The US Navy operates a 50,000 acre forest in Indiana whose entire job is keeping one wooden ship from 1797 afloat.
The ship is USS Constitution, still a commissioned warship with an active-duty crew. Cannonballs bounced off her in 1812 because the hull sandwiches a wall of live oak ribs between two layers of white oak planking, nearly 2 feet of solid wood so dense it barely floats. British 18-pounders hit it and dropped into the sea. A sailor yelled "her sides are made of iron" and the nickname stuck.
Here's the problem with owning a 229-year-old wooden ship: you can't buy the parts. Hull planks run up to 40 feet long and 7 inches thick, cut from single white oak trunks. A white oak takes over a century to grow that big. No lumberyard on earth stocks it.
So the Navy grows its own. Constitution Grove at Naval Support Activity Crane holds trees over 100 years old, reserved exclusively for this ship. Foresters there are managing oaks today that will become hull planking in the 2100s. The maintenance plan literally runs on tree time.
Every 20 years or so she enters dry dock and shipwrights swap out rotted timber. After two centuries of this, estimates put original 1797 wood at maybe 10 to 15 percent of the ship. The Navy keeps replacing her plank by plank because Congress mandated her preservation and because she's the only active US warship that has sunk an enemy vessel.
Every other asset in the Navy has a decommission date. This one has a tree farm.
It’s all downhill from here, isn’t it? Truly insane. Never thought in my wildest dreams I would have a video hit 3 million views in 24 hours. Hell even 1 million in 24 hours still blows my mind. Thank you for all the support over the years.
The California State Assembly has passed the Protect Our Games Act, a bill to protect user rights after a game's service ends
Under this, games shutting down would need to provide at least 60 days notice to consumers, while also ensuring that purchasers will still have access to the game via an alt version or patch that allows it to be played offline. And if not, they must offer refunds
The bill must still be passed by the California Senate