my glittering future as a social secretary

August 01, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that has not listened to the voice of reason when it comes to buying cherries when there are already cherries in the fridge 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayIn the back half of 2022 I hope to recover enough energy to restart some hobbies, and this podcast is on that list. Until then, you have over 150 episodes in the back catalog to amuse and delight, including an experimental RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that I would quite honestly and happily make into a whole 'nother show if I had the time!Someone out there has left another incredible review, btw: thank you from the bottom of what remains of my heart. Should anyone else feel inclined to make my day (and Besha's too, probably?), you can drop your 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 at the usual place with the knowledge that it will add at least 5HP back to our health stats.Instant Band Night 16: SWEETOh, this is happeningIf you missed the return of Instant Band Night in July, don't sweat it — just come to the next one in September! September 8, to be specific. If you've never been and are wondering what the hell it is: imagine a party where musicians who've just met form bands on the spot. Nobody's forced to play; you can just come watch. I guarantee you haven't seen anything like it!! One of the links below will tell you literally everything you need to know. EVERYTHING.Sept 86p$10East Bay Community Space507 55th St 94609(Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  S E E   Y O U   T H E R E  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Nothing to report here, as it's been a whirlwind of parent activity all weekend (see below), but I want to note that I have a second monitor in the home office setup here, and usually it's open to Tweetdeck, which I know is a bad idea. So now I just leave the tab on a Google image search for "grasshopper mouse" (see last week's issue) and it's much better.Oh, also, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE returned to theaters this past weekend with a bonus gag reel and it looks to me like it's sticking around until about Wednesday. You have roughly 24 hours. Do yourself this service. Just trust me. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin's last day of preschool was Friday, and the reality of it has been sort of sneaking up on him. He made quite a few friends during his time there, which was great, but the downside is just starting to hit him. After I put him to bed Friday night, he came out shortly thereafter with a sad face. Here's what you need to know before you read our short conversation: 

  • One of his little pals is a kid named Benji

  • The California Academy of Sciences has a great aquarium

  • We have a membership and we're gonna go sometime in the next two weeks before transitional kindergarten (TK) starts

I got Quentin back into bed and we had the following conversation:Q: I wanted to tell Benji to meet us at the Academy but he didn't know his family's phone number.Me: I see.Q: (starting to cry)Me: Oh, buddy, you'll see Benji again!Q: (keeps crying)Me: It's okay to feel sad, buddy. Here, hug your bunny. You'll see Benji again, I promise.Q: (hugs his bunny) Go away now!Me: Okay, pal. Goodnight!Unbeknownst to Quentin, I'd already made arrangements to meet Benji and his parents at a nearby beach Saturday, but I didn't want to tell him right then and there because he'd get hyped up — the last thing you need at Little Kid Bedtime, trust me (the parents have each others' emails, which was how I was able to backchannel this Benji deal). We told him the following morning and he was delighted. We spent the last half of Saturday with Benji's family and Quentin just about lost his mind he was so excited. He wants us to hang out at Benji's house again (he's got a killer playset in the backyard) but Benji's parents are looking down the barrel of two weeks working fulltime from home without childcare, so we're thinking next weekend. 🤪 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "Misinformation Is Here To Stay (And That’s OK): Attempting to eliminate incorrect speech will do more harm than good. Here’s what we should do instead." (Persuasion) 

  • Roads in the US have become increasingly unsafe for pedestrians, but nowhere more than US-19 in Florida. (Vox) 

  • The Scientists have built a GPT-3 instance capable of plausibly simulating a famous current-day philosopher. (Motherboard) 

  • I love how much weird shit there is down at the bottom of the ocean!!!!! (Science Alert) That said, what in the hell are these mystery holes on the seafloor?? (also Science Alert) 

  • Something like 80% of Americans in their mid-20s live within 100mi of where they grew up. Of fucking course they do. Who has the money to go anywhere? (Vox) 

  • Meanwhile, families with small children got the fuck out of big cities during the pandemic like whoa. (EIG) 

  • What if we had snortable covid vaccines? (Ohio State) 

  • There's a software tool that can scan housing deeds and HOA rules for racist language and flag it; particularly useful in California, since there's a law requiring that bullshit to be removed once it's been detected. (Vice) 

  • "Young Workers Are Bridging the Climate and Labor Movements" (Truthout) 

  • The Scientists used a neural network to predict the 3D structures of almost a quarter billion proteins from a million animal species — which covers damn near every protein known to science — and they're putting it all up for free online. (Nature) 

  • Speaking of impressive online compendia, The Scientists have also published a zoomable map of the entire tree of life as represented by photos, and it's wild. (LifeGate) (Writeup) 

  • Huh: seems like there are some lakes over in Europe with bizarrely plastic-hungry bacteria, which is ............ interesting. (U of Cambridge) 

  • Standing on the Moon's surface, you can choose between baking or freezing to death depending on whether you're standing in the sunlight or not, but there's at least one sinkhole where all you'd need is a light hoodie. Might be a good place to put a base! (UCLA) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.Some characters you mi`ght meet in a fantasy or sci fi storyHubblegubWinkusFhalqueece(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me who these people(?) are, 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.