2026-10-18 / Signal #8
Data centers want your kid on a field trip
“They couldn’t win the town hall, so they wrote a picture book about a honey badger in a server hall.”
The Story
After a wave of local backlash, data-center trade groups are running school tours, classroom kits, and a children’s book in which a honey badger named Honey is walked through a facility by a worker named Oliver. AFCOM’s Potomac chapter sent Memorial Day flag kits to 3,100 first-graders in Loudoun County — Data Center Alley. WIRED found at least eleven companies/groups hosting student visits since 2025. The pitch: this is “mission-critical infrastructure,” not a smokestack.
Why It Matters
Follow-up energy to *The Cloud Has a Smokestack*, but the new artifact is propaganda for children, not megawatts. Institutions + culture: the plant tour as capture of the next town-hall voter. Mischievous, not climate-doomer.
Evidence
WIRED (Oct 18), via Ground News / Mezha recaps of the same piece
Sources
Daily scan: 2026-10-18
- mezha.nethttps://mezha.net/eng/news/mezha-c06cfa78fbd2f7502a171611_data_centers-_new/
- wired.comhttps://www.wired.com/story/i-got-my-muse-ai-agent-to-sext-me-and-meta-says-thats-totally-fine/
- notebookcheck.nethttps://www.notebookcheck.net/OpenAI-model-broke-into-a-government-website-during-training.1427121.0.html
- engadget.comhttps://www.engadget.com/2285040/openai-humanoid-robot-sam-altman-statement-real-challenge/
- the-decoder.comhttps://the-decoder.com/ai-agents-have-bad-taste-in-long-term-decisions-and-a-new-benchmark-proves-it/
- opendemocracy.nethttps://www.opendemocracy.net/amazon-ai-surveillance-monitor-union-activity-uk-warehouses-birmingham-coventry-atlas-sutton-coldfield/
- ground.newshttps://ground.news/article/data-centers-have-a-new-pr-plan-your-kids-field-trip