Dear Reader -

I’m working on a little pamphlet to publish soon. It’s called the “Lil Book of Magic Hacks” and it’s going to be super cute. They’re all just small snippets of ideas I’ve encountered in magic research that parlay quite nicely into other situations. I figured I’d share with you one of the hacks in advance:

Hack #7
Counting Cards
Counting cards (w/ a Hi-Lo count) in BlackJack is predicated on Aces, Faces and Tens counting as High Cards, Twos thru Sixes as Low Cards, and Sevens thru Nines as null cards. If you’re able to track the cards that have come out of the deck, you’re more likely to predict the upcoming cards. This kind of pattern isn’t only present in card games, it’s present in any defined set of values. If you’re paying attention to what’s come before, you may be more likely to predict what shall come to be. Always be counting.

— J.R.

Dear Reader —

We’re BACK again! For the first time ever, for the second time in a row.

Is anyone here ready for ZY’s labor of love, the #roguesadventure? Check out the game (going live when DEFCON goes live) here: http://www.foursuits.co/game

If you want to see how we magically interweave the areas of tech and, uh, magic, give us a look: https://defcon.org/html/defcon-safemode/dc-safemode-villages.html

We’ll be live on Discord, here’s our schedule: http://www.foursuits.co/roguesvillage

— Four Suits

Thank you to all the guests we had in Rogues Village at DEFCON this year. It was amazing to see so many new friends and familiar faces at the con. Another huge shoutout to everyone who made it possible; the leads at DEFCON who helped us throughout the way, Zant, Nikita, and F4UX; the folks at Modern Rogue, Brian, Jason, and David; everyone on the Four Suits team & associates, JR ZY HA BM AE, and all the new friends we made at the village!

If you’re reading this after meeting us in Vegas, this is where we share some of our thoughts on some of the experimental fields of magic that we inhabit. Hackers may find this post interesting: Security & Magic

We’ll be back to our regular programming beginning next week,

-- J.R.

In the interest of creative, poetic, and artistic hacking, (the essence of our relationship with DEFCON this August), we present to you a guide to hacking/replacing bus stop billboards and public ad spaces, spotted by Z.Y.: http://brandalism.ch/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Brandalism-Guide2.pdf

Now, go on and have some fun. But the first person to use this as a card reveal will be sent to Magician jail.

— J.R.

Your favorite people (us) will be presenting at DEFCON this year, one of the largest hacking conferences in the world. Come find us in Vegas this August, chat with Feds, get sketched out by the state of technology, and inspired by what we can do with it.

Check out our page for more info.

— J.R.