extending the statute of holiday card limitations

December 25, 2023

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that would love to just sit down and read the excellent books it received for Xmas 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Instant Band Night 24: NEW YEARS BALLEspecially if you don't have actual New Year's Eve plans.Put on an absolutely goddamn fabulous outfit and immerse yourself in the most concentrated and joyful burst of musical creativity in the entire Bay!! There may be a better way to ring in a new year, but if there is, I don't wanna know about it — bring all your friends and let's! fuckin! party!!January 11 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 YOU2023 is coming to an end and there's no reason you should settle for a boring garden, potted plant, or living space! You could have a little statue of a crazy-colored tardigrade, a little guy 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.We still haven't sent our holiday card out but it came back from the printer and it's great. The holiday card is happening. That's still within bounds, isn't it? I mean honestly, I would accept a holiday card from anyone up until Valentine's Day, and probably a week thereafter. It's winter, folks; we gotta get our delights from somewhere. Right?? 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Xmas was a smashing success and now our house is officially full of toys. Nobody make any more toys or anything else purchaseable for the foreseeable future! We're good!Next year is the year we're going to start involving Quentin in the acquisition of presents for others; we're pretty sure he's got a good handle on the appeal of getting gifts, and now it's time to acquaint him with the act of giving. I think it's probably a good sign that he did enjoy participating in the wrapping of Mavis's presents to me while I was out of the downstairs room — he even handled the suspense of knowing what I was going to receive while I most definitely did not reasonably well.In perhaps more pressing news, we've decided to begin Felix's potty learning* this week. We meant to do it at the end of last week, but first Mavis and then I came down with some kind of 24h stomach bug that included the most upsetting bout of utter debilitation I've experienced in recent memory. Now that we have the energy to get up off the couch and perform tasks, we're re-railing onto the latter half of this week. Felix has been "potty curious" for a while now, so .......... hopefully that's a good sign???? It's been long enough since we did this with Quentin that I no longer have a handle on what seems like a reasonable outcome; thoughts and prayers.* I forget what the rationale is for not calling it "potty training" but I'm trying to adhere to it regardless 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "To build a better world, stop chasing economic growth: The year 2024 must be a turning point for shifting policies away from gross domestic product and towards sustainable well-being. Here’s why and how." (Nature) 

  • SEND YOUR NAME TO EUROPA (or technically past Europa; I don't think this guy is actually going to land there). (NASA) 

  • How rich was Kevin's family in Home Alone? (NYT gift link) 

  • This interview with a sociologist on "Why hidden xenophobia is surging into the open" is well worth a read. (Nature) 

  • The cops still aren't showing anybody their bodycam footage. (ProPublica) 

  • Sure, there are cats that play fetch, but they do it on their terms, not ours. (Scientific American) (Paper) 

  • WHAT: The Scientists fed 6 million peoples' worth of health and employment data into The Machine and it spat out predictions for life events and even time of death that they say are "accurate." Let's see what the preprint says!! (Technical U of Denmark) (Paper) 

  • "The Type of Charisma That Saves a Holiday Party: If you have the gift of magnetism, use it for others’ benefit." This article coins the term "vibe pope," bringing to light a kind of partygoer that I know we've all seen in action at one point or another without being able to put a name to it ("the life of the party" is a different role, I think, but I can't quite articulate why). (~$Atlantic) 

  • This year's "horizon scan" of the 15 most pressing conservation issues is interesting! (Cell Press via Science Daily) (Paper) 

  • A good idea: turquoise taillights as an indicator that a car is operating autonomously. (Ars Technica) 

  • NASA's Psyche probe successfully beamed an ultra-HD video across 19 million miles back to Earth; it was a 15sec test clip of an orange cat named Taters, because of course it was. (Guardian) 

  • The Scientists are increasingly sure we should be able to use specifically-mutated bacteria to process rare earth metals instead of whatever Earth-destroying hideousness we're using now. (Cornell) (Paper) 

  • So The Corporations have been going nuts locking all their merch behind those stupid goddamn cabinet doors because of a huuuuuuge rash of theft — except it's all bullshit. You don't say?!?! (Stateline) 

  • Algae might be a reasonable source of eco-friendly protein. (U of Exeter) (Paper) 

  • The line between a habitable Earthlike climate and a Venusian hellworld is distressingly thin. (U of Geneva) (Paper) 

  • It sure looks like bonobos can remember the faces of their friends (and to a lesser extent, former sex pals and even enemies). (Science) (Paper) 

  • The Scientists figured out a way to make thread that mimics polar bear fur and knit a sweater out of it, and it's (unsurprisingly) incredible at insulation. (Nature) 

  • "Missing the feeling of a white Christmas? That might be solastalgia. Finally, a term that explains the sadness of a whole season — and a way of life — melting before our eyes." (Vox) 

  • The Scientists have built a new simulation model for figuring out whether launching a nuke at an incoming asteroid would do anything productive (turns out it might?). (Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab) (Paper) 

  • Some Engineers have worked out a solar tower design that can produce power around the clock. (Anthropocene) 

  • In retrospect, we always thought hyperloops were an infeasibly complicated (stupid) idea from jump. (The Verge) 

  • The Scientists are mulling over sending another message into deep space, which I (as a person who read The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear) have some reservations about!!! (Supercluster) 

  • America's last lighthouse keeper is getting ready to hang up her bonnet. (Hakai) 

  • The top line of this article is about how Tesla drivers have the highest accident rates, but let's not ignore that BMW drivers have the most DUIs (unsurprisingly) and Ram drivers have the most overall incident rates (also perhaps unsurprising). (CNBC) 

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 Silas Schneider 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 Saul Macias on UnsplashNo reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think sounds like early Death Cab, but about 50% more aggressive. 

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.