you don't quit the microbe life, you wait for it to be ready to quit you

July 24, 2023

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that is going to see Barbie at some point but has lost all interest in Oppenheimer 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayThe possibility that we may return to podcasting cannot be mathematically excluded!!!! In the meantime, you can find the show's 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 podcastInstant Band Night 22: WILDIt's happening in September and you should get your ticket now! Also, and I may return to banging this drum in the future, the venue does have AC. Last September we put on Instant Band Night on day 3 or 4 of a bad heat wave and so few people showed up we just packed our shit up and went home. 😅 Later, I realized I'd forgotten to mention that there's AC and it would be nice inside. I will not make that mistake twice, and neither will you!! Mark your calendar and invite your friends today!!Sept 14 2023 (click to add to your Gcal)6p$10East Bay Community Space507 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 YOUNew stuff alert: there's a bunch in the Etsy shop right now! Brilliant little statues for your garden or home! A place to put your fruit! A little buddy to hold your garlic! I'm working (slowly) on even more delightful little weirdos and I hope to show you soon. 

Medium Ramble

Skippable if you're in a hurry.I've got nothing for this space today because I've spent the entire week in childcare mode while becoming increasingly ill. HOW ARE YOU (not kidding, I would love to know how you're doing; distract me!!) 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.My request last week for a normal one was apparently not heeded:Felix stayed home the entire week😅 He seemed to be feeling slightly better each day🤒 But in the afternoon would reliably pop a 102-103° fever✋ Since there needs to be a 24h gap between the last fever and reintegration into daycare, you can guess that of course the first fully fever-free day for him was FridayMeanwhile starting roughly midweek, Mavis and I both succumbed to whatever this fucking cold is🫠 For me it mostly manifested as exhaustion and a full-body cough that I would describe as "the total polar opposite of a freewheeling romp and/or a rollicking good time"🛋️ I've been sleeping on the couch for the last five days to spare both Mavis and the kids, whose room is mere steps away from ours, from the explosive and uncontrollable noise of the cough's nighttime edition😬 The cold seems determined to aggressively kick Mavis's ass, which is unusual only in that I usually get the worse end of our little viral exposures✨ At least Quentin got to attend day camp, thank fuck for small favorsToday, though:🫤 Mavis is feeling very slightly improved but seems to be on a generally upward trajectory if her WFH game today is any indication😎 Quentin is still doing day camp!!🤘 Felix is back at daycare!!!!!🎉 We had a regular-ass weekday today 🎉🤪 ....... I've felt my condition deteriorate slowly but surely all day as my body edges into true fever territory (101.5 at last reading), which is bewildering since the cough is now finally trailing off. Could it be that my defenses finally gave up the moment we had a bit of respite? Am I going to have to bring my immune system up on charges of disloyalty?? 

Fascination Corner

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

  • In sort of a counterpoint to last week's discovery, The Scientists think they've pinpointed a genetic mutation that explains why some people catch covid but never develop symptoms. (UCSF) (Paper) 

  • The Scientists have also built an instance of The Machine that can track how a pandemic virus evolves and — incredibly — predict the emergence of concerning variants ahead of time. (Scripps) (Paper) 

  • Shit like this is only going to get more common, but collective vigilance worked this time: an innocuous-looking "sustainability festival" in Ireland got the rug pulled out from under it after its organizers were revealed to be virulent anti-LGBTQ conspiracy nutjobs. (Vice) 

  • Let me feel hope for a second: Politico wants to make the case that increasing numbers of increasingly blue college towns are going to be a big problem for the Republicans going forward, and I just want that to be true for for the next thirty seconds; feel it with me. (Politico) 

  • Pair that one with this dispatch that really, really could've used an infographic or two about how voting rights are fucked in a bunch of states, but have been deliberately unfucked in others. (538) 

  • Look, you don't have to convince me that we should at least give solar geoengineering a shot, but in case you're not quite on board yet, here's a good read for you. (~$Intelligencer) 

  • The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has built a website they call the Climate Solutions Explorer, "a comprehensive resource that visualizes and presents vital data about climate mitigation, climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and risks arising from development and climate change." (Climate Solutions Explorer) 

  • Compared to other nations at a similar level of wealth, the US mortality rate is appalling. (BU) (Paper) 

  • Three-part national monument for Emmett Till! (NPR) 

  • Iceland has figured out how to use about 95% of a cod. It's more interesting than it sounds, which is already pretty interesting to me! (Hakai) 

  • It's probably better than ............. the alternatives? I guess? The Scientists think we should just use plastic bottles to stabilize and contain landfills. (U of British Columbia Okanagan) 

  • The Scientists say we might need to rethink the entire story behind the flourishing of multicellular life on Earth. (U of Copenhagen) 

  • C'mon, don't do this. Don't do this to us! What do you mean we found a galaxy that doesn't seem to have any dark matter in it? What do you mean??? (IAC) (Paper) 

  • The Scientists witnessed a sample of metal heal itself under laboratory conditions. (Sandia Natl Lab) 

  • Are the sets of TV shows way less messy than they used to be or what? (Vox) 

  • Some Engineers have built a software system that can find and track legit moving objects in video down to literally one pixel. (Sandia Natl Lab) (Paper) 

  • The Scientists think they've found the spot in your brain that perceives the things your eyeballs take in, which would start to answer some longstanding mysteries. (UC Berkeley) (Paper) 

  • Love a hot pink Mars rover. (Nature) 

  • What makes a visit to a winery really special? The Scientists are teasing the elements out and quantifying them. (U of British Columbia Okanagan) 

  • New archaeological evidence indicates humans were surprisingly good woodworkers 300 millennia ago. (U of Reading) (Paper) 

  • The dream of being able to send autonomous swarms of robots into collapsed buildings to find and rescue people is getting closer all the time, it would seem. (Knowable) (CMU) (Paper) 

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 Megan Ruth 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 Evgeniy Smersh on UnsplashNo reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think we can all agree is the second album from Scranton, PA's best punk/ska combo. 

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.