Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that wants to announce quietly that Geographer is pretty damn good live

You'll Like This

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

Instant Band Night 13 Going On 30

NEXT! WEEK!

Holy shit, don't you just want to just leap up into the air and punch/kick in 22 different directions simultaneously?? Well, you can't, but I have the next best thing lined up for you next Thursday: it's Instant Band Night and you're gonna have a goddamn incredible — dare I say cathartic — time even if all you do is come watch, because every band is new, every creative impulse is honored, and we can just fuckin' go for it. Do not miss this 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

If you've been looking for a weird little guy to put in your garden, potted plant, or kitchen, then I have the perfect place to start your search. If you know someone else who needs a weird little guy for their garden, potted plant, or kitchen, then you're also in luck!!!!

Idea Factory Giveaway

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

Nothing for this week, folks; there certainly seems to be a lot down in the Fascination Corner, though!

#dadthoughts

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

Mavis is taking a very-much-deserved solo vacation down south on the border of Joshua Tree National Park from now until Thursday afternoon, so it's just me and the boys. We've already gone to the McDonald's drive-thru for dinner; tomorrow I'm making a home-cooked meal that Quentin specifically requested toward the end of last week, a tomatoey farro stew with Italian sausage and kale and celery and carrots. Felix will probably not have any, but that's okay: I cooked a bunch of alphabet noodles a while ago and put individual portions (in broth) in the freezer, and thus far they've remained a hit; he told me he might ask to have some of the "farro juice" put in with the noodles, so fingers are crossed. I'm doing my best to just kind of go with the flow and not have very high expectations about getting things done super quickly. What things?? I will emerge from this week either a husk of a man or the World's Most Powerful Dad; we'll see what happens.

Fascination Corner

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

• Here's a pretty good example of what I mean when I say "people like JD Vance should not know a single yoctosecond of peace from now until the end of their miserable goddamn lives" (kottke.org)

• Fyre Fest 2 sounds like it's going to be great. [fart noise] (Guardian)

• There's a shit ton of satellites up there now and how are we supposed to keep track of which one is which? We could just slap a blinking tag on 'em and let 'em identify themselves, how 'bout. (Register)

• Is the ISS too sterile? (Cell Press via Science Daily) (Paper)

• "Three Methods of Control: How an unpopular government will protect its power." (How Things Work)

• Research suggests narcissists are more likely to feel ostracized when nobody's trying to do it to 'em, but also the experience of being ostracized might actually enhance latent narcissism, so that's just great on both sides of the equation. (APA)

• The Verge did an interesting survey on what the internet will be good for in the future; you have to page through their little deck but it's worth it. (The Verge)

• In all of recorded human history we've only ever seen blue whales give birth twice, and almost nobody sees blue whale calves. Yet we know they must be out there somewhere because there are still blue whales. So where are all the calves??? The Scientists think they've figured it out. (U of Washington School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences) (Paper)

• The Scientists have run an extremely promising mouse test on the use of tardigrade anti-radiation proteins to protect people during cancer treatment. (MIT)

• Some Engineers have done some intriguing simulations and posit that a sufficiently networked set of smart devices in enough houses could keep power running for the whole grid in the event of a cyberattack or natural disaster, kind of like how a Borg ship can recover from [sound of a taser being charged] well that's my time here folks! (MIT)

• The Scientists have invented self-destructing tuberculosis bacteria(?!?!) for vaccine purposes, and the preclinical tests were pretty good. (Weill Cornell Medicine) (Paper)

• If I understand this right — and that's something I do not guarantee — it sounds like Some Engineers have taken us another step toward instantaneous quantum communications technology that at least theoretically seems like it can't be intercepted. (Caltech)

• The second-ever private lunar landing went way better than the first! (Science Alert)

• According to a truly staggering data set collected and analyzed by over 200 collaborators, we're wrong more than half the time about the day/nighttime activities of mammals all over the world. (URI) (Paper)

• The Scientists have successfully mouse-tested a way to reprogram brain tumor cells into normal ones. Okay!!!! (UCLA) (Paper)

• Do women talk more than men? It depends on what age range you're looking at, it turns out (a previous study said "no" but their sample was essentially just college kids from Austin). (U of Arizona)

• Some Engineers built a nanoscale arcade game. No, really! (Nagoya U)

• "Biological organ ages predict disease risk decades in advance: Our organs age at different rates, and a blood test determining how much they’ve each aged could predict the risk of conditions like lung cancer and heart disease decades later, finds a new study led by UCL researchers." (University College London) (Paper)

• A new hypothetical answer to the happiness paradox posits that actively seeking happiness makes you unhappy because it saps your self-control, leaving you open to doing things that don't help. (U Toronto Scarborough)

• Here, have an extremely cool-looking funicular in Lisbon. (designboom)

• Some Engineers report a breakthrough on creating what's essentially a room-temperature quantum computer called an Ising machine that uses nanoscale magnets instead of delicate and expensive supercooled photon whatsits (a highly technical term). (U of Gothenburg) (Paper)

• How do animals of different species decide to cooperate? 'Cause when you stop to think about it, that's pretty crazy. So: how, though? (U of Konstanz) (Paper)

• The Scientists have successfully trained The Machine (Analytical Flavor) to recognize happy and sad noises from cows, pigs, and a few others, which has Implications for animal welfare and conservation. The imples, bro!! (U of Copenhagen) (Paper)

• Jaya Saxena breaks down LOLfood for Eater, a term I have never heard before in my life but that does make a harrowing amount of sense once you read the article. (Eater)

• Some Chemical Engineers have been putting together a database of alternatives to PFAS forever chemicals per application and it's looking good, but there are still some big gaps they'd love to fill. (ACS) (Paper)

• Hair conditioner has petrochemicals in it 😢😢😢 but! what if we could use lignin gel from wood instead? The Scientists have proven it's possible. (Stockholm U) (Paper)

• Some Engineers found a way to make glass whose surface is inherently water-repellent, which would be great for car windshields and skyscrapers for starters. (Curtin U) (Paper)

• The Scientists took a run at calculating the total energy expended by all animals everywhere altering the landscape of the planet, and the result is eye-popping. (Anthropocene)

• Would you like to be able to taste things in VR? (Ohio State) (Paper)

• Some Engineers built a proof-of-concept tiny robot based on the springtail that can jump 23x its own body length and land intact. (Harvard Engineering)

• When you take into account the total lifecycle of each kind of product, plastics actually seem to come out ahead i/t/o environmental impact, which isn't exactly the answer we were looking for; this study was funded by ExxonMobil, but a similar one came to the same conclusions a few years ago. Great. (Anthropocene) (Paper)

• The Scientists have ginned up a version of The Machine (Analytical Flavor) that can predict the structure of an RNA molecule based solely on its sequence, which is a wild game-changer. (Purdue U) (Paper)

• On the flipside, Some Other Scientists have built a version of The Machine (Generative Flavor) that they say can retrieve answers from existing libraries, make its own theories, and explain its reasoning, which is even wilder. (Monash U)

• Some Engineers have built a microscope that can show the 3D position and orientation of molecules in a cell (??!?!?!?!). (U of Chicago Marine Biological Lab) (Paper)

• Human trials for a transplant-based cure for sickle cell disease that costs a fraction of the gene therapy version went great, which is fantastic news. (Johns Hopkins) (Paper)

• Some Engineers built a morphing robot that can change shape to handle all kinds of terrain; the video's pretty good! (EPFL)

• The Scientists are investigating how kids make enemies at school, and there are already some results. (Florida Atlantic U)

• Have a fascinating little interview with the scientist who cut herself off from all circadian rhythm cues for ten days to see what would happen. (Vox)

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 Kyle says "Please Hold Your Applause is the third album from the Japanese band, the Cutest Girls. At first they always performed in Magical Girl inspired costumes but dropped the gimmick after a couple years and now sport a more typical look. Following the footsteps of Pizzicato Five's Made in USA this is their English album as they're making a concerted effort to gain more traction in America following their songs being used in a couple viral videos last year."

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)!