EQL runs promotions such as launches of new sneakers. Some of these, like this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend launch of the Michael Jordan AJ 1, are in huge demand! So EQL runs these as a lottery.
Reports came in from entrants that they’d received an email with the heading ”you’ve been selected” — but the email itself was “sorry, you were not selected.” Other headings included “selected to purchase JORDAN AJ1” or “selected for the JORDAN AJ1”. [EQL]
The odd bit is that none of EQL’s emails had any of these as subject lines.
Any Pivot to AI regular can guess what happened here — their email provider, in this case Yahoo Mail, was listing incorrect LLM “summaries” of the emails instead of the actual subject lines. Yahoo did not flag these to users as bot summaries.
Yahoo launched a beta of the AI subject line mangler in June 2024, with a full launch in November, for a “A Cleaner, Smarter And Simpler Experience” — and never mind the system was doing extra work to be wrong. We’re surprised it took this long to fail so clearly. [Yahoo!; Yahoo!]
“The new features we’re launching are aimed at making life that much easier for anyone that relies on email,” said Kyle Miller, VP of Product for Yahoo Mail, who evidently has no use for mere factual accuracy in his work. [CIO]
You can disable the AI summaries in your settings. [Reddit]
Ziff Davis, the $2 billion media conglomerate that owns dozens of sites including PCMag, Lifehacker, IGN and CNET, is quietly taking diversity, equity, and inclusion information off of its website, 404 Media has learned.
In the past month, the company removed information about diversity-focused employee resource groups, inclusion-based hiring goals, and diversity training for its workers and managers from its corporate website.
The changes were first spotted by a Ziff Davis employee. 404 Media granted the employee anonymity to speak candidly.
An archived version of Ziff Davis’s DEI webpage saved on January 19 states, “Ziff Davis is proud to offer Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), voluntary employee-led groups mentored by executive sponsors and overseen by our Global DEI and HR Programs team. They represent seven identity groups: Asian, Black, 2SLGBTQIA+, Latinx/Hispanic, family of all kinds, women and gender minorities, and interfaith.”
On the same page at time of writing, and as early as February 12, the description of employee resource groups had been changed to remove specific mentions of those groups. It now says, “All employees are welcome to create or join Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are voluntary employee-led groups mentored by executive sponsors.”
The page as it appeared January 29The page as it appears today
“Internal HR reps assure us all is well, that DEI programs and employee resource groups will remain unchanged,” the employee told 404 Media. But they’re still concerned about the changes to the website. “The internal reassurances, public silence, and website changes leaves me feeling gaslighted about our company’s commitment to DEI.”
Other sections have been removed from the website entirely. On the archived version of the page from January, the company stated that it gave senior leadership bonuses depending on how well they met its diversity goals.
“In 2023, we activated 100% of the $1 million committed to hiring POC freelancers by year-end,” the January webpage said. Another “ongoing action” listed included “adding non-financial DEI targets, based on internal talent goals, to the annual compensation plans of executives with substantial hiring oversight. The bonus plans of certain senior executives include a hiring, retention, and leadership component based on the achievement of Ziff Davis’ diversity and inclusion objectives.”
On the current version of the page, this paragraph is completely gone.
The page as it appeared on January 25The page as it appears today
On another page detailing its “Five Pillars of Purpose,” Ziff Davis lists “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as one of these pillars. An archived version of this page from January describes this pillar as the company’s intent to “reinforce our diverse workforce, reflect our diverse audiences, and expand upon our inclusive culture.”
According to the current description, the company must “ensure we avail ourselves of the best talent in the marketplace, to hire top employees and address the needs of a large and diverse customer base.”
Ziff Davis has also made changes to its “Community” page, which talks about volunteering and donations to non-profit organizations. Since January, the company has fully removed paragraphs about its partnership with the Black Game Developer Fund, as well as its “pro bono ad campaigns for NAACP and Sandy Hook Promise.” (Sandy Hook Promise is still mentioned as one of the recipients for “approximately $1.3 million in ad space via our Employee Resource Groups.”)
The company has also removed mention of the $10 million it has deposited in Black-owned banks, “to help the institutions originate loans that foster economic opportunity within underserved Black communities,” according to the archived version of the page.
A section of the community page as it appeared on January 19The same section as it appears today
The current community page also no longer lists Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah as a part of CEOs for Gun Safety, which the archived page describes as “a coalition of CEOs who believe gun violence in the U.S. is not inevitable and are urging elected officials to help prevent it.” CEOs for Gun Safety’s list of signatories still lists Shah as of February.
Internal messages in a company-wide group chat about diversity obtained by 404 Media, however, show the company claiming no change to its commitment to DEI.
One message, for example, encouraged employees to “Celebrate Black History Month with [employee resource group] Black@ZD,” and invited them to “a series of enriching events that celebrate our achievements, honor our history, and strengthen our community at Ziff Davis, as we explore this year's theme of ‘African Americans and Labor.’”
Another message from a member of the company’s DEI council said, “DEI isn’t just a statement at ZD, it’s part of who we are and how we operate…the impact of our work speaks louder than any headline or inclusion on a list could. In my humble opinion, I don’t believe that we need to shout it from the rooftops because our actions consistently reflect our values.”
Multiple employees in the group chat asked whether Ziff Davis’s approach to DEI was changing based on President Trump’s executive ordersabout it. On Wednesday morning, the company’s CEO Vivek Shah posted a video about DEI and environmental sustainability to a company Facebook group.
“Our commitment to both is not changing,” Shah says in the video, which 404 Media viewed. “Simply put, DEI at Ziff Davis helps us drive the best possible business outcomes…We must ensure that everyone understands what DEI and ESG [environmental, social, and governance] mean at our company. I’ve asked our teams to ensure that we’re clear in our language.”
Ziff Davis did not respond to 404 Media's request for comment.
In the last year—and increasingly since Trump’s election and executive order demanding federal agencies scrub their websites of mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion—multiple organizations and companies including Meta, Target, Google, and the Smithsonian Institution have rolled back or ended their diversity targets and programs. The Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration all removed webpages and data related to adolescent health and HIV. Some of those pages are now back online after a judge ordered that they return to their previous state—but now, a note at the top of the pages says, “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.”
“It’s scary enough when a Walmart or Hobby Lobby caters to the right, but when a massive media company starts complying in advance with Orwellian Newspeak the potential ripple effects feel extra scary,” the employee who spoke to 404 Media said.
One of my biggest takeaways from the first Citizen Sleeper was that it was a little too easy to become stable in that game. You started off weak but rapidly became stronger through the power of your local friend network. It seemed to me to be less a simulation of hardscrabble suffering, and more like a mechanical proof that having a lot of friends will keep you alive. By the end of the game you have so many options which you can understand so deeply that there is very little risk associated with most of the opportunities available to you.
CS2 Goes in a different direction. I think the resource economy is actually a lot tougher, and there are a lot more things to juggle, and multiple additional pals to manage in your little adventurer party, and the high-stress moments feel a lot more high-stress because of it.
There's also some mechanics I will not spoil which cause you to feel significantly more "disabled" over time by long-term debuffs that affect your dice and overall strength and flexibility. It's hitting the goals of the first game a lot more directly, I think.
This really is a game that starts off with the player being unaware of how strong and hale and hearty they are, and just undermining them repeatedly with resource spirals that make them feel weaker over time, which is... a rare decision to make, but I do appreciate the way it was made here, and I think it's effective. That's cool!
That said: boy howdy, it's hard to keep all the info in your head about where you can find which fixes for your various problems. I would really appreciate a belt-map-level reminder of what facilities are inside each map node. The worst I ever got fucked up, it was because I went to the wrong place looking for materials to repair my dice with. I would love to suffer only from bad tactical decisions, and not from being confused about where to go.
Otherwise, I do recommend it! It's got the juice. I think it has more juice than the first one and I'm glad I picked it up.
After being forced by a court order to restore certain pages about gender and diversity to government websites, the Trump administration has added a note to the top of those pages saying “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.”
The note essentially seems like a way for the current administration to legally comply with a court order while still signaling that it entirely rejects any government funded or endorsed research or policy sympathetic to LGBTQ+ community and diversity, equity, and inclusion, which Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been purging from government websites.
Earlier this week, we reported that a federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration to restore several webpages they removed as a result of Trump’s executive order attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion. The agencies were given until 11:59 p.m. on February 11 to restore the webpages.
The court ordered the administration to restore the webpages “to their versions as of January 30, 2025, meaning they were supposed to revert the webpages to what they looked like on January 30 with no changes. The versions that have been restored now have this additional disclaimer.
A joint status update filed Thursday by lawyers for the Department of Justice and the Public Citizen Litigation Group says that the government has provided the court with a list of websites that it has restored, though the list of websites is not available. It also specifically says that the government is refusing to restore the website reproductiverights.gov: “Defendants have objected to restoring the website ‘reproductiverights.gov.’ Plaintiff’s counsel is conferring with their client,” it says.
“Plaintiff’s lists include websites from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) components other than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. The parties disagree about whether such websites properly fall within the scope of the Order. However, given Plaintiff’s forthcoming amended complaint and to avoid further emergency motions practice, Defendants will restore those websites consistent with the Order,” it adds.
I’m writing this piece after my first experience with Aetherdrift over the prerelease weekend and wow, what a rush that was!
I’m a “Melvin” according to Wizards’ well-known player profiles - meaning I’m most excited by cards which use the Magic rules in clever or exciting ways - and it felt like so much of this set really touched that nerve for me. Usually that’s a joy I get from sets with top-down design, where R&D starts with a story and uses Magic mechanics to retell it.
Recognizing the references in these cards imbues them with a lot of character. It also helps us appreciate the expressiveness of Magic’s rules and creativity of its designers. But Aetherdrift doesn’t strike me as one of those top-down sets at all. There’s a few clear inspirations from pop culture in the art and flavor: Speed Racer, Mad Max, Wacky Racers, Death Race 3000, Redline, even a bit of the Orks from Warhammer 40K. But those references aren’t dictating the design of the card effects - this time it’s the other way around.
SHOW THEM THE MEANING OF SPEED
Bottom-up design is a lot harder to define than the top-down kind. You can say confidently that Titan of Eternal Fire and Chained to the Rocks are referencing the myth of Prometheus, but without those cultural reference points it’s hard for outsiders to understand the ideas which inspire specific cards.
The best examples are sets which deliberately unbalance the normal ratios of card types, costs, or colors. Legions is 100% made up of creatures; Alara Reborn is 100% multicolored spells. Mirrodin and Darksteel are predominantly artifacts, while Strixhavenmore than doubles the usual amount of instants and sorceries. Torment has twice as many slots for black spells as it gives to any other color.
Giving the set design such an obvious starting point makes it easier to follow the logic that leads to the choices on each card. The Legions design team needed to make creature cards which could fill the role of instant interaction, so the set has a lot of powerful morph and cycling triggers. This is a different kind of creativity to the more celebrated top-down designs, but no less interesting or impressive if you ask me.
What’s especially cool about Aetherdriftis that its overarching identity doesn’t come from overloading on a particular type or color of spell, but on the general concept of “going fast”. It feels like the designers sat down around a whiteboard and brainstormed every possible interpretation of “speed” as applied to Magic gameplay, and then tried to make a set which included all of them at once!
You’ve got the obvious answers in vehicle and mount cards, but also mana acceleration, cheating out big spells, racing through your deck with cycling and milling, and sacrificing life or cards to gain tempo (also captured by the one-time boost of exhaust abilities). Tying everything together is the concept of “racing” as we commonly use it in Magic parlance: the idea that both life totals are steadily ticking down, and your best hope is to focus on making sure theirs goes down faster.
The fact that one of the only non-staple reprints in the set is Bloodghast - maybe the most pure “racing” card ever designed - cements this ethos beautifully.
Maybe this is a niche Melvin opinion, but I think “Start your engines!” (a.k.a. speed) is one of the most impressive mechanics designed in recent memory. If you read my Limited guides (or anyone else's), think about how often a deck like red-white will be described as “just aggro” or otherwise lacking a strong identity beyond efficient damage-dealing.
The single-minded nature of aggro decks makes it extremely difficult to design mechanics which incentivize that gameplan in a balanced way. If the mechanic makes them better at killing you fast then it’s probably overpowered; if it doesn’t, then they won’t want to use it.
There’s also the issue that most set mechanics are implemented with some kind of setup/payoff dynamic, where your best outcomes revolve around mini-combos of specific cards. But most aggro decks are built with the opposite philosophy; as many cards as possible should be interchangeable, to make sure you’re never waiting around to draw the missing piece or getting shut down by one targeted removal spell.
But the speed mechanic answers all these questions emphatically. It’s also intuitive, flavorful, interacts with cards from every era of Magic, and has a huge amount of potential design space.
You can play a deck with only a single card which cares for your speed and it will function, because the designers ensured every speed card can also be your engine-starter. But you are also obviously rewarded for building a deck with many speed cards, or for pairing an expensive powerhouse like Samut, the Driving Force with openers like Burnout Bashtronaut or Amonkhet Raceway.
How heavily you commit to playing an engine-starter on turn one or having guaranteed ways to reach max speed ASAP depends on what you’re planning to use that speed for. Some speed cards absolutely require you to get max speed online to get best use from them, while others couldn’t care less! I’m just thrilled to see a simple aggro mechanic with so much capacity for nuance in how it’s applied.
The only real knocks I could see against this design are the logistical burden of having another emblem-type player effect to track, and the way that the maximum speed of four occasionally limits how card effects can scale with it. But I actually like that there’s a hard cap and the focus is on hitting that instead of just making number go up forever. Ironically, this is not a mechanic that wants you to waste turns assembling an efficient engine that churns out triggers. You just want to hit it exactly enough times to get across the finish line.
A WELL-EARNED VICTORY LAP
I could probably go into as much detail fawning over how the other mechanics in Aetherdrift embody pre-existing ideas of speed in Magic strategy, like velocity or tempo. It’s fun to see those ideas more literally represented as “speedy” in the card art and flavor, and so far I think they have come together to create an actually very fun gameplay experience.
It’s another quiet achievement of the design team that they have created a Limited set themed around “racing” life without having it skew insanely aggressive like Streets of New Capennaor Murders at Karlov Manor! I think that it all comes down to having really put in the time to come up with more than one definition of “speed” in Magic, so that every color combination can be strategically diverse without feeling out of place. As the release schedule increasingly seems to favor one-off theme-over-story sets like Thunder Junction, Duskmourn and Aetherdrift, I hope the depth of creativity and effort that’s apparent in these bottom-up design choices can also become a consistent standard.
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