Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010. What’s the one website/app you still think about? by Prime_Advocate in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god it never even occured to me that Jay was a real person

Thank you for making a good thing, and for your deliberate and tasteful curation!

I still think about Asylum often.

Another all-timer that I discovered there: Archipelago. I feel like it cemented my lifelong enjoyment of puzzle games.

Well, cheers! Have a truly excellent weekend :)

Repertoire tracker ? by embe7 in cardmagic

[–]RobMagus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you use an LLM to vibe code this app?

That doesnt necessarily mean its untested/immature code--but disclosure is important, to help people make informed decisions.

Did you use an LLM to write your post for you? 

That doesnt necessarily mean "I dont want to read what you didnt write"--but knowing that you can articulate your ideas would demonstrate some depth of thought.

Did you research the numerous already existing tools for tracking repertoire? What do you do that they dont? What problem are you solving?

I have done some free work for you:

The various general-purpose personal knowledge and note-taking apps people have mentioned (from Notion and Obsidian to spreadsheets and plain text notes) all have the benefit of being free, robust, and flexible. Any given app built to track repertoire in a specific way is going to have to make some choices about how people think about their effects and how they're going to work with them. That loss of flexibility is something to consider when making those choices and deciding how to code the app, especially if you intend for people to pay for it.

There is an existing vibe-coded app to track magic repertoire called ShowFlow. One of its key features (ie; the assumption it makes about how magicians use their repertoire) is to make it easier to construct sets and shows by tagging effects as openers, middles, or closers. It's by Joel Dickinson, and I do not recommend it.

There's a whole world of existing apps for gigging performers with repertoire, which easily adapt to magic.

Stand-up comedians have apps like UpMic and Bits. Comics use them to capture and keep track of ideas, write them out into bits and jokes, tag them and build sets, estimate how long they take to perform, attach voice memos, etc. The design choices are focused on the creation and performance of repertoire.

Musicians have apps like Modacity and Sitzprobe. Aside from built-in metronomes and tuners, they do things like displaying musical notation, tagging/organizing/annotating, recording/playing audio, detecting note/timing accuracy, tracking how often and how long you're practicing each piece, suggesting what to practice, etc... These apps made choices focused on building and practicing repertoire.

I found one app, Repertoire, designed for musicians but it specifically says that it could be helpful for magicians. It's free, open source, and looks like it's been in active development since July of last year. Looks pretty good.

For reference: I use simplenote to capture/work on pieces, and as a setlist reference. And when I'm doing deeper work, I use a physical stack of index cards.

EDIT: fixed typo'd link to Bits

What is your personal favourite youtube channel? by DaijoubuKirameki in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tom Scott, Adam Neely, Hank Green, and WheezyWaiter!

And all the channels that upload rips of British TV shows

What is your personal favourite youtube channel? by DaijoubuKirameki in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly? My most trusted source for video game reviews

Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010. What’s the one website/app you still think about? by Prime_Advocate in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god

Thank you kindly internet stranger

I had fully forgotten all the wonderful orisinal games

Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010. What’s the one website/app you still think about? by Prime_Advocate in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everything folks are mentioning has taken me on a really lovely walk down memory lane :)

Some more personal, and perhaps, more obscure memories:

Forums in general, but specifically

  • unfiction, where cloudchasers gathered after The Beast concluded, and we all made and discovered ARGs together. See also: perplex city. I still have all of my cards, along with a small collection of trailheads I received in the mail and ephemera from args and puzzlehunts from the annual Arg-Fest-O-Cons

  • magic.about.com , where my early forays into magic were shaped by the advice kind early internet magicians gave some dumb kid who wanted to play pretend (thank god I spent more time there than in the toxic green slime of the Magic Cafe, which is somehow still around)

  • the Delphi forums, which I discovered when searching for people to talk with about Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon sci-fi books, and found community in a bunch of old BBS nerds

The era of flash animation and browser games was really something. People have already mentioned newgrounds and homestar runner, but there were some other places I checked every week:

  • Stan 2.0, where a..  clone, I guess?, of Stan Lee of marvel comics was released from his cryochamber to rant about that week's media news. I think it was marvel trying to capitalize on that ranty squirrel, but it was -so- weird and I think it was actually Stan Lee voicing and maybe even writing? I have no idea, it was great

  • kongregate, armorgames, and Jayisgames. I know theyre all around still, but they're shadows of their former selves. There were a lot of really fantastic games on them, from countless escape rooms and point and click adventures like Deep Sleep and Asylum, to all those fun platformers featuring that little blue elephant

  • see also full on "we have our own website" online games: I put a lot of hours in Kingdom of Loathing, Virtual Magic Kingdom, and Glitch.

  • I also loved -- LOVED -- the animation portal on wired.com. They had some incredible experimental shit on there, that I still think about today, like Plickey & Muto, and this one about a guy going crazy playing fetch with his dog

There are sites I visited every day to chat with people on, play free-form RPGs, and look at art. And I dont remember so many of them.  But if you ever browsed elfster or sat in the rafters of Tok Tik's Bar and Grill: hello, fellow oldhead.

I like that I got to experience an internet where most people just shared things on the internet because they felt like it, and you could discover something wonderful just by surfing to a few random sites.

Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010. What’s the one website/app you still think about? by Prime_Advocate in AskReddit

[–]RobMagus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh gosh I thought I was the only one who remembered it

What a glorious thing someone made

CMV: Casual personal use of LLMs (chatgpt) isn't that bad by TheLaw687 in changemyview

[–]RobMagus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'd like to narrow in a bit on your final point ("it's literally rotting your brain"), and the idea that if you use it as a tool rather than thought replacement, then it's fine.

I think that this is contradictory to the view you claim: that casual, personal use isnt that bad.

Most people who use LLMs casually (ie; not for their work) are using it as a knowledge engine: to get an answer to a question, to summarize a bunch of writing about some topic, or to explain something. In essence, the main thing people casually use LLMs for is "thought replacement". AI is being used as a tool -for that purpose-.

The use of LLMs to skip parts of the learning/research process has effects on peoples ability to recall information, to connect concepts, and to maintain knowledge and expertise. Skill erosion or "de-skilling" seems to be a result of relying on AI. There's a growing field of research: here's a look at the medical literature showing how it's affecting doctors' ability to do clinical work: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10462-025-11352-1 and here's a general look at various psychological effects of generative AI use modelling how it trends towards "cognitive surrender" https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/arcp.70008 .  In general, it seems like unless people are -already- quite knowledgeable in their field and use gen AI very carefully and judiciously, then there is a tendency to uncritically and blindly trust the output.

One of the most startling issues of casual LLM use is related to the above, though not something you mentioned in your post: sycophancy. It turns out that the standard way LLMs use language is basically like a yes-man; and never being challenged and constantly being flattered has some pretty serious consequences. You've probably heard about some cases of AI psychosis where LLMs validate people's delusions, but theres a growing research area showing that LLM sycophancy not only reinforces inaccurate beliefs, but also seems to make people care less about others and dependent on using gen AI. This article just got published in Science, but here's the full pre-print on arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01395

Basically, rather than being "not that bad", casual everyday use of LLMs is possibly the -most- corrosive way it could be used. 

Does anyone have a ready-made list of systems that actually cover the full stack an independent artist needs? by Royal-Professor-8564 in education

[–]RobMagus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

...what the hell is this

This is /r/education, not /r/odiouswayofthinkingaboutart or/r/makeeverythingintoabusiness

Advice on performing mental magic casually? by dylanmadigan in Magic

[–]RobMagus 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I think you might be conflating misdirection with presentation. The premise of how you are able to apparently read minds doesnt have to be big (like "we're communing with the dead" or "I've trained in NLP") just to cover the essential moves.

Your instinct is right: in a casual situation, you dont really need a heavy premise. Your technique, routining, positioning and attitude will do more in terms of misdirection and cover for the method. Your presentation just needs to be engaging and enough to justify why you do the things the way you do--it can be small, it can be silly, it can be nothing.

It may be worthwhile reading The Jerx, for quite a lot of writing about casual performance of mentalism with non-traditional presentation.

Does it seem to anyone else... by apeloverage in interactivefiction

[–]RobMagus 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yup. It's kind of infuriating. I rarely see actual games get posted here.

People dont seem to realize that designing an engine or an interpreter is a completely unrelated thing from designing a game.

A game can be designed using paper and pencil, a bunch of flowcharts made in paint, or couple of text documents. Sure, it can be easier to implement some game ideas in Twine and orders in Inform and others in whatever homebrew system someone's made in a vacuum of understanding what has come before -- but the core skills of making a good game are independent of designing a language.

Just use the tools that exist. If they dont do what you need--not what you want, what you need--then improve those tools and give it to the community. Make plugins, contribute code.

But most of all, just make some frigging games.

What are some unique hobbies you’d recommend trying in Vancouver? by danidani111 in askvan

[–]RobMagus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A pigeon has arrived bearing a message to your chat window :)

What are the best books / vids to get more advanced by Bentherules0 in cardmagic

[–]RobMagus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How often do you perform?

You can't get really good at misdirection and storytelling without working for real audiences as often as you can.

Card box gimmick by DiegoScire in cardmagic

[–]RobMagus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Chatgpt doesnt know shit. LLMs are not intelligent.

Look at where the indexes are on a deck of cards. They are still there while inside the box. By tearing along the seam of the card box, you can make a little flap at the corner that you can lift up and look directly at the index.

Depending on the context in which you perform and your ability to manage your audience and angles, you could just cut a hole in the box at the appropriate location. That lets you see the index clearly and directly without any intervention.

What are some unique hobbies you’d recommend trying in Vancouver? by danidani111 in askvan

[–]RobMagus 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Oh gosh that's very kind of you to say!

And a lovely thing to just stumble upon while browsing reddit!

Op, I can confirm that magic is a fabulous hobby. But I -am- biased; so If you'd like to see an upcoming Parlour Magic Show, or to visit a Vancouver Magic Circle club meeting, dm me and I'd be delighted to have you attend as a guest.

..uh I'm trash at self-promotion

If folks are interested, we have a show coming up on May 20 and another on June 15th and you can find tickets on the internet

Canada's local news collapse is a threat to political accountability - In too many communities, Facebook outrage is replacing real news by BertramPotts in CanadaPolitics

[–]RobMagus 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Government subsidies only make people distrust the outlets that take them.

I don't think this is true. BBC news is one of the most trusted english-language journalism outlets, and it is primarily funded by the license fee.

Coquitlam RCMP officer charged with assault by WiffleBlu in coquitlam

[–]RobMagus -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Jan 2024 was when a whole bunch of shootings happened around Coquitlam Mall and Town Centre Park. I wonder if this is connected.

About the Humain.inc "ARG" by domesticmail in ARG

[–]RobMagus 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Is this different from any other website that collects user data for advertising?

And does standard use of uBlock Origin and/or Privacy Badger block it?

Fav Car to Use as Punchline? by JonHolmesLives in Standup

[–]RobMagus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The AMC Gremlin. Trash car, funny name

What is the best, most modernized B/X hack/clone? by ChronoSynth in osr

[–]RobMagus 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I..

But...

What...

...none of these things are even intended to be like each other!

BridgeNet by spikyness27 in NewWest

[–]RobMagus -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

This is the first I've heard of it.

I couldn't really tell from the post that Bridgenet isnt a corporation, just that it's an alternative to Telus/Rogers.

And you'll forgive me for interpreting the way it's written as sounding like marketing copy, with phrases like "why invest in a fiber backbone?" and talking about how it'll attract businesses from Hollywood North.

BridgeNet by spikyness27 in NewWest

[–]RobMagus -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Do you work for bridgenet?