a weapon wielded in anger

October 22, 2018

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that can never have enough pillows. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway86 - Total Assumption of Risk"Jon (@ferociousj), guest co-host Kelly (@enthusiosity), and special guest Genevieve work out a new angle for a destructive business and delve into ideas for printed products and historical perspective, among others."Genevieve is one of my favorite people and this episode is essentially can't-miss; also, Kelly displays her A++ crustacean naming skills.If you haven't yet, subscribe by searching "Idea Factory Giveaway" in your podcatcher of choice (and let me know if it doesn't pop up). If you're already there, feel free to leave a 5-star rating and a nice review (it helps; algorithms, etc, you know the deal).Instant Band Night 7: GenerationsJust about two weeks out. You know what I realized? That's the week of the midterms, too, so we'll either need to get together to console each other or party like fucking crazy. Either way, Instant Band Night fits the bill. What's that, you ask? Instant Band Night is a party where musicians who've just met form bands on the spot.(1)The first rule of Instant Band Night is: 👏 YOU 👏 DON'T 👏 HAVE 👏 TO 👏 PLAY 👏 AN 👏 INSTRUMENT 👏 TO 👏 ATTEND 👏 (2)The second rule of Instant Band Night is: We guarantee you (the audience) an astonishingly excellent time.(3)The third rule of Instant Band Night is: Invite your friends!!!!!!!Here's what happens:1. The stage has a drum kit, guitar, bass, keyboard, and mics.2. We draw names out of hats to make instant bands that get 7 minutes in the green room to plan a 5-minute set.3. A hat-drawn artist will also take the stage alongside each band to draw their gig poster on a meeting room easel pad.Come play or come watch; you'll have fun either way! Bring your people, crack a beverage: let's do this.Thursday November 8507 55th St 946098p$5/personBYOB21+Forward this to anyone you think would have a good time there, or use these Facebook and Eventbrite links if that's more your thing. Thanks!* * *  w e ' l l * s e e * y o u * t h e r e * * *F.A.Q.Q: Do I need to be a musician to show up?A: No. Absolutely not. Hell no. Come see the show and have a good time; you don't have to get onstage.Q: I'm a musician; am I guaranteed a slot in a band?A: We literally draw names written on slips of paper out of coffee cans, so there's a chance you may not be called; in a purely mathematical sense, it's a function of how many musicians of each type show up that night (there are five musician cans -- DRUMS, GUITAR, BASS, VOX, MISC -- and one can for artists who'll be picked to draw the bands' gig posters). We say: surrender to the spirit of random chance, or maybe slip the MC a bribe of some sort.Q: Do I have to be an amazing musician to throw my name in a can?A: Probably not. Your band's only gonna be onstage for 5 minutes, anyway; how bad can you possibly be?Q: I play an instrument other than what'll be onstage, like the sax or trumpet. Can I bring it?A: Hhhheeeeeelll yyyeeeessssss you can bring it. PLEASE DO. We had a guy bring a bassoon once, and he rocked the living shit out of it -- and, by extension, us. Woodwinds and brass, which tend not to need extra amplification for a space of this size beyond being pointed vaguely at a mic, are most welcome. If your instrument requires an amp, that's cool, but you should get in touch with Jon about showing up early for setup.Q: Do I have to pick my cover tune beforehand?A: Listen. You and your band (who you've JUST MET) have 5 minutes onstage to do whatever the hell you can think of in the 7 minutes prior to walking up there. You wanna try to pick a cover everyone can agree on? Great. You wanna try writing something new? Fantastic; it can definitely be done. You wanna pick a key and tell each other to just fuckin' wing it up there? You are a RAGING PSYCHOPATH and we love it. We'll see you in 7; get in the green room!!!!Q: What does BYOB stand for?A: We don't sell drinks at Instant Band Night, so you gotta bring your own. Get a cheap sixpack of something. Maybe a bottle and some cups. We're not here to godmod how you get down.Q: Is this in the East Bay?A: It is. Do not be alarmed: it's within walking distance of MacArthur BART, and as a bonus, you get to tour Oakland's version of the Mission on your way over. Or you could just take a Lyft from SF (or the BART station if you fancy). Got a car? Drive on over; parking around the East Bay Community Space is pretty simple. You can do this. We believe in you. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.This week's podcast episode gave me an associated idea that I have some questions about: what's the cheapest way to build a force gauge that'll let me know how hard I've hit something, say with a reasonably heavy stick? Ideally, the surface of this gauge would simulate something approximating a human body i/t/o squish factor, and the sensor inside it would be able to withstand thousands upon thousands of hits.Here's what it is: I actually have no idea how hard I can hit something with an improvised club -- let's say a baseball bat or a golf club or a sledgehammer or whatnot. We've all had to imagine fighting Nazis in the streets, or at least I have, but what I'm missing is a key piece of data: how much would I need to pull my blows in order to keep from killing someone? I've never hit a man with a baseball bat, but I honestly feel like if it came to it, there's enough pent-up antifascist rage in me by now that there's a nonzero chance I could cave a motherfucker's skull in, or completely collapse his ribcage, or reduce his kidneys to a smear of nonfunctioning pulp. Is this ridiculous? Maybe!! I don't know, because I've never hit a man with a baseball bat, nor do I plan to, ever. BUT IF I HAD TO, if there was no other option but to take a swing with whatever I was holding at the time, what kind of damage am I capable of? This seems like data I should have. That we should all have. But how to gather it without actually hitting people? This is the question I seek to answer, at least in a purely theoretical sense. Someone let me know. Again, the sensor setup should be:AccurateDurableCheapI might have to enter this into the idea database. You know what, I am. Thanks, brain! Thanks. That's the 800th idea to go into the spreadsheet; how about that. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Our apartment is small, but lovely; one effect of its constrained space is that there are only so many places to put bookshelves. We have a couple 4x2 old Ikea Expedit units, one of which houses about 90% of my comics collection, and which we had no real choice but to put horizontally in Quentin's room, right on the floor underneath the window. This is fine for now, but we're eventually hoping to make Quentin's room a place we can close off with a baby gate and just leave him in there to mess around in. The various dresser drawers and power solutions still need to be babyproofed, of course, but those are easy: what to do with all my trade paperbacks, so vulnerable to being pulled off the literally floor-level shelves and torn up by a sweet unknowing baby?I contemplated moving them all into the garage we also rent, just keeping 'em in boxes, but a friend of mine* came up with a great idea: why not just put a sheet of acrylic in front of the whole unit? Simple brackets could hold it in place; they don't exactly need to be significantly load-bearing. So that's exactly what I did: the acrylic sheet came custom-cut from TAP Plastics; the only thing I needed to add was a magnet in the middle to keep the thin sheet from bowing out too much. And holy shit, it looks and works exactly as designed. I just need to sand the edges of the acrylic sheet, though they're not bad as-is, honestly. I wanted to record this moment of successful MacGyver-like domestic improvisation for posterity; thank you for indulging me.* Because my brain is trash, I have forgotten who it was, which means I can't credit them: a thousand apologies!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Your CB Insights brief for this week lists 21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders, and it makes pretty interesting reading. (CB Insights) 

  • There's a real chance that your genetics play a large part in determining your lifespan, and it's a part we're starting to learn to decode. (MIT Technology Review) 

  • The Case for Abolishing the Senate (GQ). 

  • Scientists have figured out a way to 3D print ligaments and tendons?! (U of Utah press release) 

  • TechCrunch has an interesting point to make about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the impact it may have on Silicon Valley. (TechCrunch, obvs) 

  • Here are a bunch of techniques for not thinking negatively. Will they work? Who knows? Can't hurt to try, right? (GQ) 

  • Using Rice Krispies for geological simulation is a thing, and it's utterly charming. (Atlas Obscura) 

  • So if it turns out that all of the comments that were in favor of getting rid of net neutrality were fake (and the NY AG's office thinks 9.5 fucking million of them are), what then? Seriously, do they call a do-over on the whole thing or what? (Ars Technica) 

  • Huh: by not letting her shows sell out, Taylor Swift actually makes more money on this tour. (Quartzy) 

  • I don't know what to think about Opportunity Zones. (Recode) 

  • Is this little girl the queen of Sweden now or what? (Guardian) 

  • A truly great wedding story that also involves a clown; there are pictures, so coulrophobes maybe wanna give this one a miss. (Twitter thread) 

  • This week's Thing That Feels Like It Should Be A Way Bigger Deal is this ProPublica/WNYC piece on the Trump organization's long and extravagant history of scamming. (ProPublica) 

  • These are the charities where your money will do the most good (Vox), and if you've ever wondered, here's why disaster relief is so hard (Vox). 

  • Huh: growing lab meat (and other products) on a mycelial substrate might be a viable approach. Why didn't anybody think of that before? Or did they, and it was just too hard up until now? (Fast Company) 

  • I am fully fucking onboard with this squad of climate change scientists evangelizing through Fortnite. (The Verge) 

  • Altruism can be trained into people. (University of Wurzburg press release) 

  • One more article for the "let kids do what the fuck they want" pile. (National Post) 

  • It's somehow unsurprising that Instagram has a hideous harassment problem -- not because of any one person or culture, just that it's a big, popular platform and so of fucking course it does, because humans. (Atlantic) 

  • No, really, what the hell was that "comet" that passed through a few months ago? (Quanta) 

  • Someone get David Frum an editor, please: there's like 2500 extra words in this thing about how Woodward's book actually misses the point on Trump. I can summarize the whole thing in a single sentence; reply to this email if you're curious. (Atlantic) 

  • Strongly contemplating asking for one of these for Xmas or my birthday, which now that I think about it comes first anyway. (TopatoCo) 

  • I want you to actually take the time to read this piece on how most Americans aren't really down with "political correctness" as a concept. It's not what you think, and it's worth a look despite the actual study being hot garbage in the informed opinion of at least one data scientist I know. (Atlantic) 

  • Bugs are vanishing in alarming quantities thanks to climate change. (WaPo) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumHypothetical Dog, The Mess is Mostly Mine 

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.