brief notes from a two-kid household

July 26, 2021

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that reads other newsletters as a form of self-care 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayIt's ........ it's probably gonna be a little while until I can get the new episode done, I'll be honest with you. Maybe once we're out of the "every 3 hours" part of Felix's feeding schedule? A man can dream.There are now 38 people who are destined to develop superpowers when the alien comet passes through our atmosphere; you can join them by heading for our Apple Podcasts page and leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review. I don't know why that's what the comet cares about, but are you going to argue with it?Instant Band Night 15: Gone Til NovemberGet your goddamn shot! Then and only then you can pencil 11/11/2021 into your schedule; if we're all good and vaccinated, we'll be able to see each other at the next Instant Band Night.Facebook event's still there in case you (like me) can't yet escape the vortex of Facebook+ + g e t   y o u r   s h o t   / /   l e t ' s   d o   t h i s + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.No thoughts, head empty. Not because of Total Baby Zombification -- our schedule is a little unorthodox right now, but far from dire (at least not right now; talk to us next week when Quentin's preschool goes on their summer break) -- I just don't have a lot to ramble about that isn't baby-related. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Stray observations after a week in the Babydome: 

  • Felix is better at nursing than Quentin was, but has yet to figure out how to hold onto a pacifier.

  • Not that he particularly needs it; he's thus far been an extremely chill baby.

  • I am looking forward to the day he figures out that he's not being murdered every time we change his diaper; my guess is he doesn't like the feel of the wipes (and who would? they're cold and wet) but the yelling is almost comically dire.

  • Why does anybody make sleepers that close with snaps when zippers are right there.

  • Seriously, if you're going to have a baby, the best purchase you can make is a 50-pack of automotive microfiber cloths. Props to friends Mark and Joy for revealing this wisdom to us last time; it's just as true with the second kid.

Quentin has been an almost suspiciously excellent big brother so far: he delights in observing Felix and likes to check in on him, placing the purple bunny close by so it can watch him. He wants to know how Felix feels, why he's crying, what he thinks about things. It's incredibly precious and good. I thought I would have something more profound to say, but maybe I don't need to; I just hope it lasts essentially forever. That'll work, right? 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong: They’re not all anti-vaxxers, and treating them as such is making things worse." I guess I'll see what Ed Yong has to say. (~$Atlantic) 

  • A recent study seems to indicate you can influence people by targeting the fringes of their social network. (UPenn) (Paper) 

  • There's a big reason why TikTok memes about the child tax credit are actually a great thing for the country. (Vox) 

  • Scientists have decanted 15,000yo viruses from a Tibetan glacier that are unlike anything we've ever seen. Great? (Ohio State) 

  • Some countries are just deciding to live with the rona. (~$NYT) 

  • Yes, EVs are cleaner than gas-powered cars, even if you take into account the grid itself. (The Verge) 

  • There are a lot of reasons to wish Iain M. Banks were still alive, but a new one is just so we could tell him he might've been right about the shape of the universe maybe being a gigantic cosmic donut (which I think is established in The Player of Games? am I wrong? nobody tell me if I'm wrong). (Science Alert) 

  • Oscillating magnetic fields appear to have been successful in noninvasively shrinking a man's brain tumor before he died of an unrelated injury. (Houston Methodist) 

  • Just a heads-up: millennials would rather have respect than a keggerator or a foosball table in the office. (U of Missouri) 

  • I would've sworn to you that the name of this software package was just "Print Shop," but god damn if this article didn't bring back some memories. (How To Geek) 

  • A molecular ecologist has done a surprising proof-of-concept for simply pulling DNA out of the air and sequencing it to see if you can identify the animals that live in the area. (Science) (Paper) 

  • We might finally get some concrete answers about gun violence now that there's funding to study it. (Nature) 

  • The main sentence of this Atlantic piece on the impending death of "the California dream" is as follows:"If California fails to offer young people and newcomers the opportunity to improve their lot, the consequences will be catastrophic—and not only for California. The end of the California Dream would deal a devastating blow to the proposition that such a widely diverse polity can thrive. Indeed, blue America’s model faces its most consequential stress test in one of its safest states, where a spectacular run of almost unbroken prosperity could be killed by a miserly approach to opportunity."Well, that's three sentences, but you get the idea. (~$Atlantic) 

  • I have to admit this approach to getting antibiotics past resistant bacterial defenses is pretty good-sounding. (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) 

  • According to Google search trends, "hot vax summer" is definitely a thing. (NPR) 

  • A longitudinal study run in the UK seems to indicate that living next to woodlands may be correlated with ......... better brain? (University College London) 

  • Here's a fascinating longread on a Turkish farm game for mobile devices that turned out to be a huge scam. (Rest Of World) 

  • That whole "nice guys finish last thing" seems to have at least some basis in reality. (Psychology Today) 

  • A huge trove of Jurassic echinoderm fossils was just uncovered in England. (BBC) 

  • Huh: a technique for detecting ionic contaminants in water with a smartphone touchscreen has been demonstrated. (U of Cambridge) 

  • Why not use snakes to monitor radiation levels at places like Fukushima? (U of Georgia) 

  • Engineers have finally written an algorithm that can fly autonomous drones better than drone racing pilots. (U of Zurich) 

  • Spotted owls are still endangered in the Pacific Northwest because invasive barred owls keep horning in on their territory; if we just gunned them down, spotted owl populations might have a better chance of recovering. (Oregon State) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumUnspecified Dry Goods, The Limits of What is Possible 

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.