RSS, Bug Fixes, and Rukinations Updates

It's been a while. Like six minutes. Great news, it's not Rukinations v.5! I will accept the title of Rukinations v.4.1, though; the past few days have been frustrating dealing with bugs that came when trying to add new features to the site.

Huge thanks to FRIEND WHO HAS NOT CONSENTED TO THE USE OF THEIR NAME, who found some broken links during new pseudo-widget-thing integration. Then sat idly by while I tried to fix it and continuously F5-ed until they were fixed. And continuously swiped down on their phone to refresh there.

Thanks for being inconsistent, Visual Studio Code.

Small Updates I'm Combining Into One Section

If you've been following Rukinations since v.4 went live (and did not have a conveniently working RSS feed to guide you), you'd notice a handful of new blog posts and a few pages have been uploaded.

New not blog posts, in case you missed them (the RSS feed only shows my personal blog posts, which may or may not include posts about new resources):

• Card Counting With Exodia, a very fun piece to write about calculating the odds of what you want taking place during a game. I also got to use this page to play around with some new mathematical proof pages, so you might see some more colorful statistics-based articles soon?
• The Pokémon tab has been reposted in the header, with a new Shiny Hunting section added. Technically this section already existed under a different name during Rukinations v.3, but I've been slowly remaking these pages anyway and I don't think I'll be making many resources for Pokémon collecting outside of Shiny Pokémon.
• On that note, the Shiny Event Distribution Dex is live again (and updated with a few new styles to play around with - no new Shiny Event Distributions since the page went down).
• I uploaded a (mobile un-friendly) post with VGC Note Taker Templates. Not much, but when I learned I could create dot grid pages with HTML and CSS, I needed something to try it out with and remade a few templates that I've used.
• The comment section styling has been fixed.

RSS Stands For "Really Stupid System"

The biggest headache I've experienced over this time has certainly been the RSS feed.

If you're reading this and don't actually know what RSS stands for, it stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is essentially a minimalist page designed not to read yourself but to upload to an RSS reader to collect news updates from whichever feeds you follow.

It took significantly more days than I care to admit to get this to work properly. I had one posted on the index page and in the sidebar to the right (you can just click me to open it if you'd like), and it worked the day I uploaded it, but less than a week later a friend messaged me saying it was not working.

Did you know free RSS builders used to be a lot more common? Now the free ones are fairly limited and push for subscription plans. I hate capitalism.

Whatever. It's done. It's fixed. It's working. I've verified myself that it is working.

If you want to get updates for Rukinations but don't want to hook the site up to your local RSS Feed Reader, my social media handles are to the right but I specifically use BlueSky for posting updates and nothing else (anymore). I still post updates to Twitter, but BlueSky is dedicated to those updates whereas my Twitter has plenty of rambling on whatever topics I want to discuss that day, whether it's making fun of the Big Brother House Guests or talking about current events.

Then there's Reddit, where I post about whatever projects I'm working on. Or whatever I'm watching.

Thumbnails Are Hard (Sometimes)

Well, actually, that's a lie. Thumbnails are really easy to make. I use PowerPoint, but Google Slides would work equally well and is free. Or you can use Photoshop, GIMP, etc.

What's hard is implementing thumbnails.

Initially, thumbnails were added to the top of the blog post. You probably saw it when you first opened this post up. Isn't it pretty? I certainly hope it is; as of writing, I haven't made it yet. That's extremely simple to set up, just

But what if you want to post your article to the Internet on, say, your BlueSky feed and want to see the thumbnail over there, too?

Well, now you gotta add something to your head at the top.

(Do you really need to break it up like that? Not really, it just makes it easier for me to read)

Don't forget to post your new article on wherever on the main website you post updates! That should be simple styling, though; this gave me a headache styling at first but it doesn't take long to re-update every time.

Now, for some reason, one of the recurring problems I had with the RSS feed was getting it to recognize images. I haven't the slightest clue what was causing it, but of the three photos that appeared on the home page, only one would show their thumbnails on the first RSS feed I got to work that was functional. I couldn't tell you what was different about them. They all had that same code up there copy-pasted from the same point and edited the same way. Whatever, nothing finding a different program to create an RSS feed won't fix. For some reason.

Pokémon Updates and Reuploads

Like I said earlier, the Pokémon Collecting page has been replaced with the Shiny Hunting page. Part of me wants to add back the RTC section for Legends:Z–A too, but I'm probably done with that game and skipped the past few seasons, so unless they release another game in the same battle system, it'll stay gone. My season recaps are still available as a tag, though, so the actual content is still active.

So far the only content thing back up is the Shiny Event Distribution Guide, but I'm working on recompiling a few old notes now. As soon as I figure out how to approach maps, I'm excited to post a guide to Cleared Storm Hunting in Legends: Arceus. Part of me also wants to compile a list of Shiny Hunting tools I currently use, but other than odds calculator, almost all of those tools would be 3DS tools; I don't want to help contribute to 3DS prices skyrocketting again on the second-hand market, not to mention the price of those games.

(I've seen on Twitter that someone is making a GBA-to-Switch converter tool for the Gen 3 Switch games, so maybe I'll post the Gen 3 specific tools if that's released and easy for everyone to use. That's only an exception because it would survive Pokémon Bank closing.)

Pokémon Champions Regulation M-C should be here soon, so I'll probably have some content written up for the new Mega Pokémon once we learn the rest of the new abilities. (And the new roster.)

I still have to finish compiling my Virtual Trade Binder. The good news about taking it down is that I have the opportunity to experiment with Javascript to make it something unique. The downside is that it took so long for us to get the Z–A-to-Home connection that I have so many extra Pokémon strewn about that it's genuinely a bit overwhelming to redo either of the lists and make sure everything is in its proper place.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Updates

I think I've written up enough guides on Goat Format to start posting personalized guides soon.

Originally, I was planning on posting simple Deck Lists in that category, but then I had a different idea. What if, instead of posting my personal deck lists that will probably change within the week, I post something different? Name pending, but at the moment, I'm calling them "Deck Skeletons."

Goat Format isn't quite a solved game like Checkers, for example, but it's pretty well documented by this point with over twenty years of data and game theory. It's definitely progressed enough to a point where you can kinda tell what every card's ratio is going to be if you're only somewhat familiar with it. In Deck Skeletons, I would break down the relevant cards in commonly used strategies and the generic skeleton that players start from.

Maybe from there I include a bare bones deck list. It's not super optimized and will focus on learning how to play the deck over how to maximize the deck, but it should be a good start for anyone looking to try them out.

I could probably do Deck Skeletons at the moment for Chaos variants and Reasoning Gate. It probably wouldn't take too long to come up with some for other archetypes, that's just what I've been running the past few weeks.

Let me know in the comments what you think about the Deck Skeleton idea, if you have a better name in mind or another idea of what could be analyzed. Or send something in the Suggestion Box if you have something special in mind that might not fit within Deck Skeletons.

(I feel like I should have made a Bingo card for not-so-subtle plugs to other pages that aren't even part of this update...)

Another quasai-related project I was considering doing was a simple "Watch Me Deck Build" post. I've written at length about the Side Decking process, I've written about card counting your deck, but I haven't written about actually making the deck yet. I thought it might be fun to share that process with anyone who may be a bit overwhelmed.

Upcoming Updates and Projects

I think that's everything currently to share on Rukinations. I have a few projects I can give sneak peaks on, but nothing concrete enough to go into detail (or guarantee I'll even finish here).

One project I've been toying around with are some guides to files and note management. Have you ever wondered about schools teaching you how to organize your physical papers in a green folder for Science, red folder for Math, or whatever color combinations worked in your head, but no one ever guided you through file trees? I love taking physical notes, but computers have so many cool tools you can use to make file organization sooooo much more consistent and inherent.

(Same with other programs people never want to sort and organize. Have you ever joined a Discord server that was just a bunch of text channels? Blegh!)

Another project that's in pre-production now is a tabletop RPG campaign. I won't say which game in particular yet in case things fizzle out, but while planning this campaign, I was thinking about documenting the process and publishing my approach to everything. How to write a pitch, how to plan session zero, how to accommodate as much as possible, how to de-escalate problem players, etc., etc.

If you have any ideas for something you'd like to see on Rukinations, please feel free to post below or in the Suggestion Box. Thanks for joining me on Rukinations. If you're interested in any of the projects I've talked about here, or if you want to read up on any of the projects I've already completed, please follow my socials in the sidebar or add our new and (better be) working RSS feed to your RSS reader. See you next time!

(Hopefully the next update has a better send-off. What, did I get that from the Disney Channel?)

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