is this what a regular week feels like

February 12, 2024

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that must unfortunately advocate for taking a stupid walk for your stupid mental health 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Instant Band Night 25: PI DAY 2 (PIE HARDER)You don't have to take my word for it anymore! The Oaklandside did a writeup on Instant Band Night and you can read it right here!!Whether you choose to play in one of the bands or just watch it all unfold, it's a joyful celebration of spontaneous creativity that we could all probably use more of in our lives; also, there'll be pie. Come have pie.March 14 20246p$10East Bay Community Space507 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 YOUNew year, new space! Why settle for a boring garden, potted plant, or domicile when you could have a little statue of a crazy-colored tardigrade, a delightful friend to hold your last fruit, a Star Trek buddy in a party hat, or an Ediacaran life form right now. Take a look and consider some clever ceramics for yourself, for family, or for a dear friend far away.Idea Factory GiveawayI think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after two+ 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.If you enjoy scifi and have (HBO) Max or are conversant with Piracy then I hereby urge you to watch SCAVENGERS REIGN as soon as time and ability allow. I saw it described somewhere as "Miyazaki x Annihilation" and that's not entirely off, honestly. Really I just want more people to watch it in order to increase the chances of some kind of book being made, specifically a compendium of the planet Vesta's entire ecology from top to bottom, because it's fucking wild and every frame of this show convinces me that the people who made it thought very deeply about how the whole thing interacts. I know you did that work!! Someone show it to me!!! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Last week, the kids went to school and daycare and I will never take such a week for granted ever again. I say this now; hold me to it, friends, even years hence. Does school start to become less of a petri dish as kids age? I ask this mostly because I don't really remember my high school years (for instance) being an Eon of Plagues. I'm just sayin'. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Preliminary simulations where The Machine has the key to the nukes have not, uhh, been promising, not that we expected large language models to make actual decisions or anything. (Motherboard) (PDF of paper) 

  • The Scientists have come up with a crazy-sounding but also extremely cool-looking spiral contact lens that works way better than progressives. (Optica) (Paper) 

  • People with depression seem to have higher body temperatures; could simply cooling them down (somewhat ironically by putting them in a sauna) be helpful in any way?? (UCSF) (Paper) 

  • Climate change is going to make hurricanes so strong The Scientists are arguing for the creation of category 6 instead of just stopping at 5. (Lawrence Berkeley Lab) (Paper) 

  • In case you missed it, the Hugo Awards this year were completely fucked and there hasn't been a 100% satisfying explanation, though there are some obvious contenders. (Esquire) 

  • The Scientists once again proclaim that The Machine is doing good work designing new drug molecules that haven't been thought of before. (Chapman U) (Paper) 

  • Focused ultrasound blasting at a particular zone of the brain can reduce pain somewhat but not entirely, which is still pretty damn good for such a noninvasive method. (Virginia Tech) (Paper) 

  • <DJ Khaled voice> Another one! </DJ Khaled voice> It sure looks like Mimas (one of Saturn's moons) is harboring — you guessed it — a subsurface ocean. (Queen Mary U of London) 

  • Initial testing from Some Engineers shows that a single human can theoretically manage a swarm of about 100 drones without flipping their shit. (Oregon State) (PDF of paper) 

  • "We Dare You to Figure Out What Our Nonprofit Does" (McSweeney's) 

  • According to a new study, we're more flexible with our morals in the realm of politics specifically because we hate the other guys so much. Which is .............. not great news, really. (U of Nebraska-Lincoln) (Paper) 

  • What do The Scientists think about the Neuralink announcement? (Nature) 

  • The Scientists have worked out a great way to break down plants for biofuels, which was the biggest stumbling block in the process. (UC Riverside) (Paper) 

  • We maaaaaaaay have already passed the 1.5°C warming point, according to analysis of sponge skeletons. (Nature) 

  • There aren't that many exoplanets twice the size of Earth, but there are a bunch that are much bigger or smaller. Whyyyyyy? The Scientists think they might've figured it out. (Max Planck Inst for Astronomy) (Paper) 

  • Chopped-up straw makes a great insulator; annoyingly, the article doesn't talk about how they deal with rotting or mold, which to me sound like the biggest potential drawbacks. (BBC) 

  • Some Engineers have designed much better padding that can be 3D printed right now. (U of Colorado Boulder) 

  • Can entire communities have personality types that differ from other communities? (Florida Atlantic U) (Paper) 

  • Salad greens grown in microgravity appear to be more susceptible to food-borne illness than Earthbound plants, which is ........ a little worrisome. (Science Alert) (Paper) 

  • A lower-pitched voice seems more attractive to humans regardless of sex across cultures. (Penn State) (Paper) 

  • Shit: switching shipping fuels to ammonia actually just might make a whole new set of other problems. (Chalmers U of Tech) (Paper) 

  • Have I got a short story for you today, holy fuck: "Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld) 

  • Most of the time we have no idea what color fossilized animals were, but in the case of some 12M-year-old snails, we do! (U of Göttingen) (Paper) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their album

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash(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:

Photo by Panji Adhi on UnsplashResident alternate universe music critic Steve says this one is "really good heavy metal. Really good. Dense and driving with two good guitarists who are vibing with each other and not just showing off for its own sake, great bass and drums, a singer who is singing and not just doing that death growl. Critics are saying things like 'I remember why I liked heavy metal' and 'shit this is good'" 

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.