Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that both does and doesn't want to contemplate too closely the miracle of chemistry that allows zero sugar sodas to be zero calorie (yes I know sugar is calories, but you're telling me all the sugar-replacement compounds in here that make the fucking flavor add up to zero metabolically????)

You'll Like This

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

Instant Band Night 33: BANDSGIVING

If you miss Instant Band Night already, and it's understandable if you do, don't worry: it will return in November, and you can secure your ticket and put it on your calendar right now; feel the warm glow of security fill the space in your heart where music and creativity and surprise live. And if you've never been before, this will be the perfect opportunity to see what all the fuss is about!! Come play or just watch; as always, it'll be like nothing else you've experienced.

✨🪩✨
Nov 13 2025
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

💸🐰 In this house we believe in a truly crazy discount 🐰💸

Oh you think this is a game? You think this is a fuckin' GAME?? [clears everything off your desk in one sweeping gesture] You don't think I'll put everything on even more sale?!?! I RUN THIS TOWN

I made a bunch of weird little guys and now they're all gone, but there are still some really good ones left, anywhere from 50-70% off! Get these out of my house and into your house!! Or garden!! Or the houses or gardens of friends of yours with excellent taste. Go see what's what!

Idea Factory Giveaway

I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after three+ 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.

I have an update for you on the story of my weird little guys, but it'll keep for another week; suffice to say there's a reason why the shop sold out of the bunnies in about 24h. Instead, this will be the second issue within a month's time where I have a highly specific gripe about the weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay area!!!

I feel like other places I've lived had a more consistently hot summer. Right? Where it just kind of hovered around 80 from June to August and there were occasional summer rainshowers, even a thunderstorm or two; this is what summer is like in my memories of Syracuse and Pittsburgh.

That is not the kind of summer we have in the Bay. Especially this summer, where it's been hovering instead around 70 and is just kind of nice all the time, but there's no rain to speak of. So nobody has AC. When it does get hot — and it does get hot — it happens in bursts that last maybe three days, tops. These will become more common up through about October; we're entering the peak of just such a heatwave today as you read this (90??), and then it's going back down to 70 tomorrow. Which is a logistical pain in the ass: do we break out the in-room AC for the kids or not? It's annoying to install, and indeed I have a whole different idea about where to put it this time around that involves some up-front effort to the tune of putting up a curtain rod and taking a shutter door off a hinge, but it should work.

But is it worth it for just one day? Especially considering the variety of heatwave we're getting right now is "hot days/cool nights" such that the window fan we've had in the kids' room for months does a pretty decent job pulling cool air in? Clearly not. But the odds of us getting hot nights are going up, and if there are wildfires then we can't rely on pulling cool air in from outside (indeed, we can't pull any air in at all). These are the kinds of things you have to consider when you live here!! Would I trade it for more consistent heat where just about everyone has AC installed as a matter of course? Also no, honestly!!

#dadthoughts

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

I have an assortment of about 18 recipes that I've got pretty much at my fingertips and can reliably make pretty well for dinner, but I'm starting to feel the need to expand my repertoire. The idea I have is to try making something new at least once a month; in order to make this happen I must first bring three (3) candidates to the family that will be winnowed down to a single champion for production. Repeat this process every month and after a year I should have a dozen more (or less) additions to the list of regulars! I'm hoping this works better than "the kids come home to discover their dad has made something entirely new and unfamiliar" — the way I've envisioned it, I'll at least have some up-front buy-in. Indeed, I gave it a shot today and this one-pan ditalini with peas was the clear winner with the boys among the candidates I put forth.

Here's what I'm wondering, though: what do you make regularly that you like a lot? Can I give it a shot? Consider this your invitation to pepper me (heh) with recipe links; my only suggested parameters are as follows:

• Single-pan preferred but not required

• No seafood

• No mayo

My kitchen and my childrens' palates thank you in advance!

Fascination Corner

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

• Fucking Christ: vaccination rates have been declining across the country for the last six years. (NBC News)

• The Scientists are still debating the mirror life question and I kinda feel like maybe we shouldn't be fucking around with it until we have labs on asteroids that we can just shove into the sun if things go really wrong. Nahmean? (Nature)

• I'm glad Some Engineers are thinking hard about the space junk problem. (IEEE Spectrum)

• California's solar canal pilot project is online and it sounds like there's at least one more coming; kick ass. (Canary Media)

• OpenAI has been trying to figure out how to stop The Machine from lying and scheming and at least part of their conclusions thus far say "trying to teach it to stop scheming is just going to make it learn how to scheme better" — I think I need to give this paper a read, it sounds like a hoot. (TechCrunch) (Paper)

• Gravity bends light; this is known. Sometimes we're lucky enough to get a view where an object's image gets split into four copies arrayed like a + around a gravity well; they call that an Einstein cross. The Scientists were baffled when an Einstein cross with a bonus fifth image showed up in their telescopes: what does it mean???? (Rutgers U via Science Daily) (Paper)

• The Scientists have mapped the connectome of the nerve net inside comb jellies that lets them figure out which way they're pointing, which is interesting since they don't have eyes. (The Transmitter) (Paper)

• Nobody thinks about cybersecurity in fucking space but they should!! (IEEE Spectrum)

• We've detected 6000 exoplanets so far. (Universe Today)

• I've never thought about this, but abandoned oil and natural gas wells are significant emissions sources, and The Scientists think we can cap them with bio-oil from crop waste, which would be a 2-for-1 solution. Sounds good to me! (Anthropocene) (Paper)

• Not all heroes etc etc: the folks behind climate.gov, which was shitcanned by you-know-who, are working to revive it at a new home. (NPR)

• Life aboard this one cable repair ship operating off the coast of Africa sounds rewarding; good for them, honestly. (Rest of World)

• There's a hard limit on how big we can design wind turbines to be, and it's not for the reason you might think. (IEEE Spectrum)

• SharkNinja works unsurprisingly hard on their R&D. (Sherwood News)

• No more Sydney Sweeney Discourse; the final piece has been written. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you!! (The Lamp)

• Let's all listen to a recreated Corythosaurus voice together. (Science Alert)

• Would I wear a little Disney stuffy perched on my shoulder out in public? Prrrrrrrrrobably not? Would I respect it more than a Labubu? Maaaaaaaaaaybe? (Guardian)

• The Scientists have discovered that zapping industrial food waste with electricity makes it break down into useful chemicals faster and better than if we just leave it alone. Okay! (Ohio State)

• A new mouse study shows real promise in using stem cells to treat strokes. (U of Zurich) (Paper)

• The Jimmy Dubs has spotted a bunch of "steam world" exoplanets that have water but orbit too close to their stars for it to be liquid, which results in some truly crazy-sounding shit. (UC Santa Cruz) (Paper)

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:

No reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think sounds like Company Flow but with nastier buzzsaw waveforms abounding in the instrumentals.

ADDENDUM: I'm thinking of doing a Reader Submission Month for band/album/artwork combos! Feel free to send something in; just tell me how you want to be credited!

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. If you received this as a forward and would like to subscribe yourself, you can do it at the bottom of this page right here (which also has the archive)!