I just got one of these and I have no idea … It looks amazing but I haven't had time to try it out because I will have to reconstruct my entire desk

J_Scarbrough - Saul and Paul, Unhooded

Lothar - A Wacom Cintiq, the Rolls-Royce of the tablets


==

Gas and Electric decided a planned outage last night from 10PM to 6AM this morning. I am a night owl and usually work through the night crocheting while watching YouTube, so last night was a forced reset to sleep in complete darkness without any powered electronics (save my phone and charged iPad without Internet). A rare opportunity to take a screen break.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Okay, I need to rant, because Redbubble is about to screw us over.

I opened my Redbubble shop over a year ago, hoping to earn a little extra money by selling merchandise of my content (which some people have expressed interest in over the years), and in that amount of time, I've had approximately one customer . . . but, that's not why I'm ranting.

According to Redbubble, you have to reach a payment threshold (in this case, a minimum of $20) before the 15th of each month to actually receive any money, but if you don't reach that threshold, then they basically just keep a running total of what little you earn until the end of the year, then pay you that total in January. Or, they used to . . . now, they're not going to pay you at all unless you make at least $20 before the 15th of every month. I've only made $15 from one sale this year, but that's $15 I'll never see now.

I'm starting to believe opening this Redbubble shop of mine was just a waste of time and effort.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
Okay, I need to rant, because Redbubble is about to screw us over.

I opened my Redbubble shop over a year ago, hoping to earn a little extra money by selling merchandise of my content (which some people have expressed interest in over the years), and in that amount of time, I've had approximately one customer . . . but, that's not why I'm ranting.

According to Redbubble, you have to reach a payment threshold (in this case, a minimum of $20) before the 15th of each month to actually receive any money, but if you don't reach that threshold, then they basically just keep a running total of what little you earn until the end of the year, then pay you that total in January. Or, they used to . . . now, they're not going to pay you at all unless you make at least $20 before the 15th of every month. I've only made $15 from one sale this year, but that's $15 I'll never see now.

I'm starting to believe opening this Redbubble shop of mine was just a waste of time and effort.

I use spreadshirt and not sure if it has the same problem, I think they don't have a cap on payouts like that. Also not as many kinds of product as redbubble, but hey. I only made one sale as well, still, it's passive income with the potential of more in the future. I think that in this day and age it's unrealistic to expect that even the services we use because they offer good conditions will stay that way. It's a competitive market and profit oriented, just like all the major social media platforms shift towards personalized ads or selling of data or paid features, just like no TOS is guaranteed to stay the same and no digital content is guaranteed to remain available, the best we can hope for is that by the time a service no longer suits our needs, there will be another that does.

The Duck does a wonderful job maintaining the essence of what it used to be, as far as I understand, probably because it makes just enough to support itself through its community and is not interested in competing for profits. But with new generations of users and the need to adapt to survive, everything has an expiration date. Still, hopefully that is far ahead in the future for this place.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
According to Redbubble, you have to reach a payment threshold (in this case, a minimum of $20) before the 15th of each month to actually receive any money

$20 is low! On most sites its way more than that O_O
On one site a friend was on the threshold was $200! XD

InkyMoondrop wrote:
The Duck does a wonderful job maintaining the essence of what it used to be, as far as I understand, probably because it makes just enough to support itself through its community and is not interested in competing for profits. But with new generations of users and the need to adapt to survive, everything has an expiration date. Still, hopefully that is far ahead in the future for this place.

The expiration date is mainly me, unless I put a good protocol in place to switch everything to a fellow admin XD

I was in my 20s when I started on here and now I'm going to get into my 50s! It's been a very long road.


BTW Alexy has moved on from the site so now we will need a new programmer or a programming team :(
I may look on upwork again.

I don't know if other sites operate like this, but on Redbubble, you can set your own mark-up when it comes to the sales of your merch; the standard minimum for all artists and vendors is 20%, but you can set it as high as 100%, which is what I did . . . yes, the higher your markup, the higher the actual price will be, but at 100% markup, that means I earn approximately half of the profits for myself, while the other half goes into Redbubble itself to cover the costs of selecting, printing, shipping, etc. So, if I sell a t-shirt at $30, that mean I get $15 from that sale, while Redbubble keeps the other $15. I mean, this is my content, these are my characters, I made the designs myself, and I'm a small-time Content Creator who doesn't make any money off of his creations whatsoever, so why shouldn't I make as much as I can off of my material?

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I mean, this is my content, these are my characters, I made the designs myself, and I'm a small-time Content Creator who doesn't make any money off of his creations whatsoever, so why shouldn't I make as much as I can off of my material?

And end up pricing yourself right out of the marketplace? Small content creators can't afford to overprice their merchandise. You could end up stifling the demand. Customers will just say, "I love their content, but I don't love it that much.

Which is why I've avoided doing any merchandising. I just can't decide on proper mark-up and marketing. I see other creator's frustrations and wonder if I really want to open myself up to that?

More power to you that you did.

The trick is always to charge what people will pay for.
If you're charging $50 for your T-shirts and people actually pay for it then that's the right price :)
A lot of things in this world are massively overpriced, any “designer” brand people pay thousands of dollars for is generally for items that actually cost $350 (that includes profit and tax) because the brand name cons people that the item has quality.

In actual fact the trick to getting genuine high quality premium items that have a brand is when the branding is really hard to find and is not obvious to any casual observer. The bigger the branding, the worse the object, no mater how much it cost.
General rule.

————–

On Christmas holidays now. I don't like it. The lack of routine kills me :(

Exactly. A brand that used to have good quality with a subtle logo was Ralph Lauren Polo. Secret was the bigger the logo on the item the more shoddy it was. So the sweatshirt with the huge pony was garbage, but the pants with no logo would last you a lifetime.

I'd just like to say to you all here on the Duck… Happy holidays🎄❤️🎁

Right back atcha slick.

I feel like this one is newspaper-worthy.



Are you confused yet? Check out these references:

https://youtu.be/OjPm0o04lGE
https://youtu.be/R7ghDhpCLKM?t=877

So, I was able to make this online with Pixlr, and . . . it wasn't that easy. Some of the basic functionality was still there (coloring, separating, etc. but there were other limitations, such as the use of fonts (I could use my own local fonts, but I couldn't change the face in a single text field), and there was no way for me to really make word balloons, so I just had to copy, paste, and transform free PNGs.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! <3

U2 Casscade!!

Merry Christmas Eve/Merry Christmas, Ducks!!

Seasons Greetings to all!

I think the hippopotamus song was originally intended to raise funds for a local zoo. It succeeded as a novelty song and was fortunately forgotten until re-popularized by Dr. Demento.

Wind up your radios dementions and dementites! It's time for the Dr. Demento show! I remember being at a friend's birthday party where he got the whole boxed set of Dr. Demento's favorites on vinyl way back in 1987.

I don't like snow. It's cold and wet and irritating…. and it gets everywhere.

It's hot here.

My cat Mouse was badly injured on Christmas. He had a very expensive operation to save his leg and it actually worked.
Now 2 days later he is back in the vet fighting for his life due to another issue, and I don't know whether today was the last time I got to hug and cuddle him :(

I have a thing where I usually always have a level of detachment (not always but often), so even as I feel or experience something my thoughts on it are objective and examining it from other angles and contexts.
That gets in the way and buffers me against direct experience of things. It minimises emotional impact, makes me slower to react, and harder for me to understand what's happening in an emotional way when things are happening.

I notice that now more than ever. But I've had that for years. -_-
I still have the feelings on thibgs and they're heavy, it's just that they're often delayed. -not always

I think that's pretty normal and common though?

I hope Mouse is okay and I hope you are too Ozone. These felines really have a way of getting into your soul.

Ozoneocean wrote:

I have a thing where I usually always have a level of detachment (not always but often), so even as I feel or experience something my thoughts on it are objective and examining it from other angles and contexts.
That gets in the way and buffers me against direct experience of things. It minimises emotional impact, makes me slower to react, and harder for me to understand what's happening in an emotional way when things are happening.

I notice that now more than ever. But I've had that for years. -_-
I still have the feelings on thibgs and they're heavy, it's just that they're often delayed. -not always

I think that's pretty normal and common though?

yeah … I totally get that. In my case I think I did it to myself. Kind of a survival mechanism. I used to be really emotional and now I'm like the opposite. I wanted to be a robot or at least a Vulcan and I think I sort of succeeded but it sucks because I just lack the extreme lows but also the highs. It's all low level shit now. Maybe it's rather common. I don't know.

Ironscarf wrote:
I hope Mouse is okay and I hope you are too Ozone. These felines really have a way of getting into your soul.

He's back and he's 60% his normal self again. Thank goodness!
I'm another $1k+ lighter but he's the best person to spend my savings on.
I just have to remember to give him all the pills at the correct times D:

He's watching videos taken by cats wearing GoPros on his own TV. It calms him while he's stuck in a cage.

————-

If I had kept him in that cage yesterday and not taken him out and cuddled and cared for him and contacted the vet he could have died.

I makes me better understand human death in custody- how people can die after being arrested.
It's just NOT generic endemic police brutality, it's the fact that a living being can have issues or physical problems and they are not able to look after themselves properly because of the cage and it also it massively discourages normal intervention.
Add to the fact they because of those circumstances that got them there in the FIRST place there's a MUCH higher likelihood of them having serious issues- like injury due to a fight or the arrest, high levels of intoxicants or drugs, on-going psychological issues, being OFF their psych meds, having emotional issues, anxiety, a panic attack, or elevated stress due to being imprisoned, or they had that and it led to the imprisonment etc.

Anyway, cages are not good.

lothar wrote:
yeah … I totally get that. In my case I think I did it to myself. Kind of a survival mechanism. I used to be really emotional and now I'm like the opposite. I wanted to be a robot or at least a Vulcan and I think I sort of succeeded but it sucks because I just lack the extreme lows but also the highs. It's all low level shit now. Maybe it's rather common. I don't know.

It does suck :(

I find that when stuff manages to break through though (to make me sad for example) it can be heavier than normal, and because of the detachment it feels a bit alien, like “why am I SO sad? Why is my body doing this WTH?”
For normal day to day happy interactions I can sort of short circuit it though.

Working the night shift on New Year's Eve, while fiancée is in a hospital, waiting hours and hours for her results (she suddenly got so ill we had to call the ambulance. So far we have no idea what gave her the chills and caused her to vomit all afternoon, but they think it could be neurological). I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're havin' a bad end of the year, cheer up, there's always worse. And have a much happier New Year!

New Year Celebrations have started across the globe —- Happy New Year’s Eve/Happy New Year 2025 Ducks!

InkyMoondrop - Happy New Year, I hope your fiancée has a steadfast recovery and that the nightshift goes smoothly as the year turns.

Goodbye 2024

Thank you Kawaii.
BTW, if anyone wanna do the 2025 thread, it's probably up for grabs at this point. I'm quite happy and content with the glory of starting 2024's, but like a torch, it's meant to be passed on I suppose.