a quick visit to Hater's Corner

March 21, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that has recovered nicely from what it assumes must have been Omicron and wonders how well that'll protect against BA2 when it inevitably arrives 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe thing about having a 4yo and a baby who doesn't yet sleep through the night is that you can't put them in the same room together overnight, and it's also not possible to put yourself in the room with him without causing even more sleep complications. Long story short, we're sleeping in the office (the house's third and possibly actual master bedroom, considering it has the attached half bath) on the pull-out couch, which is also where my computer is, so the edit on the last episode we recorded (which admittedly was last year) still isn't quite complete. But it'll get there someday!As of the time of this writing, there are still 43 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings, plus howevermany wonderful reviews. You have the power to take us to 45 and beyond: you!!Instant Band Night 15: TIME WARPJuly 14th! The line must be drawn here and no further!! We WILL have an explosive celebration of musical creativity that must be seen to be believed, and you! will! be! there! (Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  r e t u r n i n g   i n   2 0 2 2  + ++ +  h a n g   i n   t h e r e  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Welcome to Hater's Corner, folks; pull up a chair. I want to tell you about a book called The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: 5 Minute Stories Collection. If you've never heard of it, like I hadn't until last week, know that someone out there is using the Cat In The Hat/Dr Seuss brand to teach kids interesting facts about animals, which I think we can all agree is at least a laudable goal in and of itself. We can agree on that, right? This book was loaned to Quentin by his cousin for amusement during covid isolation, an act of genuine sweetness for which he was rightly thanked.However.Through no fault of said cousin, this book is at best a 75% effort, and therefore turns out to be incredibly irritating to have to read to someone. The art cannot be faulted: this material is apparently adapted from a TV series, and it absolutely has the look of work from an animation studio that spent a lot of time studying the style of Dr Seuss so they could copy it near-flawlessly, and it shows.But the words. Dear god, the words. Was there nobody in the entire edit chain who thought to read this thing out loud, or pass it over the desk of someone who'd at least heard of scansion and metrics? If you're going to put the Seuss name on this thing, the rhymes and meter -- especially the FUCKING METER -- need to be goddamn flawless, and it doesn't even come close. You can't get past any three stanzas without encountering something that will make you stumble if you don't look ahead and try to parse it out mentally, which is some hot, steaming bullshit. I've caught myself making corrections to it as I read it, adding a word or sometimes reversing the order to make them fit better -- me, a person who last mapped a couplet in the year of our lord 1999. Was there not a single professional at Random House Children's Books -- Random House! not some two-bit fly-by-night bullshit self-publishing crap factory, fucking Random House!!!! -- who could've looked at this and said "Hey, how about a second draft?" or at least broken out a red pen and done some marking up?! The state of this thing!! Do not make me open it up and cite examples, because I will do it if pressed, and I do not want to read it any more than I already have to, because it turns out Quentin likes it and has requested it a few times already, and it's very long.As I said, it was a well-meaning loan from his cousin and I do applaud its educational goals, but the execution of the text is so plainly almost-there-but-who-gives-a-shit that I have to put real, actual effort into keeping the irritation out of my voice by the time we hit the end. This has been Hater's Corner; thank you for listening, we will not be taking any further questions at this time, thank you. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin did 10 days of isolation with us practically standing on his head. The Words of Guidance told us he was clear to go back to school after day 10 as long as his symptoms were clearing up, which thankfully they did -- his cough started to truly fade from view around day 8. So that's nice!!!!!!!!Felix caught a bit of a fever and a cough himself, but nothing too terrible. I just wanted to tell you about a thing we witnessed over the monitor this evening: he woke up about an hour after being put to bed and started to cry, but then somehow managed to put his hands together and grip with his fingers. He was literally holding his own hands. He calmed down, and after less than a minute, he let go and drifted off back to sleep. What?!!The parents in the house are thankfully on the mend, too: I've felt more or less normal for days now, and my sense of taste and smell are back at somewhere between 80-100% as far as I can tell. Mavis is feeling better, but more slowly. We'll probably be fully recovered just in time for the BA2 wave to hit! 

Fascination Corner

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye. 

  • "Six months in, El Salvador’s bitcoin gamble is crumbling" (Rest of World) 

  • A drug discovery company using a machine learning system to identify helpful molecules decided to ask it to think about harmful ones instead just to see what would happen, and after 6 hours of thinking it came up with a whole suite of potential chemical weapons with equivalent deadliness to VX. This particular paper, being essentially a warning, is quick and easy to read. (Paper) 

  • What do The Numbers say about whether we really want permanent daylight savings time? (538) 

  • The relatively recent geologic past appears surprisingly crammed with huge volcanic eruptions. (U of Copenhagen) 

  • Instead of covering the ground with plastic sheeting to prevent water loss, we could just use wax-coated sand, which works great and is better for the environment. (American Chemical Society) 

  • Some Engineers have demonstrated a proof of concept for sensors that can be released into the wind to float like dandelion seeds up to a hundred yards away. (U of Washington) 

  • It's possible to gain insight into public opinion on social media by thinking about large groups of users as flocks. (U at Buffalo) (Paper) 

  • There've been some advancements in the study and prevention of bullying. (BBC Future) 

  • Officer Edith is retiring; wish her well. (SF Standard) 

  • What makes a boring person? (Science Alert) (Paper) 

  • All of the web3 bullshit at SXSW sounds like a hilariously empty nightmare. (Vice) 

  • The Scientists have figured out what the perfect alarm sound is for wakeups. (The Conversation) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumSharkmother, The Hour of Imperfections(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me what you think this band/album sounds like, because now I'm curious) 

Thanks

If you've read this far, I thank you. Feel free to forward this to someone you like, or inflict upon someone you don't.