the metal version

May 24, 2021

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's still trying to work out where those cheese ball snacks that come in the big plastic barrels fall on the glycemic index 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway154 - A Measure of Absolute Flakiness"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Will (@will_sargent) discover a dizzying array of concepts guaranteed to advance dating, not to mention society at large, in brilliant and unexpected ways."A truly astonishing set of circumstances prevented us from recording these episodes with Will, but because we believed in ourselves, we persevered: behold the fruits of our delayed but no less invigorated labor!!!!!SOMEONE OUT THERE went to our Apple Podcasts zone and got our total of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews up to 37. Whoever you are, know that you are a True and Valued Ally and will be granted entry into the afterlife of your choosing, as agreed.Instant Band Night 15: Gone Til NovemberHalf of America's adult population has been vaccinated. Pencil 11/11/2021 into your schedule and if we're all very good and lucky, we'll see you all at the next Instant Band Night.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.So I've been keeping up with my little sculptures, and a recent experiment with metallic glazes produced a result that's simultaneously amazing and inconvenient. The pottery owner, long experienced with the gloopier properties of metallic glazes, had me put these three pieces on their own "cookies" lest they become one with the kiln shelf. The tardigrades came out fine, but I think because its surface was scored to simulate fur, the targ held onto a LOT of glaze and consequently became fused completely to its cookie, which has resulted in a substantial bit of sculpture. If nothing else, it makes an interesting paperweight, although I think it's still fit for purpose to be a garden or potted plant decoration. Maybe an award statue? Who has an idea for me? Also who would like a metal targ? You'll just have to pay for shipping. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Two tiny updates this week:Quentin Grasps the Linguistic Function of PronounsOccasionally Quentin will hand us this Duplo piece and tell us it's a phone, and to have a conversation with a person. A few mornings ago, he apparently had an extremely specific idea about the person he was imagining.QUENTIN: It's a person with a tiger!ME: (into phone) Hello? Hello. You have a tiger? Yes? Yes, I see. Okay.ME: (to Quentin) She says the tiger is asleep.QUENTIN: He pronouns!ME: Oh! Yes, he says the tiger is asleep.QUENTIN: (is satisfied)Nighttime TrendsQuentin averages about three post-bedtime emergences after we've put him to bed. Somewhat dismayingly, he insists our responses should follow a set pattern wherein one of us puts him back to bed twice, followed by the other one twice, etc, but this pattern can be broken at a cost of minor meltdown. For a couple nights running, he'd also do another one between 11-1130p where he sleepily exits his room and asks to be tucked back in, and is asleep almost before I'm done wishing him goodnight. Let's hope that doesn't become a regular thing? Last night it didn't happen, so fingers crossed. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • You're just going to have to read this interview with a law professor who became a cop and what she's learned. (Vox) 

  • How do we fix Americans' relationship to the news, and can it start with the local TV version? Maybe? (~$Atlantic) 

  • Phase 1 trials on Pfizer for kids under 5 have begun!!!! (NPR) 

  • Personal responsibility for public health is still a terrible idea, though; just look at how the last year went. (The Verge) 

  • Some people have found the pandemic to be a highly beneficial time to just get the fuck off social media, which honestly: good for them. (BuzzFeed News) 

  • "Your honor, my client is just the stupidest person alive, an absolute fucking disaster in the brain, the dumbest fucking dumb-dumb you've ever seen in your entire life, the worst idiot imaginable, an easily-led animal who makes a brain-damaged cow look like a Rhodes scholar, and that's why he's innocent" is one hell of a (bad) defense to mount for these Capitol insurrectionists. (TPM) 

  • What if dreams are weird on purpose, though. Like they're literally weird as hell because our brains are trying to prepare us for when unexpected shit happens. What if that? I can't wait to read this one! (Guardian) (Paper) 

  • There might just be some actually cool rich people out there. (CNBC) 

  • There are about 65 animals out there that do something we can credibly interpret as laughter. (Ars Technica) (Paper) 

  • Your sobering climate read for the week is this one about national park staff receiving new guidance around what's saveable and what's not. ($NYT) 

  • An experiment built around an augmentation to the human body and how the brain adapts to it has yielded intriguing results. (Gizmodo) 

  • Huh. "The World Economy Is Suddenly Running Low on Everything" (Yahoo News) 

  • The very first nuclear test detonation produced an impossible-to-find-in-nature material with the undeniably cool-ass name of "quasicrystals." (Nature) 

  • Certain kinds of Russian malware -- like the one that fucked the pipeline that ultimately caused fools to start hoarding gasoline in plastic bags -- deliberately won't infect a computer that has a Russian keyboard installed. (Krebs on Security) 

  • A researcher just discovered four new species of sponges in what's essentially our backyard; there's probably all kinds of animals unknown to science just swimming around in front of our faces that we have no clue are there. Ha! Hahahaha! (UC Santa Barbara) 

  • Red alert: Trump wingnuts are taking over the Republican apparatus at the state level. (Vice) 

  • Jesus: chemical engineers have figured out a way to turn plastics into jet fuel. Is anybody out there keeping track of all this incredible shit? Once everyone figures out how to scale all of this stuff, there's going to be no need to throw anything away, we'll just turn it all into something else, and when we're done with that, we'll turn it into yet another thing, endlessly, until we invent replicators. I'm down, honestly. Let's do this!!!! (Washington State) 

  • I don't know how to feel about this longread from Harper's from a college professor who spent some time in a TikTok house; I need you to read it too so we can talk about it. (Harper's) 

  • Polar bears and grizzly bears are out there hybridizing?? Despite being different species?? (they apparently diverged recently enough that their offspring are viable) I don't know if I like "pizzly bear" as a name, just puttin' that out there. (Live Science) 

  • Fine, Uber has been good for exactly one thing. ($WaPo) 

  • Nobody ............ nobody's actually really sure where our buttholes came from, evolutionarily speaking. (~$Atlantic) 

  • Engineers have demonstrated a proof of concept for harvesting wifi signals and turning them into electricity. (National U of Singapore) Speaking of electricity, a concept for making a giant battery out of concrete buildings has been published that doesn't seem completely insane. (Chalmers U of Tech) 

  • "It’s Time to Take Suburban Food More Seriously" (Vice) 

  • Salps might have a different spot in the ocean food web than we thought. (Florida State) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumGreen Man Run, Who Has Done This Thing 

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.