packing, moving, unpacking, living

August 23, 2021

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's going to make this one pretty quick, probably 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayNow that Quentin's back at preschool, maybe I'll have time to put the new episode together?? Maybe I should just think about taking a Newborn-Induced Hiatus for a while. This is probably the more realistic way to go, huh. Look on the bright side: there's a healthy back catalog waiting for you if you haven't gotten on board yet!I've been to the future and I'm here to report that the only people still alive after the aliens invaded are the ones who left a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on our Apple Podcasts page. Go do it now or await your fate in the alien food mills!!Instant Band Night 15: Gone Til NovemberI'll be honest: I don't know if the Delta variant has fucked our plans for November 11th's return of Instant Band Night. At this point I'm assuming everyone reading this has gotten their shot, so what's left to do but wait, cross our fingers, and also run through the streets forcibly vaccinating everyone we can get our mitts on? I'll see you out there.Facebook event's still there in case you (like me) can't yet escape the vortex of Facebook+ + g e t   y o u r   s h o t   / /   l e t ' s   d o   t h i s + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Theoretically, if you're reading this on the day I'm sending it, we'll be in the throes of packing for our move (literally about a mile away from here), by which I mean I'll be directing a 3-person crew what to pack and what to leave for us to transport ourselves* while Quentin's at preschool and Mavis and Felix decamp to her parents' place just on the off chance Delta's out here sniffing around. Moving day is Wednesday. So this probably won't be very long. In fact, that's all for this section!Wait, not yet: how the hell are you doing? Even if it's just a line or two, hit that Reply button and let me know something about what you've been up to. Tried a new food? Started a new hobby/job/criminal enterprise? I honestly would love to hear whatever you've got time to tell me.* Vital documents that we have nightmares about losing in some random box, the KitchenAid mixer, etc. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Gotta get this typed out while Felix sleeps before what's hopefully going to be his midnight-ish feeding (maybe he'll make it to 1a, though I'm not holding out a lot of hope). I think we're getting the hang of the nighttime routine. Fingers crossed it continues to be more or less stable, and eventually he decides to just start sleeping all the way through the night? I've always told people we were spoiled by Quentin, and now we're going to see just how spoiled. Something Felix has started that I gotta admit I don't love is doing a lot of moving around and making struggle noises while still dead asleep, which is fine if you can observe him in a low-light environment and see that his eyes remain closed, but if he's doing it up in our room where it's both nighttime AND the blackout curtains are drawn, forget about it. Putting the paci in his mouth does seem to help, although it has to be held in for a little while because he still hasn't gotten the knack of keeping it in there. That'll come too, eventually. Honestly, if this is my biggest problem w/r/t Felix and nighttime sleep right now, I'll still count myself lucky. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Fucking hell. "School Boards Are the Front Line in America’s Culture War" -- should we all start going to these meetings and throwing hands? (Vice) 

  • Here's yet another longread on Facebook's problems with misinformation and how no one really knows how bad shit is because Facebook won't tell anybody. (Vox) 

  • Recasting the definition of "life" allows you to ask questions like "What if life actually arose multiple times on Earth independently?" (Santa Fe Institute) (Paper) 

  • I'm'a let the headline do the talking on this one: "MacKenzie Scott’s Money Bombs Are Single Handedly Reshaping America". There are graphs! (~$Bloomberg) 

  • Engineers have developed an inflatable robot hand that delivers comparable performance to existing advanced rigid prosthetics at a fraction of the cost. (MIT) 

  • This tweet is good, but the replies are solid gold. (@janky_jane on Twitter) 

  • Counterintuitively, cities seem to be making mammals bigger. (Florida Museum of Natural History) And in other mammal news, it seems that the extinction of the dinosaurs really did allow our kind to radiate into all sorts of ecological niches. (U of Colorado via Taylor & Francis) 

  • Analysis suggests social media is training us to express outrage more, which ............ probably isn't great. (Yale) (Paper) 

  • Researchers making human brain organoids from stem cells were able to induce them to spontaneously produce a pair of eye structures called optic cups. The paper is extremely technical but has some wild pictures. (Cell Press via Science Daily) (Paper) 

  • Those big tanker and container ships plying the oceans are responsible for 3% of global carbon emissions, which we could knock out with the onboard carbon capture technology proposed by these scientists. (Northwestern) 

  • "What Misspellings Reveal About Cultural Evolution" (Nautilus) 

  • The ancient Persians had a technology for cooling down buildings that sounds interesting. (BBC Future) 

  • A recent study says having at least one Gloomy Gus on your project team might actually be a good idea because they think differently than the more cheerful people and can point out problems nobody else is spotting. (Rice) 

  • In case anyone's keeping track, materials scientists have figured out a way to make an inexpensive and surprisingly efficient substance that converts waste heat into electricity. (Anthropocene) 

  • Here's a list of famous San Franciscans pointing out their go-to burrito spots; I'm with Benioff and Adam Savage on these, but am disappointed nobody shouts out El Burrito Express, who do a truly fabulous California burrito (the one with french fries inside, which my traitorous bloodstream now no longer allows). (SF Chronicle) 

  • What's this "toxic positivity" thing all about? (The Walrus) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumSexy Goblin Face, The Skeleton Says No 

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.