the needs of the many, huh

December 17, 2018

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that'll see you in a couple weeks after Xmas; may the end of the year treat you spectacularly, each and every one of you. Yes, YOU 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway92 - Baby's First 808"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Rachel (@rachelbinx) decloak quality notions for literature, musical instruments, and personal grooming products among others; contains spoilers(?) for Death's End if you were gonna read that one."Rachel has some quality stories that give tantalizing hints at the life of adventure she leads, and it's great.If you haven't yet, subscribe by searching "Idea Factory Giveaway" in your podcatcher of choice (and let me know if it doesn't pop up). If you're already there, feel free to leave a 5-star rating and a nice review (it helps; algorithms, etc, you know the deal).Instant Band Night 8: The Eighth OneI'm not gonna say time is running out, because it is and it isn't; just make sure you've got the date marked in your calendar (January 10) and I'll see you there! If you happen not to live in the Bay, that's fine, just invite everyone you know who lives here and we'll call it good. You could even just forward them this, honestly.Instant Band Night is a party where musicians who've just met form bands on the spot, and you're gonna have a good time whether in the audience or up onstage rocking the fuck out of something you just made up with four other people a few minutes ago. HARK YE THE THREE RULES OF INSTANT BAND NIGHT:(1)The first rule of Instant Band Night is: 👏 YOU 👏 DON'T 👏 HAVE 👏 TO 👏 PLAY 👏 AN 👏 INSTRUMENT 👏 TO 👏 ATTEND 👏 (just come watch, no need to get up there if you don't wanna)(2)The second rule of Instant Band Night is: We guarantee you (the audience) an astonishingly excellent time.(3)The third rule of Instant Band Night is: Bring a friend or three!Oh, you wanted details? Here's your details:1. The stage has a drum kit, guitar, bass, keyboard, and mics.2. We draw names out of hats to make instant bands that get 7 minutes in the green room to plan a 5-minute set.3. A hat-drawn artist will also take the stage alongside each band to draw their gig poster on a meeting room easel pad.Come play or come watch; you'll have fun either way! Bring your people, crack a beverage: let's do this.January 108p507 55th St 94609$5/personBYOBYou can use these handy links to Facebook or Eventbrite to invite folks if you're feeling fancy, or (again) just forward them this email, 'cause why not.* * *  w e ' l l * s e e * y o u * t h e r e * * *F.A.Q.Q: Do I need to be a musician to show up?A: No. Absolutely not. Hell no. Come see the show and have a good time; you don't have to get onstage.Q: I'm a musician; am I guaranteed a slot in a band?A: We literally draw names written on slips of paper out of coffee cans, so there's a chance you may not be called; in a purely mathematical sense, it's a function of how many musicians of each type show up that night (there are five musician cans -- DRUMS, GUITAR, BASS, VOX, MISC -- and one can for artists who'll be picked to draw the bands' gig posters). We say: surrender to the spirit of random chance, or maybe slip the MC a bribe of some sort.Q: Do I have to be an amazing musician to throw my name in a can?A: Probably not. Your band's only gonna be onstage for 8 minutes, anyway; how bad can you possibly be?Q: Do I have to pick my cover tunes beforehand?A: Listen. You and your band (who you've JUST MET) have 5 minutes onstage to do whatever the hell you can think of in the 7 minutes prior to walking up there. You wanna try to pick covers everyone can agree on? Great. You wanna try writing something new? Fantastic; it can definitely be done. You wanna pick a key and tell each other to just fuckin' wing it up there? You are a RAGING PSYCHOPATH and we love it. We'll see you in 7; get in the green room!!!!Q: What does BYOB stand for?A: We don't sell drinks at Instant Band Night, so you gotta bring your own. Get a cheap sixpack of something. Maybe a bottle and some cups. We're not here to godmod how you get down.Q: Is this in the East Bay?A: It is. Do not be alarmed: it's within walking distance of MacArthur BART, and as a bonus, you get to tour the lovely and scenic Temescal district on your way over. Or you could just take a Lyft from SF (or the BART station if you fancy). Got a car? Drive on over; parking around the East Bay Community Space is pretty simple. You can do this. We believe in you. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I'm that guy who'd probably leave the Xmas tree up all year if he could. There's just something about it that brings a kind of bizarrely homey comfort that no other holiday or holiday decoration can match. One thing about our tree is that the majority of the ornaments on it are from Mavis, because she had the foresight to move out here with a box of them and I didn't. She's happy to see my share of the ornaments grow, of course, so we've resolved that each year I should acquire one or two more and eventually it'll all balance out. I'm happy with the ones I've added so far, which include a glittering red star topper, a dog made out of gold-painted wire, and a light-up Ambassador-class Federation starship (shout out to Hallmark, whose Star Trek Xmas ornament game is both undeniably strong and completely fucking bizarre). What should my next acquisition be? I'm against getting too many Trek ornaments; it just seems tacky and I don't know why. Is that dumb? Should I just lean into it? What do you think? Your thoughts to my thoughts. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.A thing I keep hearing from fellow parents is that babies only have enough room in their brains to work on one thing at a time: if they're busy figuring out how to walk, they make no progress on talking, and v/v. I still haven't been able to work out what Quentin's focus is. He crawls all over the place, pulls himself up to standing on damn near everything he can get a grip on, and routinely cruises from chair to wall to doorjamb to shelf and back. On the other hand, he also babbles incessantly (and adorably), giving what I can only assume is a stream-of-consciousness rant that includes opinions, monologues, and recaps of his many mighty deeds and accomplishments, in a language known only to himself. Anyone want to guess what his next breakthrough will be, because I have no idea! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • The Biggest Tech Lies of 2018. (Gizmodo) 

  • Here's where we are and where we could possibly go with gun reform according to the Brookings Institute. 

  • Confirmation that water is wet, sky is blue, and Trump is only popular in rural areas. (538) 

  • An interesting writeup on what amounts to a caste system internal to Google. (Quartz) 

  • A legit feel-good story from a daughter who explores her Chinese immigrant dad's genuine friendship with Charles Barkley. (WBUR) 

  • Porn sites collect more user data than Netflix or Hulu. This is what they do with it. (Quartz) 

  • I can't do any better than say you should probably read this story about a guy who put up a giant sculpture of a hand flipping his town council the bird. (Boston.com) 

  • Did you know there's a black market in finches that are used for -- I shit you not -- underground high-stakes singing contests????? (NYT) 

  • The results of a week-long experiment by one person to use nothing but premium goods (the kind you hear advertised on podcasts incessantly) were ......... mixed. (Vox) 

  • Ant colonies have memories. (Smithsonian) 

  • Taylor Swift's security people used facial recognition technology to keep an eye out for her known stalkers at a concert, and I ain't mad about it. Honestly, how the fuck else is she supposed to do what she does? There's hundreds of these people, apparently. (Quartz) 

  • Think about all the human life on the planet and how much carbon mass that must be. Well, according to recent estimates, there's about 385x that amount's worth of microbes buried in Earth's crust, just chillin'. Or bakin', more like. At this point I wouldn't be too surprised if they eventually found there were thermosynthetic bacteria literally swimming around the molten core of the planet. (Gizmodo) 

  • We've been wearing fanny packs more or less since the dawn of human civilization. (Quartzy) 

  • Do fire trucks actually need to be that big? What if there were smaller vehicles we could send to the calls that need a fire truck, but not to fight a fire (which it turns out are only a small percentage of calls)? (CityLab) 

  • I've been wondering how the hell we're going to build car-to-pedestrian communication into autonomous vehicles that replaces the good ol' "eye contact/gesture" channel, and it turns out Lyft has some ideas. There are pictures, too, which I applaud. I mean, there damn well oughta be, right? (TechCrunch) 

  • People are staying fitter as they age, so should we rethink retirement? How about the fuck not? If anything, people who've reached that age should be even more free to enjoy not working with healthier bodies. I'm just sayin'. (Nautilus) 

  • Does it actually really truly matter which college you go to? It depends. (Atlantic) 

  • Anybody want to go splitsies on a $150K treehouse? (Uncrate) 

  • This may be too late for the 2018 holiday season, but is essentially evergreen advice for next year and all future years: The science of toys: A guide for the perplexed shopper. (Brookings Institute) 

  • Bragging about working long hours just means you're a fool: productivity drops off a cliff after about 55h/wk. Go home! (Quartz) 

  • Keanu Reeves has been secretly financing children's hospitals. If ever there was a textbook case of a human who absolutely does not have to be a good person, but is anyway, it's surely gotta be this guy, right? (Epoch Times) 

  • Something I've noticed when putting this section together is that it's often just easier to put the headline in than any kind of commentary when it's an article from Quartz, which is a testament to the strength of their headline writers. Case in point: Two US electric utilities have promised to go 100% carbon-free—and admit it’s cheaper. (Quartz, obvs) 

  • My wish that I speak into the universe is an eventual book-length writeup of the Maria Butina story with either a Game of Thrones- or D&D sourcebook-esque cover treatment called "A Song of Dupes & Dunces." (BuzzFeed News) 

  • The most sobering read on the current insect apocalypse and its implications you'll likely see all year. In short: think back to when you were a kid; didn't there used to be more bugs around? Just in general? That's not an exaggeration. (NYT) 

  • The Man Who Destroyed Donald Trump's Hollywood Star Explains Himself. (GQ) 

  • The vicious piece of shit who ran over Heather Heyer will hopefully die in prison. (Daily Beast)

A Fictional Thing

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

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.