maisy's tractor forever and ever

April 17, 2023

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that doesn't know whether to keep wearing the winter coat or just break out the hoodie/blazer combo or BOTH 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayI haven't lost hope that I'll recover enough energy to kick the side of the podcast machinery and get it rumbling to life in early 2023. In the meantime, you can find the show's Apple Podcasts presence here, which includes a back catalog over 150 episodes long chock-full of excellent ridiculousness, including an experimental tabletop RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that could almost be their own show if I had the time to make yet another podcastInstant Band Night 20: DOUBLE XRoughly four weeks from now, we'll hit the stage lights and open the door: will you walk through? If not, how about sending a few of your most interesting friends the link?May 11 2023 (click to add to your Gcal)6p$10East Bay Community Space507 55th St 94609(Eventbrite) (Facebook) + +  T E L L   Y O U R   F R I E N D S  + ++ +  S E E   Y O U   T H E R E  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.A couple years ago, high off mainlining the season or two of Great Pottery Throwdown that existed on HBO Max at the time, I walked a few blocks from my house and into a pottery called MudWorks. I got to talking with a friendly woman named Lauren who worked there at the time about how ceramics had been one of my favorite high school classes and how I probably needed a pandemic hobby; she showed me around and at the end of our conversation, tossed me a ball of clay and invited me to come back if/when I'd made something.I ended up making quite a few things, to the point where the pottery staff asked last week if I'd like to display some work in the space. Of course I agreed, and we also did an interview that I hope illuminates some of the inspiration behind my weird little guys.This was the impetus I needed to finally start a shop where I could sell some of them, too; to that end, please welcome Forecast Fossil to the world! It's barebones at the moment (the stuff on display at the pottery will go in there after about a month), but I expect to add listings occasionally as new things get finished — I'd suggest "following" the shop if you're on Etsy already, but I'll also mention new items in the newsletter if I'm really on top of everything. I wanted to leave you with the shop's "About" blurb, which I enjoy, and hope you do too: 

Ceramic objects can last for hundreds, even thousands of years. Museums the world over brim with collections of small, beautiful ceramic items that were lovingly crafted for purposes that are utterly opaque to us now, centuries after the departure of anyone who could tell us what drove their creation. The museum placard next to a clever little vessel in the shape of a dog that just says "Stoneware bowl, ca. 800BCE: Possible religious significance" encapsulates an entire world of enigmatic possibilities.Forecast Fossil is dedicated to the creation of items for your household that serve two purposes minimum:1) In the here and now, to bring you delight in as many ways as you see fit2) Centuries onward, to confound archaeologists of the distant future who will unearth them and, lacking any other context, eventually put them in a museum with a little placard that reads "Ceramic figurine, ca. 2000CE: Possible ceremonial use"Consider this your invitation to join us on the road to a more whimsical future.

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.A couple days ago, Felix walked up to me and said "Happy!" and hugged my knees. So that's a moment I think I'm just going to carry with me for the rest of time, thank you all for coming, no further questions.In more prosaic news, Felix has definitely crossed the Book Threshold: this week his daycare is on spring break, so we spent plenty of time together today, and I estimate the following read counts for the following books were reached by end of day:🦉 Peek-a-Who? 3🐵 Good Night, Gorilla: 5🚌 Maisy's Bus: 8🚜 Maisy's Tractor: 12For the sake of variety, I tried to get Maisy's Plane in the mix, which he would not suffer to be opened. His Lordship did consent to sit through Hippos Go Berserk! and What A Wonderful World once each, so there does exist some hope that the wider library may be more thoroughly utilized in the future. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • There's no way to get rid of Clarence Thomas with Congress the way it is currently, which is: unfortunate. This motherfucker! (ProPublica) 

  • "Three ways to solve the plastics pollution crisis: Researchers are studying how more-sophisticated policies, smarter recycling and new materials could stem the tide of waste." (Nature) 

  • The ESA is launching a probe to investigate the Jovian system and I'm very excited, but also kinda mad that NASA doesn't hold a contest for kids to design the mission logo, because look at that thing! That's goddamn adorable!! (CNN) 

  • Some Engineers have built a soft robotic hand that can sense what it's grasping and hang onto things without dropping them using just the movement of its wrist. (U of Cambridge) (Paper) 

  • All of our water might actually have come from the cloud of hydrogen that surrounded the embryonic Earth reacting with the molten magma on the surface. (Carnegie Institution for Science) 

  • Municipal electrical grids need to be hardened against extreme weather events; you know why. (Lund U) 

  • The Scientists trying out stem cells as a treatment for retinal degeneration have reported some promising initial results. (Duke NUS) (Paper) 

  • Your dopamine levels may affect whether physical exertion feels easy or hard to you. (Johns Hopkins Medicine) (Paper) 

  • "Decision Fatigue Is Real — And It Might Be Why You’re Feeling Overwhelmed" (Refinery29) 

  • Receiving small acts of kindness or appreciation makes our day; why do we assume we're being annoying when we consider giving them? (Vox) 

  • Chess is becoming a real thing with The Kids These Days. No, really! (Polygon) 

  • American exceptionalism needs to die now: in many concrete, measurable standards of living, the US is far behind other nations at its technological and economic level, which is fucking embarrassing to say the least. (Brookings Inst) 

  • The Scientists and Some Engineers built a robotic honeycomb insert that helped them gain all kinds of previously inaccessible insights into hive behavior. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • San Francisco's downtown is starting to turn into a land of wind and ghosts; one interesting idea to revitalize it is to turn it into student housing. No, seriously. (SF Standard) 

  • The Scientists seem to have created what could plausibly either be a sober-up potion or a hangover-reduction formula for mice, depending on how you look at it. (American Society for Microbiology) (Paper) 

  • "Your phone is ruining your vacation" (Vox) 

  • Are humans really set up for living in deep space? The Scientists think we might need to haul more stuff with us than we thought. (Cornell) (Paper) The article also mentions this, but they previously wrote a paper trying to quantify terraformation sustainability, too. (Paper) 

  • At first I thought this would be an invitation to violence, but I agree with almost this entire list, which ranks all the versions of the USS Enterprise we've seen thus far. (Ars Technica) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their album

(I remembered a formula for making fake album covers that involves searching for a random appropriately licensed photo on Flickr and then applying your best Graphic Design Skills to the result; let me know if you like this better or worse than when I just wrote them out and/or if you want to tell me what you think this band/album sounds like, because your answers are always incredible) 

New Music Roundup

Last week's band/album was:

😈 Reader Aaron S says they're a "Christian band side project, with a “Devil’s Advocate” concept album where the lyrics give the Devil’s perspective on yet another wager with God for the salvation of the planet. Spoiler alert: Holy Trinity FTW"🤠 Reader Steve says "Listen, I'm pretty sure Good Men Doing Bad Things is Outlaws style country music. Maybe Kris Kristofferson is even a member. But the album cover feels a bit 90s; with the title I think this is their misjudged synths and bad syndrums effort, with a heavy handed environmental message. If it helps I'm pretty sure their next album was critically lauded, back to basics, a real tour de force." 

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.