16

I don't know whether this belongs in main or meta, so I'll start here.

I seem to have developed a sudden case of 'Duck', bottom right of every SE page [except meta] - it reminds me of the old Microsoft paperclip/puppy that I always loathed.

enter image description here

It seems to only be on Stack Exchange pages, so I'm assuming it's some new 'feature'. I'm not going to click on it to find out what it is.

Anybody know how to get rid of it?

9
  • 3
    I presume an early April Fools?
    – Graham Miln
    Mar 31, 2018 at 10:13
  • 3
    If it is, it's very early. It's still saturday morning here; I've got one more sleep before I thought I needed to be on the lookout for those.
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 31, 2018 at 10:14
  • 2
    Related on Meta.SE Stack Exchange has been taken over by a rubber duck!
    – grg Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 10:20
  • 2
    Do I win a prize for being first? 😎
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 31, 2018 at 10:21
  • 6
    A gold star to you for combatting quackery quickly and foiling a possibly fowl situation.
    – bmike Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 13:37
  • 1
    Ah! the famed rubber duck debugging technique. I find this answer on SE meta quite descriptive.
    – Nimesh Neema Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 13:55
  • 1
    @Tetsujin Well, you can indeed get an upvote. 👍🏻
    – Nimesh Neema Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 13:57
  • 2
    It's not early; in the Eastern-most parts of the world, it's already April 1st.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 19:04
  • 2
    I posted this at approx 11:00 BST [10:00 UTC] Saturday March 31st... at which time it was [just] Sunday on Christmas Island. So, yes, it did appear at midnight April1st for the very few people living in that time zone. However, the immediate association with April 1st simply wasn't going to happen for me before noon, the day before, whilst tucking into a bacon sandwich...
    – Tetsujin
    Mar 31, 2018 at 19:15

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
12

April Fools? Rubber Duck Problem Solving

I suspect an April Fools that has launched too soon. See Rubber Duck Problem Solving and Rubber duck debugging:

In software engineering, rubber duck debugging or rubber ducking is a method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a story in the book The Pragmatic Programmer in which a programmer would carry around a rubber duck and debug their code by forcing themselves to explain it, line-by-line, to the duck.1 Many other terms exist for this technique, often involving different inanimate objects.

Clicking Ask the duck! starts recording with the microphone – oddly no security confirmation from Safari for this permission.

After a moment of spinning a graphic, a visual and audible Quack occurs, followed by the following message:

enter image description here

2
  • 2
    Visual and audible quack! There's no confirmation because there's no actual microphone access, try pressing No when asked if you have a microphone. See Meta.SE meta.stackexchange.com/questions/308564/…
    – grg Mod
    Mar 31, 2018 at 10:16
  • So that's why it "activates" the microphone even when you say you don't have one. I thought it was somehow bugged.
    – Oion Akif
    Apr 1, 2018 at 17:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .