toward a consistent model of optimal toddler cat-petting technique

November 04, 2019

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that must report the limited-edition pumpkin spice Twinkies are, unsurprisingly, pretty damn good actually. 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayNo new episode this week, but I might as well take the opportunity one (last?) time to point out our new presence on Spotify. And once again, you are always welcome to give us that 5-star on ye oldynne Apple Podcasts; it really would be amazingly helpful. A nice review would be even MORE helpful. What's wrong with helping in this modern age?Instant Band Night: Lucky 13📣 NEXT 📣🌷 DANG 🌷⚔ WEEK ⚔There's a chance this might be the last one, so mark your calendar and tell your friends -- then it might not be! Remember also that we celebrate not only the 13th one of these, but Quentin's 2nd year upon this planet as well; though he himself will not be in attendance, he will feel the vibes we put out, and through this action, you will know inner peace for a brief moment.😎 Read the details 😎✨ Pass it to your friends ✨🎸 Add it to your calendaaaaaar 🎸 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I don't have a lengthy one for you this week, so how about a Low-Key Subscriber Drive! Take a second to forward this to a friend or make a post somewhere about why you like it! (Lots of people seem to derive great utility from the links section, but #dadthoughts has its adherents; maybe people just like my whole general vibe, who knows? You do, that's who) I'll put the signup link here for maximum convenience, even:https://tinyletter.com/ferociousjYou have my heartfelt thanks. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Some Notes To Quentin On His Latest Efforts To Pet The Cat Who Sometimes Sits In The CourtyardBuddy, sometimes the kitty doesn't want pets. You can tell because the kitty is sitting in the big pot that's too far away for you to reach. Or sometimes he watches you intently as you approach and runs away when you get too close. It's good to give the kitty space, because otherwise he'll do something you genuinely will not enjoy!But I have a suggestion for you on the rare but (I think) slightly increasingly common occasions when he sits patiently and lets you pet him: you know you can pet the kitty more than once, right? Your main move is to touch his fur exactly once -- so gently, which is very good and you should keep doing it that way -- and then immediately get up and walk away (sometimes you return and sometimes you don't). You can keep petting the kitty, bud! I think it's a good idea! Because every time you approach the kitty, it's a crapshoot for him in his head: "Is this kid gonna do something crazy?" and he has to mentally calculate whether it's worth the gamble or not for him to stick around.* So every time he sits still, that's a gamble you won, and you should collect your winnings. We've talked about how the kitty is soft, which I can only assume is why you like to pet him, so you should take advantage of these rare opportunities and give him all the pets you want, which again, I assume is more than one at a time, really, in your heart. I do have to say that I don't think he cares about your truck, though it was nice of you to offer.* I remember the exact moment this became apparent: it was early on in your acquaintance, when he'd already let you pet him a few times. He was sitting patiently on the lawn watching you approach when for no clear reason, you stumbled on your way over and threw your hands up into the air. Even though we both know there was no malice in your heart and you were too far away in any case to do anything untoward, the kitty took this as a Bad Sign and bolted, and it was many weeks -- if not months -- before trust was again restored. We should remember that the kitty lives in a house where a 6yo kid grew up and indeed currently resides, and thus his wariness of small children is both earned and valid. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Stop, stop, hold up, stop everything. You can cut a day out of the work week and productivity will actually go up, if this experiment by Microsoft Japan is any indication. (NPR) 

  • Does wine age differently in space? I cannot wait for what I'm sure will be the double-blind taste test administered to sommeliers a year from now. (TechCrunch) 

  • I missed this the first time around: "I rewrote and re-drew Thor #163 for Inktober" by apelad. Every corner of it is rewarding. (Imgur) 

  • We've known for a while about the really big ones, but the existence of small black holes only recently popped up as a possibility. (Science Daily) 

  • An extremely heady but still interesting tribute to the "deceptive simplicity" of Peanuts, which I can vouch for as a kid who also tried to copy those drawings once upon a time. (Paris Review) 

  • Today I learned "giving circles" are a thing. (Philadelphia Inquirer) 

  • As long as we're going to have coal-fired power plants, we can at least turn the waste into better concrete. (Drexel U via EurekAlert) 

  • That "buy one/give one" model a lot of fashion companies are fond of touting doesn't really address the problems it claims to solve. (Vox) 

  • Turns out raising minimum wage for restaurants doesn't doom them to destruction, at least not in New York. (Grub Street) 

  • Can cats have existential crises? (Nautilus) 

  • Here's a detailed analysis of the popularity of candy and the factors that go into it; Bake Off Series 3* contestant Cathryn should take some comfort in the number of times peanut butter appears in the top 10. (538)* ("Great British Baking Show: The Beginning" season 1 (the only season) on Netflix) 

  • Elephants aren't doing so hot out there, but with the help of neural networks, we can at least start to get a handle on the situation. (NPR) 

  • Why would you tell us about an "artificial leaf" that can produce something called "syngas" and not publish a picture of the damn thing? (Anthropocene) 

  • That interstellar comet is outgassing water vapor -- not exactly a surprise, since that's what comets do -- but it'll be an interesting opportunity to see what the water from another stellar system contains. (Science Alert) 

  • A Wegmans opened in New York City! ($NYT) 

  • Fungal/microbial pals can help crops grow in saltier soil, which is gonna come in handy when those sea levels rise. (Anthropocene) 

  • Full support to everyone at Deadspin who quit and fuck their idiot management forever; also, I basically want all of David J. Roth's Trump thinkpieces to be engraved in stone so that future generations know at least one of us knew exactly what was going on while it was happening. (Deadspin) 

  • Ok, boomer. ($NYT) 

  • I just want to say right up front that throwing millions of tiny glass microbeads around in an effort to stop ice floes from melting does feel better than (a) anything involving plastic or (b) doing nothing, but ............. still not great. (Science Alert) 

  • I like these funny little assembler robots, but I think someone missed a trick by not naming them "Doozers." (Popular Mechanics) 

  • How do we make AI less dangerous? The guy who wrote the book on dangerous AI has some ideas. (Vox) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumHELPDESK, The Beast In Its Lair 

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.