Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that can't stop getting ideas for hand-built mugs to make, which may be a phase all ceramic artists go through????

You'll Like This

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

Instant Band Night 13 Going On 30

Instant Band Night 29 was a goddamn blast and if you weren't there, I am truly sorry you missed it!! At this point I think it may be safe to say we have a couple of regular attendees who bring their brass (trumpet and sax, to be precise) and their presence truly elevates both the proceedings in general and the variety of acts. Do not miss the next one if you value joy and creativity in your life!! There's no pressure to perform — you can simply join the almost ferociously friendly crowd in their appreciation for each wild new band that appears! Also, word to the wise: we're going for an 80s theme for this one, so dig out your brightest neon clothes. Trust me on this one!!

✨🪩✨
March 13 2025
6p
$10
East Bay Community Space
507 55th St 94609

(Eventbrite) (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

Excellent new tardigrades! Chaos mushrooms! Plus the rest of the almost aggressively whimsical, playfully intelligent catalog you may or may not have come to know already, perfect for yourself or a highly discerning friend in your life: there has never been a better time than now.

Idea Factory Giveaway

I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after two+ 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.

Short one here, folks, which is just a note to say that we're in mid-January and we still haven't sent our holiday card, but that doesn't mean it's not coming. I want to use this opportunity to give everyone reading this blanket permission to feel no fret about exactly one (1) self-imposed deadline. You're free! Free, I say!!

#dadthoughts

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

Today I'm going to use this space to give recommendations for three wildly different book series Quentin enjoys tremendously; your own kid's mileage may vary, obviously, but I'm willing to bet these books are in the school and/or county library for a reason!!

🐰 Thomas Flintham's PRESS START series: beginner-level chapter books with huge colorful illustrations, centering around the videogame adventures of a friendly rabbit. The level of both humor and danger is just right for Quentin (7) and Felix (3), and Quentin can read just about all the word bubbles in the pictures all on his own, which is thrilling to witness. Felix is currently obsessed with the third book, which is essentially a Mario Kart riff.

🐲 DRAGON MASTERS by Tracey West, also a beginner-level chapter book but with fewer pictures. The stories are simple but obviously enthralling — Quentin has gone nuts for these books — and there's a big fat "Epic Guide to Dragon Masters" that essentially functions as this universe's OHOTMU. Rather than focusing on just a generic Fantasy England, these books include Fantasy Versions of Just About Any Nation You Can Think Of, which I appreciate. These books go down easier than the Magic Treehouse, which is ............. fine, but just not quite as good for reasons I don't feel like going into because we're about positivity here.

🦖 The EARTH BEFORE US books by Abby Howard. I will level with you: if Abby Howard never does anything else in her entire career (which seems highly unlikely), these books would still put her up there among the all-time greats. These books fucking rule: they're beautifully illustrated, jam-packed with facts, well laid-out, and sprinkled with good little jokes. Reading-level-wise, they're way beyond Quentin right now, so I read them to him; a great time. Hot tip: if your kid loves the ocean, start with the second one.

Fascination Corner

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

• "Lifeboat Capitalism: Some burn, some drown, and some make money either way." If you read nothing else, read the final paragraph. (How Things Work)

• Oh, to sit peacefully inside a giant acorn: imagine. (Colossal)

• The Scientists are worried global warming might actually be speeding up, which isn't great news considering it wasn't exactly dillydallying in the first fucking place. (Nature)

• Planting trees in cities can help with the whole urban heat island problem, but — shocker — only if you plant the right kinds of trees in the right places!!!!!! (Anthropocene) (Paper)

• Here's a good writeup on the folks who make Watch Duty, the app you probably already know all about if you've been following the fires in LA. (The Verge)

• Cyanobacteria out in the ocean have been linking up with each other the whole time??? (Quanta)

• Recognition that The Vibes are bad (economic inequality) and it's probably the fault of the ultrawealthy (economic inequality!!!!!!!!) is growing out there; let's gooooooooooo. (Pew Research)

• The Scientists have found a way to turn a particular industrial waste product into a pretty decent battery ingredient. (Northwestern U) (Paper)

• I guess CEO accountability only exists if you ran Sonos during what might've been its biggest fuckup of all time. (TechCrunch)

• Here, have a nice article about a happy dog who likes to help scientists by digging up rare and/or previously-unknown-to-science truffles. (Science)

• Thomas Zimmer's got a good one for us on "Navigating the Nonsense and Propaganda of Clownish Authoritarianism" — from his user picture I know he is most certainly not Werner Herzog, but I find it helpful to read his essays in a Werner Herzog voice inside my head. (Democracy Americana)

• Zimmer's take resonates interestingly with this one on what to do every time Trump opens his stupid flapping fuck mouth. (Off Message)

• Experimental evidence suggests ants can hold grudges (against other ants at least). (U of Freiburg) (Paper)

• I did not know there was such a thing as a Jellycat crime wave, but the Jellycat bunny is extremely important in this house, so I get it. I think. (Dazed)

• Somebody come pick up your fucking space junk!!! If that's what it even is!! (Ars Technica)

• The Scientists have been doing some extremely powerful and esoteric number-crunching; long story short, the math says a whole other kind of fundamental particle appears to be possible. (Rice U) (Paper)

• Having an office job appears to be strongly correlated with high risk for having shitty sleep. (U of South Florida)

• An extremely committed (and gay) man infiltrated one of those right-wing lunatic militias with the intent to gather and leak as much as he could in order to sow crippling paranoia among its members, as well as flip them the double bird by explicitly saying "A homosexual did this to you bigoted losers!!!!" It's a fascinating longread. (ProPublica)

• People's Choice voting for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year is open. (Natural History Museum)

• The Scientists have worked out a mathematical formula that they think can predict the chances of success for an invasive species trying to enter a new ecosystem, at least for bacteria, which would be super useful to know if you're at all concerned with the human microbiome! (MIT) (Paper)

• Some Engineers have come up with a fascinatingly bonkers concept for an interstellar propulsion system that essentially relies on blasting solar sail probes with beams of electrons instead of photons. (Universe Today)

• "Why kids need to take more risks: science reveals the benefits of wild, free play: Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents." (Nature)

• As has been said elsewhere, neither Meta nor Twitter nor anyone else actually gives a fuck about free speech; they're just pandering to the simpleminded conservatives who are currently holding the gavel. Anyhow, here's a rundown of all the vile shit you can say on Facebook and Insta now that Zuck's rolled over and showed his vulnerable pink underbelly. (The Verge)

• The Scientists have discovered that certain strongly antibiotic-resistant bacteria become way less resistant if you deprive them of the right nutrients, opening up vulnerabilities to old drugs. Nice! Read this one for the explanatory metaphor alone, which is A+. (McMaster U)

• Some Engineers have got The Machine out here designing miniaturized wireless chips that look random as hell but outperform anything we've been able to come up with, although there are (of course) some hallucinations in the mix as well. (Princeton Engineering) (Paper)

• [sound of laughter followed by a gun cocking] "Did You Even Consider Every Possible Lived Experience Before Recklessly Posting Your Chili Recipe on Social Media?" (McSweeney's)

• We should add a climate fee to foods that are bigger greenhouse gas emitters. (Potsdam Inst for Climate Impact Research) (Paper)

• If you didn't hear about the fuzzy robot at CES whose only job is to make eye contact with you, enjoy. (Designboom)

• Biodegradable low-power fungal battery? Biodegradable low-power fungal battery. (Empa) (Paper)

• Some Engineers at UC Berkeley trained a reasonably competent version of The Machine for about the cost of a PS5, leading at least a few people to wonder what the fuck OpenAI is doing with all that goddamn money. (NovaSky)

• If someone betrays us but we benefit from the betrayal somehow, we're less likely to mark them untrustworthy in our minds. (UCLA)

• Hey. Hey! Why do birds make so many different noises? Why, though? (U of Madison-Wisconsin) (Paper)

• Going far beyond simple vibration, Some Engineers have developed a class of wearable devices that produce "rich, expressive, and pleasant tactile sensations" that uh. Well, you know what we're all thinking. No, they don't talk about it. (Max Planck Inst for Intelligent Systems) (Paper)

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:

Reader Jade says this one "sounds like a duo of frustrated Asian kids that started a band in high school or college to escape schoolwork. Seems like rock music. They probably make a lot of songs about systemic societal issues... maybe I'm projecting? It's the kind of music I would have liked to have when staying up late doing work."

Reader Krischelle has this to say:

"'All right, let me break it up for you…' Asian Press Release is one man with one great mission: teaching YOU how to build a drum beat in any style of music on the must-have dual keyboard of the century!

"Creative Keyboards presents this step-by-step guide to stunning your friends and family with the sudden ability to drop a sick beat anywhere, anytime!!! See Music Video for details"

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)!