[combination meow and reggaeton airhorn.ogg]

July 29, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that is almost certainly going to blow its Equifax money on its very own copy -- finally -- of the Codex Seraphinianus. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway117 - The RUPAUL Question"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Scott Kramer (@scottskramer) ponder a looming existential conundrum before digging into marvelous ideas for TV shows, holidays, wakeups, and a new academic position, among others."In this episode, Besha hits upon the notion that we need a sound effect to play whenever I ask "are there notes for that one?" which I think is true, but I also think we need a different one for when there are notes. Cat meow? Reggaeton airhorn? Let me know your thoughts! Taking nominations now!!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 12: The DozenthSeptember 12 will see the dozenth incarnation of Instant Band Night, the fun and almost certainly one-of-a-kind event that you only have to attend once to understand why you should attend every time. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Every time I plug my phone in to charge and it's got wifi, it decides (correctly) that now is a safe time to check for updates to apps, download those updates, and install them accordingly. Just about every time, it's got somewhere from 1-7 updates to make. Sometimes I go for a while without charging it in the presence of my home wifi (depending on how much driving I've been doing, during which I like to plug my phone into the car charger while it plays my podcasts), and then it'll be more like 15-20, if not more. Guys: why so many updates. Why. Can you please calm down. Doesn't that seem like too many updates, or am I just a cranky person? 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin recovered fully from his cold several days ago. I, by contrast, just came out of it yesterday. This one was not super fun: an initial spike of debilitation followed by a long trough of extremely low energy and only middling appetite at best, capped off with another weird spike of listlessness. I woke up on Sunday morning more or less fully refreshed, though, and thus far there has been little sign of its return. I'm'a go to bed shortly after putting this together, just in case.Quentin's been picking up new vocabulary with startling rapidity, and I think it's time we taught him the ABC song. This will necessitate getting something that has the entire alphabet on it at a glance; we have several -- several -- different books that are the ABCs of this or that, but turning board book pages rapidly enough to sing him the ABC song and point to the letters in question in time with the music is a nonstarter. We have the letters on the fridge, but I don't want to haul him into the kitchen every time I want to sing the song, now do I? No, I do not. So we'll see what we end up with! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Your entertainment longread of the week is this one about a serial dine-and-dash date scammer. (Daily Beast) 

  • Actually talking to strangers -- even if it's just a brief, friendly exchange -- can have a measurable beneficial effect on your mood. (NPR) 

  • The Atlantic published a piece about how future cities may not have a place for kids. Brookings calls bullshit. (Atlantic) (Brookings Institute) 

  • The guy who literally invented the retweet feature thinks he made a terrible mistake. (BuzzFeed News) 

  • I realize this thing about harvesting and using algal blooms for our own ends instead of letting them fuck up ecosystems is a pretty cut-and-dried case of anthropocentric utilitarianism, but I think we fucking need it wherever we can get it. (Outside) 

  • You can make something antibacterial by taking a gel and packing it so full of bacteria-killing viruses that the viral bodies spontaneously align to create a structure that can self-heal when it's been damaged. (McMaster U via EurekAlert) 

  • The Olympic medals that'll be handed out in Tokyo are made from recycled e-waste. (Engadget) 

  • A city-killing asteroid just missed us. The telescope network that spotted it has an acronym that can only be pronounced credibly as "ASSASSIN." I don't make this shit up. (PRI) 

  • 74% of adults have been harassed while gaming online. In other news: sky blue, water wet, etc. (Kotaku) 

  • We're starting to see downstream effects from a marine heatwave known as "the Blob" from six years ago. (Hakai) 

  • Is it just me or does this list of four ways to stop the spread of disinfo online miss the point entirely? Numbnuts who think Fox News is real aren't going to do any of this shit. (Brookings Institute) 

  • This is very good. (Polygon) 

  • How about a drone that can fold itself up to fit through tight spaces? (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • Pro-tein fol-ding! (Clap! Clap! Clapclapclap!) Ma-chine lear-ning! (Clap! Clap! Clapclapclap!) (Nature) 

  • Instagram "tag cleaning" is a thing that exists even though it shouldn't; this is not a burden anyone should have to shoulder except a collection of smart software, but of course we as a species can't have anything nice. (The Verge) 

  • Why's it get so humid in the Midwest in summer? Could be the corn sweat, which I didn't know about until five seconds ago and holy shit. (CityLab) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumWAR APE, The Time We Spend in the Burning 

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.