itsericwoodward

itsericwoodward.com

A geek, coder, gamer, tinkerer, husband, father, server admin, web developer, and American cyborg, though not necessarily in that order.

I’ve been meaning to post another #Magic update…

Two Sundays ago, I had plans in the evening, so I could only play a single game, which I (surprisingly) won with my new #Dune deck (it played much better this time, but still suffered for the lack of flying defense).

Then, this past Sunday, I won the first game with my tribal Mutant Ninja Turtles deck (which still needs some tweaking, but held its own throughout), only to lose the next two games, both with my Avengers deck (which had been doing very well until this weekend).

Still, a win is a win. Tweaks will be made, and with any luck, the next game(s) will be even better.

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While I was at Magic, my wife captured this photo of the princesses, Peaches and Astrid, resting together. Sadly, it didn’t last, and it was soon time to return to Crazytown, but for a brief, shining moment, there was peace and quiet.

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In-reply-to » Literally just a day after Elon came out with his legal threats towards all of Nitter and people like me complained about it, Open AI decides to no longer work with Cursor (acquired by Space X), explicitly saying it's because Elon wouldn't stop breaking their signed contracts and scraping (distilling) their models, behind their back.

@thecanine@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net I get the lulz every time an AI company complains about getting scraped… 🤣

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My long weekend has finally arrived!

To celebrate, I busted out FCEUX (an NES emulator) and killed some ghouls in Castlevania 3, stomped some koopas in Super Mario Bros, and even hit a homerun in Base Wars (one of my personal faves, a baseball game featuring fighting robots).

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I’m about to switch to MAME to play some arcade classics in preparation for an outing tomorrow night to an arcade bar (for my son’s birthday).

And I don’t go back to work until Wednesday! Woot!! 🤘

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In-reply-to » For the first time in probably 30 years, I played a game of M.U.L.E. tonight (and won!).

@GabesArcade@gabesarcade.com I have the Atari800 emulator installed on my laptop along with a copy of the game.

But the easiest way to try it now is probably via the Internet Archive, which allows you to play it in the browser: https://archive.org/details/a8b_M.U.L.E._1983_Electronic_Arts_US

The manual is there, too: https://archive.org/download/agm_mule/mule_text.pdf

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For the first time in probably 30 years, I played a game of M.U.L.E. tonight (and won!).

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Granted, it was a beginner-level game, with a beginner-level alien against 3 computer players, but… I’m just sayin’.

I even lost one of my tracts of land due to it not being ā€œrecordedā€, and I still won.

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Take that, Mechtrons!

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In-reply-to » @movq Regarding https://movq.de/blog/postings/2026-08-16/0/POSTING-en.html, how often do you edit the first commit? A good mate does the same for at least a whole decade, probably more. I never found myself in this situation. Even though I mess with commits on a daily basis. Just never the first one so far. 8-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de That’s a clever idea - I had never considered adding an empty commit before, but I can see the value.

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In-reply-to » Website might come back soon, although probably mostly unchanged. I have no idea how to stop the bots. šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø So I’ll just gonna live with it? Is that the key to happinessā„¢? šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Glad to hear it. Hopefully this, too, shall pass.

Maybe the bots will get tired of web-surfing, or the companies paying for it will all crash, or we’ll find a way to protect our content while still being able to share it, or maybe we’ll just all suddenly learn to live together with the bots in peace and prosperity for all. ĀÆ_(惄)_/ĀÆ šŸ¤ž

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In #Magic last night, I debuted my new #Dune deck with an underwhelming performance - perhaps unsurprisingly for a desert-focused deck, I faced a real drought, starting the game with only 1 land in hand (even after a mulligan) and not pulling another land until turn 4(!). Because of our house starting mana, I wasn’t totally sunk, but everything I got out was just luck. I did die last thanks to my big wurms (so I guess I was 2nd place?), but still… underwhelming.

For game 2, I wanted to bring the thunder (especially after my pitiful performance last week), so I dusted off my Night of 1000 Squirrels deck (headed by the infamous Chatterfang, Squirrel General). By turn 3, the #squirrel army was forming, and thanks to well-timed casts of Fog and Make a Stand, the squirrels managed to overrun everyone just a few turns later.

Another fun night overall. I won’t be able to play for the next few weeks, so I’m glad this one ended with a win. 😁 #mtg

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In-reply-to » $599 retail purchase $9.95/month optional subscription

@prologic@twtxt.net Potentially, depending on the features supported / hardware used.

I’ve long wished for an appliance (like a video game console) that hosts my essential services - email, shared files, social media, etc. - but which ā€œjust runsā€ in a box behind the TV.

So what do you have in mind? šŸ¤”

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In-reply-to » The author of the Xfce Wayland compositor on LLMs:

@movq@www.uninformativ.de @david@daiwei.me @thecanine@twtxt.net Yeah, I’m with you. It is just a tool, but it’s a tool that burns rainforests and boils lakes when you use it, owned by some incredible awful human beings, and built on the backs of an increasing number of crippling mass-scraping campaigns. These costs are just too high.

I have to use it at work, but it’s ā€œthe new normā€ in software, so I’m hoping to use it just enough to get by until either 1) the bubble pops (and we don’t have to use it anymore) or b) I retire. And actually, 1) happened for a minute back in June when M$ increased the prices of tokens, so it’s certainly possible it could happen again.

All that having been said, I think the technology itself has some interesting uses, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can host some open source models on local hardware. But I can wait.

And yes, the site is unreadable on mobile, which is kinda wild for 2026. šŸ¦†

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In-reply-to » I hate having my website offline, so I tried to bring it back in a honey-potted version: ā€œAIā€ agents get served article versions with inverted meaning, like ā€œdoā€ replaced with ā€œdon’tā€ and so on.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de True enough. I guess it’s just the worst kind of ā€œgroupthinkā€, silently correcting ā€œmistakesā€ (aka minority responses).

This would seem to imply that the answer being shouted by the most voices in unison is ā€œcorrectā€. How could that possibly go wrong? šŸ™ƒ

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Just printed and sleeved some proxies for tomorrow night’s #Magic games, including this one from my Guardians of the Multiverse deck:

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He’s Spider-Man Supreme, from Clash of the Champions - a Spider-Man from a universe where Peter Parker is also the Sorcerer Supreme of his Earth. He’s one of my favorite characters in the game, and I thought he’d be an appropriate proxy for Cosmic Spider-Man (the best card from the Spider-Man set, but only really useful for a tribal Spiders deck).

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In-reply-to » I hate having my website offline, so I tried to bring it back in a honey-potted version: ā€œAIā€ agents get served article versions with inverted meaning, like ā€œdoā€ replaced with ā€œdon’tā€ and so on.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de On the bright side, it decided not to trust your website. It didn’t poison the bot, per se, but it did ā€œdetermineā€ that the information presented on the site was unreliable. Maybe that means it won’t use your site as a source?

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In-reply-to » I really do find it difficult to follow anyone that basically posts to a wall, or doesn't follow back. It's utterly pointless not being able to have a conversation, like basically, at all. Maybe it's not even anyone's fault? Maybe just a sucky client that doesn't understand how User-Agent works in Twtxt Discovery? šŸ’”

@david@daiwei.me @prologic@twtxt.net IDK, some people like to use their social media feeds as soapboxes or megaphones, others as public(-ish) speaker phones (I know I tend to oscillate between these two extremes myself).

Speaking for myself, I tend to be more of a lurker on most social platforms, but something about twtxt makes me want to engage with the people here. Maybe it’s the quality of the individuals (ā¤ļø), or the relatively laid-back pace here compared to the attention economies of other platforms…IDK what it is, but I like it. šŸ™‚

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Thanks, it was a good time.

I was actually talking with my mate this evening and he mentioned that this was the 3rd disc he’s lost at that hole. 🫨

The next time we play there, I may suggest that we just skip it (or start just beyond the ā€œbad zoneā€).

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I finally managed to get back out disc golfing today at Vietnam Veterans Park and had a good time despite losing a brand new disc on hole 3 (on its 3rd throw ever, my glow-in-the-dark Lynx disappeared into an overgrown creek-bed and was swallowed by the underbrush). After my buddy lost a disc on hole 4, we were kinda demoralized and both threw for crap the rest of the course, but it was still a nice day to be slingin’ in the sun…

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I’m still on a deckbuilding kick, so I was thrilled that we managed to get 3 games of Magic in last night.

In game 1, my Marvel Villains deck couldn’t stand up to Doctor Who’s Missy and her army of Cybermen (and Daleks). Since someone else was playing a dark lord Sauron deck, I guess that means she’s even more ā€œvillainousā€ that anything Marvel or Tolkien could offer.

For game 2, I ran my Guardians of the Multiverse deck (formerly known as The B-Vengers or Marvel Heroes 2: Electric Bugaloo). It was working well, and I had quite an army going, but I was still one turn from a win when an opponent’s tribal elf deck went off, killing everyone with 19 19/19 forest-walking elves. ĀÆ_(惄)_/ĀÆ

Then in game 3, I ran my Avengers deck, and finally got the win thanks to a Heroes’ Podium, a pair of Hawkeyes, and a flying, shield-wielding Captain America. Assemble, indeed.

Last night will likely be my final Marvel-only game night for a while. I still need to test the decks out some more, but they’re basically complete (I don’t currently plan on adding any more cards to them). Plus, while I’m on this kick, I’d like to finally finish my Sauron deck, and I’ve got some cards on order for both a Dune-themed deck and a couple of decks inspired by the old-school Beatdown Box.

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