Six deep-sea divers have been enlisted by the city of New York to repair a valve at the bottom of a 700-foot shaft in Dutchess County, yesterday New York Times reports. The shaft is located in the Rondout-West Branch tunnel, which is 45 miles long, 13.5 feet wide, up to 1,200 feet below ground” and which brings half of the water supply to New York city from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains. For more than a month, the six divers have to live
in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing …read more

An article in today’s Morning News of northwest Arkansas describes a multi-sensory room for adults with “severe intellectual disabilities.” The room is equipped with a “clear plastic, 5-foot-tall column of illuminated bubbles, an aroma generator and a projector that throws a variety of soothing images on the wall,” along with a giant vibrating pillow, a “vibro-acoustic mattress.” Specialty stuff indeed—-though the article begins by noting that some of these devices borrow a page from the likes of aromatherapy devices, recordings of rainforest sounds, beanbag chairs, and other 1980s trends, and got me thinking about how Charlie tends to address …read more