Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that wishes JUST ONE snack manufacturer would think to put the Dorito dust on blue corn tortilla chips (ostensibly better for prediabetics) instead of the regular kind!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.

Instant Band Night 28: LATER

Ordinarily this is the spot where I'd tell you about the upcoming Instant Band Night in September, but we're skipping it and headed straight for the November one instead. So mark your calendar for the 14th of November and get ready for an explosion of musical joy the likes of which you've never seen in your life (unless you've been to Instant Band Night before, in which case you probably have, but the sheer genius of Instant Band Night (if I do say so myself) is that it's different every time with every band by design)!!! Ticket link (including handy FAQ) is right here (as well as below) for convenient forwarding to your top-tier friends.

Nov 14 2024
6p
$10
East Bay Community Space
507 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 YOU

Update! Excellent new tardigrades! Chaos mushrooms! Plus the rest of the almost aggressively whimsical, playfully intelligent catalog you may or may not have come to know already, perfect for yourself or a highly discerning friend in your life: there has never been a better time than now.

Idea Factory Giveaway

I 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.

This is a placeholder to remind me to tell you all about my latest ceramic build next week, which I would love to do when I have the energy to so much as pick an apple up off a table; Labor Day weekend was good but exhausting.

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.

It's been an action-packed 3-day weekend and thus I am worn the fuck out. A trip to the Tilden Steam Train! Two playdates! Playtime at Grandma's! So many french fries! And thus do we bid these last three days farewell; may you all have a wondrous week.

Fascination Corner

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

• "Confiscate Their Money: Taxing billionaires out of existence must become a mainstream idea." He's right and he should say it. (How Things Work)
  

• What does your favorite film genre say about the way your brain works? (Martin Luther U) (Paper)
  

• The Scientists have made what seems like a real fuckin' breakthrough on actually recycling plastics. (UC Berkeley)
  

• Here's an overview of some intriguing options for cooling off our cities. (Nature)
  

• Of course our foods have their own microbiomes; what's in there, though? (Cell Press via Science Daily) (Paper)
  

• Speaking of food, chefs and The Scientists are collaborating on using fungus to turn food waste into tasty treats, and some of them sound ...... good?? (UC Berkeley) (Paper)
  

• Children are actually pretty good about cooperating to achieve a common goal even if it means they don't get all the benefit they would've if they'd stayed selfish, at least according to one new study. (U of Plymouth) (Paper)
  

• The Scientists have found sets of footprints from the same dinosaur on opposite sides of the Atlantic goddamn Ocean, made (obviously) before the continents split apart. (CNN)
  

• "Seeking Mavis Beacon: the search for an elusive Black tech hero: New documentary looks for a woman who was synonymous with typing in the 80s and 90s, with surprising results" (Guardian)
  

• Those lumps of rock on the bottom of the ocean making oxygen are also setting off a line of thought for The Scientists considering life in the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus and who the hell knows how many other moons. (BU)
  

• Fellow parents, here's an answer to "why won't this kid just focus on [task]???" (Ohio State)
  

• Male fruit flies' brains disregard signs of imminent physical danger the closer they get to sex, and The Scientists are wondering whether this dopamine-powered mechanism is also present in us. (U of Birmingham) (Paper)
  

• Some Biomedical Engineers report astonishing results from something they call the Diadem Device that uses ultrasound to buzz the parts of the brain responsible for chronic pain; they're setting up for Phase 3 clinical trials right now. (U of Utah) (Paper)
  

• All right! Okay! A big new study sought to conclusively figure out whether videogames make brain better, and you know what? Yes. Yes!! But don't take my word for it, just read "Causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan 2020–2022". (Osaka U) (Paper)
  

• Let's all get critter cams right now. (BBC)
  

• Obviously it's a real job, but the title "medical scribe" is still hilariously medieval-sounding for a role that provides demonstrable concrete benefits to doctors and patients. (U of Maryland School of Public Health)
  

• Is it harder to be a teen these days? Pew Research decided to ask some. And also their parents. It's an interesting survey! (Pew Research)
  

• The Machine could conceivably help predict earthquakes months ahead of time, say The Scientists. (U of Alaska Fairbanks) (Paper)
  

• We're overestimating the health of global fish populations, which is a Problem if those estimates are being used to advise policymakers (hint: they are). (Anthropocene) (Paper)
  

• I feel like I read a similar piece along these lines recently, but the appeal of souvenirs really is unshakable. (Afar)
  

• "Excavating a Language at the End of the World: How an old dictionary is revealing new perspectives on an Indigenous culture." (Nautilus)
  

• The Scientists have a pretty good guess as to where love lives in the brain. (Aalto U) (Paper)
  

• A recent survey shows that Americans feel a deep connection to nature and worry about protecting it while feeling powerless to actually do so. (The Conversation)
  

• New research indicates that when you're having a stressful time, hope works better than mindfulness. (NC State) (Paper)
  

• This is definitely one way to get the absolute last word in an argument over the design of a building. (The Art Newspaper)
  

• Analysis of census data from 2020 says there are same-sex couples living in just about every county in the US in what The Scientists observe as a dispersal of dudes moving out of the gayborhood and into, well, everywhere else (lagging behind the lesbians who've been doing this for a while, it would seem). Okay! (PhysOrg)
  

• Look at this archive of cassette tape design. Which one was your guy? I think my XL II S purchases kept the Maxell company in business singlehandedly in the 90s. (tapedeck)

A Fictional Thing

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

A band and their album

(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:

According to reader Lauren, "Sexual Contact's seminal 2007 album "Our Rules Are Not Your Rules" provided drippy, lugubrious electro-pop to tens of fans in the Cleveland rave scene during the late aughts. No one knew any of the members and they refused to talk to any concert attendees. Instead, the five members disappeared backstage, changed out of their silver jumpsuits into nondescript street clothing, and took off in a variety of unremarkable vehicles after every show. This album is in fact just a performance recording burned off a strawberry colored iMac and distributed surreptitiously by someone claiming to be a 'super fan' at the final public performance of the group."

Alternate universe music critic Steve reckons "the vibe of Sexual Contact is 'wholly and unnecessarily sexual'. This is an album that thinks 'I want to fuck you like an animal'-era Nine Inch Nails is vacillating and bowdlerised. This is an album that makes even people who are proud of how much sex they and their very horny polycule are having go 'woah that's a bit much', and fan themselves and think maybe we should open a window."

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.