you know what, fine

Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that takes some comfort in the fact that the towering rage and hatred it feels toward Mitch McConnell is just as fierce as it ever was, proof that in this, at least, they cannot ever hope to fatigue us 

You'll Like This

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.Idea Factory GiveawayAs per usual, this is an off week, so no new episode. Real talk for a second, though: we might extend the off weeks a little bit, because our lives are surprisingly busy -- or maybe I'll just post the backlog as usual (we have some real good ones in the can) and then there might be a bit of a hiatus? What do you think?I'm going to continue to assume that some of you have already voted, as I did some time ago; now that you've taken care of that large-scale civic duty, you can accomplish something small but still meaningful and hit that ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in Apple Podcasts!!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.We're taking a break from election content in this space, d'you hear? A break!!Who-all else out there is watching season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery? Spoiler-free opinion: it fucking rules so far. I don't know that I have a whole lot else to say, but that makes two episodes in a row where I teared up at the end a little. We can at least have one good thing in this world, goddammit, one good thingWe may take heart in the fact that at least, once a week, Michelle Yeoh is up there onscreen having a fucking blastLet us rejoice in the new season of a Star Trek show with a budget equal to its vision!!!!I don't know what the Trekster version of "let me hear you say AMEN" would be. "Make it so"? I can't think of anything better, but if you can, please hit Reply immediatelyTHANK YOU 

#dadthoughts

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.A long while ago, we got Quentin a big visual encyclopedia of all kinds of vehicles that's way too advanced for him reading-wise, but is crammed with pictures of cars and trucks and trains and planes, etc.* He's taken to asking us to read the words that accompany each spread, which we're happy to oblige, though what he retains has never been clear (and isn't the point anyway, we're not about to administer a comprehension test or something). Each spread has a subhead on it: "Total Tractor," "Mainstream Steam," etc. The one that talks about the adoption of diesel engines in trains is titled "Dawn of Diesel."Today, Quentin invented a game where he puts Bunny, his favorite stuffy, onto the handrail of our 7-step staircase and sees if Bunny will slide all the way down or fall off. He's gotten very good at putting Bunny on the rail in positions that allow Bunny to make it the whole way down. When Bunny reaches the bottom, I toss her back up the stairs to Quentin so he can try again. Because the rail is, well, a rail, he's decided that Bunny is a train engine, and that this game is called Dawn of Diesel. It's very good. We spent a good 30 minutes (possibly more like 45) playing Dawn of Diesel before dinner, and I think/hope we're gonna do a lot more in the days to come. Not only does he enjoy it greatly, but it's a game I can play sitting down, in one spot, not having to get up or otherwise move anywhere.* I was hoping it would also be crammed with construction vehicles, but the fuckin' thing only has one single spread's worth; thankfully, there's enough other material in there to keep him interested. 

Fascination Corner

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

• Weirdly, this did make me feel better by the end of it, despite what seemed like a good attempt not to at the beginning: "This Is What It Feels Like to Live Under Minority Rule" (Slate) 

• Planting a trillion trees is unworkable for a lot of reasons; let's do algae instead. (Parametric Press) 

• When local news sites die out, there's a network of seemingly normal-looking news sites ready to take their place that are being run by conservative shitbags. ($NYT) 

• An extremely cheap, common material found in house paint might be useful in making high-performance computing devices. Okay! (Sandia Natl Lab) 

• "In rural America, resentment over COVID-19 shutdowns is colliding with rising case numbers" -- there are also some recommendations. (The Conversation) 

• A case for the superiority of British crime shows. (~$Atlantic) 

• Remember when Trump said Foxconn was going to bring a whole bunch of jobs to Wisconsin (in exchange for absurdly large tax subsidies)? You can probably guess how that all worked out, but if you want the gory details, here they are. (The Verge) 

• There's water on the moon! (NASA) 

• Here's an interesting demographic projection for the next 50 years, run with a few different sets of opening assumptions, that seems to predict a more Democrat-favoring future (assuming we survive the next two weeks). (Brookings Institute) (PDF of actual report) 

• Life has gotten more materially comfortable on average, but our average happiness has decreased: why? Seriously, why. Also, is there anything we can do about it as individuals? Turns out: maybe. (~$Atlantic) 

• A Japanese brewer made a craft gin from 80,000 surplus bottles of Bud. (Robb Report) 

• McSweeney's has compiled a list of all the heinous shit Trump's done, color-coded for convenience, and the extent to which it stokes my already white-hot hatred for him is surprising even to me. (McSweeney's) 

• NASA managed to successfully touch an asteroid with a robot. (NASA) 

• Malice triggers a neural response similar to the one that happens when you smell something rank. (U of Geneva) 

• Heh; activists are starting to build facial recognition tools for identifying cops, and they're not happy about it. ($NYT) 

• The shell of the diabolical ironclad beetle(?!) can withstand a load equivalent to 39,000x its own body weight, which would be like putting a 160lb guy in a suit of armor and running him over with a 6 million-pound truck and having him survive. Understandably, scientists are now trying to figure out how to replicate that whole biz. (Purdue) 

• We're all gonna need these, which is why I keep finding them and putting them in here: more tips for making the pandemic winter less terrible. (Vox) 

• Having said that, there's a goddamn near undeniable argument to be made that self-help advice of any kind during These Unprecedented Times is pointless without actual structural change. I've put a lengthy quote below, but the whole thing is a banger; burn one of your free clicks on it. (~$The New Republic)"The Covid-19 crises have laid bare this blinkered approach to mental health, revealing the fact of human interdependence and the need for structural approaches to mental health problems. Even before the arrival of the virus, American life was stressful and difficult due to the country’s terrible labor laws, underdeveloped welfare state, and regressive tax code. All but the ultrarich were forced to live with high levels of very justified anxiety, knowing that one misstep or stroke of bad luck could leave them with nothing. Americans unable to find a place in the economy sank into despair, addiction, and suicide. And Americans struggled to maintain healthy relationships without adequate time off from work to raise children or just relax among loved ones. The arrival of Covid-19 may have, as we love to say, started a conversation about these problems in the corporate media ecosystem, but the problems themselves have been festering for decades. And anyone seriously concerned with addressing them needs to look beyond individual solutions and toward treating the entire society."​

• It should be possible to prioritize a friendship over a romantic relationship. (~$Atlantic) 

• Here's a meditation on the AITA subreddit, which I'll admit makes for interesting reading when I see the posts pop up on Twitter now and then. (Guardian)

• What are the most popular colors for redecorating during these pandemic times? (Art News) 

• Oh, thank fuck: we got one nest of murder hornets. (CBS News) 

• Polling has revealed something interesting in the issues that divide the two major political parties internally. (538) 

• Who needs mocap suits? Just stick a super fisheye on someone's chest and let a computer figure it out, says this team. (Tokyo Tech) 

• Scientists have identified the geochemical pathway that led to the Permian extinction. (Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research) 

• AOC played Among Us with Ilhan Omar and a bunch of streamers and having watched some of it, can confirm it was great. (GameSpot) 

• A study of 1.6M recorded chess moves over 24,000 games played in tournaments for the past century seems to indicate our overall cognitive abilities are better than those of humans from 1890, although we all seem to plateau around age 35. (Science Alert) 

• You ever heard of something called a Direct Fusion Drive? Me neither, but it sure sounds interesting. (Universe Today) 

• We could meet the Paris Agreement's climate goals if we invested just 10% of the amount pledged to be spent on the rona worldwide. (Anthropocene) 

• Josh Gondelman has reviewed the spicy Dunkin donut for us. (The Ringer) 

• Actually, speaking of the Ringer, here's a five-point manifesto for "fixing" Bake Off, which I don't think is that broken, but the point about the technical challenges is well stated. (The Ringer) 

• Black activists who've been in the shit for a while still have hope. (BuzzFeed News) 

• It's 2020 and doctors may have just discovered some new human organs -- specifically, a fourth pair of salivary glands. ($NYT) 

• Engineers at the U of Tokyo have developed software that can design complex wooden joinery without nails or glue that can be produced by milling machines, which makes sense if you know about old Japanese building techniques (I am, of course, an expert because I watched a video on Tumblr). (U of Tokyo) 

A Fictional Thing

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.A band and their albumCRABULUS, What The Clouds Stole We Reclaim Now With Violence 

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.