greetings from vacation bungalow alpha, week 1

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's going to be a little shorter today because of a temporary venue change (see below) 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe edit on the last episode we recorded is almost done! All I needed to do was believe in myself!! And also take advantage of a days-long lull in internet connectivity!!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 WARPAssuming there's a vaccine for kids under 5 by then, which let's face it is probably a stretch but we are choosing to live in optimism, Instant Band Night 15 will! take! place! on the 24th of March!! (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.Before we moved into the new house back in October, our new landlords told us they had plans to do some earthquake retrofitting on the place and would we be okay with it if they put us up in an Airbnb or something? They were happy to work with our schedule and some time ago we landed on, well, the next three weeks, so I'm typing this from the dining table of the Airbnb we're gonna be living in until the work is done.* This house has what I would call good bones, but it's clearly pretty old -- each bedroom has only one electrical outlet as far as I can tell. But it's got space, it's close to our actual house (and hence not too far from Quentin's preschool), and it was within budget for our landlords. Quentin is excited about the bunk bed in his room with the built-in staircase. We've decided we're treating this whole thing as something like a vacation cabin: mostly fit for purpose (including a third bedroom that Mavis will be using as an office, albeit with a card table I brought to use as a desk because there's almost no tables in this entire place), but if there's any cooking to be done, I'm probably going to do it back at home and just bring it over here. I did buy a new Chromecast to plug into the TV on the wall, because damned if we're going to go even one day without the ability to watch the things we want to watch in the evening after the kids have been put to bed!!!! We can make a home anywhere!!!!!!* Technically, there was nothing stopping us from staying in the house while they did it, but it would be dusty and noisy and all of us agreed it would be a suboptimal environment for a tiny baby. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin's learning about categories of things. For instance, he's worked out that he and his parents are the only people in the house who have teeth in their mouths, as opposed to Felix who currently does not. This means that he'll occasionally observe that the people with teeth are sitting down to dinner, or ask if the people with teeth can play a board game.* Sure, buddy! Sure.* We got Chutes & Ladders for Xmas and recently we managed to finish a whole game of it! 

Fascination Corner

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.The actual demographics of the Jan 6 insurrectionists are extremely sobering. (Slate)You know what, why not pair that with another highly unsettling read about election deniers running to oversee elections? (NPR)The Republican party, its policies, and all the people who represent it absolutely suck shit; why aren't they worried about being visibly unpopular? (538)Those stupid monkey NFTs keep getting stolen and it will never stop being hilarious. (Highsnobiety)Speaking of cryptohilarity, please enjoy this thread from Molly White (who we've heard from before) on the incredibly idiotic crypto island scam(???). (Molly White on Twitter)Finally, Laurie Voss, who is a smart person, has a more measured take on the failings (and possible actual potential) of cryptocurrency on his blog. (Seldo)"We Ranked a Bunch of IPAs Because We Needed a Personality and It Was This or Car Guy" (The Hard Times)Last week's blurb on the efforts of Some Engineers to make an anti-wasp drone linked to the wrong article, so here's the right one because you deserve it. (The Mainichi)The Scientists have run a study using an fMRI that seems to indicate dogs can tell when you're speaking a different language from the one you usually use with them. (Eötvös Loránd University via EurekAlert) (Paper)Here's a detailed investigation of an app specifically developed to help subvert democracy in India through various forms of social media spoofing. (The Wire)What would it take to send life -- any life -- across the truly vast expanse of interstellar space? (UCSB) (Paper)This article is still good even if you didn't read the thing it discusses. "Have We Forgotten How to Read Critically?" (Dame) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumSelfish Planet, You Have Fun With That(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.