in the lair of the wizard baby

January 14, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that needs at least one or two more people to start listening to The Adventure Zone so it has someone with whom to shout about it on a semi-regular basis. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway94 - Daft Punk Wedding"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Rachel (@rachelbinx) excavate some exceptional notions for improving Netflix, paper products we all need, building blocks for grownups, and a unique wedding concept."I don't know why I didn't share that the friend who worked at the Joy Cone factory was in fact none other than the marvelous Chris Rugen, who appeared in episodes 85 and 71 of the show. If you haven't yet, subscribe by searching "Idea Factory Giveaway" in your podcatcher of choice (and let me know if it doesn't pop up). If you're already there, feel free to leave a 5-star rating and a nice review (it helps; algorithms, etc, you know the deal). Honestly, it would make a great New Year's resolution, if only because it'd be easy to do, and then boom! You've already completed your New Year's reso! Nicely done.Instant Band Night 9: PI DAYI wanted to give you a heads-up as early as possible that Instant Band Night 9 is literally happening on Pi Day. The crowd at Instant Band Night 8 was talking about bringing pies. You can draw your own conclusions, but as far as I can tell, come Pi Day we're going to:- Eat pie- Play music- Listen to musicOr whatever combination of those three most appeals to you. LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN.Instant Band Night, in case you've already forgotten, is a party where musicians who've just met form bands on the spot -- you can join in as you like, or just watch what happens!(1)The first rule of Instant Band Night is: 👏 YOU 👏 DON'T 👏 HAVE 👏 TO 👏 PLAY 👏 AN 👏 INSTRUMENT 👏 TO 👏 ATTEND. 👏 Just come watch if you want, because:(2)The second rule of Instant Band Night is: We guarantee you (the audience) an astonishingly excellent time.(3)The third rule of Instant Band Night is: Invite your friends!!!!!!!Here's the rundown:1. The stage has a drum kit, guitar, bass, keyboard, and mics.2. We draw names out of hats to make instant bands that get 7 minutes in the green room to plan a 5-minute set.3. A hat-drawn artist will also take the stage alongside each band to draw their gig poster on a meeting room easel pad.Come play or come watch; either way, it'll be the highlight of your week. FACTS.Thursday March 14 (PI DAY)507 55th St 946098p$5/personBYOB21+Since it's Pi Day, feel free to bring a pie??? (you're not required to, obvs)- Store-bought is fine- Don't forget the plates/forksForward this to anyone you think would have a good time there, or use these Facebook and Eventbrite links if that's more your thing, and* * *  w e ' l l * s e e * y o u * t h e r e * * *~~ Please enjoy this lightly-expanded F.A.Q. ~~Q: Do I need to be a musician to show up?A: No. Absolutely not. Hell no. Come see the show and have a good time; you don't have to get onstage.Q: I'm a musician; am I guaranteed a slot in a band?A: We literally draw names written on slips of paper out of coffee cans, so there's a chance you may not be called; in a purely mathematical sense, it's a function of how many musicians of each type show up that night (there are five musician cans -- DRUMS, GUITAR, BASS, VOX, MISC -- and one can for artists who'll be picked to draw the bands' gig posters). We say: surrender to the spirit of random chance, or maybe slip the MC a bribe of some sort.Q: Do I have to be an amazing musician to throw my name in a can?A: Probably not. Your band's only gonna be onstage for 5 minutes, anyway; how bad can you possibly be?Q: I play an instrument other than what'll be onstage, like the sax or trumpet. Can I bring it?A: Hhhheeeeeelll yyyeeeessssss you can bring it. PLEASE DO. We had a guy bring a bassoon once, and he rocked the living shit out of it -- and, by extension, us. Woodwinds and brass, which tend not to need extra amplification for a space of this size beyond being pointed vaguely at a mic, are most welcome. If your instrument requires an amp, that's cool, but you should get in touch with Jon about showing up early for setup.Q: Do I have to pick my cover tune beforehand?A: Listen. You and your band (who you've JUST MET) have 5 minutes onstage to do whatever the hell you can think of in the 7 minutes prior to walking up there. You wanna try to pick a cover everyone can agree on? Great. You wanna try writing something new? Fantastic; it can definitely be done. You wanna pick a key and tell each other to just fuckin' wing it up there? You are a RAGING PSYCHOPATH and we love it. We'll see you in 7; get in the green room!!!!Q: What does BYOB stand for?A: We don't sell drinks at Instant Band Night, so you gotta bring your own. Get a cheap sixpack of something. Maybe a bottle and some cups. We're not here to godmod how you get down.Q: Is this in the East Bay?A: It is. Do not be alarmed: it's within walking distance of MacArthur BART, and as a bonus, you get to tour the delightful, scenic Temescal district on your way over. Or you could just take a Lyft from SF (or the BART station if you fancy). Got a car? Drive on over; parking around the East Bay Community Space is pretty simple. You can do this. We believe in you.Q: I can't make it, and I feel a little bad about it. Am I good?A: The only cure is to think of a few friends of yours who live in the Bay and enjoy fun, then forward this to them or send them the invite or whatnot. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.There's officially too much TV. All I know is I still haven't been able to sit down and start Killing Eve, and now The Good Place is back, and so is Brooklyn 99, and Netflix KEEPS. MAKING. MORE. SHOWS. I feel like I need to watch at least one episode of the Marie Kondo show just to attain some inner peace, but then I remember there's not one but two documentaries on the Fyre Festival debacle that'll be within reach of me in a matter of days. I know I can watch the Hulu one right now, but you know what else just popped up is True Detective, which had either the decency or the fucking temerity (I can't decide) to release two episodes of its new season right away, and I haven't been able to get to those yet either. It'll actually be kind of a relief if it turns out season 3 is as abysmally dismal and unappealing as season 2, because then I can bounce and never look back, but from what I've heard thus far, it doesn't sound like it is. And holy fucking shit, I just looked it up and Star Trek: Discovery comes back on Thursday?? What I need is the ability to sidestep the timestream for maybe a whole day per week and just catch up on everything without actually missing anything in my life. That oughta be doable, right? Okay, great. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin has started unintentionally hiding things around the apartment, in that he picks objects up and puts them down in odd places and forgets about them, and I have no idea where those places are. Right now I'm looking at a "puzzle" (one of these) that's missing an airplane. Our apartment isn't large, and it's been somewhat reasonably babyproofed in the zones Quentin frequents -- also, we've been living in it for a year and a half, so I'm familiar with all of its little nooks and crannies ............. but I guess I'm not familiar enough, because current experience leads me to predict about a 30% chance at best that the missing airplane will turn up before the end of the week.Mostly it's because of the drum mallet. Quentin has this wooden drum he likes, which comes with a rubber-tipped mallet. One morning I looked up and realized the mallet was gone. And I mean it was fucking gone -- I conducted an intense floor-level scan of the rugs and floors and checked every place I could think of in the living room, kitchen, and Quentin's room (the other rooms are physically closed off to him): 

  • Under couches

  • On shelves

  • Under other furniture

  • Between the cushions

Nothing. I sat down on the couch and looked away for about 10 seconds, and when I looked back up, Quentin had the mallet in his hand. Where'd he pull it from? A pocket dimension? A micro-wormhole?? The fucking astral plane???So I have no idea where the airplane went. We'll find it or we won't, and afterward maybe Quentin will materialize it out of pure imagination-space or whatever it is he does. Your guess is as good as mine! Seriously: you, who have maybe never set foot in or even seen our apartment, have about as much chance of finding this thing as I do, so go ahead and send me a guess if you'd like; maybe you'll get lucky!UPDATE: I wrote all of that last night (I like to put it all into TinyLetter and just hit Send whenever I get up). Guess what Quentin pulled out of thin air this morning???? 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Cheap passive solar desalinators can be a thing, y'all. (Politecnico di Torino via EurekAlert) 

  • Everyone look at IBM's quantum computer! (MIT Technology Review) 

  • I wish Italian Elon Musk was still a thing, because then we could get a good tweet about this gene editing proposal like "Eyyy, I edit a you tomato genome and make a the spicy meatball! Prego!" (Gizmodo) 

  • Life might have begun on land sooner than we thought, according to new fossil evidence. (U of Oregon press release) 

  • We are one glorious step closer to seeing Alex Jones die alone and unmourned in a filthy gutter, America. (ABC News) 

  • Last issue I think I linked to a longread on some more nebulous, futurey dangers of AI, so here's one that lists six we need to think about this year. (MIT Technology Review) 

  • Here's how we're going to feed everyone in the event of a nuclear winter. (80000 Hours) 

  • The "skills gap" was and is total fucking bullshit, and there's data to prove it. (Vox) 

  • Anybody got a lazy cat they want to see exercise more? (New Atlas) 

  • There are things the US could be doing to prevent extremist violence that it isn't; here are five examples from Canada, literally the easiest place on the face of the entire planet for America to look, that would help. (Brookings Institute) 

  • Here's a review of a book that argues we shouldn't try to limit screen time for kids -- they're gonna grow up, after all, and screens and digital tools are going to be even more a part of their lives than they were for us, so why not help them get conversant now? (Quartz) 

  • Bacteria on the ISS are evolving, but not to become more dangerous, so: bullet dodged, everybody. (Northwestern via EurekAlert) 

  • I mean, I can kinda see the logic behind making legged robots do last-last-mile package delivery, but I have a feeling this one's going to end up being the actual last job held by organic physical humans. (The Verge) 

  • Damn: that Ocean Cleanup thing is running into some problems (NPR). But if we shift to making plastic out of seaweed, we've got microbes already set up to eat it (Anthropocene). 

  • Did you know there's a glitch in photosynthesis that makes it work less efficiently than it could? (This is a textbook example of how past a certain point, evolution only cares if something works, not if it's great.) Well, scientists fixed it, and the result is a 40% boost in yield. (PhysOrg) 

  • Silicon Valley pledged to break up the boys’ club of investing in 2018. How did it do? Guess. (Recode) 

  • I'm sure this will come as a great shock to all of you, but the whole stupid "let's crowdfund the border wall" thing was a total scam and everybody's getting a refund. It "made" $20M, though, which says something, and that thing is "one of us should set up a crowdfunding campaign to investigate the possibilities of building the wall and walk away with every penny." (The Hill) 

  • Pair these reads together:

    • The economists who predicted the gig economy are forced to admit it never actually materialized. Now fucking what? (Fortune)

    • A town in Illinois decided to make itself the hub of the fulfillment economy and now it's awful. (New Republic) 

  • Supersonic flights might come back? Maybe? (Popular Mechanics) 

  • People over 65 share more fake news. Would online literacy classes help? Is it possible your grandpa's just too set in his ways at that point? Let's see a study on that. (The Verge) 

  • Oh, this ain't good: researchers have been growing cancer cells in growth media that don't really mimic human tissue all that well, and it might, you know, have had an effect on their results???? Jesus (Atlantic). On the other hand, cancer deaths have gone down in the US ............. mostly because of rich people (Quartz). 

  • I didn't know there was an astronomy technology that depended on firing lasers into the sky, and now I want to know what would happen if you aimed them, you know, somewhere else. (SyFy Wire)

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumDollar Shot Wednesday, I Did That For a Reason 

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.