Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's willing to accept the coming of Spring inasmuch as it heralds the eventual return of stonefruit season

You'll Like This

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

Instant Band Night 31: FLAVOR

It's becoming increasingly clear as the year wears on that we need an excuse to experience and/or create surprise and joy that we can see and feel or else we're going to mcfuckin' lose it. That's where Instant Band Night comes in, friends: you have roughly two months to clear your calendar for the next one on May 8. Mark it now and tell everyone you know: whether you choose to play in one of the bands or just watch it all unfold, it's an almost unbelievably ecstatic celebration of spontaneous creativity that we all need at the cellular level.

✨🪩✨
May 8 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.

We're in the grip of a weird two-day heat wave that will see Tuesday's temps somewhere near 80 before plummeting back down to the low 60s the next day and staying there for the immediately foreseeable. In a way, though, it's already too late, because the pollen is upon us. I know this because the roof of my mouth has begun to itch, and it's maddening. Although it may not be nearly as maddening as the return of another symptom that I don't remember seeing a lot of last year — maybe I blacked out? — where the interiors of the entrances to my nostrils also itch. Am I the only person who experiences this? Maybe that's why nobody makes a nostril-deadening salve I can rub on there. Who do I bribe at which company to get this product on the shelves.

#dadthoughts

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

As Felix gets older, it gets easier for him to play with Quentin and it's really excellent to see. Not that it's easy all the time, but every week that passes adds another fraction to the time they can spend together unsupervised until one of us has to intervene (or is summoned to pass judgement). This is perhaps the least surprising observation ever made about kids, but it's what's on my mind right now as I listen to them banter over their booklights now that we've put them to bed. Fingers crossed that once they finish flipping through, they'll turn the lights off of their own volition and go to sleep!!!

Fascination Corner

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

• "How the Irish Pub Became One of the Emerald Isle’s Greatest Exports: The Dublin-based Irish Pub Company has designed upwards of 2,000 pubs in more than 100 countries around the globe" (Smithsonian)

• The Scientists have mathematically modeled how people walk in crowds and think they've isolated the factor that tips crowd motion from order into chaos. (MIT) (Paper)

• Nearly every Cybertruck in the country is being recalled because they used shitty glue to attach one of the exterior panels: you don't say! (Reuters)

• The Scientists theorize that "microlightning" between droplets of water in ocean surf might have been the kickstarter for life on Earth. (Guardian) (Paper)

• Okay, Trump and DOGE are violating the Constitution according to a judge and also anyone with functioning eyeballs. Is there a way to make them STOP, because if not then I don't think anybody's going to like the next question and answer I come up with. Maybe lots of us are thinking this. Much to consider. (TechCrunch)

• I mean for fucksake: "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling." (Atlantic gift link)

• Rare good news: Kat Abu is running for Congress. Fuckin' get 'em!!! May her campaign pave the way for literally hundreds more!!! (Kat for Congress)

• The Scientist who thinks everything might be conscious has a truly fascinating meditation for us on the limits of our conceptual models for life. (Noema)

• Mice, uh. Mice instinctively give other unconscious mice first aid?? (Live Science)

• We're still in a global biodiversity crisis, but The Scientists have amassed some evidence that species-level conservation efforts do work, which is at least sort of good news. (U of Cambridge) (Paper)

• Here's a good interview with a planetologist about the water on Mars and where it went. (Knowable)

• "The Greatest Two-Hit Wonders: Sometimes one hit isn't enough" (Can't Get Much Higher)

• We may have been severely undercounting the population of Earth this whole time. Ruh roh? (Aalto U) (Paper)

• Corsi-Rosenthal boxes work just as well or better than HEPA filters to clean pollutants from indoor air. (ACS)

• Turns out neurons aren't the only cells that communicate with electrical impulses: wounded skin cells "scream" to their neighbors using slower but no less effective calcium ion channels, so that's ........ something to know about. (UMass Amherst) (Paper)

• Out of all the different testable aspects of intelligence, it looks like verbal fluency (the size of your vocabulary and how well you use it) could be a predictor for your longevity. (Assoc for Psychological Science) (Paper)

• It's only been witnessed once thus far, but it looks like there's a hummingbird out there whose chicks mimic poisonous caterpillars when they're tiny in order to discourage predators. (U of Colorado Boulder)

• The Scientists argue (persuasively) for what they call an Internet of Animals: taping sensors to sea animals and gathering data on the environment they live in can help answer all kinds of questions! (Kobe U) (Paper)

• Some Engineers built a robot that can land on a branch the way squirrels can, albeit with only one leg (yes there's video). (UC Berkeley)

• A majority of Americans would be just fine with getting rid of the penny; if we're talking economic costs we should also get rid of the nickel, but seemingly nobody's ready for that conversation yet. (YouGov)

• Extremely gentle testing suggests babies can form memories, but if that's true, why can't we remember being babies? The Scientists theorize the memories might still be in there, we just can't access them. Huh. (Nature)

• Some Engineers have figured out a way to use intersecting ultrasound beams to create pockets of sound that only a specific person in a potential crowd can hear. (The Conversation)

• Here's a wild but poignant and riveting question/answer pair. (Ask Polly)

• The Scientists have successfully tested a way to deliver helpful bacteria to crops that boost growth and deter pathogens, which would go a long way toward reducing fertilizer use. (NC State) (Paper)

• Gamble with your feelings?!?! Someone named Tina Tarighian made a website where you can write an email pouring your heart out to That One Person and hit a button, and there's a literal one-in-a-million chance it'll send sometime over the next year. (Very brief Insta Reel explainer) (Say One More Thing)

• The Scientists have come up with a sustainable, surprisingly effective detergent made from wood fibers and corn protein. (ACS)

• Calling all inventors: Some Engineers have created a prototyping technology that just involves clicking functional modules they call voxels together. Yes I know voxels are already a thing. (MIT)

• New evidence suggests dark energy may be slowing down, which could completely fuck up our conceptual model of the entire universe. Sure, why not! (Quanta)

• One of the great American myths is the belief that sports are the great leveller, that athletic achievement is possible regardless of where and who you come from, but uhhhh it turns out no, that actually matters a fair amount, unsurprisingly. (Ohio State) (Paper)

• The Scientists have discovered that certain volcanic flows can create incredibly detailed fossils that reveal structures down to the level of cell organelles(!!!!!!) (The Conversation)

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 Katiza proposes this to be a work of memetic warfare in the classical sense: "The Antagonist Sound Bath is a underground terrorist group professing to by led entirely by the tenets of The Gay Agenda. Their aims are simple: when unsuspecting cisgender people listen to the album they are transitioned into a genderfluid existence. These affected people immediately leave behind their ideas that sex and gender are irrevocably intertwined. There's also been an observed trend that if one owns a Tesla, it's either sold or set on fire in a Safeway parking lot. Generally their next vehicle purchase is a Subaru hatchback previously-owned-by-lesbians. At least one of these purchased vehicles has had a sticker on the rear windshield saying "scissoring is great- I love crafts!" Affected Transitioners have also been observed to denounce the fossil fuel industry entirely and take up bicycling."

This dovetails interestingly with reader Jade's interpretation, which is that this "seems like one of those experimental instrumental-only deals. Heavily features creature noises, sound effects, and other nontraditional sounds. It's oddly satisfying to listen to but only if you're in a very specific mood."

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)!