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

Instant Band Night 28: LATER

Four Thursdays from now we'll open the doors for the last Instant Band Night of 2024 and I think it's going to be a good one. You should be there for it!! As always, there's no requirement to get onstage — if you don't feel like rocking out, just show up and bear witness to the most concentrated explosion of joyful musical creativity you can cram into your eyes and ears! Ticket link (including handy FAQ) is right here (as well as below) for convenient forwarding to your top-tier friends.

Nov 14 2024
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

Update! 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.

Dream I had recently:

• I'm in a big public building something like a train station lobby

• There's a newspaper on the floor in front of me

• The article I'm reading is a retrospective on Daisy Ridley's time as Rey

• Much is made of her heroic struggle during filming with something she suffered called "leg invisibility"

• Someone steps on the newspaper while I'm reading it

• I look up

• It's Daisy Ridley!

• In that way dreams have of sideloading an entire invented life's worth of backstory into your mind such that everything feels completely seamless, I remember instantly that

  • Daisy Ridley is a personal friend of mine

  • She's here to tell me she's ready to pick the kids up for babysitting

• As we chat, I contemplate asking her about "leg invisibility"

  • What the hell is it?

  • Sounds like some kind of neurological condition

  • Inability to perceive one's own leg(s)???

  • But you know what, she seems fine now

  • Kinda feels like it'd be rude to ask at this point

• I decide not to

At this point Felix woke me up IRL, so now we'll truly never know what "leg invisibility" is. [piano music starts] [I get up from where I've been sitting] And that's why I'm asking you today to pledge $50 to the Leg Invisibility Investigation Fund today. With your support, we can [static sounds] [picture fritzes out]

#dadthoughts

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

First off, I want to express sincere thanks to everyone who donated to Quentin's Tigerthon fundraiser last year: you did some real good on a fantastic scale and you should feel great about it!!

If you have little kids in your house, you probably already know about Spidey and His Amazing Friends, the extremely cute and kid-oriented cartoon where Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales hang out as themselves and also foil villainous schemes as their necessarily-named-to-avoid-confusion spider-heroic alter-egos Spidey, Ghost Spider, and Spin, respectively. Disney+ recently released a new tranche of episodes and I am not exaggerating when I say these are the only things my children want to watch. I therefore present to you my categorization and power ranking of the Villains of Spidey as follows:

The Science(?) Villain class can be characterized by their reliance on technological ingenuity and engineering skills, albeit with at least one outlier.

1. Doc Ock: Obvious choice, the purest and most prolific technologist of the entire group, always inventing new robots and weapons and shit. Great.

2. Green Goblin: Also a big inventor, but with a weird goofy style featuring more nebulously magic-adjacent abilities like control of minds and machines and strangely sentient corn dog androids; I think this incarnation of Gobby is a Science Villain with a question mark: Science?

3. Trapster: Least effective of the Science Villains, she likes to build elaborately but not very well, which seems to make her easy to foil.

One-Trick Ponies are identified by their single power or character flaw, which they've made their entire personality (honestly understandable from an in-universe and pedagogical POV).

1. Sandman: Most powerful of this class only because Team Spidey seems least able to deal with this guy based on the fact that he can teleport in poofing clouds of sand, rendering their usual web nets useless. Interestingly, I don't think I've ever actually seen them do the thing they do to him in the cartoon's intro: using Spin's electro-sting power to simply knock him the fuck out. They usually have to either trick him into teleporting into water or quicksand (which he can't escape) or aggravate him so much he just straight up leaves.

2. Electro: Extremely fast to the point of being twitchy — you never see her walk anywhere, she's always zipping around in the air — Electro has demonstrated the ability to zap Team Spidey's incoming web-balls out of the air with her lightning powers, which is admittedly pretty good, but just dunking her in water neutralizes her easily, which they do fairly often. Electro's energy is definitely "the one at the party who most certainly has drugs, but you don't want to know where they came from."

3. Zola: You'd think since he's a robot this guy would be part of the Science Villain class, but he doesn't seem to invent anything — all he does is steal shit, which: fair enough, honestly. That said, the bottom of this particular ladder is all simple thieves, and Zola's only at the top rung because he can also zap his consciousness into anything with a screen, a power he uses far less often than you'd think, but which is also less useful than you imagine.

4. Black Cat: Middle-tier thief with a serious bling problem who's also got a grappling hook claw gun that she uses a lot. Black Cat can also be induced to acts of temporary heroism by Team Spidey, which is either a weakness or a strength, I'm not sure.

5. Rhino: An absolute fucking dimwit, physicaly strong but all the same easily the least-powerful villain in the entire show; he also has a highly relatable love of dessert.

I would attempt a power ranking of the voice actors, too, but honestly they're all doing incredible work. Sandman in particular is amazingly odious, just the absolute fucking worst, most obnoxious guy in whatever room he's in, while Electro has a somehow Jersey Shore-esque vocal fry lurking around the edges of her voice that just reinforces her tweaked-out vibe. 10/10 to all the villain voice actors. I recommend this show if only so I can trap others in this room with me; that way we can all trade notes.

Fascination Corner

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

• "Donald Trump, American Fascist: Trumpism is what a specifically American, twenty-first century version of fascism looks like. And in November, fascism is on the ballot." I once again want to remind readers that the guy who writes this is a German-born historian who specifically studies fascism, so it's not like he's talking out of his ass on this one. (Democracy Americana)
  

• The Scientists built a cyanobacteria-infused artificial plant that processes more CO2 than a natural one and also generates a little electricity as a treat. (Anthropocene) (Paper)
  

• I'm discovering a real love for orange flavors in baked goods, but why not also: orange lamp?? (Colossal)
  

• The Scientists have discovered a metal-sounding way to control bleeding, albeit with some time-to-effectiveness issues: electrical zaps around the ear. (Nature)
  

• You fucking nerds (affectionate): The Scientists found seven new frog species that make noises reminiscent of sound effects from Star Trek, so they named them after seven captains from the various series; it's a good spread of representation, honestly! (U of Copenhagen) (Paper)
  

• A new study provides evidence that people who have dyslexia or dyscalculia are intriguingly less likely to be racist, sexist, or ableist. (U of Plymouth) (Paper)
  

• Uhhhhh on the other hand, your medicine might be unintentionally racist: it turns out melanin can bind to some drugs, which means your skin tone can determine how effective certain meds might be. (UC Riverside) (Paper)
  

• "We need $700 billion to save nature: Just a tiny fraction of the global GDP could help stave off ecological collapse." (Vox)
  

• Imagine roads that generate power whenever cars drive on them: The Scientists have demonstrated a highly promising and environmentally-friendly piezoelectric material that could potentially make that happen someday. (RPI) (Paper)
  

• Why do we only inherit our mitochondria from our mothers? What happens if some mitochondria from our dads gets in there? Turns out: nothing good!!!! (U of Colorado Boulder) (Paper)
  

• The Scientists have done some testing and it looks like blasting the brain with near-infrared lasers for a couple minutes a day after a traumatic brain injury helps reduce inflammation and speed recovery. (U of Birmingham) (Paper)
  

• Spotify let a whole bunch of fake albums in from obviously bullshit labels ("Ancient Lake Records" lol), some of which attached themselves to real artists. (Ars Technica)
  

• Let's all read about the molecular-scale weaponry that a seagoing bacterium uses to hook its prey and riddle its membrane with holes. (ETH Zurich)
  

• The Scientists think the human gut microbiome splits out into two guilds, essentially: the Foundation Guild that helps the whole thing run, and the Pathobiont Guild that watches out for intruders. Fascinating! (Rutgers U) (Paper)
  

• Circular construction imagines a world where workers meticulously take a building apart piece by piece instead of just knocking it down, and not only would it reuse up to 90% of the materials, it would also create hella jobs for that "economy" thing I keep hearing about. The white paper download page asks you to fill out some info, so just let me know if you want a copy and I'll send it to you. (Anthropocene) (Paper)
  

• Some Engineers built a simple robot buddy for toddlers to see if they'd move around more when the robot was in the mix, and it turns out: yes! (Ohio State) (Paper)
  

• "Tinkerers Are Taking Old Redbox Kiosks Home and Reverse Engineering Them: The Redbox operating system has been dumped, and people are repurposing the massive DVD kiosks they've saved from the scrap heap." (404 Media)
  

• Our minds actually need chaos a little bit. (Vox)
  

• The Scientists have demonstrated that it's technically possible to breed corals that have higher heat tolerances, but it's not enough to keep pace with climate change. (Newcastle U) (Paper)

• Here's an interview with the lead scientist for the Europa Clipper mission. (Supercluster)
  

• Testing seems to show that blasting tomato plants with bigger water droplets when watering them improves their resistance to pests and pathogens. (ACS)
  

• Why the hell would a town of 249 people need 50 cops? Why indeed. (Poynter)
  

• The Scientists have worked out a way to potentially detect signals sent between alien planets instead of messages beamed directly at us. (Penn State) (Paper)
  

• Fuck, OK! Some Engineers have demonstrated a technique for 3D printing simple electronic devices without semiconductors, using off-the-shelf printers and biodegradable materials!!! (MIT) (Paper)
  

• The Scientists have built a proof-of-concept device that can actually, for real, for really real this time, get meaningful test results from a drop of blood in about an hour. (U of Colorado Boulder) (Paper)
  

• Most of the meteorites on Earth came from just three places. (CNRS) (Paper)
  

• This poor bastard has made himself fully insane — although to be fair, if I accidentally threw away a thumb drive containing half a billion dollars, I would probably be a stark raving lunatic right now, too. (Wales Online)
  

• Apparently there exists a rare but horrifying condition called toxic epidermal necrolysis that makes your skin detach from your body in reaction to certain medications, but don't worry — The Scientists have figured out what causes it and developed a good treatment for it! (Max Planck Inst of Biochemistry) (Paper)
  

• Some Engineers built a pretty good motion-tracking app that just uses a smartphone; no need to put on a sensor-studded leotard and jump around in a gray room. (Northwestern)

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:

Alternate universe music critic Steve had this to say:

Ok listen Jon, I'm going to need you to stay with me on this train of thought.

1) font and gingerbready building design are vaguely Christmassy

2) lack of snow and high rise utilitarianism of actual building are more gloomy and industrial than Christmassy

3) surreal band name and slightly mystical yearning title are more experimental than gloomy and industrial

Clearly this is Brian Eno and Bauhaus go on a three day glühwein bender and in a fugue state record a Christmas album in March

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)!