merry holiday!

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's staring down the barrel of two entire weeks of preschool break 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayStill no new episode, but listen: there's still time left in 2022. Let's see what happens.I just want to thank everyone who got us to 43 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings and/or left such excellent reviews -- you were thanked already, but I'm doing it again because I can and also because you deserve itInstant Band Night 15: Probably In MarchWe're definitely rescheduling, but now it might not be March, depending on when that vaccine data for kids under 5 shows up. I'll update the event pages as soon as I know something. (Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  r e t u r n i n g   i n   2 0 2 2  + ++ +  h a n g   i n   t h e r e  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I just want to put in writing here that I've discussed this with the authorities and holiday cards that come late still count. Just so everyone knows!!!! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.A month or two ago we started asking Quentin what truck he wanted for Xmas, because of course we were going to get him one, and he was pretty set on a bulldozer. So we got one (it's in the garage now, pre-wrapped and everything). About a week ago, when the subject of Xmas came up, he would start out enthusiastic about the prospect of a bulldozer before changing his mind to a backhoe or sometimes a front loader. We've done our best to manage expectations -- "you don't always get what you want" kind of stuff -- but I have no idea what we're gonna do Saturday except cross our fingers and hope that the bulldozer is cool enough to sidestep any potential non-backhoe/front loader disappointment. It is, I have to say, a pretty cool bulldozer, so we'll see what happens!Thanks to the magic of employee benefits, Mavis and I have engaged the advice of a sleep consultant on the topic of Felix's war on naps, and I daresay we're starting to see some progress. He still screams when we put him down, but for less and less time -- once he just fell asleep right away! -- and his bedtime is creeping earlier. Or at least the time we put him down is much earlier, but he's spent a while yelling before fatigue takes him: 65m, then 50m tonight. Hopefully these data points continue to draw a downward slope. Quentin's been amazingly unperturbed, owing either to the output of his white noise machine or the strength of his own sleep; either way, I'm happy to see it. Babies! Sometimes they need help figuring out how to sleep! 

Fascination Corner

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.When Ed Yong writes, we read, even if it's ....... less optimistic than we'd like: "America Is Not Ready for Omicron: The new variant poses a far graver threat at the collective level than the individual one—the kind of test that the U.S. has repeatedly failed." (~$Atlantic)"Deplatforming Trump Didn't Work: The ex-president is as powerful as ever, and democratic erosion is accelerating" (The Verge)The Scientists have built an interactive tree of life that contains 2.2 million species, and it's goddamn fascinating. (Writeup) (The tree itself)We should probably all just bookmark this site that tracks the AmAzInG FuTuRe oF wEb3 and check in every week or so for new hilarity. (Web3 is going just great)Copper is a naturally antibacterial surface, but it takes too long to kill said bacteria. The solution? MORE COPPER: complicated copper nanostructure, to be precise! And it's not even that hard to make, incredibly. (RMIT)The US needs to create a strategic forest reserve for climate change mitigation and biodiversity preservation. (Oregon State)Now this is an obituary. (Fayetteville Observer)Is ....... huh. Extinction event-wise, does it matter more whether a meteorite is big, or what kind of rock it vaporizes when it hits? The Scientists think it might actually be the latter?? (PhysOrg)It's not something we can mass produce, but The Scientists have figured out what seems to be the ideal fabric for a jacket any San Franciscan would kill to own. (Physics World)Three years ago we fired a probe into the center of the solar system to graze the sun(!!!) and now we can confirm it did indeed dip in there. (Nature) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumSecret Smile, The Path that Strays(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me what you think this band/album sounds like, because now I'm curious) 

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.