind the Domain Name System evolved from a single man with a notebook to ICANN, which has hundreds of employees and a budget of over $130 million. Who are the functionaries behind the world's URLs?
In the beginning, the internet was mostly just numbers, or, more specifically, Internet Protocol addresses, a string of numbers that would lead you to a website. But numbers are hard to remember, so a guy named Jon Postel, one of the founders of the internet, decided to construct a system in which a lettered name could be attached to those numbers.
Thus was born the Domain Name System (DNS), and, originally, seven top-level domains: .com, .org., .mil, .gov., .edu, .net, and .arpa, to represent companies (hence the dot-com), organizations, military, government, colleges, networks, and the internet's technical infrastructure, in that order.
But Postel was just one man, keeping track of domain names in a notebook, and, as the web got larger and larger, he and his colleagues sought a system that could scale. The U.S. government, similarly, was interested in a more formalized system, in part because many government agencies were among the internet's biggest users.
In January 1998, Postel nudged along ICANN's creation with a stunt, by rerouting a good portion of the internet through servers at the University of Southern California, where Postel was based, instead of government servers in Virginia. The action spooked federal officials, who, within days, announced plans for what would become ICANN. By September 30 of that year, ICANN was formally incorporated in Los Angeles.
The web, at that time, was in the midst of the dot-com bubble, and the government's oversight at the beginning was meant to be temporary, but with each passing year, in part because of simple inertia, the U.S. retained their oversight role. The situation, in turn, became the source of an ever-increasing amount of angst from foreign governments and users, some of whom questioned the U.S. government's motives, and others who simply thought that no government should have a role in a free and open internet. That's not to mention that by the mid-aughts, the web had gone from Cold War-era government project to something resembling a global public utility.
From the U.S.'s perspective, its oversight over ICANN also presented some unsavory hypotheticals. What if Russia or China, miffed with the U.S.'s continuing influence over the internet, decided to start their own private internets, beyond the scope of the world's scrutiny? The U.S. was also wary of the United Nations potentially trying to step in. The internet, Republican and Democratic administrations have long argued, should be independent of everyone.
Still, it wasn't until March 2014 that the Department of Commerce said that it was finally ready to let go, after over 15 years of overseeing ICANN. The U.S. said then it would hand over the reins once ICANN developed safeguards to ensure that it would remain a place governed by every internet stakeholder, from users, to governments, to businesses, to civil society groups. And in June, the government said they were satisfied that it had, setting the formal end of oversight for October 1, the day after ICANN's contract with the government expires.
Cruz remains worried, however, that something nefarious could be afoot, issuing two press releases just this week on the matter and writing recently that China, Russia and Iran, "will never relent in their pursuit to control the global internet infrastructure."
Which might be true, if only ICANN wasn't such an unworthy target.
"There are so many other paths that the Russians or the Chinese could take and have taken to make sure that their citizens or even people around the world can't see stuff that they don't want them to see," Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard, told NPR.
Real security threats or not, Cruz and others have also repeatedly referred to the ICANN situation as an "internet surrender" or "internet handover," stirring, of course, one's sense of American pride, however small that may be, since, after Saturday, most of us will probably go back to not thinking about ICANN at all.
The threat of nuclear attack loomed large for Americans in the 1950s. In an effort to prepare for such a scenario, President Truman formed the Federal Civil Defense Administration, and commissioned dozens of instructional videos about what to expect in the event of an attack, and how to protect one's family and home.
"You are the target," the video above ominously begins, "of those who would trample the liberties of free men." Black-and-white graphics showing explosions and fighter jets in a V-formation flash by. No matter whether you live in an industrial city, a "farming area with fertile fields," or a "mining region rich with vital ores and minerals," you have to be prepared for the worst, the video advises.
In a deep voice, the narrator sets you on a clear path to survival, even providing a handy checklist. Some of the suggestions are quite useful: storing canned food, and learning first aid could help you survive in a number of scenarios. Others, however, make you doubt whether you should ever follow government emergency plans. After all, it’s unlikely that closing your blinds will make much of a difference in a nuclear apocalypse.
But if the video fails at actually preparing people for a nuclear attack, it is very effective in doing two other things: striking fear into the hearts of Americans, and igniting passionate feelings of patriotism.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
This statue is 8,000 years old. (Photo: Çatalhöyük Research Project)
As soon as archaeologists found this statue, they knew it was special.
It was found at a Neolithic site in Central Turkey, where it was carefully crafted sometime around 6,000 B.C. It’s 6.7 inches tall and 4.3 wide, and it weighs 2.2 pounds. It’s made of recrystallized limestone, and, Stanford University says, is distinguished by the fine lines of its “elaborate fat rolls,” its arms, separated from the torso, and the cut below the belly. To make such distinct lines would have required good tools and practiced hand.
At this site, Çatalhöyük, it’s not uncommon to find figures like this one, but they usually are made of clay and have not survived the millennia in such good condition. They’ve usually been associated with the figure of a fertility goddess, but Ian Hodder, the Stanford archaeologist leading the dig here thinks that they might have another significance as well.
The statue. (Photo: Çatalhöyük Research Project)
Çatalhöyük was home to thousands of people—perhaps as many as 10,000—and developed as an egalitarian society, without social class. As people aged, they gained respect and importance, and Hodder is in the camp of archaeologists who believe female figures, like this statue, represented elderly women, honoring their place in society.
This limestone statue came from a part of the site developed later in the city’s history, when its egalitarian character was fading and social stratification edging in. So it could have been an object that signified not just age but a higher social position.
When it comes to insect genitalia, it’s not size that matters, but apparently how many you’ve got. At least that seems to be the case with a newly-discovered species of long-legged fly that has a forked penis.
The new variety of “walking fly” was discovered in Australia’s Kosciuszko National Park, according to the Australian Broadcasting Network. The well-endowed bug was discovered by Professor Gunther Theischinger, who has identified over 700 new species of insect during his career. He found it accidentally while sampling for aquatic insects in the park.
The fly is now a new genus and species of crane fly, which are known for their long legs and little wings. Named Minipteryx robusta, the creature was also notable for its relatively small wings, which seemed too tiny to be effective.
Professor Theischinger is not sure what benefit the extra penis gives the fly, and would likely have to find a female of the species to find out. He speculates, though, that it may be there to make up for the lack of functional wings, which would otherwise help provide some control during fly copulation. For now, then, Minipteryx robusta’s double penis remains a sexy mystery.
In 1916, a sheet metal shop in a town south of Buffalo decided to engage in a new endeavor: the manufacture of kazoos, a toy instrument craze brought to the area by a traveling salesman. The gambit paid off, as the easy-to-play novelty shortly thereafter rose to prominence in vaudeville and jug bands, and was featured in a surprising number of early musical recordings.
Proving capable of keeping up with the growing demand, the Original American Kazoo Company cornered the market, ultimately becoming the only manufacturer of metal kazoos in North America. At its height, the factory was producing 1.5 million kazoos annually, using equipment and facilities largely unchanged from its early days in the midst of World War I.
Eventually changing hands and transferring the bulk of kazoo production responsibilities to a facility in the Hudson Valley, the site is known officially today at the Kazoo Factory, Museum, and Boutique Gift Shop of Eden. Most of the original machines and infrastructure are still used to make kazoos (albeit a smaller number per year), making it a rare example of a fully operational industrial museum.
Visitors can tour the small factory and museum and observe the step-by-step making of metal kazoos. There are also one-of-a-kind specialty kazoos on display.
