cube count check

March 28, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that has absolutely no takes on this Will Smith thing and has no plans to produce one 

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.Pursuant to my rant last week about what happens when you try to write something that rhymes without paying any attention to the meter, here's an example of the absolute opposite in the form of a perfect three-tweet thread. This is exquisite work and should be acknowledged as such. Beyond that, I don't have a lot for you this week, although there's a strangely abundant harvest of interesting links down below for your perusal. Thank you, as always, for reading; how are you? 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Once Felix got those two bottom teeth, we knew it was time to start him on solids, so we began the program that went so well for Quentin: steam and puree vegetables, then put them into silicone ice cube trays to freeze. Cubes could be decanted and combined at will to create meals that were nutritious, readily palatable to a baby who had no experience of food otherwise, and almost uniformly horrifying-looking whenever the purple sweet potato or beet cubes got involved. Felix is nothing if not a champion eater, so he took to his cube-based meals right away. Portioning has been an ongoing matter for experimentation: we started him on 3-cube meals, watching carefully for signs of fullness -- he is, after all, a baby, and has no real way to tell us to stop feeding him. We might have been misinterpreting certain signs as indications to quit early, or maybe his stomach capacity has just gone up, because lately he's been housing 4-cube meals without a problem, and indeed seems to still be hungry enough to eat what I'm guessing might be an additional 1-2 cubes' worth of yogurt directly afterward. So I guess he's up to 5-cube meals?? We never did this with Quentin, or if we did, I've forgotten it completely.This does answer a question I'd been asking of the universe previously. We've told friends about Felix's wakeup-riddled nighttime sleep and gotten a fair amount of "Oh, once he has solids he'll start sleeping more, you'll see!" This has not been the case -- or at least it wasn't until we started giving him bigger dinners. His usual 10p wakeup has pushed to midnight in a few cases, and once this week he only had a single wakeup around 1130p. We'll see what happens as he continues to grow, I guess!BTW, his teething has taken a funny turn: after the first two bottom teeth, one of his upper canines and only that canine has chosen to sprout, so he's going to start looking weirdly vampiric in just a little bit. Further updates as events warrant. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "What Working Mothers Heard in Judge Jackson’s Words: Even the eminently accomplished Ketanji Brown Jackson knows the struggle of trying to balance a career and parenthood." (~$Atlantic) 

  • Here are some answers from an immunologist about BA2; kinda sounds like I've got extra protection after catching the cron, but I'm not about to take any chances long-term, either: masks stay on. (The Conversation) 

  • "What You’re Feeling Isn’t A Vibe Shift. It’s Permanent Change. I was born during the longest period of global stability. Now, it appears all of that is fleeting." (BuzzFeed News) Pairs nicely with "Aaron Sorkin’s Liberal Fantasy Runs the World: Watching Sorkin’s work is an experience comprising one part awe and two parts frustration." (Vice) 

  • While other billionaires sit on their hands, MacKenzie Scott is out there writing fucking enormous checks to organizations that are doing the work. (NBC) (CNBC) 

  • Guess we shouldn't be surprised that TikTok moderation is a living goddamn nightmare. (NPR) 

  • "Lessons from the COVID data wizards" (Nature) 

  • Absolutely essential reading on crypto, in the form of a heavy edit of a shit NYT piece about crypto. (The (Edited) Latecomer's Guide to Crypto) 

  • Instead of left or right-wing being our only choices, what if there was an Up Wing? (Faster, Please!) 

  • Are Americans unhappy? (538) 

  • There are now over 5000 confirmed exoplanets. I would love to browse the catalog, given sufficient free time! (Science Alert) 

  • Research shows that we've actually given wild animals our diseases almost 100 times. (GUMC) 

  • I know I don't have the time for videogames, much less the ability to coordinate the schedules of four other humans to try and play with, but holy fuck and damn this looks like it would be fun as HELL (Polygon) 

  • The Scientists have worked out a way to make cheap, good carbon fiber from petroleum byproducts. (MIT) 

  • Fuck is going on with ApeCoin? (The Verge) 

  • Intelligently-constructed and properly-managed wetlands are an increasingly appealing-looking way to cut water pollution, folks! (Flinders U) 

  • "What’s in a Black name? 400 years of context." (Andscape) 

  • IT IS NOW TIME TO LEARN ABOUT NICOLAS CAGE (GQ) 

  • Working to protect animals in a few key biomes would actually also reap some climate benefits. Hint, hint. (Anthropocene) 

  • Just a third of the wind and solar projects currently proposed could replace all of the coal plants operating in Texas right now. (Rice) 

  • I refuse to believe landline-style phones are making a comeback, and yet. ($NYT) 

  • The Scientists have identified another enzyme that can eat plastic. How many is that now? Who's keeping track? (U of Portsmouth) 

  • The cement and steel industries contribute significantly to emissions, but they don't have to. (Nature) 

  • Some insect wings have a texture to their surface that shreds bacteria; The Scientists have worked out how to replicate it in plastics, which makes it perfect for packaging and personal protective equipment. (RMIT) 

  • In case you wanted something else to worry about, consider: geomagnetic storms created by the sun. (The Conversation) 

  • "I Tried Submerging My Face In Freezing Cold Water To Help With Stress — Here's How It Went" (BuzzFeed) 

  • Is the ability to identify geometric shapes something only humans can do? ($NYT) 

  • A neural implant let a locked-in man communicate with the outside world, albeit at a painstakingly slow pace. (Science) 

  • Stop making Batman and Superman fight each other. (Polygon) 

  • It's ............. possible that cephalopods and crustaceans might experience emotions. (York U) 

  • Some Engineers have demonstrated a cool way to clean solar panels without using any water. (Anthropocene) 

  • The Scientists are getting closer to figuring out what makes fast radio bursts, but they haven't quite cracked it yet. (UNLV) 

  • Why are there so many shows about scammers right now? (IndieWire) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumThe Loneliness Brigade, Background Music for Executions(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.