dispatch from the eleventh circle or whatever

January 15, 2024

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that would love to start feeling better soon 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Instant Band Night 25: PI DAY 2 (PIE HARDER)If you missed Instant Band Night 24 last week, I feel sorry for you, because it was incredible. A ballad! Ska! A banger in a made-up alien language!! All this could be yours and more in just a couple of months! Whether you choose to play in one of the bands or just watch it all unfold, it's a joyful celebration of spontaneous creativity that we could all probably use more of in our lives; also, there'll be pie. Come have pie.March 14 20246p$10East Bay Community Space507 55th St 94609(Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  T E L L   Y O U R   F R I E N D S  + ++ +  S E E   Y O U   T H E R E  + +Surprising and Unique Ceramics For YOUNew year, new space! Why settle for a boring garden, potted plant, or domicile when you could have a little statue of a crazy-colored tardigrade, a delightful friend to hold your last fruit, a Star Trek buddy in a party hat, or an Ediacaran life form right now. Take a look and consider some clever ceramics for yourself, for family, or for a dear friend far away.Idea Factory GiveawayI think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after two+ years of inactivity, but I'm putting a link to its evergreen Apple Podcasts presence here, which includes a back catalog over 150 episodes long chock-full of excellent ridiculousness, including an experimental tabletop RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that could almost be their own show if I had the time to make yet another podcast 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I've been sick since roughly Friday, although I've been coughing (with apparently no other symptoms, and negative covid tests) for at least a few days before that. This one is incredibly annoying and extremely persistent: Mavis is still getting her ass kicked and Quentin is home YET AGAIN as he's been since last goddamn Thursday. Multiple covid tests have been negative. We got the flu shot months ago. My best guess is RSV strikes again?? If only they'd made that fuckin vaccine available to everybody!!! Literally half of Quentin's kindergarten class got taken out. You don't want to know what my sleep's been like. I hope you're having a much better week right now!! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Felix seems to be slowly but surely getting the hang of the potty concept. I mean I don't want to jinx anything, but the ratio of Successful Potty Sits to Pants-Soaking Accidents seems to be improving. That's all I have the energy to tell you right now!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Minneapolis appears to have kept rent growth under control with This One Weird Trick: just building some fuckin housing already. (Pew) 

  • Snortable covid vaccines seem to work better, according to a new study. Let's go!!! (Duke) (Paper) 

  • Welsh. Tidy. Mouse. (Guardian) 

  • The Scientists have begun to investigate the neurological workings of love. (U of South Australia) (Paper) 

  • Ibogaine seems to be surprisingly effective at eliminating PTSD, although more rigorous studies are needed and it might not be any better than shrooms + molly; still, it's nice that there are options, isn't it? (Nature) 

  • The Peregrine moon lander is officially fucked, but at least it's not going to crash and it's gathering valuable data; it's hard to throw robots into space, y'all! (The Verge) 

  • Here's a tidy little list of "11 Intriguing Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2024" (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • There may be hope: The Kids These Days are apparently going to the library a lot? (The Conversation) 

  • Vaccine misinfo is going to needlessly cost us thousands of lives this year. (Ars Technica) 

  • The Scientists have discovered that zapping barley seedlings makes them grow more. Huh! You have to do it in a hydroponics setup, but still: huh!! (Linköping U) (Paper) 

  • Is this evidence of a long-lost snake cult, or just a very talented designer with an extremely strong brand? (Motherboard) (Paper) 

  • We should be harvesting our sewage heat. No, seriously. (BBC) 

  • Have a good interview with a scientist who's tracking down the connection between our mental health and our gut microbiome. (Knowable) 

  • If you've only got one Defector click left this month (or however they measure it), use it on this one from David Roth, who as usual brings the mercilessly laser-focused pain. (Defector) 

  • Some Engineers have created a solid state battery that charges in minutes and lasts for thousands of cycles. (Harvard Engineering) 

  • The Scientists want to drill into a magma chamber for science and highly tempting clean energy reasons. (Science Alert) 

  • I narrowly missed the advent of dating apps as a thing, and apparently they're struggling now? (Bustle) 

  • Evolution may not be as completely random as we thought. (U of Nottingham) (Paper) 

  • The mystery of the extinction of the nine-foot ape Gigantopithecus blacki has been solved. (Macquarie U) (Paper) 

  • It took a few months, but they finally got the asteroid sample open! (U of Arizona) 

  • "All the Types of Science Fiction" (McSweeney's) 

  • We could decarbonize over half of global shipping by putting green ammonia at just ten of the most-used fuel ports. (IOP) (Paper) 

  • Do cells and societies have any similarities in the way they work? The Scientists want to investigate. (Rutgers) (Paper) 

  • How the hell can you have a galaxy without any stars in it!? (Science Alert) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their album

Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash(I remembered a formula for making fake album covers that involves searching for a random appropriately licensed photo and then applying your best Graphic Design Skills to the result; let me know what you think this band/album sounds like, because your answers are always incredible) 

New Music Roundup

Last week's band/album was:

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on UnsplashReader Aaron S. says: 

I attended one of their shows after listening to several of these songs: noise rock I guess? Random sonic experiments but with just enough order, akin to Brian Eno. I like him, I like and/or tolerate this stuff more than most.The curtain (unusual in itself) opened to several stations with tiny instruments… what? A person walked on with a giant sack, dumped out the contents (seemingly unharmed)… as Arrested Development character Michael Bluth once said, “I don’t know what I expected.”

Our resident alternate universe music critic Steve says: 

I reckon it's a dark meditative electronic album in the vein of Aphex Twin's Stone in Focus, with sparse lyrics about loss and rebirth, maybe like a less depressing Dead Flag Blues. I think people find it uplifting, but they're not entirely sure why. I'm sad I don't get to listen to it now.I also think it's two people, it's their third album, and they've decided they wish they'd picked a different band name but they feel they're stuck with the Bag Of Cats now.

Last last week's band/album, apparently more evocative than I thought, was:

Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on UnsplashThis one reader Aaron S. pinned down as: 

A band you stumbled upon while surfing Bandcamp. You’re deeply into them and find their silly lyrics affecting. You try to convince your friends to listen to them, but can’t quite. Sound is contradictory frenetic-smooth pop with maybe too many chord changes. It’s a small project by good musicians who have no time to tour. You find yourself planning a trip to their town when you learn they’re playing a show.

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.