Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that will probably go out on the front porch after putting this newsletter to bed to see if the smell of petrichor from the very light drizzle we had a few hours ago is still out there

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 had to deal with a poop situation (see #dadthoughts below) so I've got to sacrifice this section this week; rest assured it will return next week with a mildly interesting tale to tell.

#dadthoughts

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

I now assume I'm experiencing some sort of karmic rebalancing for the crowing I did back when Felix figured out that he could put his poop in the potty at nighttime after he'd been put to bed but before he actually fell asleep. This happened many times! But pretty much ever since preschool started, he seems to have stopped paying attention and simply let fly into his nighttime pull-up — which admittedly is what the pull-up is for, but the cleanup is significantly worse for all of us. He's still great at daytime pooping, we just have to figure out how to reconnect that conceptual circuit for him at night. I've asked what's going on and he always says some variant of "I was busy and I forgot," so clearly there's a lot happening in his mind during that post-bedtime/pre-sleep interregnum. "Listen to your body," I tell him; eventually it'll sink in, I hope. It did the first time, anyway!

Recipe Nook

I can report that this one-pan ditalini with peas that I linked last week was a real winner with the whole family, and we're adding it to the regular rotation forthwith! I might try beefing it up (heh) with some sliced andouille sausage instead of the salami in the recipe (I used pepperoni), which was weirdly rejected by both kids despite them eating slices of pepperoni with lunch extremely often.

Just to test it out, my friend Avery and I tried our hands at a vegan General Tso — the tofu was prepped according to this recipe from Minimalist Baker, and the sauce from epicurious (although we did add some cornstarch). Pretty good!!

Fascination Corner

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

• Well, here comes the imperial boomerang, everybody. (How Things Work)

• People old enough to remember the heyday of the Dave Matthews Band might also recall that there used to be a lot more bugs everywhere; it turns out they're also disappearing from relatively pristine environments, which is ................ concerning. (UNC Chapel Hill via Science Daily) (Paper)

• Initial announcements of a breakthrough treatment for Huntington's disease sound pretty damn fantastic. (BBC)

• How will we know when artificial general intelligence is here? No, really. (IEEE Spectrum)

• "The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem: Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it" (The Walrus)

• After accounting for other factors, it would appear The Scientists have found a correlation between eating more fruit and absorbing less pollution from the air. (European Respiratory Society via Science Daily)

• Trying to figure out how badly hospital patients with spinal cord injuries are hurt and whether they'll survive is tough, but The Machine (Analytical Flavor) can make surprisingly good predictions based solely on routine periodic blood tests the hospital does anyway. (U of Waterloo via Science Daily) (Paper)

• I had no idea the protesters were doing this (nor have I consumed One Piece yet) but I love it. (The Conversation)

• Two different species of mushrooms appear to have independently evolved two completely different ways to create psilocybin, and The Scientists aren't sure why. (Leibniz Inst via Science Daily) (Paper)

• Ultrasonic knife? Does this guy not have a Star Wars book nerd in his life who could've told him the term vibroblade? (GeekWire)

• Animal-based industries throw away billions of tons of hair and feathers and whatnot; Some Chemical Engineers have figured out a way to maybe recycle all of that stuff into useful materials without poisoning everybody. (Harvard Engineering) (Paper)

• Speaking of upcycling, The Scientists have worked out how to make a common drug precursor from wood waste instead of petroleum, and as a bonus it's cheaper and more effective! (UMaine)

• "Workslop" is a word you're probably going to hear a lot from now on. (~$Harvard Business Review)

• Being primarily trained in Western contexts, The Machine is predictably ill-equipped to handle something like Persian social etiquette. (Ars Technica)

• Sure, the Kimmel thing was a loss for Trump, but we have to keep watching the other shit he's doing and stay frosty. (Democracy Americana)

• Here are 21 insights from a painter who professionally observes weddings. (skin contact)

• Simulations that try to grasp the brain-breaking immensity of the universe used to need a supercomputer, but The Scientists have built and tested a Machine-powered emulator (Analytical Flavor) that can run comfortably on a regular-ass laptop. (Sissa Medialab via Science Daily) (Paper)

• At least the sharks are having a good time down there, y'know? (U of the Sunshine Coast)

• Have an interesting longread about a guy who built a business around cleaning truly horrifying messes. (Guardian)

• Why rely on bone to heal fractures when you can have Bone-02, an oyster-inspired injectable adhesive that works in literally minutes?? (Interesting Engineering)

• Those "hycean" exoplanets we found may not actually be what we thought they were. (ETH Zurich) (Paper)

• I'll admit Snooper isn't really my thing musically, but this aesthetic is great. (It's Nice That)

• Zach Weinersmith is going to get in trouble for exposing the feline endgame. (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

• The Scientists have run tests that prove spraying nanoscale selenium on rice makes it grow way better and more nutritious with less fertilizer and more carbon uptake, but uhhhh how easy is it to get nanoscale selenium??? (UMass Amherst)

• Some Engineers have created a new building material that just uses soil, water, and cardboard, and it rules. (RMIT) (Paper)

• The Scientists confirm Taylor Swift's accent has changed over the course of her career, which probably isn't surprising anyone. (Nature) (Paper)

• What if you could destroy allergens in your house by shining a UV light in the room? New research suggests it's at least possible! (U of Colorado Boulder) (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'm pretty sure sounds like a version of Orbital from a parallel universe where dubstep was invented at least two decades sooner.

DON'T FORGET: 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)!