in which we ponder sources of minor healing spells

May 18, 2020

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's giving a shoutout to Little Debbie Strawberry Shortcake Rolls for being there for those of us who have the fortune to be bathed in the light of their gaze. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway139 - Corgi TowerJon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Amy ponder a worthy arrangement of notions for education, travel, consumer products, and at least one story idea ripe for the taking.Never has an episode whipsawed so violently between mildly terrifying and utterly adorable mental imagery as we have done here, but perhaps that's to be expected when Amy (who's rapidly ascending the list of Idea Factory Giveaway MVPs) ends up in the mix.Don't forget to rate us ✨✨✨✨✨ on Apple Podcasts if you feel like being an amazing human!Instant Band Night 15: POSTPONEDWe here at the main office are holding out hope that July 9 will turn out to be a viable date for this, the long-awaited 15th installment of Instant Band Night, but if not, we'll see you in September.Facebook event's still up, too, because why not* * s t a y   h o m e   / /   s t a y   h e a l t h y * * 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I've been staring at this section of the newsletter for going on five minutes now, and I've got nothing. I don't know what that's indicative of.Actually, wait. You know what? I want to know if you've experienced a dip in quality in your favorite brand of toilet paper. This started sometime in the era BQ (Before Quar), at least to the best of my knowledge: the Angel Soft TP is markedly worse now. It's gone pillowy-soft and seems to have roughly half the tensile strength it used to. Yet the packaging doesn't say anything about "Improved Texture!" or whatever; it's just shittier (hyar har har). It's taken me a long time to accept this, but we just returned to it after a little while away (grocery shopping in chaos times; you know how it is) and the facts are unavoidable: it's bad now. Why. Who did this. Have you noticed something similar with your TP? Speak, and I will listen.Also, why is it that I can only buy Sweet Tarts in the big bags when there's a holiday that forces them to be sold in funny shapes? Valentine hearts for the obvious day, chicks and bunnies for Easter, skulls and whatnot for Halloween. The rest of the year, you can only get 'em in those little packs, or rolls at the movie theatre (who the hell's going to one of those right now, though), or boxes. Boxes! Inadequate I tell you: the ideal purchase amount of Sweet Tarts is those big bags you can empty into a Mason jar and just have sitting on a shelf for whenever you want 'em. I'm just sayin'. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin gets the occasional booboo. He'll pinch a finger in something or smack something unexpectedly or whatnot; it happens.❤ 80% of the time, he wants Mavis to kiss whatever got hurt to make it better🎃 19% of the time, I am sufficient for this purposeI'm not sure if I should assign the remainder the full 1% because I've only seen it happen once, but I did see it: Quentin whacked his hand on something, but for whatever reason, he had Bunny very close by, and instead of going to any of us, he put Bunny's face to the hurt hand and made Bunny kiss it better. It was so adorable I died. I'm dead; you're reading the writings of a ghost. Thank you. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • How about some very good, very real talk about the future of college and the American experience overall? (~$Intelligencer) 

  • There are three things the WHO recommends a country should have before it reopens; guess which ones we don't have? All of them? Is it all of them? (Science Alert) For the record, here's specifically where our fucking clown-ass government has fallen directly on their ass. (Vox) 

  • If you think you keep seeing the same squirrels and birds and whatnot out your window, you're probably not imagining things. (The Conversation) 

  • Look, here's the thing: anybody writing an article like this one on "How to Crisis-Proof Our Food System" that contains the words "with a few policy adjustments" needs to acknowledge that they're writing fantasy and throw some dragons and zombies in there, because fuck it. At least recording the things that need doing will be useful if/when we tear this motherfucker down and rebuild the whole thing. (Politico) 

  • Inflatable e-scooter!!! I want this and I do not apologize to you or any other. I don't care if it's a prototype. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • If you haven't already bookmarked this, here's a good writeup on the transmission risks of the rona as we currently understand them, with some real numbers and characteristics around droplets in particular. (Dr. Erin Bromage) 

  • Scientists have invented a virus-repellent coating for textiles that survives the wash cycle, but still need to (a) test it on coronaviruses (b) figure out how to scale it. Of course. (Pitt) 

  • Trying to do school at home has shown us there are a lot of things about it that need changing. (EdSurge) 

  • Behavioral science could help us contain the rona. (Scientific American) 

  • Fucking hell: "The Real Bailout is Happening on GoFundMe." (Jezebel) 

  • If you read any non-rona-related interview this week, make it this one, which argues (pretty convincingly) that it's beyond ridiculous from a scientific standpoint that we aren't investigating UFOs with any kind of rigor. (Vox) There's a paper linked from this article that gets into some politico-philosophical business I only 2/3 understand at best, but it's still interesting reading. (Sage Journals) 

  • "Our cities are broken because affluent Americans have been segregating themselves from the poor, and our best hope for building a fairer, stronger nation is to break down those barriers." ($NYT) 

  • Here are four tools for "self-nudging" to make it easier for ourselves to make better choices. (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) 

  • There are fewer antivaxxers on Facebook than sane people, but they're much more active than we are, which is: a problem. (GWU) 

  • How's the Spotify "tip jar" been working out for musicians? (Vice) 

  • People who got PTSD trying to moderate Facebook content will start to get at least some sort of basic help; they had to get the company's ass dragged into court to make it happen, but hey, at least it's something. (The Verge) 

  • We need a verbal shorthand for what our rona-avoidance protocol has been as we start to think about seeing other humans again at some point; I'm definitely an 85-percenter. (Washingtonian) 

  • This Fury Road oral history is good, actually, which in hindsight was probably a no-brainer given how fantastic the movie was. ($NYT) 

  • Halfway through the month and I've burned through almost all my free Atlantic clicks, but what the hell. "Quarantine Fatigue Is Real: Instead of an all-or-nothing approach to risk prevention, Americans need a manual on how to have a life in a pandemic." (~$Atlantic) 

  • I've put a lot of NY Times articles in here, but that's just what's happening. This one's a collection of submissions from parents who are all riding the struggle bus with us; take heart or just wince along. ($NYT) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumIntegrated Camera, Calm in the Face of Death 

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.