jack-o'-lantern emoji support desk

June 11, 2018

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's working its way through the classics of Voyager and still wants to know what happened with the dangling story thread from "Living Witness". 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway70 - Cocktail Decay Science"Jon (@ferociousj), guest co-host Kelly (@enthusiosity), and special guest Emily (@emilyrspeer) excavate ideas for party and food products before getting theoretical about awful people."There's a worthy tangent in this one about something I'm going to sum up as "spousal snack mismatch."You can subscribe using:Apple PodcastsRSSStitcherGoogle Play MusicYou can also just go to the website to play or download episodes:https://ideafactorygiveaway.simplecast.fm/Instant Band Night Five for FightingThe fifth installment of Instant Band Night is happening on Thursday, July 12, and if you're anywhere near the Bay Area, you should go:1. The stage has a drum kit, guitar, bass, keyboard, and mics.2. We draw names out of hats to make instant bands that get 10 minutes in the green room to plan an 8-minute set.3. A hat-drawn artist will also take the stage alongside each band to draw their gig poster on a meeting room easel pad.You absolutely do not have to be a musician; just come have a good time, which I 100% guarantee.Thursday July 12507 55th St 946098p$5 doorBYOBIf you can't make it or you don't live in the Bay, invite your friends (Facebook / Eventbrite); as you can probably work out for yourself, the event's design dictates that it kind of lives/dies based on attendance, so help pack the joint out and you will earn a place among the ascended masters of all things fun. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Does anybody else have idiosyncratic emoji they've just decided to adopt into regular usage? I send the 🎃 a lot -- like a lot -- because I think of it as kind of a goofy substitute for a regular 🙂 or 😃 or what-have-you. In fact, there are a lot of situations (to my mind, anyway) where a smiley emoji of any variety would seem corny or unnecessary, but for which the 🎃 still seems apt.As far as I can recall, I've never explained this use of the 🎃 to anyone. The people I know seem to have accepted it, but I wonder if they just think I'm really into Halloween or am experiencing a weird moment of prosopagnosia where I'm unable to recognize literally any of the wide array of smiley emoji as faces, but can see the smile on the 🎃 for whatever reason.Appropriately, I can't think of a good way to end this, so: 🎃 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin can turn himself onto his tummy, but hasn't yet managed the trick of turning himself back over consistently. He does this a lot in his crib, after we've put him down for the night and for his daytime naps. I've seen it on the monitor, which has a pretty reasonable night vision mode: sometimes he seems to do it in his sleep, and other times he's rollin' from his left to his back to his right and back again, waving his little arms in his nap bag* with his eyes wide open. At some point he ends up on his tummy, and that's where the mystery is: sometimes he complains, and I go in and flip him over and put his paci back in if he's dropped it -- but sometimes he doesn't. Lots of times it's because he's done it in his sleep and so he's not awake to complain, but I've seen him in there (mostly in the morning) on his tum content to just hang out. Why is this? I would love to know why he's sometimes cool with it, and sometimes not. But he doesn't have language, and by the time he does, he'll be well out of this phase.I mean, on one level it can't be that uncrackable: we all have positions for sleeping or lying down in that we like better than others, and maybe we can't put words to why. But I still want to ask. I'm just sayin'.* We put him in a Zipadee-Zip swaddle transition blanket thing, which I recommend if you used those Halo Sleep Sacks with the velcro wings, but you should probably get two; Quentin likes to jam his hands in his mouth if he's dropped his pacifier, and the hand ends get kinda soggy. I don't like how spendy they are, but that's baby products for you. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • I don't care if you actually get to the list part of 22 Dave Matthews Songs That Don’t Suck* -- read the intro, yes, even if you're a hater. If nothing else, it'll help you understand those of us who weren't, and there are still a bunch of us around.* It's missing some vital ones anyway, pfft 

  • This is the first one of these "look at this 3D-printed house" articles that actually talks about putting said house to use, rather than just some proof-of-concept nonsense that was built for a conference or whatever. 

  • What's the expected useful life of a data center in the ocean? Won't everything in it be encrusted in sea life eventually? I want a look at the designs for this thing, just to know. 

  • Did we have to make a psychopathic AI in order to prove algorithmic bias is a thing that exists? 

  • Mars has a methane season and nobody really knows why. 

  • Here's a look at Kevin Durant's venture portfolio. He's not the only athlete doing this, but I wonder what it'd look like if everyone on a team decided to pool their money and start a fund or two at once. 

  • Neural networks can do the heavy lifting of animal identification on the takes from automated wildlife camera traps with surprising accuracy, it turns out. Can the same be done for the ocean? This is just a question I'm askin' here. 

  • The people who ran Toys 'R' Us into the ground such that the workers got nothing should be medically paralyzed and eaten alive by dermestid beetles. Full stop. 

  • Do I believe this article that breaks down how the Instagram algorithm works? Does anyone? 

  • Finally, a scientific list of the most popular memes on the internet, at least according to a research paper whose math is entirely beyond me but still manages to be entertaining to look at. 

  • Who knows what'll've happened by the time I send this, but I hope you've already read this fiery take on how The NFL Is Too Dumb To Realize That Donald Trump Is Never Going To Stop With This Shit. 

  • Let's make this a catchphrase for the rest of the Trumpnocracy: Just Say It's Racist. 

  • Turning food waste into electricity and fertilizer! [pounds fist on table] Now that's some science 

  • There's a course at Yale that purports to teach the basics of happiness; here's a writeup so you don't have to take it. 

  • At least someone somewhere is thinking about bioweapon response semi-seriously.

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumAn Actual Skunk, What'll It Be This Time 

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.