happy Tuesday

May 30, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that still isn't really back on Twitter and thinks idly about never returning 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe thing about having a 4yo and a baby who doesn't yet sleep through the night is that you can't put them in the same room together overnight, and it's also not possible to put yourself in the room with him without causing even more sleep complications. Long story short, we're sleeping in the office (the house's third and possibly actual master bedroom, considering it has the attached half bath) on the pull-out couch, which is also where my computer is, so the edit on the last episode we recorded (which admittedly was last year) still isn't quite complete. But it'll get there someday!As of the time of this writing, there are still not only 43 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings, but someone managed to slip past the perimeter and enter another lovely review, which I only just saw now! Whoever you are, you have not only our thanks but our favor should we ascend to the throne. The rest of you: a new standard has been set!!Instant Band Night 15: TIME WARPFor real, though, we're doing this on July 14th. You must be vaxxed and boosted to get in the door. If you've got kids under 5 and they haven't been able to be vaccinated by then, maybe give this one a miss, though. (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.I don't have a lot for you in this space because, well, we had that week we all had, and then there was a long weekend and now I'm feeling behind getting this issue out the door — in point of fact I literally am behind on that, so it's not just a feeling! HahaHA!!! Anyway, that's the kind of week I've had; I sincerely hope yours has been better. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.I'm just gonna put some links in here that you may or may not find useful if you've got kids, because we live in Hell World.Common Sense Media on explaining the news to our kids (Common Sense Media)What to say to kids when the news is scary (NPR)Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers (Natl Assoc of School Psychologists)A whole website's worth of content on trauma and grief (Child Mind Institute)If you'd like to do something, I found it soothing to throw money at one of the Future Now projects — the more Republican shitbags we can eliminate from all levels of office, the greater our chances of enacting something resembling sane gun control. (Future Now) 

Fascination Corner

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

  • This'll be the only Uvalde-related news item in this section, which is convenient because it's actually a compendium of three pieces on our gun violence problem. (The Conversation) 

  • Some Engineers are still working on wireless power transmission. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • We're getting to the point where computers can help us design things — sometimes even making better stuff! — but the tradeoff is we feel less creative power. Huh. (Aalto U) 

  • Perhaps relatedly: that new Google image-generating AI sure looks impressive, but it's got the same problems they all do. (~$MIT Technology Review) 

  • Who wants a look at the tiniest robot crab ever built? (Northwestern U) 

  • The Scientists are starting to think binary star systems could be plausible places to look for life, which: what. (U of Copenhagen) 

  • Some Engineers have created a cheap gel film that can pull 6L of water out of the air per day. (UT Austin) 

  • "Native Societies Harvested Billions of Oysters Sustainably: Conservationists should look to Indigenous history to fix the future." (Atlas Obscura) 

  • At least one scientist has tried to do a preliminary estimate of how many evil alien civilizations might exist out in the galaxy, but I don't understand why he didn't incorporate the Drake Equation into his calculations as far as I can tell. (Vice) (Paper) 

  • We've been living in a productivity tech boom; why aren't we more productive, then? ($NYT) 

  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, anything with a chip in it is about to get more expensive. (CNBC) 

  • The Scientists have made a machine learning tool that can listen to audio of the ocean and identify the animals it hears. (Science Alert) 

  • "Economic Disobedience: What Is It and How Does It Work?" (Teen Vogue) 

  • Seems obvious once you look at it: we throw away way, way too many metals, and it'd be better for the long-term habitability of the planet if we started reusing them instead. (Nature) 

  • Some Engineers used maple seeds as design inspiration for a two-bladed spinning robot that can hover in place for nearly half an hour on a single charge. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • According to a recent study, just being exposed to new things makes you more receptive to learning new stuff. (Ohio State) 

  • The Scientists have used computers to basically raid the weapon libraries of bacteria to create a synthetic antibiotic that's done surprisingly well in mice tests. (Rockefeller U) 

  • Computer chips that mimic the way neurons work are way more energy-efficient than the usual kind. (Graz U of Tech) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumCall Again Sunday, Disaster Clone Discount(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me what you think one or all of these bands sound 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.