microbe diesel, y'all

June 24, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that encourages everyone out there to have yourselves a themed lunch sometime soon; for example, get yourself some pierogi and soup dumplings and just go to town 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayI was out of town again this past weekend (another wedding, funnily enough), so there's still no new episode, but hey: this just gives you a chance to catch up on the back catalog. Enjoy!If you haven't yet, subscribe by searching "Idea Factory Giveaway" in your podcatcher of choice (and let me know if it doesn't pop up). If you're already there, feel free to leave a 5-star rating and a nice review (it helps; algorithms, etc, you know the deal).Instant Band Night 7-11Getting excited for this one, folks, for the simple reason that it's gonna be great. Once again, your plan should be as follows:1. Tell everybody you know about 🍡Instant Band Night 7-11🍡 and that their presence is REQUIRED2. There is no step 23. See you there 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I was in Brooklyn this weekend for a whirlwind tour of a wedding visit (the wedding was lovely), but the main takeaway I have for you, the public, is that I need everyone to go immediately to the DeKalb Market Hall so that it never goes out of business. Please and thank you. I can recommend the pierogi stand and the soup dumpling joint, but if I'd known about this place at the beginning of my visit, I'd probably have gone there for every meal I could.I sit here now on my couch preparing this newsletter for sending, and I feel some little aches that make me wonder: am I coming down with something, or is my body just a little messed up from all the sitting on planes I've been doing lately? Let's hope it's the latter. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.We're starting to think about potty training. Before anyone offers any advice, know that I've already purchased and read the most relevant parts of the Oh Crap! book, and I like the cut of her jib. My main goals for now are to teach Quentin about pulling/pushing his pants up/off, and to see where he's at with his ABCs. I will note that without any prompting from us, he's taken to informing us after the fact when he's done a #1 or #2 in his diaper, although to him they're both "poop." Which is interesting! Further updates as events warrant. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Why, this is hell, nor are we out of it. (The Verge) 

  • Microbes in the sea make hundreds of millions of tons of hydrocarbons in the ocean that are chemically similar to diesel fuel -- and other microbes eat them. Why do any of this? Nobody fucking knows. Could make a good fuel source, though, right? (Hakai) 

  • Big companies are getting serious about learning animal neural models in order to help AI advance. (Bloomberg) 

  • Whoever is running the content rules team at Ravelry deserves to eat and drink for free at every public establishment until the end of the Trump reign. (TechCrunch) 

  • What is going on with the methane on Mars, y'all??? (Nature) 

  • I haven't read it yet, but I will: there's a report on various ways we could use machine learning to help combat climate change. (website) 

  • ...... there are "gun influencers" on Instagram because gun companies can't actually pay to have real-ass ads. (Vox) 

  • We have the technology to train a smart speaker to recognize the sound of someone having a heart attack. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • No offense to Devin Coldeway, but the only TechCrunch writer I want to hear from about this Google housing thing is Kim-Mai Cutler, who did a lot of really excellent work in the past on the tech industry's effects on housing in the Bay Area. (TechCrunch) 

  • You've almost certainly read about this by now, but puppy dog eyes seem to have been a trait specifically selected for among domesticated dogs. (WaPo) 

  • Viruses ............ cooperate? Oh fuck. Oh fuuuuuuuck (Nature) 

  • Researchers figured out a way to identify and then blast cancerous cells directly out of a patient's bloodstream with lasers. Yeah, I had to read that twice, too. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • Mission Pie was a key component of the first date Mavis and I ever went on, so this is very sad. And holy shit, I had no idea they owned the building! (Mission Local) 

  • Surprisingly tenacious (if slow) climbing robot with biomimetic feet. Sure, why not? (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • Renting out your garage for people to live in is looking like a viable way to house people because -- again -- this is Hell World. (BBC) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumThe Trendsmen, Perhaps a Smaller Cup Next Time 

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.