Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that can't help but take it as an ill omen if three (3) cybertrucks are spotted before it's even lunchtime
You'll Like This
Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.
Instant Band Night Returns In May
I've had to come to the conclusion lately that there's just too much on my plate to continue managing Instant Band Night, but the good news for you the reader is that a new team of bright and capable people (led by an Instant Band Night volunteer who should be familiar to anyone who's been to one the last few years) is already working on putting the May installment together! Watch this space for more concrete news as it gets closer!!
Surprising and Unique Ceramics For YOU
I'm cooking up some new weird little guys for the shop already, but did you know there are now enough purchases for the reviews down at the bottom to constitute some lovely little reads? It's nice beyond description to know that these things I'm making have found homes with the right people. Go have a look; eagle-eyed viewers may notice a new bunny has snuck in there.
Idea Factory Giveaway
I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after four+ 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 still haven't gotten out to see Project Hail Mary yet, but it's gonna happen, I can feel it in my bones!!! What's the next big scifi adaptation to look forward to, though? Yes I know they're doing Dune Messiah come December, but is there nothing else in the pipeline? Do we agree that even were it to be finished, the Locked Tomb series is essentially unfilmable except perhaps as an anime series? I'm just talkin' here.
#dadthoughts
Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.
The question we find ourselves facing whenever Felix starts to produce a lot of snot boils down to "Is this a new cold or a version of the one some of us had recently?" Complicating matters further: the grownups' allergies have been going nuts lately. I take a cetirizine daily, paying close heed to the label warning that says "Only take one of these every 24h ya dingbats!!!" I have heard, however, that a person might be able to take two (or possibly more????) during especially batshit pollen days, although there's a risk you might end up acclimating to it and reducing its effectiveness. Is this lore true? What have you heard?
We did in fact keep Felix home from preschool as of the day of this writing, but his energy seems fine, so he might go back tomorrow. If everyone had to keep their kid home every time they started making snot, preschool would probably only have like 30% attendance on any given day.
Fascination Corner
I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.
Surely by now we must all be tired of "CEO said a thing!" journalism? (The Fine Print*)
"The Consequences of Bad Labor Law: Savage inequality and long TSA lines." (How Things Work)
A truly ambitious solar project on degraded California farmland has buy-in from just about everybody; let's goooooooooooooo (Canary Media)
Nilay Patel did quite the interview with the guy who ostensibly makes the decisions at Grammarly (now Superhuman), and you can imagine what he might've wanted to ask about right up front. (The Verge)
Wikigacha. If you're a collectible card game enthusiast, this is for you, is all I'm gonna say. (Wikigacha)
The rest of it's paywalled, but the first part of Wednesday's Garbage Day about why everybody online is so damn angry — including the definition of "feelings yakuza" — is a must-read. (Garbage Day)
Google seems to think all current cryptographic security will be obsolete in three years?? (Gizmodo)
Holy fucking moly, that IOC sex testing decision: buncha bullshit. (Coyote Media)
The Scientists are trying to save beautiful Hawaiian tree snails from extinction; the only catch is they're still not entirely sure what these guys eat. (bioGraphic)
"How Reverse Game Theory Could Solve The Housing Shortage: Our hardest problems — from housing shortages to climate retreat to democratic trust and technology — aren’t failures of politics; they’re failures of incentives." (Noema)
Some Engineers have built a proof-of-concept for a mass spectrometer that can analyze billions of molecules simultaneously instead of just a few at a time, which is an incredible technological leap forward. (Rockefeller U via Science Daily) (Paper)
The Scientists have been wondering for a while about the plastic pollution in the ocean, namely that there seems to be way less of it floating around than there oughta be. Well, a new study points to what seems like the very real possibility that it all broke down into nanoplastics and it's fucking everywhere. (Royal Netherlands Inst for Sea Research via Science Daily) (Paper)
An absolute bar brawl of a copyright case over alleged romantasy plagiarism has finally come to an end. The little stub of an article doesn't do this thing justice: the judge read over 6000 pages of novels and drafts. It took two months. You should read her actual ruling; it's incredible. (Publishers Weekly) (PDF of judgment)
The Scientists have succeeded in generating, storing, and transporting a tiny quantity of antimatter; now all we need is a warp core and some dilithium. (CERN)
"Disney's Sora Disaster Shows AI Will Not Revolutionize Hollywood: It turns out when you try to serve slop on a product people pay for, no one wants it." (404 Media)
The Scientists have discovered the mechanism your body uses to cut your appetite off when you get sick, or at least the version present in mice! (UCSF via Science Daily) (Paper)
Leonardo DiCaprio has been quietly funding a public library that was built on the site of his childhood home for years. (SFGate)
We have a word for what you're doing when you make boatloads of money on The Stock Market using inside info from the Trump administration, and that's "treason". (Paul Krugman)
Deep sleep may be less a function of raw duration and more about how immersive your dreams were. Great? How do we induce those more often, then? (IMT School for Adv Studies Lucca via Science Daily) (Paper)
Some Biomedical Engineers have built an implant smaller than a grain of salt that can sit in a mouse brain and record and transmit data. It seems to be light-powered, which is odd because isn't it ...... dark? Inside a skull??? (Cornell U via Science Daily) (Paper)
The Scientists are uncovering whole new aspects of dolphin communication; for instance, dolphin mothers raise the pitch of their voices when talking to their kids, just like we do. (The Conversation)
Rebecca Solnit sees cause for optimism in These Times We're Having, which I suppose should be comforting. (Guardian)
A Fictional Thing
Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.
A band and their album
Photo by Alex Roosso on Unsplash
(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:
Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
Alternate universe music critic Steve says this one "is an incredibly bleak album by a deeply depressed and also pretentious singer songwriter who doesn't realise 'lost in the garden of genitalia' is a terrible title. It's all sparse soundscapes and choppy beats and self-absorbed laments; it did not review well and time has not led to a reconsideration."
I still could use some more submissions to build out a notional Reader Submission Month for band/album/artwork combos! Feel free to send something in; just tell me how you want to be credited!
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 this page right here (which also has the archive)!
