the last issue of the decade, huh

December 30, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's been having a nice little holiday break and hopes you've been enjoying yourself, too. Yes, you. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway131 - The Redneck OlympicsJon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Ken uncover an exquisite array of ideas for the improvement of pop culture and society in general.Not gonna lie: Ken's idea file continues to be absolutely fantastic in this one,It's a new year, or at least it will be shortly: why not do yourself a karmic solid and drop us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Apple Podcasts? I mean, it's a rhetorical question, but it's also extremely easy to do? I'm just sayin'.Instant Band Night XIV: Starting 2020 Off Right🔥 NEXT 🔥✨ DANG ✨💋 WEEK 💋I can think of no better way to start 2020. 🎸 Let's 🎸 Do 🎸 This 🎸 (see it on facebook)(or just send your friends this link)http://bit.ly/instantbandnight14 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.True to its advertised word, up til about a second ago this space was home to a rambling discourse on the inevitability of replacing my phone, which is starting to develop a little battery tic, but the very act of typing it started to bore me: not a good sign. Boiling it down! The essential tradeoff, at least to me, seems to be🦝 A succession of good, cheap phones that wear out in ~2y apiece (I paid $80 for my used Nextbit Robin and it has served me quite well)vs⭐ A Very Good And Also Expensive new phone that will theoretically last many yearsThe problem I have is that there's nothing guaranteeing I don't accidentally drop and smash my Very Good And Also Expensive new phone before its cost justifies itself. So I think I'm fine with the first option. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.As I type this, I can hear rain on the roof. These days, and for who knows how many days thereafter (possibly all of them?), the sound and sight of rain instantly conjures the image in my mind's eye of Quentin, a year old, standing at the glass panes of our front door in his zip-up sleeper and staring out into the courtyard. It was basically his first rain, and his quiet fascination with it is for some reason a highly treasured memory. A couple days ago, Mavis introduced him to finger paints, and the extremely chaotic results of that first encounter took the rest of the day next to a heater to dry. The impulse to get them framed is incredibly strong, and I think it comes from the same part of me that brings up Quentin's First(?) Rain whenever it does more than drizzle: you only get to see your kid's first ___ once. Which isn't to say I remember every single first thing -- for instance, I don't have an extraordinarily exact sense of when his first steps took place, probably because they didn't seem "official" at the time, and also because it seems like he's always been walking now for some reason. Another first thing I might remember for a long time: I'm 99% positive his first encounter with cookies was in the last week, specifically half a gingerbread heart Mavis baked, which of course he loved. Your first cookie was one of your mom's, kid; nothing else is ever gonna beat it, and I'll always know it even if for some reason you don't remember. 

Fascination Corner

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.Not a lot of links this time; it turns out lots of other newsletters take the holiday break easy, too. I saw someone somewhere on Twitter say something along the lines of "sending links is another love language" and you know what? Might be somethin' to it. Lots of people I know really like this part of the newsletter. So to you I say: sorry it's so short this time around, but know that I love you no less. 

  • If you use emitted heat instead of light to image an object, you can get a ridiculously hi-res scan. (Institute for Basic Science) 

  • In this newsletter there is always room for a good story. (Michael Harriot via Threadreader) 

  • Gene therapy is a very cool idea, but there's no way to control the expression of a gene once you implant it, so it's also kind of risky. Some scientists seem to think they've solved that little problem. (Scripps) 

  • Did you know it's possible to analyze dust that's 300 million years old? Here's why you'd even want to try. (U of Oklahoma) 

  • Mediocrity means something way different when you invoke it on a cosmic scale, and for Earth, it's actually great. (Nautilus) 

  • These Xmas stadium light mazes sound like a lot of fun. Hint hint, Bay Area. (Popular Mechanics) 

  • I have neither a degree in history nor poli sci, so if anyone who does wants to refute this, I'm all ears (because otherwise it's just a grim, grim indictment of the last decade that's kinda hard to argue with). (New Republic) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumInappropriate Beard, The Illusion of Safety 

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.