John Wick, The Equalizer, and Liam Neesons walk into a bar

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, your weekly window into whatever's on my mind. Don't forget about SPACEGAME (read below)! 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Recently I rewatched the Denzel Equalizer movie, and I'm here to tell you that if you missed it when it came out, you fucked up. I mean, provided you enjoy movies from that particular subgenre, which I'm going to call The Baddest Man In Town Is Not To Be Fucked With. This shelf also holds Taken and John Wick, expert treatises on righteous violence dished out with total competence and zero compunctions that are for some reason compulsively watchable. What other movies in this genre am I missing? Does The Limey count, for instance? I feel like that one isn't actiony enough, though I admit I last saw it over a decade ago, so it's possible I'm remembering it wrong. Isn't there supposed to be a sequel to Equalizer coming this year? The extremely minimal research I just did on the internet says yes, so that's going to be good. Little presents like these the universe gives us are important. I say this as a person who's going to be at Comic Con when Valerian comes out, so. No spoilers, y'hear? 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.I don't know where or how the tradition of giving your fetus a moniker while it's still gestating got started, but one thing's for certain: it's very convenient. Other parents we've known gave theirs nicknames like Mandoo and The Krampus; ours is called Lemon (Mavis's best friend Maya coined it out of the blue and it just stuck). We're at the point now where Mavis can definitely feel Lemon moving around, and on at least one occasion I was able to detect movement from the outside.This is significant.There have actually been milestones of this type before -- the first ultrasound where a head and limb buds were visible, the 20-week one, and now this -- but it's weird how staggering it is each time; the effect doesn't diminish with repetition. I'm gonna be a dad, y'all. This shit is real. What's it gonna be like once Lemon is born?? Am I just going to be staring distractedly into space, continuously gobsmacked at the cosmic profundity of what we've wrought? Likely I'll be too busy wiping up fluids of one sort or another, but you never know, do you. 

Fascination Corner

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

• In principle I don't oppose the notion of a Space Corps, but at the same time, any kind of talk about a shooting conflict in near-Earth orbit makes me both uneasy and extremely angry. Space junk, motherfuckers! How about we solve it before making more?

• I don't know if I buy the premise of this interview about what our Google searches for porn reveal vs. the things we say we're into. Did they correct for the Spiders Georg effect? If yes, then ... that actually is interesting.

• I want you to see this deck giving a very pessimistic answer to the Fermi Paradox even though I don't understand the math. In fact, that's why I want everyone to look at it: whenever I see a sci fi movie where someone's writing insane-looking equations on a giant blackboard, I always think "pffft" for a second. Maybe I shouldn't!

• So the feds arrested the Fyre Festival guy for wire fraud, but check out how this guy spends his money; I hope someone at the trial just asks him "Why are you like this?" And also "What happened to Ja Rule?"

• It is, for the moment, somewhat painfully hard to argue with Umair Haque on (Why) The Resistance is Losing. But identifying points of failure is one of the first steps to finding a solution, right?

• Before you read this celebration of Mallory Ortberg and The Toast, I want to confess that I once chickened out of going into a store where she'd just done a reading and meeting her. This doesn't happen very often with me, so I wanted to note it and somehow be absolved. Absolve me!!

• Who wants a pretty good longread on current efforts to experiment with universal basic income? Okay, great.

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway46 - Sex Practice"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Jon (a different one) uncover surprisingly versatile ideas for food trucks, soft drinks, and funeral homes with a twist."The other Jon in question is a former housemate of Besha's, and he's not on Twitter! How about that! Also, be advised that this episode contains an idea for a soda flavor you'll either find vile or great, depending on whether or not you're a monster.You can subscribe using:iTunesRSSStitcherGoogle Play MusicYou can also just go to the website to play or download episodes:https://ideafactorygiveaway.simplecast.fm/SPACEGAMEIf you live in the San Francisco Bay area and have ever watched a space battle (whether it was in Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, or Battlestar Galactica) and thought "Damn, that looks fun, wish I could join," have I got some good news for you: I'm throwing the inaugural event of what will be a more-or-less quarterly series at the East Bay Community Space where you can literally do just that. Come play around on a starship bridge simulator in Oakland's equivalent of the Mission district for less than the cost of a single fancy cocktail!507 55th St 94609Thursday July 138-11p$5 door$5 for a slot on a crewBYOBThere's a Facebook event link here. 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.Some characters from a science fiction novel with really weird reviews on AmazonCrazleenYolazniRupgarOlen Fuppo 

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.