Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that likes the Murderbot show but wishes the episodes were longer

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.

Instant Band Night 32: BEACH PARTY

I made custom guitar picks. In case you wanted to know how it's gonna be from here on out!!!

Also, this will be the last Instant Band Night until November, so make sure you come to what might be the highlight of summer in your best vacation outfit and get ready to either create or witness something amazing onstage every 5-10 minutes!! There is, of course, no pressure to perform — you can just be a part of the best live music crowd on the entire West Coast. Yeah I said it

Tell your friends! Pass the invite around! Mark your calendars!

✨🪩✨
July 10 2025
6p
$10
East Bay Community Space
507 55th St 94609

(Eventbrite) (Partiful) (Facebook)

+ + T E L L + Y O U R + F R I E N D S + +
+ + S E E + Y O U + T H E R E + +

Surprising and Unique Ceramics For YOU

If you've been looking for a weird little guy to put in your garden, potted plant, or kitchen, then I have the perfect place to start your search. If you know someone else who needs a weird little guy for their garden, potted plant, or kitchen, then you're also in luck!!!!

Idea Factory Giveaway

I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after three+ years of inactivity, but I'm putting a link to its evergreen Apple Podcasts presence here, which includes a back catalog over 150 episodes long chock-full of excellent ridiculousness, including an experimental tabletop RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that could almost be their own show if I had the time to make yet another podcast

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.

I'm going to use this space to thank everyone who replied to my request from last week; I'm still collating and cross-referencing, but I think we're succeeding brilliantly at recreating whatever musical moments I had and lost from the 2002-2012 window. Somewhat serendipitously, I got linked to this collection of "song[s] of the summer[s]" (Fluxblog) and it's ......... dang, it's somethin'. Anyway, thank you even if you didn't write in, and enjoy these playlists, which I didn't create.

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.

Someone tell me if this is nuts, but if I'm throwing a party for a bunch of 3 and 4-year-olds and it's the kind of party where I need to order pizza, I'm going to order a bunch of cheese and pepperoni and that's it. The last three parties for kids of this demographic that I've attended featured the following toppings:

• Party 1

  • Cheese

  • Supreme (sausage, black olives, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, pepperoni?)

• Party 2

  • Cheese

  • Pepperoni

  • White pizza (no sauce), garlic

• Party 3

  • Chicken, pepperoni

  • Mushrooms, spinach

  • BBQ

  • Pineapple, pepperoni (there were at least two of these)

  • Pepperoni, sausage, bacon (tavern style)

Note the complete absence of cheese or pepperoni from that last one. Ordinarily I'd say "you wouldn't believe" but in this case I think you probably would believe how many times I heard kids asking for a cheese slice. What is going on out there.

Fascination Corner

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

• "The midlife crisis is coming for millennials lol: How millennials are freaking out about being halfway to death, when everyone’s broke and already in therapy." (Vox)

• The Scientists have demonstrated an incredibly thin and easy to make "metalens" that can turn infrared light into visible light. (ETH Zurich) (Paper)

• Some Engineers have created a recyclable circuit board design that can self-heal if it takes damage. (Virginia Tech) (Paper)

• Two completely unrelated plants make the same complicated and useful substance using different methods and starting ingredients, which The Scientists find fucking fascinating and honestly? I can see why. (Max Planck Inst for Chemical Ecology) (Paper)

• Skip the very technical bits if you want, but I implore you to read this paper recounting an incredible experiment in giving various versions of The Machine (Generative Flavor) a simulated vending machine business to run and seeing what happens. (PDF of paper)

• The numbers say there's only one country on the face of the planet that could supply itself with all seven food groups, so that whole "international trade" thing turns out to be pretty damn important. (U of Edinburgh) (Paper)

• I admit to not knowing anything about John Paul Brammer, but I do know I see something of myself in him when I'm at an airport trying not to listen to the asshole in my head. (John Paul Brammer)

• Robot kickboxing?? Robot kickboxing. Yes there's embedded video. (CNET)

• Just pulling air through a filter can yield environmental DNA (eDNA) not just from the plants and animals and microbes passing by, but also drugs people are using: poppy, cannabis, shrooms. Huh. (U of Florida) (Paper)

• No, really: "Why Do Christians Love AI Slop? Why is so much AI slop about Jesus and the Bible, and why do Christians appear to love it?" (404 Media)

• Carnivorous plants have evolved independently at least ten times over the last 34 million years; how come there aren't any big ones? (Smithsonian)

• The Scientists have found a great way to turn construction waste into a substitute for cement, which would be fantastic news for that circular economy we're all hoping to build. (Shibaura Inst of Tech) (Paper)

• A college undergrad has found the fungus the inventor of LSD tried and failed to isolate. (West Virginia U)

• We should let the robots cuss. That's not the point of the research but I think we can all agree it's the result we need. (IEEE Spectrum) (Paper)

• The Scientists have gotten some promising results from a new method for making mRNA vaccines that's easier and better, but I have a horrible suspicion the funding's already been pulled because it has the word "trans" in it. (UPitt) (Paper)

• "The Pages of "Hop On Pop," Ranked By Our Fourteen-Month-Old Son" (The Chatner)

• Rich people are starting to feel a little uneasy about their wealth and (amazingly) seem to be having some trouble figuring out what to do. (~$The Cut) (if the paywall kicks in, try putting a . after the ".com" in the URL)

• Well worth a read: "How to like everything more: on the skill of enjoyment" (Sasha's "Newsletter")

• Four years of data shows putting solar panels up in grasslands that don't get quite enough water is almost ridiculously beneficial. (Colorado State) (Paper)

• Check out this incredible indoor/outdoor cabin. (Never Too Small)

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.

A band and their album

(I remembered a formula for making fake album covers that involves searching for a random appropriately licensed photo and then applying your best Graphic Design Skills to the result; let me know what you think this band/album sounds like, because your answers are always incredible)

New Music Roundup

Last week's band/album was:

No reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think is pop punk with incredibly pretentious lyrics.

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. If you received this as a forward and would like to subscribe yourself, you can do it at the bottom of this page right here (which also has the archive)!