lullaby search 2k17

June 05, 2017

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, your weekly window into whatever's on my mind.

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry. Why are there more Avatar movies coming? I mean yes, the first one made a double bucketload of money, but that's because everyone went to see it for the 3D, not because "Pocahontas in space" was a particularly compelling story pitch. And yes, I'm pretty sure a ton of people are going to see the second one (whenever it comes out), but I'd be willing to bet a surprising chunk of that sample is doing it out of mere curiosity as opposed to, like, devotion to the Avatar franchise. I know this has been said before, but is there no way James Cameron could just sneak the xenomorphs from the Alien universe into this next movie instead? Wouldn't you rather see those space Marines in hi-tech, heavily-armed powered armor suits battle actual dangerous alien beasts instead of attempting to subjugate a native population simply to steal their natural resources? I would love to believe in a world where Cameron and Ridley Scott conspired with each other in secret over many years to test the market's appetite for more xenomorph-related content in the form of Prometheus and Covenant before actually delivering something good. Imagine a movie that could be hailed as a true spiritual successor to Aliens! Don't we deserve something like this? Haven't we suffered enough? I'm just sayin'.

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment. Gonna need to start thinking of a lullaby. It needs to be something good, something I won't get tired of singing a lot, and ideally something I can play on my guitar. Can I be honest here? There was a fraction of a yoctosecond where I considered what I believe was track 9 on Under the Table and Dreaming, "Lover Lay Down," because the tune is both sweet and soft. But the lyrics are horrible. Dave Matthews may be the all-time king of riff-based rhythm guitar (as opposed to chords), but his song lyrics -- particularly his love song lyrics -- do not hold up under any sort of scrutiny. I still can't believe "Crash Into Me," which for the record I have always hated, was as big a hit as it was. So: not that song. Different song. A Beatles song? Something other than "Blackbird," which I think I saw used in a movie or TV show once, and I feel like being Unique And Special. Who has suggestions? I've already considered and rejected "Here Comes the Sun" on the grounds that it was one of the first Beatles songs I ever learned to play, and hence might get sick of it too quickly on account of having played it a lot already.

Fascination Corner

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

I've got some criminal friends. Or at least I've got some friends who spent a lot of time talking about the movie Heat before one thing led to another and suddenly they found themselves spending a lot of time (and I mean a lot of time) running heists as a gang together in the PS4 version of Payday 2. Which, come on: who could blame them. It turns out there's a mathematical formula for maximizing risk/reward from bank robberies in the real world, though, which is a sentence I never thought I'd type.
What do we do when we run out of antibiotics? Work on host tolerance, possibly, which I have to point out is a thing I wrote about for Xprize/Star Trek a few years ago. Good to know it wasn't total madness!
Speaking of Xprize, is that moonshot actually happening? It might? I for one am looking forward to some HD footage from the surface of the goddamn moon.
There's a strong possibility we've been designing drones all fucking wrong from jump, if this omnicopter design is any indication. Watch it literally play catch with a human!
This is turning out to be a weirdly Xprize-focused issue, but look: they're putting together a sci fi advisory council to help roadmap the future, which I think we can all admit is a rad fucking idea. I question some of their choices, though: what's Akiva Goldsman doing in there? Did they really need Kevin J. Anderson onboard? I'll concede Peter Watts has good ideas even if every one of his characters is a museum of tortured human misery. N.K. Jemisin is missing; was she not asked, or was she just busy? But there's good choices, too: Stross, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, good ol' Greg Bear (shoutout anyone else who's read Anvil of Stars). Gale Anne Hurd is in there! No vision of the future should be considered complete until it's at least been looked over by the woman who produced both Terminator AND Aliens, people.
Parallel universes might actually be provable. Might. What?
I just like this Rebecca Solnit piece on The Loneliness of Donald Trump for the picture it paints of what we all hope is his inevitable downfall, and the poetry with which it's executed.

Looky Here

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about. Idea Factory Giveaway 43 - Cult Coupons "Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Annie Gaus (@anniegaus) uncover ideas guaranteed to benefit society in a myriad of amazing ways around journalism, credit ratings, and water parks." This episode also features a moment where we discover a new feature that got snuck into Google Maps when none of us were looking. You can subscribe using:iTunes RSS Stitcher Google Play Music You can also just go to the website to play or download episodes:https://ideafactorygiveaway.simplecast.fm/

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape. A band and their album Wrathwright, And I at Last a Beast Shall Feed

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.