#ducky debug

[das-boog]

Was in a self indulgent mood when I was coloring this Ducky scribble. She's got a creative streak!

[ravings-of-a-mad-scientist]

Mad Scientist Convention 

Mad Scientist: So, how did all of you go mad?

Mad Psychologist: If you stare into the abyss (Freud) too long, it stares back!

Mad Quantum Physicist: I have witnessed cosmic horrors beyond human comprehension!

Mad Astronomer: GLIMPSED THE INSIGNIFICANCE AND FRAGILITY OF OUR PLACE IN THE INFINITE COSMOS!!!

Mad Chemist: Too much heavy metal poisoning. Happy unbirthday, by the way!

Mad Geologist: Yeah, me too. Shouldn’t have licked all those rocks.

Mad Physician: This one time I didn't sleep for nine days straight because this one guy “fell” on a firework and blew up his butt and went to a chiropractor first who somehow made it worse. I just lost all faith in humanity after that.

Mad Computer Scientist: I forgot ONE semicolon! Isn't that right Dr. Rubber Ducky?

Mad Rubber Ducky: 

Mad Computer Scientist: Wilson? WILSON!?

[mayashesfly]

Thinking about Lucifer making Vox a duckie for work after seeing how stressed Vox had been. There were new products in the works, new apps, new services, but everything seemed to be going wrong and he can't puzzle out what is wrong.

Lucifer admits that he also experiences that when he makes a new invention. But said that talking to some of his ducks helped him work it out.

Vox didn't believe him at first. But he was willing to try it out since Lucifer was the one who gave it to him.

And hey, even if it doesn't, at least he has a new thing to admire when he misses Lucifer during work.

The coding in the new app Vox was making wasn't working properly, he read the code multiple times already to see what's wrong but he couldn't see what.

In a fit of annoyance, he started to ramble to himself. Glaring at the empty air before his eyes glanced at the new duckie in his desk.

And before he could think too much about it, he started to talk to the duckie. Explaining to it what he was doing before it finally clicked to him what went wrong.

And oh, that cheeky sonuvabitch.

Lucifer was right, it actually does work.

Of course, Lucifer didn't just make a simple duckie for Vox. He made sure to add features to it that he knows Vox would love and cheer him up.

Vox was having a terrible day, a worse day than normal as electricity started to crackle throughout his form as he glared at the unfinished schematics on the screen.

Claws tapping on the desk as electricity danced through his fingers, restraining himself from zapping everything in the general vicinity and tearing through his desk.

Suddenly, he felt some of the turbulent electricity going off from his body being funneled somewhere else.

Confusion colored his face before he glanced at the duckie on his desk.

A squeaking quack left its squeaker before a holographic image of Lucifer's face appeared above it, making a silly face as he gave an encouraging thumbs up.

Despite himself, he laughed at the image. Grinning to himself in amusement as his frustration was momentarily forgotten and the rest of his unstable electricity was converted to keeping the silly holographic images up.

Vox made sure to shower Lucifer plenty of equally thoughtful gifts and kisses once he got home. Even promising him an entire week long vacation where its just the two of them, no royal duties or electronics.

[mrsterlingeverything]

I'm my coworkers rubber ducky today while he codes

[seasidewanderers]

! good to know you're taking responsibility for this very grave mistake! make it right! put the duckies back where they belong!

also unrelated question can I see the ducks after please. no reason at all

actually i think @thecircularsystem should take accountability for not posting the duck shelf anymore :/

[maxdimo]

drawing dave every day until 3.5 releases, day 43. prolonged weary sigh

description: This actually happened to me today so I wanted to draw out my frustration lmao. I didnt have the energy to make this look cooler and my friends & partner insisted I do a doodle this day so i did. dave relevance: hes a programmer. also rubber ducky of debugging magic bc i feel like hed have one

[dravid-writes]

Potion of True Form (1,000 words)

I squint at the mirror, desperately hoping to spot some kind of change. But my little horns are still pointy, my wingspan is just as wide, my skin is the exact same shade of purple, my tail is still long and the tip is still a perfect arrow shape. And of course, I'm still precisely 2'11.4" tall. I'm still 100% imp.

Another failure.

"God DAMNIT!!" I thrash my tail across my worktable, glass beakers and vials shattering on the ground. Everyone is counting on me! Three years since this damn curse hit the town, three years trying to make a cure, and even this latest breakthrough turned out to be yet another dead end!! Am I really this bad of an alchemist..?

A knock at my door. "Uh, is this a bad time?"

Every moment in this damn lab is a bad time. I walk over and open the door to see the lumberjack. Well, former lumberjack; an imp body isn't cut out for hard labor. All the more reason for me to keep trying... "Hey. Careful of the broken glass."

She glances around at the mess that is my lab. "... Right, I just wanted to tell you a traveling merchant came to town. They've got some odd stuff in their wagon, thought you might be able to find something useful."

"*sigh*, thanks, I'll take a look after I finish sweeping this up."

"Here, let me help."

Though I don't deserve it, I appreciate her kindness. We spend awhile kneeled down on the floor as she helps clean up my mess... "I'm sorry."

"Hey, I get it, shit gets frustrating sometimes-"

"No, I meant... This," I gesture to her body. "I should've fixed this by now. Three years, and I'm still not any closer..."

"Don't beat yourself up. I know you've been working your ass off. This is just one hell of a curse."

"I know, I just... My latest potion should've been perfect! I know the curse doesn't prevent further transformations, so I used cardiacite fragments to- Ah, sorry, I don't mean to bore you."

"No no, go ahead. Dunno what cardite-sight is but I'm kinda curious how this stuff works."

Well, some rubber ducky debugging might help. "Right, so, the curse fully transforms the victims into imps, down to the deepest level. Our bodies no longer have any trace of humanity, so simply removing the curse wasn't enough to change us back. But, with the curse's magic gone, there's nothing preventing us from transforming again. Of course my earlier attempts were..."

"Your 'human transformation' potions." We both shudder in disgust. It's a good thing I made those temporary...

"Right. And even if I somehow perfected that, it wouldn't restore YOUR body, just give you a new, random human body."

"Anything's better than being an imp."

I frown. "... Well, I found a better method. The victim's body forgets its humanity, but the heart and mind remember. And last year I found a way to use that-"

"You've been working on the same potion for A YEAR!?!"

I sigh. "Yes... I really thought this one would work. A potion looks into one's heart and turns their body into their true form. So many iterations, so much improvement, and now it's... perfect." I gesture to the glowing bottle on my desk, sitting on a corner that my tail missed. "My perfect, useless masterpiece."

"... It looks tasty. Can I try it?"

I shrug, turning back to the pile of shattered glass. "Sure. I managed to work out all the side effects. It's so perfectly pure, so incredibly concentrated, yet even after weeks of drinking 3 bottles a day not a single change. I have no idea what I did wrong. The whole idea must've been flawed from the start-"

*POOF*

I whip around to see a new figure in the room, a human towering over me and the- The lumberjack's gone. No. That IS the lumberjack!

She looks down at her hands, reaches up to touch her face. She rushes over to the mirror, smiling and laughing so much it's contagious! "I'm human! I'm me again! Holy shit you did it!"

"I... I did it! It worked! I did it!!!"

The lumberjack lifts me up and hugs me, and we laugh together in celebration! Even if it only works on some people, this is a HUGE development! It WORKS! With more testing I'm sure I can make it work on everyone! So strange, though; I can't imagine why it worked on her but not me-

"Finally out of that awful body!" She returns to the mirror, running a hand over her head. "They're gone! No more ugly horns! No more horrible snaking tail! And I'm not the size of a damn garden gnome anymore! Finally, finally I..." She catches sight of my glare in the mirror. "Oh... Sorry, I uh... I probably shouldn't be celebrating until you're back to human too..."

"It's less the celebration and more that you're basically trash talking how I look."

"Oh. Well, you don't REALLY look like that though, right? Not deep down. That's just the body you're stuck in for now."

"Well this IS how I look right now, so I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me ugly."

"... Uh, okay. Sorry. A-and thank you! Oh my god, this is incredible..."

While she goes back to inspecting her restored body, I go back to pondering what could be complicating the potion. Maybe each person needs a different ratio of salts? But such a severe difference in effectiveness can't be explained by a mere mismeasurement-

"HOLY SHIT MY DICK IS GONE!"

"What!?"

"When you said it'd bring out my 'true form' I didn't realize it'd go this far! Ha ha, best potion EVER!"

... I step toward the mirror and look at myself. Not as a test subject, but as me... And I find myself smiling.

[ominus-potato]

i think tari x melony is underrated. The tech whiz girls. Melony using Tari as a jetpack that one time.

Also “Rubber Ducky Debugging” is a thing in coding (also just in general: the idea is that talking through and explaining a problem, even to an inanimate object, helps you piece together how to solve it) Tari gifting Melony one of her prized duckies to help with troubleshooting. They fawn over cute animals together also. Tari transporting Melony into Smash bros so she can train in a controlled environment without risk of collateral damage. Melony adding a prominent duck character to her axolotl manga thus symbolizing her moving on while still honoring Axol.

I don’t know just think they’d be really cute.

Love this omg.

I desperately need to make/see a drawing of Melony and Tari having an animal play date/tea party with Archibald and Axol jr.

What could their ship name be though? I'm not great at coming up with them so if anyone has any ideas i'd happily hear them out.

Anyway, yeah, those two sweethearts would be such a cute couple.

[duckprintspress]

On the Care and Maintenance of Writers

September is “Be Kind to Editors and Writers” Month. Earlier this month, we celebrated with a roundtable discussion with our editors, and now we’re back to share a roundtable chat we had with our authors!

The participants in this conversation are Sebastian Marie, Robin S. Blackwood, jumblejen, Max Jason Peterson, Lucy K.R., polls, boneturtle, Shannon, and Nina Waters.

1. What is your favorite self-care as a writer?

Sebastian Marie: My favorite self-care is going back and either a) reading through comments on something I really liked writing or b) rereading something I really liked writing.

Robin S. Blackwood: For me it’s revisiting inspirations. The books, films, music, that made me want to write, in the genres I write in…my inspirations vary from story to story but there’s some pretty strong ones present in all of them as I like to think I write out of love for the genre. And I do find I need “input” of stories or even music to “output” creative things of my own.

jumblejen: When things aren’t going well, I remind myself that while life is short, it’s also long. The inspiration will come ’round again. The words will flow. The story will go on. Recognizing that fallow periods are just as important as the productive ones has lowered my anxiety when I have a hard time writing. Especially in times of great stress and challenges, remembering this helps keep me from panicking.

Lucy K.R.: This is such a good reminder! I think often about how we as humans USED to be more in tune with the seasonality of production, as we were beholden to harvest times and seasonal ingredients, and I wonder if sometimes losing track of that has made it hard for us to recognize when our own internal soil needs to rest through a winter.

2. What kindnesses have others done for you to support your writing that you’ve appreciated?

polls: When I’m close to the deadline, I sit in front of the page for hours with little time for breaks, so something I appreciate a lot is when someone brings me snacks and coffee, or even breakfast after a long night of writing.

Nina Waters: Just…letting me write. Leaving me alone to do what I need to do. Also, comments are always extremely appreciated.

3. What’s an advice you’d like to give to people who want to support their writer friends?

polls: Volunteer as their rubber ducky! In programming, the concept of rubber duck debugging refers to talking out one’s problem to a rubber duck. For a writer, the best rubber ducky is a friend who will listen to them rant about their story. You don’t need to do much, in many cases the writer will clamber out of the plot hole by themself, although a strategically placed (yet honest) “yeah it makes sense!” can’t hurt

Nina Waters: This might be strange, but like, my advice is don’t offer to read their stuff unless you’re actually interested. I’ve had so many people go “oh, that sounds so cool! Where can I check it out?” and the like, and it’s hard not to notice when they then just…don’t check it out. I’d honestly far prefer that people just be honest. We writers know that not every story is for every reader, so support your writer friends with your honesty.

4. What’s a common misconception about being a writer that you’d like to correct?

boneturtle: One misconception about being a writer I’d like to correct is the idea that you have to be inherently talented to be a writer. This is just not true. People come to it with different backgrounds and skill levels, but ultimately writing is a craft that you can learn and improve with practice, not an inborn talent. What separates writers from non-writers is that writers write. That’s it. If you have a story you want to tell, and you’re willing to see it through from start to finish, then you’re a writer, too.

Shannon: I’m sure there’s someone out there who still thinks that writers are rich. The folks on the bestseller list are generally not bringing in millions unless they’re the very rare exceptions

Robin S. Blackwood: I think the biggest misconception is the idea that suffering is a key aspect of being a writer/will make you a better writer. From outside the community this idea can be very blatant, that you can only be a good writer if you’re miserable (especially if you write about bad things happening, some think you need to have lived through it), but from inside the community it, in my experience, tends to be take a different form – that you shouldn’t expect to ever have fun writing, if you have fun writing you’re not taking it seriously enough, if you like your own work you’re probably just not good enough to spot the flaws – the idea that if someone wrote a thing and thinks it’s good it’s probably awful and they’re childish and silly, because a real writer would hate every word of their own writing and be miserable about it all. Like, obviously writing isn’t easy and can be slow and difficult, and obviously editing your work and improving your work does involve noticing things that need improvement, you probably won’t develop as a writer if you think all your first drafts are flawless masterpieces, but at the end of the day….if you’re miserable throughout the process and hate the result maybe you should take a break or something, because it’s not meant to be like that?

boneturtle: I do want to say that on the flip side the writer you describe is still out there, because that’s me. I don’t think I’m more or less real because I hate everything I write, I just think of it as a handicap I have to work around to produce my work. Whether it’s meant to be that way or not isn’t really something for me to dwell on because that’s just how it is.

Robin S. Blackwood: That’s fair and I’m sorry you have that difficulty – as you say though it’s a thing some people struggle with, but it’s not like…something people should try and make themselves feel to be a real writer – I hope I didn’t come across as saying that writers who don’t like their work are bad writers, I know some great writers who don’t have a lot of confidence in their work and had no intention of saying any individual’s feelings about their work are wrong, it’s more when it becomes a widespread expectation in a community that this is the only right attitude to have I’ve found it can cause some issues

boneturtle: Absolutely, I agree with you 100%. Thinking that you’re more valid because you suffer is a pernicious stereotype in art. I just wanted to make sure that the perspective from the other side was also noted; there’s no shame in feeling that way. It’s just a thing that happens, unrelated to your merit.

[crystalline--chaos]

wizard with a talking skull, but the talking skull is occupied by random spirits who can come and go between it and other artifacts like it. it cant do anything but talk but some ghosts know stuff or have advice, and its good for rubber ducky debugging her spell circles. she named it "chatter" because the teeth clack together a lot but eventually just shortened it to "chat"

[thatimageoftomscott]

what if he was just a little rubber duckie… he could sit next to my computer and help me debug my code. or swim together with me in a bath

honestly so true. he loves ducks, he loves coding. clearly he missed his true calling in life.

[qaraxuanzenith]

Factually Deficient: Rubber Duckie

This week on Factually Deficient, my blog for telling outright lies, I answer a question from @itsscarab about rubber duck debugging!

Please feel free to read, enjoy, send me more questions to answer with lies, and/or share with a duck aficionado of your acquaintance!

[brightgreendandelions]

does this ever happen to you,,? where you just standing in the shower, doing all your showering business, thinking about your current coding project, talking to your rubber ducky (for debugging of course), and then just lose track of time and forget which parts you scrubbed out, and which not, and then have to start over from the beginning?

[apple-eating-goat]

(Base Game) Slime Ranching Advice

This is in no particular order, just written as I think of things.

The first 'room' in the dry reef has a secret area to the left that you can access with a bit of skyrim horsing or a jetpack. There you will find your main early source of naturally spawning heart beets. It takes quite a bit of finangling to get back without a jetpack, but it's possible and worthwhile.

Don't use a corral with a solar shield for ranching phosphor slimes. Instead, simply free-range them inside the grotto expansion to the right (relative to your hut) of the ranch, with fruit trees (preferably cubeberries) growing in the plots. You will inevitably lose some plorts to despawning without drones (or even with if you have enough slimes), but it's still pretty worthwhile to me.

In a similar vein to the last tip, don't keep quantum slimes in a corral whatsoever. You can largo them with phosphor slimes and keep them in the grotto (though I don't recommend this(see the fourth tip)), or you can keep them in the overgrowth.

I don't recommend largo-ing two slime types that eat fruit or veggies. Instead, largo them with meat-eating slimes so that you can feed them more readily available food and still get the meat-eating slime's plorts.

If playing on casual mode, digitarr don't spawn in the slimeulation, so feel free to linger as long as you want to capture a full vacpack slot of glitch slimes.

Speaking of glitch slimes, their fruit tree disguises are always unharvestable pogofruit trees (though they sometimes grow cubeberries). If an object (mushroom, slime statue, one of those glowy pink plants in the moss blanket, rock, crystal) isn't there in the overworld that quivers occasionally, it's a pack glitch slimes. Spray it with debug spray to reveal them.

Conserve debug spray. Don't use it to reveal glitch slimes in slime disguise, only to pull object-disguised glitch slimes out of their disguises or to combat digitarr.

Returning to the real world, if you want maximum efficiency, apiaries should only be placed in the glass desert or moss blanket, as they are the two areas that have special apiary resources.

Similarly to tip 8, for maximum efficiency, only place pumps in the glass desert or the dry reef, for the same reasons as before.

Just as with the two previous tips, when maximizing efficiency, drills should be placed in either the indigo quarry or -once again- the glass desert. (Damn the glass desert has so many unique resources. Probably comes with being the final game area.)

Puddle slimes should only be kept in the pool at the docks, as it has more space for puddle slimes and comes with a free rubber ducky.

Keep a corral of pink slimes/pink largos in the plots at the lab, as their plorts are necessary for most gadgets.

Try and avoid crossing from the dry reef to the moss blanket during the night, as the feral phosphor largos there don't spawn during daylight.

[lostlegendaerie]

So I know what to do when I'm feeling stuck in my writing (find some new music to listen to, go for a walk, read something to help me remember how words work, rubber-ducky-debug it with a friend) but

Does anyone know what to do when you're art-blocked? And not just on one particular piece, but like. Your entire art style looks off to you. Nothing seems to harmonize or look good. (And I am ESPECIALLY having hell with faces)

Can I get some advice? Specifically asking a couple art people I know, @isa-ah @misskhep and some I just follow and respect might know this stuff @cccrystalclear @dilfosaur @herssian

Here's a couple of my pieces that I like (a couple are old as hell)

And newer pieces that I DO NOT LIKE:

I know I don't like some elements of these (usually the faces) but I cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong.

_(´ཀ`」 ∠)_

please help, artist tumblr! Red lines are okay, these are all finished pieces and I'm not gonna go back and redraw them.

[fiercestpurpose]

rubber ducky method of debugging my beloved