Filed Frigate
Shaved Ships suppose severe storms: Simply sequester some.
High Duckstack Corn Syrup
Most Duckstacks you see around here are pretty small, but when they are large, a given Duckstack can actually be under tremendous pressure. Each duck has its own gravity right1? The problem is, ducks under pressure. Not the best situation. So you gotta let them off a little steam, maybe a board game and some leisure time here and there, let them have breaks where they’re not always stacked all the time.
The worst that can happen if a duckstack is under too much pressure, the peer kind or otherwise, is that nodes in the stack can pop, like bubbles. A certain amount of surface tension is required, of course, to hold a stable form, but if the stress threshhold goes just a little bit too high, its over.
Now, we could solve this by putting a “fragile, handle with care” stamp on our emails, but I worry that would catch the eyes of the state because it would look really official, and then we’d have to get federally certified, so I’m telling you: If this email isn’t in your inbox, try clearing your trash, or it might just pop, like a bit of soap.
Production Lines
Capitalist bread lines
Marx, the guy who discovered marxism2, talks a lot about capital, and moving it around. I haven’t read it, of course, but I would just like to say that I can think of at least three ways to move capitals around:
Cut (ctrl+x) and paste (ctrl+v)
Highlight the other letter, and retype it while holding shift
Click somewhere to the left of the capital, and press tab.
As you can see, I am something of a Marxist myself. I do all of these all the time.
Lectures on Faith- Spiderman
Become as a little child. Confused, and screaming.
My son wanted a Spiderman costume for halloween, which my wife went to great lengths to secure for him. But when it comes time to put the costume on, he tells us “No! I don't want to be spiderman!” This is an experience all parents have.
Charitably I don't think what happened is “he changed his mind”, though that’s the easy way to describe the situation. He said one thing, suddenly he’s saying another, for us outsiders he changed his mind. But put yourself in a toddler’s shoes3. You want things one moment, you don’t want things the next… What’s really happened here? He still likes spiderman.
What's happened is he's lost sight of the vision that initially drove him forward4. The things that initially excited him about the costume stopped being center stage. Without the vision, fears appear and motivation dwindles. What makes children unique is that they go through these things without the rationalization layer. The moment they don't feel it, they pivot even from their deeply held interests and desires. When they don't feel like holding something anymore, they drop it. You're kidding yourself if you think you're different.
The ability to hold vision and follow through with it after the feeling leaves you is one of the things that makes you an adult, some of the time. We’re all still children, but we “get a step further” more often. And since we often get steps further we think we’re immune to childish foibles. We probably don’t change our minds as much as kids, but we’re assuredly running the same software.
The toddler had what we call5 a “potty training accident” and when I went to change the kicking and screaming toddler’s diaper he shouted “I didn’t poop myself!” It looks silly to us. I can see it, right there. But he’s not speaking in the empirical sense, because he’s a child. I don't think he's lying. I think he's saying what he wants to be true. A distinction without a difference? I wouldn’t say so. We all wish by speaking we could change the past, which is one of the reasons we talk about the past so much.
This is common enough to all of us. The main difference, again, is my toddler just doesn't have the rationalization layer to pretend this isn't what he's doing. So on the outside the contradiction is obvious, but in his mind he hasn’t quite connected that the desires from his spirit didn’t quite reach his body and he has pooped himself. He’s mostly sorry he got caught, of course. But if it was all up to him I’m sure he would be quite happy to go back and edit out time to have “not done that”. He’s not attached to the sin. He just lost the vision of the consequences of sinning6, and because he lost the vision, the pros and cons stopped being obvious. The gain of not having to interrupt his play outweighed the future consequences. Is it sounding more familiar, now?
A couple files for divorce. At the judgement bar, they tell God that they “lost the vision for their marriage”. What initially drove them together disappeared somewhere and they both stopped trying to remember it.
A man indulges in pornography. He will feel awful after, but in the moment it looks enticing. He confesses at the judgement bar that he lost the vision of who he is and the consequences.
A woman destroys a friendship after feeling betrayed. When God asks her what happened to that relationship, she confesses that she lost the vision of the good times and what the friendship offered them both.
I don’t think God is angry at us over these things. Hopefully I’m not going to punish the toddler for changing his mind on wanting to be spiderman. It is exasperating though, from a parental perspective. Right? You want to give your kids gifts and you want them to not be ungrateful. Most kids get lots of toys that they’ll never play with. They lost the vision of what made them ask their parents to buy the toy in the first place. How many of our spiritual experiences with God are like this?
Will God judge us harshly for this type of sin? I do not believe so. But you can see from this perspective exactly how he might be hoping we grow up. He doesn’t want us to stop liking spider man, but he does want us to use what we get. He doesn’t want us to have accidents, but when we do he wants us to refocus on the commandments and rules, recommitting ourselves to his vision for his household. Like any good Father would do.
duckstack science: catching flies with honey and vinegar
A tale as old as time.
Today, we’re putting to the test the idea that its better to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. And what we found, was that a lot of the problem with both of these liquids is that they generally make extremely poor nets. To continue the experiment, we tinkered with the laws of reality to make both non newtonian liquids, so as long as you're swinging them around they'll hold their shape.
Secondly, flies are pretty fast. If you use a net they’re a little bit easier to catch, which is the point of the honey and vinegar, but if you’ve ever dealt with a fly its pretty common for it to go screaming off to some new hairbrained destination the second you start walking up to it. And we think to ourselves, why let the flies run7 around? They’re clearly better at this whole running8 thing than us. Surely you could catch many more flies if they stayed still. So we brought in some stop signs, hung them around, and now the flies will freeze in midair. Now we can have a proper experiment.
The results of our testing was that Honey is marginally better at catching flies as a non-newtonian honey net, because its stickier. Don’t try this at home by the way, we’re trained experts. If you did this you would risk your hands getting sticky. It would be awful.
Does anyone know what to do with, like, 50 flies?
History
Now with 50% more Halloween
Wife found someone had drawn on the TV. “Arrgh who drew on the TV” Well. The toddler hears her and comes in and exclaims in a very worried voice,“Oh no! Who would do that?”
After the toddler ran away from her my wife commented “This boy is a STINKER!” And then the toddler responding to this, smoothly transferred it over to the baby: “Yeah, she is a stin-ker!”
The toddler has claimed one of the bathrooms as “his”. “You're on the wrong potty.” so my wife asks him, “Oh no, I am? What should I do?” and he thought about it and was just like, “I don't know!”
Some Halloween arts and crafts project this week involved crushing up crackers to make some oreo pudding stuff. Toddler goes, “I want some!” and wife explains, “these are waver crackers, we’re going to put them in this bag..” And the toddler interrupts: “I want to put them in my mouth”
After washing the toddlers face I grabbed his cheeks and exclaimed, “Cute!” and he ran away smiling and turned and said, “I’m not cute, I’m hansome!”. Not helping your case there buddy
We took the toddler bowling this week, and he won. By a lot. Its unclear if my wife or I would have stood a chance if we had put down the baby and gotten serious, but the fact of the victory remains.
ducksnax
baseball
One of the few things you truly “own” in this world. Uncle sam can never take it from you
He also discovered it to have the same name as him
“Ouch. Owie. They do not fit.” you are not empathizing hard enough
To his dreams of being spiderman
unfortunately, we have been calling it this a lot lately
“if you poop yourself God will send you to hell” you heard it here first
Metaphorically
Well mostly they fly, which they’re better at than me also.