Last week I wrote a post on Mastodon about a problem I was having and then while I was describing it, I came up with a way to move forward:

Trying to figure out the right way to deploy a web and mobile web client on the same server. They are both SPA’s so mostly just need their packages to get served. Stymied by not having an exact local deployment.

Should solve that first actually. Thanks mastodon teddy bear.

The last sentence is a reference to “Teddy Bear Debugging’. The idea is that before you ask for help, you go over to an anthropomorphized inanimate object and explain the problem to it. If your description is detailed, you often just solve it yourself. This apparently also works with Mastodon toots. I solved my problem later that day by building a faithful local deployment.

Then, I realized that a mastodon is an animal that there might be a plush version of, and when I searched, I found this: https://shop.joinmastodon.org/products/mastodon-plushie — Mastodon (the organization) sells a plush mastodon! At the time, it was sold out and for Europe only, but someone tooted at me when they went on sale in the US a few days later. I felt compelled to order one to support Mastodon, but also because it’s a great debugging tool.