it turns out we've all been lied to about dogs

May 02, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that will have to address this SCOTUS thing next week because the absolutely cataclysmic level of rage it's producing is threatening to warp the fabric of spacetime around me 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe thing about having a 4yo and a baby who doesn't yet sleep through the night is that you can't put them in the same room together overnight, and it's also not possible to put yourself in the room with him without causing even more sleep complications. Long story short, we're sleeping in the office (the house's third and possibly actual master bedroom, considering it has the attached half bath) on the pull-out couch, which is also where my computer is, so the edit on the last episode we recorded (which admittedly was last year) still isn't quite complete. But it'll get there someday!As of the time of this writing, there are still not only 43 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings, but someone managed to slip past the perimeter and enter another lovely review, which I only just saw now! Whoever you are, you have not only our thanks but our favor should we ascend to the throne. The rest of you: a new standard has been set!!Instant Band Night 15: TIME WARPJuly 14th! The line must be drawn here and no further!! We WILL have an explosive celebration of musical creativity that must be seen to be believed, and you! will! be! there! (Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  r e t u r n i n g   i n   2 0 2 2  + ++ +  h a n g   i n   t h e r e  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I haven't made a whole lot of what I'd call Pandemic Purchases, but there's one that I keep thinking about as the days go by, and that's a new suit. Currently I own two, both black. One of them is the suit I got married in, which I love and have worn several times since because it looks fucking great, but I can't help but think I should probably have a third suit in a different color. Something festive, because all of the occasions I can think of for wearing a suit going forward are either weddings or parties. Probably not a solid color either, but a pattern? Beyond that it's a wide open field of possibility. If you have ideas, let me know! I'm clearly still in the brainstorming phase here! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Felix's top front teeth are finally breaking through after what seems like weeks of being just about almost there, which has resulted in some chaotic sleep. The usual move is to just put him in the bed with Mavis there, but this morning starting at about 330a he kept rolling around even with her calming presence. Which is why I bundled him into his carseat at 515a and went out for a drive! Otherwise Mavis would've lost her mind from lack of sleep, which would be less than ideal because that's where all of her stuff is. Our little morning nap-drive was fun and (crucially) successful: after about an hour of in-car sleep, I came back home so I could deal with Quentin and get his breakfast together, and since Felix was still snoozing in his carseat I just plopped it into his crib and shut the door; he slept for another hour. Hopefully we won't have to do this a lot, but at least it works! For ......... for now!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Climate change is likely to be a factor in sparking the next animal-transmitted pandemic, since it's gonna force different animals into new habitats where they might bump up against us in unexpected ways. (Georgetown U Medical Center) 

  • "Facebook Doesn’t Know What It Does With Your Data, Or Where It Goes: Leaked Document" (Motherboard) 

  • Why don't Americans trust experts? Here's an interview with the guy who wrote Moneyball, whose new podcast is apparently all about this exact question. (Vox) 

  • I have so many questions about this case where some people in a house near Tahoe discovered the rumbling noise coming from the floor was FIVE BEARS HIBERNATING IN THEIR CRAWLSPACE (NBC News) 

  • Some Engineers have built a suitcase-sized device that runs on less power than a phone charger capable of desalinating water without filters. (MIT) 

  • The Scientists used machine learning to create a new enzyme that can break down plastics quickly, and it even sounds like they're working out how to scale production. (UT Austin) 

  • Tennessee just passed a bill that requires drunk drivers to pay child support if they kill a parent. (ABC News) 

  • Instead of fucking around trying to design a small, agile robot from scratch, Some Engineers went ahead and made a robotic rat, and it works great. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • The Scientists are working on an AI that can analyze video of animals and categorize their behavior, which would be a real game-changer. (ETH Zurich) 

  • I grew up maybe an hour's drive from what's apparently the home of the greatest sandwich in the country??? (Vice) 

  • Some Engineers have developed a paper-thin speaker that can turn any surface into a high-quality sound source, which has intriguing applications for (at the very least) noise cancellation. (MIT) 

  • I'm putting this here so nobody can send it to me: the male of a particular species of orb weaver has developed a seemingly foolproof strategy to not die after sex, which is to literally launch himself off the female with astonishing power the instant he's done. The ones who don't manage to escape get eaten immediately. (Science Alert) 

  • A couple of Danish twins say they've figured out how to reliably cultivate morels. ($NYT) 

  • The Scientists say we could shred used disposable face masks and put 'em into concrete; makes it a lot stronger. Sure! (Washington State) 

  • A study of more than 18,000 dogs has discovered that breed has almost nothing to do with behavior?! (Nature) (Paper) 

  • Some Engineers have built the highest-jumping artificial device yet. (UCSB) 

  • A computer model says that if we try a geoengineering solution that cools the planet, we also might expose about a billion people to the risk of getting malaria. To which I say: we could also fucking wipe out the mosquitoes with the right gene drive, so bring on the stratospheric aerosols!!! (Anthropocene) 

  • Do humans possess an innate sense of "nutritional wisdom" that compels us to pick foods that will be good for us without having to read a label? The Scientists investigate. (Paper) 

  • Uhhh: it's possible that Earth itself may be the source of some of the water on the moon, in the form of stray H and O ions that it picks up every time it passes through the tail of our magnetosphere five days out of every month. (U Alaska Fairbanks) 

  • The Scientists have been using scars on snail shells in the fossil record to track the ebb and flow of the Great Crab/Snail War through the past 120 millennia. (Hakai) 

  • It turns out meat from chickens fed on algae or bugs (which are more sustainable) has a different color than what we're used to, which has implications for marketing. (Anthropocene) 

  • All five terrestrial nucleobases have now been detected in meteorites. (Space dot com) 

  • A commonly-quoted truism about the NY Review of Books -- namely that it should really be called the NY Review of Each Other's Books -- turns out to be pretty much spot-on. (Daniel Stone on Substack) 

  • Did you ask for an amphibious camper-bike thing? Who asked for this? I have to admit it is kinda neat-lookin'. (BeTRITON) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumMode of Motors, We Brought This On Ourselves(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me what you think this band/album sounds like, because now I'm curious) 

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.