pushing the limits of cardboard as a construction material

October 24, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that finally caved and joined the rewards program for the local hardware store 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Ignite SF #15Video of my talk does exist! The audio is distorted, though, which is at least partially my fault: I felt the need to speak into the mic with a touch more force than usual because the house volume wasn't particularly high, and also (this is going to sound incredibly arrogant but I can't report it any other way) the audience was very kind, which meant I needed to talk louder to be heard. Of course, you can't tell in the video because the mic didn't pick up any of the crowd noise, so it looks like I'm haranguing these poor people when in reality I'm just doing what I can to be audible over the sound of general merriment resulting from my performance. It really did go very well and I was beyond pleased to be included in the lineup!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. In the meantime, you can find its 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 podcastInstant Band Night 17: GO TIMEI don't say this lightly: you have to come to the next Instant Band Night. It's the November one (add it to your calendar now!), which means it's the one where we get a cake and sing happy birthday to Quentin. No, he won't be there, but we'll take a video!!If you don't already know what Instant Band Night is, imagine a great party where musicians who've just met form bands on the spot. If you play music, you can be one of 'em, and if you don't, you can just watch. It is, and I'm not exaggerating here, fucking incredible.🎶🎸 IT WILL SOON BE TIME TO PARTY 🎸🎶🎶🎸 IN WHATEVER WAY YOU LIKE BEST 🎸🎶Nov 106p$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.The TV in our family room has a built-in Chromecast that displays random pictures from specific Google Photos albums I've selected whenever it's idle. Back when the pandemic started, I asked friends to send selfies I could throw into an album so we could at least see their faces occasionally. It worked great, and I hit upon the idea earlier this year of creating a new album and granting people access to it, so they could toss whatever they wanted in there and surprise me. If anything, this was an even better idea — the mix of pictures was A+++, no notes.It's been months since then and I kinda want to send a message out to the group to the effect of "Hey, don't forget this exists if you're bored and have new stuff you want to put in there; thanks!" But I'm having trouble actually writing it, because I'm worried about coming across as demanding. "Toil for me! Your emperor commands it!" I feel like I ask my friends to do a lot of stuff already. Listen to this podcast! Subscribe to my newsletter! Come to Instant Band Night! I could see a universe where at some point my bullshit could get exhausting. Is that this universe? I don't know, but I sure as hell don't want it to be. As I've been sitting here typing, something's occurred to me, which is that a lot of what I guess are my calls-to-action boil down to 1. I created/started/set up something fun for you to participate in that I think you would enjoy!2. (Which also happens to benefit me)3. Let's go!That second part is where I guess I'm getting hung up. In pretty much all of the cases I can think of, though, the benefit is simply "I get to see my friends and we have a nice time" — Instant Band Night isn't really a Ca$h MoNeYmAkEr, for instance, although I suppose I couldn't rule that aspect of it out eventually. What I'm wondering, it turns out, is whether or not I'm selfish or demanding or both; they feel like two sides of the same greasy coin. Or am I just up in my own head about this whole thing? If you have thoughts, I want to hear 'em. And/or if you want to join the photo album, let me know?AUGH SEE WHAT I MEAN 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Felix caught the cold Quentin had, or at least that's our best guess based on the cough, snot, and loss of appetite. But he got over it in about a day, which was honestly about as much of a miracle as we could've asked for; I'm guessing we have about 48h until the next cold strikes either one of them, so I intend to live it up for the first part of the week.Quentin wants to be a construction crane for Halloween this year: challenge accepted. You should've seen the first version of the crank I tried to put together, though, which was made from a TP roll and cardboard and masking tape and reinforced with a chopstick and also impossible for him to use. I saw this design on the internet somewhere using screwed-together dowels, which didn't seem as good to me for some reason as simple PVC, so I went with that instead; it works great. The only decision I think he needs to make now is whether he wants to wear his construction worker vest with it, and whether he's going trick or treating this year. If he does, it'll be his first time; the sheer variety of candy waiting for him out there is gonna blow his mind. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • The ocean needs legal rights if we're going to make any progress on [waves at everything]. (Vice) For instance: there are at least five (5) oceanic plastic garbage patches out there, not just the one in the Pacific everyone talks about. (BBC Future) 

  • Here's a good interview with an environmental scientist about urban heat islands and what we can do about 'em. (Knowable) 

  • Fucking hell: even your internet speed can be ruined by racism. (The Markup) 

  • The Scientists have finally figured out definitively where eels come from and where they go. (BBC) 

  • Just FYI in case you forgot, MacKenzie Scott is still out there making moves. (NPR) 

  • Unbelievably, Instagram has evidence that gently nudging assholes to be better people sometimes works. (Vox) 

  • If we were aliens looking at Earth right now, would we be able to figure out if it hosted any life? (Universe Today) (Paper) 

  • "Capitalism Is Coming for Our Snacks" (Jacobin) 

  • Fish have itches, too, but how do they scratch without hands? Turns out: sharks. Yes, really. (The Conversation) 

  • The global supply chain is still kind of fucked, folks. (Vox) 

  • Listen, we all know The Scientists are nerds, it's one of their defining characteristics, but this is still delightful: they've discovered DNA packages inside methane-eating archaea that seem to be made of assimilated bits of other organisms, so of course they call them Borgs. Of course (Berkeley Lab) 

  • Old shipwrecks are out there leaking small but undeniable quantities of toxic bullshit into the water. (Science Alert) 

  • We should remember that while some animals will see their ranges shrink on a warming planet, others might actually expand their holdings. I'm not saying it's great news, but it is at least interesting. Coming in a few million years: SQUID EARTH (U of South Florida) 

  • I did not know vile human Vox Day was working on an extremely stupid-sounding conservative superhero movie, but I am delighted to find out a full million dollars of its funding have gone poof thanks to a crypto scammer. Finally, at long last: a use case for crypto. (Raw Story) 

  • The Scientists have built a machine learning model that can accurately predict human responses to new drugs, which sounds like one hell of a game changer. (CUNY Graduate Center) 

  • I sure don't love this: Infowars is likely to continue operating for a while. (Vox) 

  • It looks like Asian elephants like to hang out on the periphery of protected wildlife areas instead of in the middle of 'em, possibly because the chances of encountering the plants they like to snack on rise as they approach environments that we've messed up. (British Ecological Society) 

  • Uhh: swarms of honeybees can generate as much atmospheric electrical charge as a ......... thundercloud? Click through to the paper, if for no other reason than the image The Scientists chose for the "graphical abstract" is [chef_kiss.png]. (Cell Press via Science Daily) (Paper) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumBig Box of Bunnies, Oh, How the Spirit Scatters(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.