I CREATE LIFE!!!

February 05, 2018

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's quite frankly a little disappointed in the lack of response to last issue's incendiary Dave Matthews Band-related ramble. Are we all simply in universal agreement that "Crash Into Me" is a terrible song, and that my list of contemporaneous replacements was logically unassailable? That's gotta be it.

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway61 - Woke PointsJon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Sarah Harrison (@sourjayne) look into concepts for amusements, photoshoots, neologisms, and even a cryptocurrency.Look, with Bitcoin deflating as I type this, it's time to jump onboard a new cryptocurrency, a different cryptocurrency, a better cryptocurrency, and you know it.You can subscribe using:Apple Podcasts RSS Stitcher Google Play MusicYou can also just go to the website to play or download episodes:https://ideafactorygiveaway.simplecast.fm/

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I have a question for the people out there who saw both Jupiter Ascending and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: which one did you like more? Both of them were gaudy scifi romps that maybe could've used a few more writing passes, but they each had things they did better. Valerian was unquestionably the more visually stunning, and also had a better opening sequence. Jupiter Ascending is just more ridiculous along just about every axis of measurement possible, and for that I have to give it the win, personally. I realize this is controversial; know that I'm not saying Jupiter Ascending is a good movie. It's not. But it is a GREAT movie, to steal a line from someone out there on Twitter. It's got bee/human hybrids, Channing Tatum sporting wolf DNA and flying rollerblades, Eddie Redmayne going full Pac-Man on every inch of available scenery, and did I mention bee/human hybrids. You know how other scifi movies show a future where a grim-ass transnational megacorporation is the force that takes humanity to the stars (Weyland-Yutani, building better worlds)? Jupiter Ascending seems to posit a universe where Gucci and Prada did it instead and then spent 10,000 years refining their designs. I ...... kind of love it? I would have no trouble believing a ship from the Culture might look like that on the inside.* Jupiter Ascending, to me anyway, is as pure a look into the imaginations of the Wachowskis as we're ever going to get, and I salute its willingness to commit to an absolutely fucking bonkers-ass vision. I wish it had a big fat book of concept art and costume design to leaf through; it'd look great on my shelf next to the one for Pacific Rim. I would also accept one for Valerian. Hear me, publishers: you're leaving money on the table. Honestly, the biggest crime in that respect is the fact that we never got one for The Fifth Element. Who let that opportunity slide on by? Can we put them in jail?* This is probably not a new recommendation if you've known me for a while, but still: do yourself a favor and read the Culture novels if you haven't already. Start with The Player of Games and go in order from there.

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.I got Quentin to laugh a couple of times in the past few days and I think I ascended to a higher plane of being momentarily. That's all I've got this week. That, and a question: what are some similar moments to which I can look forward on the same level? Not that I'm getting greedy or anything, I'm just curious.

Fascination Corner

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

So "computational propaganda" is a term with which we should all become familiar very soon.
I know Uber is behind the study and we should all be suspicious, but honestly, their analysis of how self-driving trucks and human truckers are going to end up integrating (at least in the near future) makes a lot of sense to me.
I don't ....... uh ....... how about I just put the headline here and you make your own mind up about whether to click on The idea that everything from spoons to stones are conscious is gaining academic credibility.
Your unsettling Vox read of the week is going to have to be this one on climate change and the compromises necessary to combat it.
There's something quintessentially American about expecting rich people to fix our nightmare of a healthcare system instead of just, you know, looking around at basically any other developed nation and seeing how they handle it.
I don't have a problem with Elon Musk selling flamethrowers to fund his tunneling company; what I want to know is what the fuck does his supply chain look like if he can turn them around that quickly?
I am unsurprisingly 100% OK with a technology that filters the air and then turns the particulates into jewelry.
Da Share Z0ne is making a card game, and I kind of want to play it? I don't know if I want it badly enough to actually buy a copy, because I'm not sure how many people in my immediate surroundings enjoy that account's weirdly specific internet goofus humor, but it might be worth thinking about.
I'm not steeped enough in economic thinking to know whether the World Economic Forum is bullshit, but I like their Medium posts. Case in point: Our food system is broken. Here are 3 ways to fix it, and A leading economist has a plan to heal our fractured societies.
Are there really enough people abandoning the office in favor of small farms to call it a trend?
Whooooooooooo wants to read about a video technique that has serious surveillance implications?
Seriously, though: Uber has problems, but they're out there doing AI research that's legit interesting.
I just wanted to link to this article listing scientific mysteries we have yet to solve in case one or more of them are cracked this year (which seems unlikely, but who knows).
I'm not sure I buy this article's theory of why, but it is interesting to learn that most humans tend to lean to the right when they kiss, regardless of where they were brought up.

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumThe Voice of the Robot, In the Quiet of Your Deepest Thoughts

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.