the valentine's day haul

February 14, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that experienced a few days of 75° weather in mid-February and did not care for it overall on an existential level 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe edit on the last episode we recorded is almost finished, but as you can imagine, moving back to your real house after having moved temporarily to a new house for almost a month while still managing a baby and a 4yo is not without its logistical challenges.As of the time of this writing, there are still 43 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ratings, plus howevermany wonderful reviews. You have the power to take us to 45 and beyond: you!!Instant Band Night 15: TIME WARPI think we're just gonna reschedule for July. By July the kids under 5 will have vaccines, right? Nobody answer that. (Eventbrite) (Facebook)+ +  r e t u r n i n g   i n   2 0 2 2  + ++ +  h a n g   i n   t h e r e  + + 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.Up top: the Friend Gallery album idea I had last week has been working out splendidly. If you want to become a guest curator, let me know!!While we're waiting for word on the next series of Taskmaster, I present to you my current top five contestants; isn't it time there was some sort of All Stars special miniseries or something, aside from Champion of Champions? I'm just sayin'. 

  • Sally Phillips (s05): The madness of Sally Phillips is Important. There's a unique glee to her antics that I can't define; I just know it's good.

  • Nish Kumar (s05): Every season of Taskmaster needs one ridiculous person, and no one has ever topped Nish Kumar; Johnny Vegas came close in s10.

  • Jessica Knappett (s07): Jessica Knappett is the Sally Phillips of s07. I can't define it any better than that; her entry for "make the best noise" is in my top ten moments of the entire show. Why did she do that.

  • Rose Matafeo (s09): Every season also needs one actual competitive person; it was a tough call between her and Ed Gamble, to be honest, but she's more fun to watch, and also I want to know what her deal is with cowboy imagery. At some point we'll get around to watching Starstruck.

  • Mike Wozniak (s11): I want to be buddies with this guy for so many reasons, not least of which is his "facts about animals" song. I think I just put together right now that his mustache reminds me of my friend Gary, too.

I cannot stress enough to you that if you somehow slept on Taskmaster during the pandemic, you have at least 8 seasons waiting for you on YouTube RIGHT NOW. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin came home from his preschool's version of Valentine's Day* at his preschool carrying a haul at least equal to, if not outmassing, his Halloween one. An incomplete catalog of goods follows: 

  • Three vials of bubble fluid

  • A tiny pull-back-and-release car shaped like a pig that really goes

  • A decorative pencil

  • A yellow pen (yellow ink) with a rubber lemon at the other end

  • A temp tattoo of a mermaid

  • Two identical gel window-cling things shaped like a unicorn (received from two different people)

  • A little moose stuffy

  • A squishy unicorn with a clasp keychain hook

  • A paper superhero mask with surprisingly tight elastic

  • Many, many stickers

  • Wrapped mini snacks including a granola bar, fruit snacks, heart-shaped pretzels, and a low-sugar egg-free homemade cookie that he devoured after dinner

  • A few scattered chocolates but not that many (solidarity, other parents: I see you)

The basic deal was that any kid who wanted to bring something had to bring enough for everyone in their class (there's a big kid class and a little kid class), and no specific names (i.e. "to Quentin"). We sent Quentin in with some homemade valentines: he sometimes likes to paint big swaths of paper in layered blobs of watercolor, and I thought it might be nice to do that to a couple big sheets of thick paper and cut 'em into hearts. They turned out .......... kind of amazing? I added some colors, too, but the majority of the painting was his, and I was proud of the end result. I need to remember this technique for anything else we want to hand out.*"Friendship Day," where they all celebrated their friendship and kindness to each other -- the pictures are goddamn adorable. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Mask mandates are lifting, but we're not there yet, goddammit. (Ars Technica) 

  • From where I'm sitting, there's a convincing case to be made that Dolly Parton should be put in charge of the whole fucking country immediately. (CNN) 

  • Here's a long and unsettling read on what the author calls "avocado politics" that are likely coming down the pipe: as the effects of climate change worsen, some brownshirt-ass bullshit is going to appear in attempted disguises of varying shades of green. (The Breakthrough) 

  • "How To Want Less: The secret to satisfaction has nothing to do with achievement, money, or stuff." (~$Atlantic) 

  • Why shouldn't we organize against the right-wing fucknuts who are trying to ruin all our school boards? (~$WaPo) 

  • The Scientists are working on plastic-digesting enzymes derived from bacteria, but they're still not going to be a fix-all for the plastics problem. (Guardian) 

  • Spinal implants are making incremental but real improvements. (BBC) 

  • The people-buying-houses market is fucked, fucked, fucked and doesn't look like it's going to be unfucked anytime soon. (Fortune) 

  • Surprising absolutely no one, emissions reduction pledges from at least 25 companies have been revealed to be so much hot, useless air. (Nature) 

  • In a few years, there'll be at least 4 EV chargers every 50mi in this country. (Ars Technica) 

  • Here's a good interview with the guy who made the big NFT explainer. (Vice) 

  • The Scientists have demonstrated that cockatoos have the brainpower to figure out how to complete a task using more than one tool in sequence. (U of Birmingham) 

  • There are sponges in the hadean depths of the Arctic ocean that are using bacterial symbionts to feast on the remains of long-dead organisms on the seafloor. (Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology) 

  • The Scientists have invented a spray-on antimicrobial coating for fabrics that works pretty well. (U of British Columbia) 

  • This guy for President. (The Hill) 

  • Looks like monkeys can get the yips, too. (Georgia State) 

  • There might be a planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, or at least in the orbital band where water can remain liquid. (Nature) 

  • The Scientists have run some preliminary numbers and they're pretty sure we can expand our renewable energy infrastructure without fucking up a huge amount of animal habitats. (Anthropocene) 

  • Instead of throwing gigantic wind turbine blades into landfills where they take up a lot of space without degrading much, we could just make bridges out of 'em. (The Verge) 

  • If you're presented with a bunch of profound-seeming bullshit, you're more likely to think it's credible if you're told it's coming from a scientist as opposed to a spiritual leader, which The Scientists are calling "the Einstein effect." (Paper) 

  • It's at least technically possible that the molecules required for life could've formed out in the lightless vacuum of space instead of on a planet. (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) 

  • The main reason people avoid fast food might not be because of perceived unhealthiness, but guilt. (Science Alert) 

  • Your Good Twitter Thread For The Day is this one. There will be no additional details. Just click. (George Pointon on Twitter) 

  • Where does our microbiome come from? The Scientists are still figuring that one out. (Carnegie Science) 

  • I wonder if there's an agency or organization out there somewhere cataloging all of these innovations and keeping track of efforts to scale them, because here's yet another highly promising bioplastic with a lot of intriguing properties!!!! (Wiley) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumProblematic Mustache, Porn for Snails(If you've made it this far, feel free to hit REPLY and tell me what you think this band/album sounds like, because now I'm curious) 

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.