welcome to the willful threes

August 10, 2020

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's vaguely contemplating starting a mini Locked Tomb Trilogy book club because 💀🗡🚀🌌 -- is anybody else feeling this madness or what. Get at me. (just hit Reply) 

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 as always, the back catalog is there for you.Also, last week's advice still holds true: just one of you has to contribute a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating to bring us to the pleasing numeric symmetry of 33 total -- could it be you? The better question is: why not??? Head on over to Apple Podcasts and make it happen!! Seize your destiny!! SEIZE ITInstant Band Night 15: Gone Til NovemberIt seems laughable to try to throw Instant Band Night without a proven vaccine in place. Let's see what's up in November 2021.Facebook event's still there in case you (like me) can't yet escape the vortex of Facebook* * s t a y   h o m e   / /   s t a y   h e a l t h y * * 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.What are we supposed to do with the knowledge that some people

  • Will not change their minds when presented with facts

  • Actively scorn doing the kind thing in explicit favor of cruelty

??????????My initial answer is to put all of those people on a bus and then sling it directly into the heart of the sun, but I've heard that this is unworkable for several reasons.Is this what it is to be a hypocrite? Is it hypocritical to want to do harmful things to cruel people? Is it bad that I think the answer might be No? Please advise. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.One of our most excellent friends told me that in Sweden, they don't have the concept of the "terrible twos," but they do have the "willful threes." Quentin's three months away from hitting his third year, but we're pretty sure the willfulness has arrived, judging from how bedtime's been going lately.US: (do thing x in a way not to his specifications -- put a toy away for him or get him a tissue he wanted to fetch for himself or etc)Q: I want to do thing x! (begins scream-crying)US: (resetting thing x) Okay, go ahead!Q: (doesn't do thing x) I want to do thing x, I want to do thing x!Q: (doesn't do thing x, continues scream-crying)US: Okay, go ahead!Q: (doesn't do thing x) I want to do thing x, I want to do thing x!Q: (doesn't do thing x, continues scream-crying)The loop locking in is the cue for us to stop trying to make thing x happen; eventually he just lies flat on the floor and the yelling subsides, and we're able to get on with the process, but I can't see a universe where we can avoid triggering these; I think this is just how it's gonna be for a while. Starting the process much earlier than we used to helps, because we don't feel rushed to get him in bed; if it comes, we can let the storm take him and be there when it recedes, basically. Parenting!!!!!! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • This one'll haunt you, folks: "The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free" (Current Affairs) If that doesn't do the trick, how about this: QAnon has literally millions of adherents on Facebook through thousands of groups. (NBC News) 

  • Mackenzie Scott is giving her money away a lot faster than ol' Jeffy B. (Vox) 

  • "Astronauts making prank calls from their splashdown site" is a thing I wouldn't've predicted. (CNET) 

  • Essential workers are doing their best to battle being forced into risky situations. (Civil Eats) 

  • Here, have a charming YouTube video of Jennifer Garner videochatting her mom to make sure her cornbread is coming together correctly. (Jennifer Garner's Pretend Cooking Show) 

  • Right-wing politicians spew a lot of bullshit about an anti-conservative bias at places like Facebook when in truth, the exact opposite is happening, and it's got some Facebook employees worried about what's going to happen when Trump inevitably starts to make noise about the legitimacy of the election. (BuzzFeed News) 

  • Biodegradable flip-flops! (UCSD) 

  • Homework in the age of eternal school-at-home could use a little help. (Hechinger Report) 

  • It's possible to chart the progression of a story using "function words" (pronouns, prepositions, articles, etc); this one has both a fun website and an interesting-looking paper. (Site) (Paper) 

  • Scientists have developed a peptide that makes antibiotic-resistant bacteria vulnerable to antibiotics again. (Nanyang Tech) 

  • Sergey Brin's got an airship design that costs less than a Jackson. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • It turns out sperm don't swim the way we thought they do?? (The Conversation) 

  • [snickering] Thoughts and [chuckling] prayers for the [poorly-suppressed laughing] NRA and its cadre of venal, morally bankrupt grifter scum. (BuzzFeed News) [cackling trailing off into the distance] 

  • Here's yet another apparently easy, cheap way to CO2 into fuel -- ethanol this time, even, which means maybe we could just make booze? I would love for the next announcement of this type to be "We discovered how to do something environmentally useful and we also have a contract with a company that wants to scale it to commercial applications starting a week from now." (Argonne National Lab) 

  • Your charming medium-to-longread this week is about the UX of Lego consoles; it's great. (Cave) 

  • We're terrible at estimating our crime-related risk. (538) Same for our rona-related risk. (~$Elemental on Medium) 

  • What's this pandemic look like a year from now? Let's check in with scientists. (Nature) 

  • Fully 77% of the country doesn't have enough money to last 3 months without income. In case you're wondering why it's fuck capitalism around here: fuck capitalism. (Oregon State) 

  • Something we talked about on the podcast way back when is actually happening?? I, for one, would be unironically super pumped to see American Eurovision! (Variety) 

  • For a while there, it seemed like Ellen being a monster was an extremely poorly-kept secret that nevertheless managed to stay sufficiently hidden until just now; what'll the next one be? (Vox) 

  • Twitter data seems to indicate that we are all very sad (probably not surprising) but visiting parks cheers us up a lot. (The Conversation) 

  • MasterClass courses free in wikiHow form while they last! (Gizmodo)

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumGirls with Accents, What Ducks Must Feel 

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.