Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's going to make trips to multiple grocery stores next holiday season specifically to find the cranberry soda variants that are zero-sugar and that is a promise

You'll Like This

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

Instant Band Night 13 Going On 30

You have got to get in on this one, friends. At this point I think it may be safe to say we have a couple of regular attendees who bring their brass (trumpet and sax, to be precise) and their presence truly elevates both the proceedings in general and the variety of acts. 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

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 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.

I haven't watched the Section 31 movie yet. But I'm gonna. I know the reviews are .......... mixed. I know. But I want to know for myself. Also: this seems to be the only way to send the signal to Paramount that experimenting with a Star Trek made-for-TV movie was a good idea and they should keep doing it, because it is and they should. They should!!! That's all I wanted to say. Thank you for coming to my press conference; no questions at this time. Thank you!

#dadthoughts

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

This time around I just want to show everyone what Quentin is doing with the Legos, so here, have a Bluesky post (Me on Bluesky). You can see he started with a fairly standard one-person space skiff before tricking out not just the vehicle but the pilot with an array of weaponry I can only call amazing. I have no idea where he's getting the urge to arm everything to the teeth; I can only guess it's osmosing into his brain through the playground. Seems fine to me, honestly. There's no bloodthirstiness to it, he has no real concept of war or weaponry or suffering — he just likes it when the lasers go pew pew. He's 7. I'm sure I did this when I was his age. It's just fascinating to witness the ideas take root when I had no hand in seeding them. Socialization! It's a thing, I guess!!!

Fascination Corner

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

• "You Are Invited to the Predators' Ball, as Food: At Trump’s second inauguration, no one wanted to admit they were the suckers." (In These Times)

• We're not gonna go around shaming you for it, but your actual literal body shape may be the reason why you can't hula hoop. (NYU)

• Brain-computer interfaces are getting better all the time; here's one that let a paralyzed man fly a virtual drone around. (Nature)

• How fast is the universe expanding? Don't ask The Scientists that question right now, because you might start a fight. (Duke) (Paper)

• Brookings has what they're calling a "Democracy Playbook 2025" report that tries to lay out some ways to, you know, defend democracy? I have to tell you this thing still gives the vibe of a genteel and mannered bipartisan bringing a quill pen to a fucking knife fight, but what do I know. (Brookings Inst)

• Kelsey McKinney, by contrast, knows what the fuck is up. Read this one. Read it!! It's called "The Old Rules Are For Losers" and that should tell you something. We should be going around stapling this essay to the foreheads of every Dem politician over 50. (Defector)

• Do dogs watch TV or what? (Guardian)

• Scientific serendipity is everywhere, it turns out. (Nature)

• There are significant practical hurdles to overcome, but The Scientists have done some preliminary experiments and it would be a real win-win to start making our industrial ammonia by shooting nitrogen-laden water deep into specific parts of the planet. (Cell Press via Science Daily)

• An exoplanet everybody thought was a sort of mini-Neptune might be more of a Big Venus, which would be an astronomical first. (Science Alert) (Paper 1) (Paper 2)

• What fucking year is it? The Mirai botnet is back?? And it brought friends?? Remember, the "S" in "IoT" stands for Security!!!! (Ars Technica)

• A 2.5-gigapixel image of Andromeda that took 10 years and a thousand orbits to put together is now complete, and it's crazy. (Universe Today)

• The Scientists have found a bacterium that can eat PFAS forever chemicals and some of their toxic byproducts; the trick now is to make sure it really loves 'em. (U at Buffalo)

• What are the coyotes in San Francisco eating? A buddy of mine's a co-author on this one! (UC Davis) (Paper)

• "On Having a Maximum Wealth: A small thought experiment." (How Things Work)

• 2025 is shaping up to be a real startup graveyard, but that's only because the VCs went buckwild a few years ago. (TechCrunch)

• Here, have a clever little website that shows you how far you could get on foot in 40 minutes from every NYC subway station. (NYC Subwaysheds)

• The FDA has approved a ketamine-derived nasal spray as a treatment for depression, and it works reasonably well?? (Science Alert)

• An author named Mishell Baker has some perspective for us that begins with "Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce. Bear with me for a second while I try to explain." This link will take you to the last post in the thread and you can just scroll up from there; it's weird, but it's the easiest way to look at a thread on Bluesky currently. (Mishell Baker on Bluesky)

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:

No reader interpretations came in for this one, which looks to me like someone giving the 90s Sarah McLachlan vibe a revival in this, the year 2025.

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)!