dogs as a literal service

May 25, 2020

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's thankful for window fans as a little mini heatwave hits our corner of the Bay (by which I mean it's going up to the mid 80s, which is hot when nobody has AC and we're definitely not going to a movie theatre, even if any were open at the moment). 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayNo new episode this week, but we've got a batch cookin' on the stove you're gonna like!In the meantime, don't forget to rate us ✨✨✨✨✨ on Apple Podcasts because you're just cool like that. You're chill like that. You get the idea.Instant Band Night 15: POSTPONEDWe here at the main office are holding out hope that July 9 will turn out to be a viable date for this, the long-awaited 15th installment of Instant Band Night, but if not, we'll see you in September.Facebook event's still up, too, because why not* * 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.Today's main character on Twitter was Amy Cooper, and here's what I want to know about these fucking people: when they see they're being filmed, they don't immediately stop and apologize. How do they not have any idea what's coming their way? Why do they always double or triple down? Is there a psychology paper someone can point me to that explains this fucking nonsense? Does some part of them know -- well and truly know -- that they're about to be incinerated under the eye of the entire internet? Does that part try to bring the ugly, defiant part to heel and simply fail? It's madness, and I want to know (also I want to end this paragraph with something other than a question mark). 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin goes to bed at 7p, so we're awake for at least a few hours while he sleeps. Sometimes he makes noises: a single crying sound, or a shout. One time it was a couple of words, though for some reason I failed to write them down, so I can't tell you what they were. A couple days ago, he made a single loud fratboy WHOOP in his sleep. It was amazing. What kills me is that we'll never, ever know what that was about. We couldn't ask him now; he doesn't have the tools to grasp the question. And by the time he's old enough, he'll definitely have forgotten. Mysteries!!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • If you've got a free Medium click left, why not blow it on a pretty good writeup on the King Arthur flour company and what they're doing to meet an absolutely insane wave of demand. (~$Marker on Medium) 

  • You can generate electricity from shadows? You can generate electricity from shadows. (Natl U of Singapore) 

  • I hope we're not tired of rona risk explainers yet, because Vox put together a good 'un. (Vox) 

  • Cooperation can be contagious, too. (UT Austin) 

  • DOG API (DOG API) 

  • Here's a good free Atlantic click for you, once again from Ed Yong: "America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further: The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways, making the crisis harder to predict, control, or understand." (Atlantic) 

  • Behold the mystery of glacier mice! (NPR) 

  • There are a handful of facilities that account for the majority of industrial air pollution. (UCSB) 

  • If you're not tired of isolation yet, NASA is looking for people to participate in an 8-month simulated space mission; brush up on your Russian. (NASA) 

  • Scientists have determined through adorable-sounding experimentation that dogs are more likely to follow commands from robots than from mere smart speakers. (IEEE Spectrum) (PDF of paper) 

  • It's not scalable yet (of course), but a design has been created for an artificial replacement eye that sounds higher-rez than the real thing somehow, but who knows how that'd actually work out? (Science News) 

  • Benedict Evans has an interesting point to make about tech advances that look like they might go somewhere and totally stupid ideas, and how to maybe tell the difference between 'em. (Benedict Evans) 

  • Researchers at Oregon State are trying to figure out how to make robots funny. (Oregon State) 

  • What are some good coping mechanisms for this whole mess and why are they better than not doing anything? (First Round Review) 

  • Math and/or stats people: is this new estimate of the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy on the level? (Columbia U) 

  • The Russian branch of IKEA has gifted us (read: our children) several designs for blanket forts. (Bored Panda) 

  • There might be more psychopaths out there than we thought; it's just that there's a set of them who've managed to control their antisocial impulses to walk among us. (Virginia Commonwealth U) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.Some Federation starship classes and names that an online neural network gave me after I fed it two lists of canonical onesEmissary-class starship USS NeurodiversityYugoslavia-class starship USS Games MarketingEye of Commander-class starship USS Mythbusters 

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.