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March 08, 2021

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that has determined Lemon-Ups are absolutely the best Girl Scout cookie after Thin Mints, I will not be taking questions at this time, thank you 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayAgainst all odds, we did manage to record new episodes, so now it's just down to me to edit them. I should remember how to do that, right?This means the time is now to give us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in Apple Podcasts and let everybody know you were in on the ground floor!!Instant Band Night 15: Gone Til NovemberNow that proven vaccines exist, let's wait til November and hopefully -- hopefully! -- we'll see you all at the next Instant Band Night.Facebook event's still there in case you (like me) can't yet escape the vortex of Facebook* * s t a y   h o m e   / /   s t a y   h e a l t h y * * 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I just now noticed that Michael Chabon put up some notes on Romulans and Freecloud, none of which will make any sense to you if you didn't watch Picard. They're interesting! Also, on record: Picard was good up until the last two episodes, which I'm choosing to view as non-canon until forced. On balance, Lower Decks was easily the best Trek thing to happen in 2020, although I'll put Disco s03 in comfortable second place. I had sort of underestimated how much new Trek stuff was getting me through the pandemic, so I'm extremely curious to know when the next seasons are kicking off. I hear they started filming on Strange New Worlds? Let's goooooooooooo 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.You might've seen the announcement on social, but if you're not on any of those platforms or the algorithm just didn't show you, no worries: come late July-ish, we'll be welcoming a new member to House Sung Gruver. I will accept congratulations, but honestly they should all be going to Mavis, who's currently doing 100% of the work of gestation and suffering through heartburn and queasiness.As before, we know the sex thanks to the genetic assay, but are keeping it under wraps. I rode strongly for making the information available to Quentin on the grounds that it seemed like it would be easier for him to conceptualize a baby brother or sister and thereby ease his acceptance of the situation, but:

  • Thus far he hasn't asked

  • I forgot he's also incredibly chill about everything, how did we get this lucky

So far he isn't bothered; sibling jealousy is something I guess we'll have to handle if/when it ever appears? We've gotten several books that have come highly recommended, but if anyone's got suggestions for any good reading material related to any aspect of siblinghood, fire away!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • There's a lot of talk about vaccine efficacy out there; what's the deal? ($NYT) 

  • Have some creative reuses for the plywood everyone used to board up their stores. (Bloomberg CityLab) 

  • Trying to figure out how to save endangered species means counting them up, but actually finding them out there in the wild can be hard. Why not use: very good dogs?? (Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research) 

  • If you've been hearing a lot about NFTs and are wondering what/why/etc, just read this. (everest pipkin on Medium) 

  • Cuttlefish demonstrate self-control on the same level as chimps and crows. (Marine Biological Laboratory) 

  • Establishing odd little rituals for yourself might help ease pandemic loneliness. (UC Riverside) 

  • Experiments indicate water that's being shot full of bubbles and blasted with ultrasound works a lot better at washing produce than plain ol' water. (U of Southampton) 

  • Wondering why there still isn't any money in streaming music? (BBC) 

  • Here's some more detail on that MIT LaserFactory system that can "print" a ready-to-fly drone. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • According to this study, we all wish conversations would be over sooner than they actually end. (~$Scientific American) 

  • Are we doomed to an endlessly-repeating cycle of political gridlock forever? (538) 

  • It's, uh, it's possible that the positive results of microdosing LSD that we've been hearing about might just be the placebo effect at work. (eLife) 

  • There are sea slugs that can tell when their bodies are too riddled with internal parasites to be worth bothering with, so they detach their own heads and grow new bodies. Takes a couple weeks. Yeah. ($NYT) 

  • Yet again another city's experiment with basic income proves that it's great for everyone involved in basically all aspects. This time: Stockton. (~$Atlantic) 

  • Mantis shrimp eyes have inspired a design for smartphone-scale light sensors that can do hyperspectral and polarimetric imaging. (NC State) 

  • Here's an interesting longread for you on the power and limitations of GPT-3. (Nature) 

  • Okay, look: it's hard for machines to tell when soft fruits are ripe -- the usual methods of "mechanical testing" often damage them, so a contactless method would be ideal. How about using laser-induced plasma shockwaves?? You have to click on this just to see the diagram. (Shibaura Inst of Tech) 

  • I both do and don't like the idea of agile, insect-size drones. (MIT) 

  • Gab got hacked. (Ars Technica) 

  • Looks like we've got an interestingly hot super-Earth about 26 light years away. (U of New South Wales Sydney) 

  • The Swedes have figured out a way to recycle cotton into a sugar-and-acid solution that can be turned into nylon, spandex, or ethanol. (Lund U) 

  • A proof-of-concept has been built for an AI system that can generate a human face tailored to be attractive to you as an individual. That's ........... not weirdly spooky at all?? (U of Helsinki) 

  • Hands up if you've been reading about the microbiome for a while and are only now just hearing about the mycobiome. (U of Alabama Birmingham) 

  • Engineers have invented a very slow soft robot that can withstand pressures at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. (Nature) 

  • Hauntingly hilarious toddler shit in this tweet and the many replies thereto. (@toddedillard on Twitter) 

  • While this article still commits the cardinal sin of mentioning Alcubierre warp drives without telling us how fast they might go, it does talk about theoretical design parameters for it, which are interesting. (Popular Mechanics) 

  • There's a better way to separate precious metals from e-waste! (Iowa State) 

  • A recent study shows flagging misinfo has at least some effect, which I suppose is vaguely reassuring. (U of Kansas) Especially since it turns out the most engaging political "news" on Facebook is grade-A right-wing horseshit. (Protocol) 

  • Cultured meat continues to make progress. (Inst for Industrial Science, U of Tokyo) (PDF of Paper) 

  • The opening really says it all: "People with higher incomes tend to feel prouder, more confident and less afraid than people with lower incomes, but not necessarily more compassionate or loving," according to a 162-country survey, (American Psychological Association) 

  • Something might be happening to the Gulf Stream and scientists are getting nervous. ($NYT) 

  • Some very clever engineers have developed a foldable drone that can theoretically drop into abandoned mines and scan them without risking human lives, but I just know they named it "Prometheus" after that crappy movie. (IEEE Spectrum) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumTiger Library, Not By the Hand of Man Alone 

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.