The CyberDeck

Update: I'm pausing the work on The CyberDeck for now. I feel deep inside that the entities need to halt(8) for a while.

I've always seen the world as this interconnected mess — random, but not really. Everything bleeds into everything else. As a kid, that led me down the chaos theory rabbit hole. The math that explains how simple rules create complex systems. Made sense to me.

Teenage years brought chaos magick into the mix. Belief. Intention. Power. All that hormonal whirlwind made it feel more real, more urgent.

I've spent my whole life dabbing with divination. Tarot to Lenormand to the Forty Servants from Tommie Kelly. The Forty Servants are still my go-to—they work.

But here's what bugged me: every system felt deterministic. Fatalist. That's impossible in a chaotic world. I wanted something different. Something more conversational.

Then came large language models. Compressed knowledge that costs us the planet through global warming, but that's another story. They made me think—what if I could have actual conversations with a divination system? Ask for clarification. Push back. Go deeper.

I came up with these requirements:

• Complex archetypes that guide without limiting
• Broad enough for multiple interpretations
• I can ask questions, demand more
• Cryptic enough to make me work for it
• Always right—even when I don't get it yet

That's how The CyberDeck happened.

I painted it with Prahou's unix surrealism aesthetic. Made perfect sense. He even helped pick the archetypes. This is as much his as mine—our weird digital kid.

The CyberDeck splits into two decks. Twenty archetypes in the Constants. Three simple values in the Oracle—0, 1, undefined. Use the Oracle when you need specifics about a Constant draw.

The Constants

• 0x1 Self (The Magus/The Hacker)
• 0x2 Overload (Carrying too much)
• 0x3 Release (Let it go)
• 0x4 Override (Taking action)
• 0x5 COMM (Communication)
• 0x6 Sect (Family)
• 0x7 I/O (Love)
• 0x8 PSYOP (Enemy)
• 0x9 Anger
• 0xA Paranoia
• 0xB Nymph (Temptation)
• 0xC Halt (Stop)
• 0xD Network (The Path)
• 0xE Machine (Constancy)
• 0xF SIGKILL (Death)
• 0x10 Endure
• 0x11 Success
• 0x12 Power
• 0x13 Hack
• 0x14 Ex Machina (Intervention)

Oracle

• 0
• 1
• undefined

Don't use this like traditional divination. Have honest conversations with it. Ask a question. Don't like the answer? Push back. Tell it you need something else. Use the Oracle for specifics. Challenge it. Make it work.

No cost to run this—just your brain trying to make sense.

The deck is never wrong.

Log

• 09/24/2024: Pausing work on The CyberDeck. The entities need to halt(8) for a while.
• 07/28/2024: First "stable" version live at cyberdeck.caffeine.computer. Requires javascript, sorry. A cgi/bin version coming. CLI version in POSIX shell too.
• 07/28/2024: Wrote this page.