Instant Band Night 7-11 is in TWO DAYS

July 08, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that wonders if watching a lot of classic Monster Factory on YouTube because it's "soothing" is a sign of something deeply weird or what. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway114 - Hewwo??"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Kate (@keightdee) bring to light a veritable treasure trove of ideas for civic improvement, celebration, and technological advancement before highlighting our first-ever listener-submitted idea."You're gonna want a refresher on this extremely important article before you start this episode. I love these people and I love making this dumb, amazing show. Also, we coin a term that I still like a lot, "anthropocentric utilitarianism" -- I promise it'll make sense when you get to it.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).Instant Band Night 7-11✨ IT'S ✨🎶 THIS 🎶🍡 THURSDAY 🍡🎸😎 SEE YOU THERE 😎🎸 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Reply to this if you've already watched Stranger Things season 3, because I have QUESTIONS and we might as well chat about it over electronic-mail instead of just yelling into the void!!!! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.I want the following incredibly dumb (for many reasons) thing on record, namely that while you can get a TNG-era Starfleet uniform onesie for a baby, you can't get a longsleeve shirt in size 2T with the same pattern. Kid clothing manufacturers: that sound you hear is money being left on the table, by you.The only other thing that's going on is that Quentin has entered a period of exceeding preciousness, and this must be documented: 

  • He says "ba-bye!" with increasing regularity when people leave the apartment, or when he's being picked up at the end of his daycare. 

  • While he's entirely capable of pronouncing the letter B, he still refers to his favorite stuffed bunny as "munny." It's his favorite, so he holds onto it a lot, and requests it frequently, particularly when discomfited. Sometimes this means during a diaper change, so it sounds like he's just shouting for money while having a new diaper put on, which is weirdly hilarious. 

  • On weekdays, Mavis gets up earlier than I do, so she's there for him when he wakes up and starts his morning. This means I get woken up by my bedroom door swinging open and Quentin toddling inside chanting "Daddy" an hour or so later. 

  • Just today I saw him walking around with a plastic toy mug, pretending to drink from it and saying "coffee" repeatedly, a direct and adorable result of observing mornings with Mom 5x a week. 

  • If it's getting close to bedtime and we ask if he wants to sleep, sometimes he'll collect his bunny, walk into his bedroom, and flop down bodily onto the change of PJs we've laid out.

Kids: they're super precious. Who knew?!?! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Even if the carbon sequestration benefits are overstated, surely there aren't many downsides to planting a fuckton of trees everywhere? (Vox) 

  • Facebook actually does have people who are working on improving user morale, believe it or not. (Fortune) 

  • Speculating on alien life as a scientist runs you the risk of being labeled a kook, which is weird, given what we seem to be finding out about space these days. (Undark) 

  • A short but extremely thought-provoking Twitter thread. (link) 

  • Why are octopuses so smart? Is it because they're squishy and defenseless? (Atlantic) 

  • Minnesota's getting ready to pay people to grow bee-friendly lawns. (Smithsonian) 

  • Bacteria have been fooling around with electricity this whole fucking time!!! (NYT) 

  • Deep learning theoretically makes it possible for you to cobble a robot together out of literally any bullshit you can find on the ground and have it teach itself how to walk. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • The Animal-AI Olympics is on, and the categories are super interesting! (website) 

  • There are way more wasp super-nests in Alabama than usual. Let's just quarantine the whole fucking state, how about? (NYT) 

  • Tiny temporary houses for the homeless. (Fast Company) 

  • I want to remind everyone that RentAFriend is literally a thing we saw in Maniac on Netflix (Vox) 

  • Transporting bees is more complicated than I thought, but then again I never gave it much thought before I read this article. Huh. (Jalopnik) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumSatanic Mountain, The Scream Unending 

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.