what a week

February 28, 2022

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that salutes the courage of the Ukrainian people 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe thing about having a 4yo and a baby who doesn't yet sleep through the night is that you can't put them in the same room together overnight, and it's also not possible to put yourself in the room with him without causing even more sleep complications. Long story short, we're sleeping in the office (the house's third and possibly actual master bedroom, considering it has the attached half bath) on the pull-out couch, which is also where my computer is, so the edit on the last episode we recorded (which admittedly was last year) still isn't quite complete. But it'll get there someday!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 WARPJuly 14th! The line must be drawn here and no further!! We WILL have a creative musical time the likes of which we haven't seen in literally years, holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit (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.I haven't got a lot for you here this week, folks; like many of you, I imagine, I've been compulsively checking Twitter and alternating between marveling and despairing at the sheer volume of information coming out of Ukraine, or that at least purports to, which is the whole problem. Well, one of the problems; there's that actual invading army. Jesus. I don't have anything insightful to say that wouldn't trail off into platitudes, so just imagine me gesturing in the direction of the news and sitting down to stare into the middle distance for a while. Take care of yourselves out there. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.While he's still getting milk roughly every 2.5 hours, we've also added a meal at breakfast and dinner for Felix, and he eats what seems like a truly shocking amount of goop. His favorite goop thus far might be a tie between pear oatmeal (sometimes with plain yogurt mixed in) and butternut squash puree combined with literally anything; yesterday we added sweet potato to the mix and it was welcomed. I could've probably added more water to the puree; notes for next time.Felix is also getting more active. He smiles and babbles, he waves his hands around, he tries to cram a fair number of toys into his mouth. He can sit up more or less on his own if he's got the Boppy pillow to prop him up, though there's no guarantee he won't flop over anytime. He can roll himself over in at least a semi-controlled manner, so we've implemented Pillow Containment Protocol if he goes on his floor blanket, lest he roll himself off the rug and bonk his head on something -- the nursing footstool, say, or the unforgiving hardwood floor. I think I saw him try to work out forward locomotion at least once; let us hope this advance is still many weeks ahead. 

Fascination Corner

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

  • "How to avoid sharing bad information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Even well-meaning attempts to participate in the news can play into bad actors’ campaigns." (MIT Technology Review) 

  • Climate change is happening faster than we thought. (Nature) 

  • Milwaukee's transit passes were literal works of art for decades. (Letterform Archive) 

  • Speaking of works of art, the Baltimore Museum's guard-curated show is about to open! (NPR) 

  • The word "squaw" is offensive, but there are 660 federal sites that include it in their names; the Dept of the Interior put together a list of 3300 alternatives that would be better, and they'll be consulting with the tribes next month to see which ones they like. (USGS) 

  • "Why Are White Liberals So Pessimistic About Politics?" (538) 

  • The Scientists have discovered an enormous bacterium that can grow up to 2cm long. Yes, centimeters. (Science) 

  • All that mask-wearing and physical distancing and whatnot may have driven the extinction of at least one line of influenza during the pandemic. Nice. (Paper) 

  • The housing market is fucked because there just aren't enough houses in enough neighborhoods, which is absolutely a policy failure rather than a physical supply chain issue. (Brookings Institute) 

  • "Anatomy of an NFT art scam: How the Frosties rug pull went down" (Protocol) 

  • Your Cool-Sounding Technology For The Week is the quantum gravity gradiometer that The Scientists invented and subsequently demoed by successfully finding a tunnel bored through the ground using quantum-detected fluctuations in microgravity instead of radar or anything else more conventional. (U of Birmingham) (Paper) 

  • Putting solar panels over our canals is a fucking killer idea for power generation and evaporation prevention, and Some Engineers are actually doing a proof-of-concept right now in the Central Valley! (The Conversation) 

  • Every year for the last 14 years, scientists have competed to turn their doctoral theses into interpretive dances; you can watch this year's winner now. (Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) 

  • Almost two hundred countries are getting together to try hammering out a plastic pollution treaty. (Science) 

  • Why exactly do we dislike the music we dislike? (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics) (Paper) 

  • The Scientists have again found yet another method to recycle plastics that should probably be upscaled immediately. (U of Bath) 

  • Have an interesting meditation on why CAPTCHA pictures are so off-putting. (Clive Thompson on Medium) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumPuppet Library, Within Acceptable Tolerances(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.