@alexwild And yet it couldn't even keep the Spider House open, smh.

@hannah Absolutely legendary move by the owner. No notes at all.

@hannah Amazing. This is the Heurtley house in Oak Park, right?

A belated “good morning.”

We’re doing Thanksgiving screen names now, right?

Anything could be hiding back in those woods!

That's one of the reasons Oak Ridge was chosen as a site for the Manhattan Project. Remote, hard to find anything, easy access to plentiful hydroelectric power because of the TVA.

Related: Oak Ridge was remote and mysterious enough to get a mention in Manly Wade Wellman's "John the Balladeer" stories. In "The Little Black Train," John mentions learning about the Doppler Effect from "a man I know, place in Tennessee called Oak Ridge."

But it’s back there!

I visited the facilities a few years ago. It is pretty heavily forested back there, so much so that you might not notice the enormous Experimental Gas-Cooled Reactor as you drive by.

The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), completed in 1965, is just down the road from the X-10 site. If you like well-designed control panels from the 1960s, please enjoy this beauty.

A true 👨🍳🤌💋 of a control panel.

The X-10 graphite reactor at Oak Ridge went critical # OTD in 1943.

Built as part of the Manhattan Project, it was the second artificial nuclear reactor (after Fermi's Chicago Pile 1) and the first to operate continuously.

Photo: Ed Westcott

Good evening.

Anyway, Laika and her colleagues got a pretty bad deal.

Canes itur ad astra 🐕🚀🌌

The plan was to give Laika a painless, fast-acting poison after about a week in orbit. This was the official Soviet account for several years afterward. But it wasn't true. Apparently, Laika died of overheating and asphyxiation somewhere between 6 hours to 4 days after takeoff.

Oleg Gazenko was the scientist who selected and trained Laika. Many years later, he said "The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog."

The press referred to Laika as "Muttnik."

Here she is with Mushka and Albina, who were also trained for the mission. Mushka might have gone to space instead of Laika, but she wasn't eating properly.

The very good girl Laika, a scrappy three-year-old stray from Moscow, was sent into space aboard Sputnik II #OTD in 1957.

The first animal to orbit Earth, Laika became a national hero. This was cold comfort, since the mission wasn’t designed to return her to Earth.

@RobertJackson58585858 Oh, these are old cast iron radiators. Very big, very good at their job. Original to the (also old) house and well taken care of.

Anyone on here have any experience going from a boiler + tankless water heater to a single combi boiler? If so, are you happy with it?

@Chawarma Thanks!

Gave out 730 pieces of candy and kept up with 4 very hyper tweens for 2+ miles of trick-or-treating.

@tommyyum Read “We Salted Nannie” the other night, you are contributing to my Halloween vibes from multiple angles.