winter really snuck up on us somehow

November 16, 2020

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that's looking forward to seeing what the new neighborhood gets up to i/t/o Xmas decorations, given how hard they went on Halloween 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory Giveaway151 - The Brute Squad"Jon (@ferociousj), Besha (@besha), and special guest Yuri (@ync) take a look at some choice ideas for products, services, parties, and an implementation of an idea guaranteed to simultaneously improve and enrich society beyond measure."Listen, if there's anything we can count on to remain constant in this world, it's that cats live to kill, German shepherd puppies are adorable, and Yuri is an absolute top-tier guest.My birthday's coming up; you know what would make a good present? A ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in Apple Podcasts and a nice review! I mean, no doubt there are other things that'd also make good presents, but this is one of 'em.Instant 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.It's true: my birthday is coming up at the beginning of December, and I have no real idea what I want. Well, that's not strictly true: I know what I want, but I can't have it, which is to see my pals and collapse into a big puppy pile of hugs that nobody emerges from for at least a solid month. We're going to be doing the exact opposite of that, since the rona's on a rampage. We don't want to admit it, but it's true. Everybody stay the fuck home. Puppy pile next year!You know, it occurs to me that I didn't really have much of a blowout last year when I turned 40, either, probably due to just general parenting-induced tiredness. 40's a milestone, isn't it? And 41 happens to be one of my favorite Dave Matthews Band songs (everyone else who's my age reading this understands -- everyone COOL, that is!!!!!!). Maybe next December I'll have a big Belated Combined Birthday Celebration to commemorate having turned 40, exiting Year 41, and entering Year Obvious Hitchhiker's Guide Joke. Fingers crossed; let's see if the world cooperates. 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.Quentin turned 3 last week. He's 3! Things that are Very Good about a 3yo that I've observed:

  • He wants to tell stories all the time.

  • He eats a surprisingly wide range of foods.

  • His play has gotten more creative.

  • He wants to help all the time.

  • His laugh when something delights him is truly spectacular.

Things that are ....... less good:

  • He wants to do things himself a lot, even if he's bad at them.

  • He seems to have learned how to slow the bedtime ritual down to stall for time.

  • There are at least a few foods he refuses to even try (I was a picky eater, so this is just karma coming back to me).

On balance, though, I have to say the latter hardly even make a dent in the former. Kids! Still good! 

Fascination Corner

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

  • Lock down now. (this one's free) (Atlantic) 

  • Here's a really good piece on how to evaluate breaking rona vaccine news. (STAT) 

  • Speaking of vaccines, social media platforms are haha preparing heehee to combat misinformation hahahaha on their hahahahahaha as if they've ever hahahahahaha [long, ragged sigh] (Recode) 

  • I'll just let the headline do the talking on this one, even though by now it's become pretty self-evident: "No Self-Respecting Lawyer Should Touch Trump’s Election-Fraud Claims" (~$Atlantic) 

  • Here's a kind of cyborg I'm pretty sure nobody asked for that we will all politely turn down as a civilization. (IEEE Spectrum) 

  • The Hyperloop's a stupid fucking idea, especially given how long reliable high speed rail has goddamn existed in other countries. (Defector) 

  • I just need to put the link to the AskHistorians subreddit in here so someone else other than me can fall down this hole. (Top questions of the week at r/AskHistorians) (Note that the dropdown at the top of the page also lets you see the top questions of the month, year, or ALL TIME) 

  • Please let there be no milkshake duck downside to the Dave Grohl/Nandi Bushell story please please please ($NYT) 

  • A fairly concise summation of the things Trump revealed about America (spoiler: nothing good) (538) 

  • BIOMINING. Bacteria can help extract rare earth elements from rock, which is already useful, but it turns out it works in space, too. (U of Edinburgh) (Paper) 

  • This is old, but it's information I never knew because I never stopped to think about it: octopus arms and their suckers can choke dolphins who try to eat them by getting stuck in their gullets on the way down. So how do dolphins eat 'em? Amazingly, they tenderize the little bastards by shaking the living shit out of them or bashing them repeatedly into the water's surface. (Science News) 

  • "Say “Megan Follows Is The Best Anne Of Green Gables” Or I’ll Beat The Living Shit Out Of You" (McSweeney's) 

  • We should just 3D-print cheap weather stations, people. (Argonne Natl Lab) 

  • Here's an excerpt from Obama's book. You can also listen to the preface being read by him, but I don't know if I could handle it. (~$Atlantic) 

  • Do ....... we want powered wingsuits? (Robb Report) 

  • Data seems to indicate that spoilers can actually help movies, but that doesn't mean I personally want 'em. (American Marketing Assoc) 

  • Scientists have come up with a way to blast surfaces with cold plasma to kill the rona lurking on the surface, which has the added benefit of being extremely cool-looking. (AIP) 

  • Looks like I'm putting the Maria Headley translation of Beowulf on my Xmas list, folks. (Mel) 

  • "When Objects Become Extensions of You" (MIT Press) 

  • Have a good interview with a cosmologist who's trying to figure out dark matter. (Quanta) 

  • If you haven't seen the latest tragically hilarious botched art restoration from Spain, well, treat yourself. (Artnet) 

  • Speaking of art, well, I can't really do better explaining it than the opening sentence of the article itself: "Algorithms have shown that the compositional structure of Western landscape paintings changed “suspiciously” smoothly between 1500 and 2000 AD, potentially indicating a selection bias by art curators or in art historical literature." (Korea Advanced Inst of Sci & Tech) 

  • Engineers have created a soft robot tentacle based on natural appendages like elephant trunks; there's a highly satisfying video that just shows this thing grabbing increasingly heavy objects. (UNSW Sydney) 

  • The rona has revealed a new way to measure the strength of a country -- not in its military or whatnot, but in its resilience. (~$Atlantic) 

  • Squirting tiny bubbles into the water in front of your huge ship can reduce your fuel costs significantly. Huh. (Hakai) 

  • Data seems to indicate you don't actually need to be interested in your job to find it satisfying. Okay! (U of Houston) 

  • Y'all. What if water just appears on all rocky planets during their formation???? (U of Copenhagen) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumThe Ever Watchful Eye, A Chaos of Bones 

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.