Duckstacks roasting on an open fire
We didn’t conduct a survey, and found that there are four main personality types that read The Duckstack. If you are a new reader, Congratulations if you’re one of the lucky four!
The Puzzle Weaver: Nobody knows what puzzle weavers do, especially me. They are constantly entangling me in wily traps whilst I attempt to read their mind through their reading The Duckstack. They think in code which they themselves may not even be able to decipher1 and with each reading of my website the meanings behind my words in their minds becomes more cryptic. Every piece of content is an opportunity to become more entangled, more involuted, and there may come a day when the puzzle weaver may never find their way out. Perhaps that is what they were longing for, all along.
Likes: Apples, rock music
Dislikes: Friendship, Sauron
The Geometric Horror: Geometric Horrors love whimsicality. They love wit and charm and are often a bit of ladies men or the female equivalent2. Geometric Horrors have never in their life missed a math question and can be locked down by being given a complex formula. Geometric horrors are thrill seekers and love unpredictable writing. While Geometric Horrors can fly, they cannot breathe air, and usually must stay submerged in anything. Geometric Horrors have a heart of gold and sixteen ventricles and are being hunted to extinction.
Likes: Holidays, fingernail clippers
Dislikes: Gloom, Kamala Harris
The Cybersleep Archeologist: Riftstepping through the dreamscape, Cybersleep Archeologists have one motto: Hold Equipment. They are recognizable by their obsession with glass, and will always be found decorated with hourglasses and magnifying glasses. Cybersleep Archeologists make great spies, but their skittish nature renders them unreliable in realtime. Cybersleep Archeologists have a propensity for getting lost, which they can trigger at will. Cybersleep Archeologists are impervious to addiction and are always perfectly organized, and read The Duckstack with a ruthless precision that would make a mechanic blush. They seem to always know exactly what they need, and they are true friends.
Likes: Mystery novels, zippers
Dislikes: The sun, late fees
The Quantum Tea Alchemist: Quantum Tea Alchemists view every word as a magical spell even if it isn’t, and they want to memorize them all. With a thirst for knowledge, Quantum Tea Alchemists dissolve everything before them and drink it, no matter what anyone thinks of them. They may sip or slurp, and proceed fast or slow, but their advance is inexorable and constant. They are master synthesists with a highly refined palate, and can instantly deduce whether something is good before they’ve even heard of it. They also dress well and are good at guitar3.
Likes: Carbonation, the color purple
Dislikes: Welcome mats, bankers
Animal Facts
Every animal on earth has facts
Have you ever seen an animal? Most haven’t. Here are some explanations about just a few:
Pufferfish failed to blow up a balloon
Cats are extremely good surfers except that they hate the water
Praying Mantises always bless their food4
“Dung beetles” poop
histr
“Most humans have blood inside them”
I guess Jethro has had a little bit of a fixation on blood this week, possibly from getting his blood drawn for chemo: “I’m kind of like a vampire because when I get poked with a needle my belly shoots out blood” Wow. What?
Talking about having another kid, Jethro suggested names. He said if its a boy we can name it “Jason Reed” which was an impressively legible name, and then he followed up: “And if its a girl we can name it Red She Hulk!”
We got Jethro some kolaches and he begged us for the oreo one so we got it for him and then he was like “Okay, lets see if I eat it!” (he did not) (the chemotherapy compounds his picky eaty-ness)
Jethro has this thing where he is constantly locking doors. Again. If he sees a door he locks it. Thankfully most doors we can open with our fingernails but its become quite a problem. Ostensibly he just wants privacy but he locks doors to rooms he’s not even in lol
constantly asking for movie nights, constantly locking doors
The toddler, playing with a toy turkey he found on thanksgiving: “Quack Quack Quack”
My wife was telling the toddler he has beautiful brown eyes. “eyeballss”, he corrected. yes. Beautiful brown eyeballs
Driving with toddler: “I love you” “no, I a cow.” “what?” “Mooo.”
Risk Analysis
Paralysis
Unfortunately I was on linkedin the other day and saw this post from a connection of a connection of a connection of a connection, for some reason, and it struck me as deeply greedy.
Greed might be the wrong word of course, in many situations like this “malice” is more accurate, but I think greed suffices to capture the essence of one who wishes to “have eaten a cake and also have a cake at the same time” such as this.
Human Resources is the name for a state mandated arm of every company specializing in reducing risk. Ostensibly they have other jobs too5 but keeping the company out of legal trouble is their main one. Human resources does the hiring, human resources does the firing, and human resources does the company policy about sick days so that employees cannot sue the company for giving .001 hours fewer than the state mandates in some obscure legal bill. Why does Human Resources do this? For the love of the grind.
But one thing that you learn about risk is that new or weird stuff is risky by pretty much definition. Sometimes it can pay off in a big way but that is not human resources job that’s someone else’s job. Human resources is to save the company money by keeping it out of trouble, and if you’re new or weird, you’re trouble.
This means that the way to get past human resources in the hiring phase is to be as generic and opaque as possible. They want you to look like an assembly line algorithm that ticks boxes and does nothing else and every extra quirk you have adds a full dollar symbol over your head when they look at you.
So of course a smart person of ethnic origin is going to disguise their name. You are trying to fit through a processing laser designed to figure out how much you stick out.
But Human Resources also has a job to “increase diversity and inclusion” at a company. This is because if your company is caught doing racism it can be fined millions of dollars by the government, and also because just generally speaking it makes them look good. So here you’ve got a catch 22- the drive to look good has made them look very bad, because white names happen to be more generic than ethnic names. I think we're going to have more and more of these sorts of conflicts going forward because to my perspective the whole liberal apparatus is going to keep just growing under its weight. Right wingers are famous for their purity spirals, and this sort of thing is kind to the liberal version of it, only instead of spiraling downward like a conservative who is trying to cast off dross and unwanted conflicting values, the liberal purity spiral is up, and demands acceleration on each of its fronts. The comments on this post were “wow I need to do so much better” and similar expressions of renewed commitment both to minimizing harm and maximizing diversity— despite these objectives being in many ways contradictory.
Duckstack Cooking: An Open Fire
give a man a fire and he’ll set you on fire keeping you both warm what a nice guy
Its getting chillier out by my estimation. I don’t have magic bone joints from the time I broke a knee in 2nd grade so you don’t have to take my word for it and if there’s one thing our calendars don’t tell us, its the temperature. Nevertheless, it keeps getting colder outside, whether I’m right or not. This much is fact. If your house is drafty like mine is because the windows are a hundred years old, it is getting colder inside as well. It is also getting colder in the hearts of men. The solution to all of these natural disasters is an open fire. Good for chestnuts, marshmallows, and up to two body parts at a time, this caveman technology has been harnessed and serving mankind for years6.
To construct an open fire (and I do mean construct) you will need the classic tools of construction: wood. This can be most types of wood, but not norwood. You will also need other construction tools, such as: Hammer, nails. Buzzsaw (ceiling mounted for convenience). Saw the wood up into sticks and stand them up in a little circle in the middle of your living room, kitchen, or anywhere else in your house that counts as “open”. If you’re lucky the wood will stand up straight like a continental soldier but if it does not, lean them all against each other in the middle, like an Indian house. Then nail them all together at the top so they aren’t going anywhere. When you’re done, you should have something resembling a “cone of shame” that they put on dogs to keep them from ripping their own ears off. This is symbolic of how the wood will keep you from freezing your own ears off.
Now you will need another classic construction tool: a butane arc welder. Use it to set the wood on fire, right in the middle of your kitchen. From here you can stand back7 and admire your handiwork. You truly have an open flame in a way most people would never dream8 of. You can feel proud in your human accomplishment, and in exploring frontiers. Crack open a pack of food and roast it with your hands over the fire. You’ve earned it. Merry Christmas.
DuckSnax
Cw: gore
they’re puzzle makers, not solvers
mens women?
Good for them. Hmph.
if they miss even once they go to hell
not like, other positions, they’re still human resource workers, I just mean they also do other things
A lot of them
or don’t, if you’re cold
not me of course, I have had nightmares about this sort of a thing every night for years