the ultimate Frakisode

July 16, 2018

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that needs to get a new ceramic baking dish after the one it was using literally cracked in half. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway74 - "Violence for Violence is the Rule of Beasts""Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and return special guest Jessica Zollman (@jayzombie) explore great notions for museums, food service, and improvements to America, as well as an update to an idea Jess found in her very first appearance."Jess is a dear friend I don't see often enough (mostly due to her having moved to LA), and it was a brilliant idea to have her back for a second pair of episodes; wait'll you hear her fourth one, folks. Her first appearance, to which we refer as the description hints, is ep22, Cosplay Island -- well worth revisiting.If you haven't yet, subscribe by searching "Idea Factory Giveaway" in your podcast app 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). 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I fell all the way down a deep podcast rabbit hole a while ago in the form of a show called The Greatest Generation, "a Star Trek podcast from a couple of guys who are a bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast." It's actually great; both hosts have some filmmaking experience, which shows itself only occasionally when they want to discuss an interesting angle or framing choice. They really like the ones directed by Jonathan Frakes, who plays Commander Riker and -- according to them -- has a keen eye for unusual shots that most other Trek directors don't see. I myself finally noticed this while watching "Cause and Effect" (s05e18, a Frakes episode -- Frakisode?) the other night: every time the crew goes through the time loop, the angle from which we view the rehashed scenes changes with each iteration, in some cases quite drastically. I don't know how I never noticed this before, especially with the scene where Dr. Crusher diagnoses Geordi's dizziness: on one run-through, the camera's placed at the level of Bev's elbow, looking up at both of them from below. There's also the conference room scene toward the loop's end, one iteration of which gets shot from above -- Frakes loves that shot, the Greatest Gen guys assert, and so do they. I mean, why not? It's odd as hell, but it works. I'm kind of tempted to watch the other Frakisodes just to see which one is the ultimate, but (a) that means I'd have to watch "Sub Rosa" on purpose and (b) how can "Cause and Effect" not be it? I'm just sayin'. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.It is the beginning of the end.A few days ago, Mavis and I observed Quentin flop onto his belly on his living room playmat and proceed -- slowly, clumsily, yet inexorably -- to scoot himself backwards until he was on the carpet. He also arched his back and flailed his arms around to rotate himself 90° counterclockwise. There have been mornings where I've seen him in his crib on his tum with his butt in the air and his arms out in front of him, making wiggles and trying to figure out how everything works together. At least a couple of his contemporaries from Baby Club have definitely army-crawled on their elbows toward especially tempting food or toys on picnic blankets.Soon, the peaceful days of Quentin-stays-where-I-put-him will be over. We're going to have to babyproof the living room pretty soon. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Airbnb talks a big game about how it brings new business to neighborhoods, but there's data that suggests it's only true for white ones. 

  • There are somewhere around 30-40 coyotes living in New York City. Who knew? 

  • As I don't know the first thing about YouTuber culture (if such a thing could even be said to exist), I was only peripherally aware of the total, unceremonious collapse of TanaCon. Join me in reading the post-mortem. This article also brings up DashCon, for which I'm still awaiting a book-length, in-depth account, if there's anyone out there who wants to write it. 

  • If you can get past the baby medical peril in this NYT article, the mitochondrial transplant science it discusses is goddamn remarkable. 

  • Shit yeah, I'm 100% in favor of teaching a machine to make my noisy low-light images good! The article talks a big game, but the embedded video is suitably impressive. 

  • 3D printing guns was ......... probably inevitable? Not to bite a Chris Rock bit, but we could probably start regulating bullets -- a functional cartridge would not be possible to print with current technology, unless I'm missing something. 

  • Color x-rays in 3D. Color x-rays in 3D. 

  • All the articles I've seen about the ArenaNet fiasco -- and make no mistake, it is a fiasco -- focus on the larger implications of it, but what I want to know is how the fuck is Jessica Price doing? Did she get a new job? Did one of these other companies condemning ArenaNet roll out the welcome mat or what? I hope she safely landed, or will land, somedamnwhere. 

  • Good faith efforts don't fucking work against people who are literally operating in bad faith: Facebook Proves It Isn't Ready To Handle Fake News. 

  • Guess who the greatest president of our lifetime is, according to a Pew survey? 

  • Good followup from the trans episode of Queer Eye, y'all. 

  • It's amazing to me that a structure that essentially looks like a giant flux capacitor is actually a super intense optical telescope. 

  • OK, so app-based ride hailing is increasing car ridership and decreasing public transit use, which isn't great, but they can actually coexist in a way that complements each other. 

  • You know what, why not use 3D printers to restore 2.5-century-old sculptures? 

  • Jonathan Chait's recent Trump/Russia speculation made the rounds for its disturbing plausibility, but it's been correctly pointed out to me that Sarah Kendzior already beat this drum a year ago. 

  • You've probably clocked by now that I have a fascination with the spectacular failure of large-scale public events. Case in point: two Fyre Festival attendees have been awarded millions in damages, but .......... where does the money come from? McFarland doesn't have it, does he?

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumBootypixel, That Was the Last Mistake 

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.