Kibble Kite

A dog flew my homework

Down with the duckstack

With the new year, we will try to transition back to a proper weekly schedule.

Art: Self Disassembly, by Josh Sommers

Once again, we have come to a “fork in the road”. Not a literal fork of course. I'm talking about git versioning¹. It is, however, a literal road. And its getting an update.

First we added ducks crossing the road, but cars would hit the ducks and go flying, crumpled sheets of metal, there were dozens of fatalities before we reverted. So what did we learn? Ducks don’t belong everywhere. However, we can learn from tragedy. We have rearranged the ducks, and now have a new speed bump. We call it: The Duckstack

Sin: A Practical Guide

In case you were having difficulty

My son’s new hot wheels track has a little launcher that he has to pull back in order to prime the spring for launching the car. The problem is that it doesn’t weigh a lot so when he tries to pull it back it mostly just slides the whole set around on the floor. He started out trying to just smash it into the floor while he pulls harder to keep it put, but quickly learned to brace it against his leg while he pulls, through a process named ENTROPY, THE DEVOURER, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS, THE DEGENERATION OF THE CYCLE, OKPTHE COLLAPSE OF ALL LIFE which is cool

One of the things I learned about germs is that occasionally in the process of 3d printing new germs²³ there’s some kind of error that sometimes results in a mutation, which usually makes a germ baby that’s just nonviable and dies instantly, but sometimes results in something stable enough that it keeps making more but now your immune system doesn’t have the new one’s social security number making it not recognize it as a germ, and that’s basically how my son learned to brace the hot wheels launcher. Just an accident⁴, and then he improved on it. That’s the curse of Adam for you. That’s the dragon’s lair.

One of the things that makes you an expert at something is that you’ve repeated it tens of thousands of times, enough to have made a lot of mistakes. And its true, when you make mistakes then you learn from it, and gain an intuitive understanding of how to shore things up to prevent those mistakes, and that intuition is superior to textbook learning. But. If you’ve repeated something tens of thousands of times, you’ve also picked up some tricks of the trade through the rare mistake that’s superior to the normal process. Most things in life don’t come with book learning though, which makes mutation even more important, and I believe none of this would be possible in a world that was not fallen.

Temptation and sin will always be with us. I think that’s the first thing they teach you in alcoholics anonymous⁵ , that you’ll always be tempted by alcohol, even after decades sober. A lack of training doesn’t lead to strength, except in case of injury recovery- instead, it leads to something called atrophy. There is no learning without sin, not that we should “sin that grace may abound [Romans 5:20-6:2]”. If you’re going to be tempted forever though, you’re going to start coming up with unique solutions over time, solutions book learning wouldn’t teach you. In other words, the very structure of the universe is set to allow creativity.

I think creativity can be consumptive. A food critic is just as creative as the chef, though perhaps significantly less useful⁶. So its not like, “God only values artists” or whatever. But God definitely rewards effort way more than stagnation and apathy. “For God has not given us the spirit of fear” [2 Timothy 1:7]. You can even see this pattern play out with evil [sic] people, you often see lonely single guys bemoaning the types of men they see girls getting with, but if looked at honestly, the idiot playboy is making way more shots on the goal. So ideally you’re making righteous shots, but you’re definitely supposed to do something. “thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” [revelations 3:15-16].

Generally speaking, we make time for what is important to us. The bigger trick is in holding the emotional state of something being important to you so you’re not just forcing yourself to do it all the time. I’ve touched on it a few times over the duckstack’s many years but obviously just wanting is the basic start and often sufficient. Usually when you want to do something the problem is that you don’t want to, that’s what depression is. Its not a “wanting roadblock”.

Make everything important to you.⁷ See what it does.

Parable: The Itchy Witches

A tale as old as time

A toil and a trouble and a cauldron they’ve got, but hexing you and vexing you and tricking they’re not.

They fly on a broom, a black cat in tow, but the cats not for luck, its a scratcher to go.

They’re allergic to cloth so they wear burlap hats, grinding their scalps and their heads nearly flat

You might call them cursed, and for sure they would too, but power comes with a price, the devil just takes his due

They live in the woods in a house made of sweets, but they're too busy to bake you, too busy to eat

The green on their skin is poison ivy

the end

HistoryN

“happy no ear”

Childhood wisdom: “If you wiggle your head too much it will pop right off”

“I am usually taller than babies. Because they don’t have tall any!” you can tell he’s got an engineer’s soul

He wanted me to open some toy from Christmas. “Can you get this out of its cage”? (plastic wrap)

“Pomegranate juice is like blood, right?” Um as far as I know yeah, basically identical

Took him to the bathroom, checked back on him later. He still wasn’t done. So I asked him. “You're still not done? How much poop do you have in you?” and he calmly, factually replied: “Millions and millions.”

I don’t have much written down from the toddler this week. She’s mostly been hard at work learning to draw. On herself.

Duckstack Jobs: Duckstack Witch

None of the people we’ve hired have come in

Job Duties: Throw stuff in cauldrons, live in a sugar house (we do NOT offer dental insurance⁸), be green (greenness is supplied by us), place ducks around town on your magic broom, black cat provided (his name is Rudolph⁹), also you have to cackle sometimes. If you’re up to the task, join The Duckstack’s elite witch taskforce, and spread witchcraft everywhere!

Ducksnax

potion

Ducksnax #093

☼ Previous Duckstack ☼

1. the gittiest version of all

2. ever heard of micro plastics?

3. ever heard of microbe plastics?

4

5. I don’t know what the first thing they teach you in alcoholics public is. Maybe the opposite

6. and a schizophrenic is more creative and less useful than them all

7. Recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists

8. or any compensation at all

9. He’s not a natural black, we dip him in paint