nap mysteries minor and major

November 08, 2021

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that really wonders about the difference between a "weak atmospheric river" and "just a rainy night" 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayStill no new episode, but look: this baby is eventually going to grow and become a kid, at which point he'll need even more supervision than an immobile baby. Wait, I ..... that backfired on me. Just listen to the back catalog and one day -- one day!! -- there will be new ones that appear beneath your pillow, placed carefully by the silent, watchful Podcast Fairy.Rest ye on your laurels, true heroes, because not only did we make it to 40 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings on our Apple Podcasts page this week, but someone left a review! A fucking incredible review!! Thank you to a goddamn legend!!! Let's all just bask in this moment and enjoy it. I said enjoy it!!Instant Band Night 15: January Dreamin'That's what we're calling this, the fifteenth installment of Instant Band Night, unless it ends up getting pushed to March. In which case it'll need a new name. Whether or not it comes to that is dependent entirely on the vax schedule for kids under 5! (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.Not much here for this week. If you missed it, I'm still accepting fun selfies from pals to put in the album that randomly displays on our TV in idle mode; it's the best way I know of to see faraway friends in This Continuing Pandemic Bullshit. Fire away!! 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.One of the challenges -- if you can even call it that -- of Felix's naptimes is trying to keep him from accidentally pulling the paci out of his mouth. He loves to rub his little hands all over his face; he especially loves to cram his fingers into his mouth if he can get them there, so if there's already a pacifier in play, it gets kind of messy. But even if he's not trying to inspect his whole face with his hands, he sometimes swipes his forearms across his face in a way that catches the paci and makes it tumble out of his gob. Way back at the beginning of his life, he demonstrated displeasure with swaddling methods that immobilized his arms, so that's out. Our method thus far is to just cross our fingers and hope; on some occasions, his hands/arms end up accidentally positioned in a way that actually keeps the paci in. Maybe more of that??The actual naptime challenge I'm trying to figure out now is why he yells and cries if we try to lay him down. This happens more often than not, and it's mystifying. The Omega Doom Scenario is where he does it when we lay him down for actual nighttime sleep, which has unfortunately happened a couple times; because we are still divinely blessed, however, he was eventually able to calm down enough to accept the blessing of his co-sleeper crib + paci/own fist crammed into his mouth. I choose to hope this is all just a momentary anomaly; he's so great otherwise it's gotta be. There are no other explanations. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "We’re Heading Straight for a Demi-Armageddon: What happens when we do something—but not enough—to stop climate change?" (~$Atlantic) 

  • Carbon emissions dropped 5% last year, but they're already back now. (Nature) 

  • A truly disturbing number of Qanon dipshits turned up in Dallas to witness the return of JFK Jr -- who has been dead for literally decades -- on the strength of some random bullshit they saw in one of their idiot dens. This makes me think there has to be a nonzero number of them who'd be susceptible to a scheme where we get them to vote for highly progressive policies and candidates for years on the basis that it's all an intricate 4D chess-style plan on the part of Fearless Leader Trump. ($WaPo) 

  • A recent study seems to show that women aren't more or less competitive than men, just differently competitive, and in interesting ways. (U of Arizona) 

  • "Fisher-Price made a working Chatter phone for adults because we're all broken inside" (CNET) 

  • The things we tell ourselves about other people -- that they're not thinking about us in idle moments, or that they don't like us -- are almost certainly bullshit. There are a few interesting-looking papers linked from this article, FYI. (Vice) 

  • What are The Brands up to on Twitter? Have an analysis from what looks like a VC firm or maybe a hedge fund; it's interesting reading, I promise you. (Sparkline Capital blog) 

  • Hoovering up DNA floating around in whatever environment you want to study is starting to look like a more and more valid technique for certain kids of assays. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) 

  • There's a guy in Philly who offers trick-or-treaters a choice between candy or a potato and now he's a local legend. Hell yeah, Potato Man. (Lancaster Online) 

  • It turns out whales eat much, much more krill than we thought, which means they produce more iron-rich poop that feeds ocean ecosystems. If there were more whales around to eat and shit out more krill, there'd be direct carbon capture benefits. (Anthropocene) 

  • People picking teammates for work tasks select for friendliness and trustworthiness over straight up competence, at least according to this study. (SUNY Binghamton) 

  • How come we don't see crazy McDonald's restaurants anymore? (Vox) 

  • Scientists have demonstrated a proof of concept for using microbes to produce liquid fuel. (Wash U in St Louis) 

  • It's entirely possible that one of the reasons conspiracy theories can get such a grip on people's minds is simply that they're entertaining. (Psyche) 

  • Aside from the governments and corporations dragging their feet, another roadblock to climate change mitigation is the inevitable and equally galling NIMBYism. (Axios) 

  • Grazing your animals in a mixed forest + grassland environment (silvopasture, for those in the know) might be a lot better for everyone involved, which is why at some farms in Pennsylvania are giving it a shot. (E&E News) 

  • Why do people feel less safe if crime is down? Possibly because even though crime is down overall percentage-wise, there are also fewer people out and about, which paradoxically increases risk-per-person. (Here/Say) 

  • The latest decadal survey for astronomy has been released, and it's got some ambitious ideas. The writeup provides a link to the whole thing, which I did download and subsequently discover is 616 pages long. (Nature) 

  • The Scientists are out there trying to teach robots social skills. (MIT) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumThe Striped Skirts, Sit Your Corny Ass Down(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.