let's continue to hear it for Gentle British Television

September 30, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's well and truly helpless against a Kindle book that's on sale for $3. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway125 - Inventor Dad, Inventor Uncle"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Nick Douglas (@toomuchnick) discover fascinating ideas for subscription businesses and ways to improve driving, Reddit, and dating, among others."Nick is also (to put it lightly) a very strong idea person, which made the episodes we recorded with him a goddamn delight. You'll see! YOU'LL ALL SEE!If you haven't yet, do please consider giving us a tasty 5-thing rating on whatever it is you're using to listen to us; it really will help, and you will be accounted for in the ranks of true warriors of the land.Instant Band Night: Lucky 13Seriously, if you haven't yet, put November 14 on your calendar and send this around to everyone you know who enjoys fun. You don't have to be a musician, just come watch and have some birthday cake. Who doesn't like cake???👻 The link is below 👻😘 You know what to do 😘✨ http://bit.ly/instantbandnight13 ✨ 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I think I might start taking the podcast to a biweekly schedule again, a thing I did once before for a little while and might become necessary in the coming weeks. It's not that I don't love the show, but I have a lot of projects (mostly work, but some not) that need a little more attention, so I should shift focus accordingly. Is it strange that I think watching the occasional episode of Big Dreams, Small Spaces on Netflix is what's prompting this? It's another example of Gentle British Television: each episode shows us two houses (unrelated to each other) occupied by enthusiastic but inexperienced amateurs who want to turn their yards into elaborate gardens. They get advice from a guy named Monty who seems to be the Mary Berry of Gardening in the UK, and then he leaves, returning every few months to see their progress and give some more advice, and after a year has passed, they show him the result. It's oddly charming and calming, and often Monty's advice has a lot to do with paring back, editing, and organizing their initial wilder notions so that what remains can flourish and end up looking pretty damn good. Is there a parallel here? Probably. Quite probably.The newsletter, oddly, will likely still remain weekly, just because the links section will be almost absurdly long otherwise, and also I've come to like sending this thing out every week. Hello out there! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.When we started feeding Quentin solids, it was essentially real food, but in forms no adult would usually ride with: mostly cubes of steamed/roasted vegetables without much in the way of seasoning. Gradually, we integrated things like toast smeared with hummus, pepper as a seasoning concept, some salt here and there on potatoes, small slices of deli ham. Then it was turkey meatballs with sweet potato and shallots, or pasta tossed with red sauce and ground beef. A couple of weeks ago, I had a small leftover amount of a tomato/farro/sausage stew I make that's long been a favorite at our house, ever since it was dropped off by friends of ours during Quentin's newborn days -- long story short, I fed an experimental amount to Quentin and he ate it right up. Tonight for dinner I decided to see what he'd do with a bigger portion, like a true Quentin dinner-sized portion, and it turned out "eat the entire thing without pausing" was the move. This gave me a truly disproportionate amount of joy; I wonder what other things I make for Mavis and myself that it turns out he'll eat? I should see what he thinks of curry rice. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • The only way to keep track of what those pesky millenials have been up to is this comprehensive tool. (The Pudding) 

  • Huh. What if that elusive ninth planet at the edge of the solar system isn't a planet at all, but a black hole? Hhhuuh. (~$MIT Technology Review) 

  • I love oral histories and I do not apologize to you or any other: behold one on Lilith Fair from a huge swath of people involved. (~$Vanity Fair) 

  • Just in case it's starting to get to be A Lot, have a reasonably concise explainer on the Trump/Ukraine stuff thus far. (NYMag Intelligencer) 

  • Here's how that "storm Area 51" thing turned out. (Vox) 

  • That "bird apocalypse" study we all read about could use a second look. (Undark) 

  • How about an interesting (lengthy) meditation on pursuing your dreams while also having a day job? (Aeon) 

  • Too much exercise can make you at least temporarily stupider; it turns out "overtraining syndrome" is real. (NPR) 

  • And now for an extremely hard-hitting interview with Rian Johnson. (BirthMoviesDeath) 

  • You can make radio antennas out of saltwater that have some interesting/useful properties, it turns out. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • Get a look at the world's oldest baby bottles. (Science) 

  • If you want an indicator of a worldwide recession, maybe check out the horse racin' track. (Inc) 

  • The sun's gonna fuck us up sometime in the next 100 years. ($Scientific American) 

  • Nowhere in this article or any other article I've read about the WeWork collapse can anyone answer a simple question: When they submitted the filing, it contained all kinds of facts about the weird way the company was set up and where the guy's money came from and so forth; did they not have any idea that it was in fact fucking insane and that everyone who read it with their eyes could see WeWork's entire ass hanging out? I mean, I guess not, but how? I request a medium-length read on this topic, please. (~$Vanity Fair) 

  • When you pay attention to something, your brain filters out everything else rather than aiming a spotlight. (Quanta) 

  • If you're going to tell me about a plastic alternative made from wood pulp and spider silk, at least show me what it looks like, even if all you have is the lab-created sample. Also, does the silk-production method scale? I thought that particular nut had yet to be cracked? (Anthropocene) 

  • The Unstoppable Rise of the 'Instagram Face' (Vice UK) 

  • If you're not already familiar with the joy of Untitled Goose Game, become so and then enjoy this proof that Daniel Mallory Ortberg remains a treasure in the eyes of all. (Shatner Chatner on Substack) 

  • This week's AI surprise is hide-and-seek, folks! (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • The military has a microwave-based anti-drone weapon they call PHASER that seems ready for deployment, but what apparently isn't ready is a way of revealing whatever the fuck "PHASER" stands for, because I can't seem to find it anywhere after some admittedly fairly cursory googling. (Popular Mechanics) 

  • That old study about winning the lottery is bullshit; it turns out money is actually quite effective at buying happiness. Shocker! (Vox) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumChurch Trip Girlfriend, Progress Comes in Fits & Starts 

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.