Jesper @jesper@schelling.pt

If the technological breakthrough you're banking on to save your ass requires several other significant technological breakthroughs that you're just assuming will happen as you need them to, you should probably rethink your strategy.
#TechSolutionism

The big story of the Honolulu Pro Tour wasn’t Kazuya Mitamura’s $40,000 victory in the finals. The big story happened in the first round, where a young boy known only as Hans did something that is causing many to call him a hero.

Hans’s game was looking unwinnable. He had a negative life total and was kept alive only by his Platinum Angel. His opponent had just cast a Molder Slug, threatening to remove the Angel — Hans’s only artifact — at the beginning of his next turn.

But when it got to that next turn, Hans would say a word that would put the whole series of events in motion. A word that would send ripples throughout Magic history. A word that would cement Hans’s legendary status.

Hans stared at his opponent and said, “No.”

His opponent was taken aback. “Judge!” said the opponent. “He’s refusing to follow my Molder Slug’s triggered ability.”

“Refusing?”

“Refusing.”

“Is this true, Hans?”

Hans nodded.

The judge said, “I have to issue you a game loss, Hans.”

Hans pointed to his Platinum Angel. “I can’t lose the game,” he said. And with that, he proceeded to his draw step, undaunted by the judge’s ruling. Then he skimmed through his deck for marked cards and put those into his hand as well.

“You’re violating multiple game rules,” said the judge, “in addition to ignoring my ruling, and I am issuing a game loss to you.”

Hans, his finger still stuck to the Platinum Angel, like a modern day Little Dutch Boy with his finger plugging the leak in the dike, said, “You can issue all the game losses you want, but with my Platinum Angel in play, they have no effect.” Hans proceded to the attack phase and swung for 4 with his Angel. He then looked at his opponent’s face-down morphs, referred to outside notes, and substituted cards from his sideboard.

The judge stood before him, flummoxed. Without saying a word, Hans merely looked at the judge while pointing to the Platinum Angel.

It was when Hans cast a Demonic Attorney that the head judge was called over. “Ante cards are banned,” the head judge said. “That’s a complete violation of the rules.” But when he saw Hans’s Platinum Angel in play, he was quieted. He knew he was defeated.

Hans said, “Since the Demonic Attorney’s in the game, we have to do what it says.” He proceeded to put the top card of his opponent’s deck into his trade binder.

The head judge frowned in disapproval. “He’s right.”

It was a matter of hours before Hans owned his opponent’s entire deck, as well many other cards from his opponent’s collection, thanks to a Mindslaver and Ring of Ma’rûf. Each time judges tried to issue Hans a game loss for casting cards without mana, or playing cards in his graveyard, Hans merely pointed to his Platinum Angel.

The cards Hans didn’t want to take from his opponent he tore up, due to interactions involving Chaos Confetti, March of the Machines, and Cytoshape.

Having by this time gathered quite a crowd, Hans produced a folded and wrinkled copy of the DCI Infraction Procedure Guide from his pocket and began skimming it for ideas. He noticed that kicking an opponent’s chair out from under them was listed under “Unsportsmanlike Conduct,” so he did just that. He also kicked the chairs out from under several other nearby players and spectators.

The sun was starting to set. The judges had not even attempted to give Hans a game loss for stalling. One by one, they had hanged their heads and walked away, resigned to their powerlessness in the face of the Platinum Angel. Then one of them hatched a plan. “I know who we can call,” the judge exclaimed.

The next morning, Hans was woken by a voice blaring across the room from a police loudspeaker. “Hans,” the voice said, “this is your mother. I love you. Please sacrifice your Platinum Angel to the Molder Slug’s triggered ability so this can all end.”

Hans lifted his head, looked around the room, and kicked his opponent’s chair out from under him once more.

“Hans,” his mother said, “we miss you. We just want you to come home.”

Hans yawned, cast the Unglued card Handcuffs, and ordered his opponent to touch his hands together.

It was Day Four of the standoff when another voice blared across the room. “Hans,” the voice said, “this is your fiancé. There are only two more days until our wedding, honey. Don’t you still want to get married? You have to end this game now, Hans. Please just sacrifice the Platinum Angel to the Molder Slug. We love you. We’re worried about you.”

Hans’s mouth hung open, agape. A tear came to his eye. “Marcia,” he said. “I love you too.” He looked about him, seemingly aghast at what he had done. “I…” he paused. “I concede.”

A flurry of applause burst through the room. Judges began high-fiving each other and giving Marcia hugs. “Unfortunately,” Hans said, “the concession has no effect since my Platinum Angel is still in play.”

- r/anarchychess leaks onto a bunch of neighboring subreddits by replying to things with a string of replies: "Google [x]" "holy hell" etc.
- one of which is r/mathmemes, specifically with minimal square packing memes: "Google square packing" etc. sub is flooded with square packing memes.
- r/mathmemes bans square packing memes. users flock to r/anarchychess
- result: hybrid chess/math memes that sort of defy description

Substack says it can’t moderate hate speech because it supports free speech. Yet the framing of free speech it uses was developed by the right precisely to protect and spread their bigoted views — even as they attack anything even marginally progressive as being too “woke.”

In Disconnect, I explain why this could be a problem for Notes that Substack’s leadership seems entirely unprepared for.

https://www.disconnect.blog/p/substack-is-wrong-about-moderation

#substack #socialmedia #tech

This guy updated his LinkedIn profile with a prompt injection attack to catch lazy recruiters that are just having ChatGPT write a “personalized” introduction. His example he generated himself, but someone is going to be caught by this in the wild.

(tweet link)

🚨 WELCOME TO DISCONNECT 🚨

It’s official: I’m starting a newsletter! After seven years of throwing rocks at Silicon Valley as a freelancer, I’m going direct to my readers.

If you want a critical perspective on the tech industry, it’s time to subscribe!

https://www.disconnect.blog

#tech #politics #newsletter

you need to be calling your friends cute

this was the best thing I ever tweeted

A solution is technical if it is precise enough to be goodharted, and social if it's so cryptonormatively imprecise that it can be used to coalitionally extract value

If I have short timelines does that mean I can get away with not wearing sunscreen?

really, the thing i care most about right now is cultivating attention

doing things without distraction. sitting with things. following a routine to deload some cognitive burden. working out more. doing things for reasons other than wanting to do them. i know all these things make me happy as a person

Useful test: don't join a Mastodon instance that doesn't let you follow https://raspberrypi.social/@Raspberry_Pi - defederated by many instances because they hired a policeman who had used a Pi to do police work in the past, and were then unapologetic about it.

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/12/raspberry-pi-shows-how-not-to-mastodon/