Sam Simmons

@Jano_MendezMTG @fireshoes Any interest in splashing white for boros charm over the inti and 2 sears?

My name is Alejandro Mendez, your trusty budget red mage. If you wanna dominate standard on a budget, this is a great option. Top 8 in a challenge and 5-0 on mtgo today, tomorrow I will play the showcase with a slightly modified version. @fireshoes

@TurnpikerX @wizards_magic 100% agree. Nothing about this art even looks like Dan's

@wizards_magic That art is digitally altered, not falling for this bullshit. Also Dan doesn't do digital, what are you no telling us?

A message from Dan Frazier and Wizards of the Coast:

@Ferinio21 @BagleyKSLsports Over 😔

@BagleyKSLsports O/U 2.5 honor code violations by BYU hockey team in 2026/27?

BYU Hockey’s Instagram account posted this last night. The club has not competed since 2022.

@Monkeyfing96225 @TomFornelli This post is about this year's teams

@TomFornelli Ummm LSU beat 7 ranked teams in 2019, 6 of which were top 10 teams and beat 10 teams with a winning record so they don’t just have that record by themselves they’re actually tied with LSU they greatest team ever assembled 15-0 National Champions!! LSU would beat that team!!!

Most wins against FBS teams with a winning record among Power Four teams 1. Indiana - 10 2. Oregon - 8 3. BYU - 7 3. Miami - 7 3. Ohio State - 7 6. Alabama - 6 6. Duke - 6 6. Ole Miss - 6 6. USC - 6

@killa_ @BleacherReport I think Saban has an argument for the greatest coach of all time in any sport ever

@BleacherReport no one is competing with this shit. Not one coach has a tree like this.

RANKING NICK SABAN'S COACHING TREE 🧐 10. Charles Huff, Memphis HC 8. Brent Key, Georgia Tech HC 6. Lane Kiffin, LSU HC 3. Dan Lanning, Oregon HC See full Top 10 list here: bleacherreport.com/articles/25361…

@ProfSteveKeen If you actually predicted the 2008 crash, you'd be a billionaire, or at least a multimillionaire

20 years after missing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, neoclassical economists are back promoting their failed methods. Even Irving Fischer rejected equilibrium thinking after it destroyed him in 1929. He wrote that assuming economies reach perfect equilibrium is as absurd as assuming the Atlantic Ocean can be without waves. Economists ignored him and rebuilt the same framework. I've released my complete Rebel Economist course overview. 2 hours examining why mainstream economics fails and what we should use instead. 7 topics universities won't properly teach: - Why economics never reforms itself - The fallacies of supply and demand - How the macroeconomy actually works - Understanding money through proper modeling - Why economists are wrong about debt - Financial instability and crisis prediction We haven't needed equilibrium models since the 1980s when system dynamics software emerged. My Ravel program lets us model economies as they actually behave—dynamic and evolutionary, not frozen in equilibrium. Real firms don't follow upward-sloping supply curves. Market demand curves can't be mathematically derived as theory requires. Walras's equilibrium process doesn't converge. These aren't opinions—they're proven facts economists ignore. I predicted the 2008 crisis using post-Keynesian debt analysis. Mainstream economists using equilibrium models completely missed it. We need realistic economics built on proper monetary modeling and system dynamics. Universities dominated by neoclassical thinking won't provide this, so I'm making it public. P.S. Ready to learn economics that actually explains financial crises instead of ignoring them? Watch the full overview in the comments #EconomicTheory #FinancialCrisis #Macroeconomics #MonetaryPolicy #DebtCycles #SystemDynamics #EconomicModeling #PostKeynesian

@JimTKirkNCC1701 @CJVogel_OTF Both BYU sos and sor beg to differ. I agree that the rankings are bad, but not in the same way you do

@CJVogel_OTF Ridiculous to include a NT or JM. Miami has played no one. Neither has BYU or Tech. Rankings and this system is so bad.

The end of regular season College Football Playoff rankings are released: 1. Ohio State 2. Indiana 3. Georgia 4. Texas Tech 5. Oregon 6. Ole Miss 7. Texas A&M 8. Oklahoma 9. Alabama 10. Notre Dame 11. BYU 12. Miami 13. Texas 14. Vanderbilt 15. Utah 16. USC 17. Virginia 18. Arizona 19. Michigan 20. Tulane 21. Houston 22. Georgia Tech 23. Iowa 24. North Texas 25. James Madison

@apex_betss @MarchMadnessMBB @umichbball BYU should also be in that conversation. Football isn't over yet and basketball is just starting, but Vandy and BYU are both def in the conversation

@MarchMadnessMBB @umichbball It might be time to have the conversation that Vanderbilt is the best overall Athletic Department this year, both football and basketball competing on the highest level. They deserve their flowers. Been the SECs bitch for years, it’s time for the narrative to change!!?

🚨 FIRST NET RANKINGS OF 2025-26 🚨 1. Michigan 2. Duke 3. Purdue 4. Vanderbilt 5. Gonzaga 6. Arizona 7. Iowa State 8. UConn 9. Louisville 10. Michigan State The NET Rankings are used by the Selection Committee and updated daily 👉 on.ncaa.com/2BxpVJk

@cleargen45 @jadenmgocougs @975Hans That's the thing, On3 reports that Jay Hill would go with Sitake as part of his offer

20 years covering BYU. One thing I know. BYU is gonna be just fine. Take a deep breath, buy your Championship tickets and settle in. BYU will be fine.

@kevinspurgin @gregwrubell Only 4 teams in college football have 5 or more wins against teams that are already bowl-eligible: Ohio State, Indiana, Alabama, and... BYU

@gregwrubell #6 strength of record and BYU has only one win against top 25 teams. They played nobody in the non conference, and gave zero wins against teams that would be in the playoffs if they started today.

BYU going 9-1 with a No. 6 Strength of Record evidently does not mitigate trailing 26-0 and losing 29-7 at Texas Tech--an elite football team, as shown by their CFP ranking of 5th. CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek tonight: "It's really the way they looked in that game against Texas Tech. They were dominated on both sides of the ball in that game against Texas Tech." Facts about Texas Tech in its game v. BYU (11th CFP): 29 points scored are their fewest in any win, and second-fewest in any game. 368 yards are their fewest in any win, and second-fewest in any game. 39% third-down conversion rate is their lowest in any win, and second-lowest in any game. 17 first downs are their fewest in any win, and second-fewest in any game. 2 TDs scored in 7 RZ drives: lowest RZ TD rate in any game. It is perhaps a matter of semantics, but I'd argue that BYU was not dominated on both sides of the ball. BYU's defense played Texas Tech notably better than any other opponent the Red Raiders have defeated. Utah was dominated by Texas Tech on both sides of the ball to a greater extent than BYU-- Defeat margin: BYU -22 points Utah -24 points Yardage margin: BYU -113 yards Utah -221 yards Giveaways: BYU 3 Utah 4 BYU beat Utah. And has one less loss than Utah. And one ranking spot separates the two teams. Also a fact: BYU needed to be much more competitive on offense and special teams in Lubbock. Rough days for both units contributed most to the 26-0 deficit--a snapshot the committee refuses to look past. The committee chair admitted as much tonight. Even though the negative impression left in Lubbock has some qualifying elements, as outlined above, being shut out into the 4th quarter at Texas Tech has cost BYU with the committee. As a result, BYU's playoff hopes may require winning the next three games. Should BYU get to 11-1, play well in a rematch against an 11-1 Texas Tech team in Arlington and come up short, you'd like to think the body of a season's work in a power conference--including a win over the Big 12's next most-likely candidate for a second league playoff bid--would lead to consideration for an at-large CFP berth. But based on the current rankings and rationale, it would be a tough thing to count on. To quote Bill Belichick: "On to Cincinnati."

@Rainmaker1973 Okay then. Have it brute force the optimal path for the traveling salesman with n = 30.

Google’s new quantum chip is so powerful it might be tapping into parallel universes. Google's groundbreaking quantum processor, Willow, has achieved the seemingly impossible: solving an extraordinarily complex computational problem in under five minutes—a feat that would require the world's most advanced supercomputer approximately 10 septillion years to complete (10²⁵). This mind-boggling performance has revived one of the most provocative ideas in physics: could quantum computers like Willow be performing calculations across vast numbers of parallel universes? Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI, believes the answer may be yes. He argues that Willow’s results align strikingly with the many-worlds (or multiverse) interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which every quantum measurement causes reality to branch into multiple, equally real parallel universes. In this view, a quantum computer doesn’t just calculate faster within our universe—it effectively distributes the workload across countless parallel realities simultaneously. The idea traces back to physicist David Deutsch, who, as early as the 1980s, suggested that the exponential power of quantum computation could only be fully explained if the machine is exploiting resources from many coexisting worlds. Yet the interpretation remains deeply divisive. Many physicists and quantum computing experts insist that no multiverse is required. Willow’s breakthrough, they argue, is fully explainable through standard quantum mechanics—leveraging superposition (qubits existing in multiple states at once), entanglement, and the mathematics of high-dimensional Hilbert spaces—all within a single universe. So what has Willow truly demonstrated? It has pushed quantum technology into a regime so extreme that it compels us to re-examine the deepest foundations of reality itself. Whether or not Willow is quietly borrowing power from alternate universes, one thing is clear: practical, large-scale quantum computing is no longer science fiction—and it is forcing us to confront profound questions about the nature of the cosmos, computation, and existence.

@sama For all the #save4o people, I feel like if you're *so* attached to a specific version, a specific model, that you can't possibly use something else, perhaps something about your relationship to AI needs to be examined for your health

GPT-5.1 is out! It's a nice upgrade. I particularly like the improvements in instruction following, and the adaptive thinking. The intelligence and style improvements are good too.

@FloBro__ @PFF_College @BYUfootball Oh really? Is Utah a high school team? Is Iowa State a high school team?

@PFF_College @BYUfootball It helps when you’re still playing against a high school schedule

ONLY True Freshman QB with an 80+ Grade This Season: 🔵 Bear Bachmeier, BYU: 80.3 @BYUfootball

@SaffronOlive 1. No. It's a staple of the format 2. No. It's a staple of the format and it gives dimir decks a way to win that's reasonable. Blue farm is annoying, sure, but durdly, midrange decks *should* have a place in cedh. If thoracle goes, an entire section of the format disappears.

Here's the list of stuff Wizards explicitly asked for feedback on for Commander. What do you say? 1.) Ban Rhystic Study? (I vote yes) 2.) Ban Thassa's Oracle? (yes) 3.) Should there be a bracket between 2 and 3 or 3 and 4? (I'm not sure) 4.) Change hybrid rule? (yes, free it) magic.wizards.com/en/news/announ…

@CFBRep And yet BYU "has played nobody"

Best Resumes in College Football, per ESPN FPI 💪

@fireshoes Yeah I think I'll be tempted to play store championships now

Aetherdrift Store Championship promos #mtg Deep-Cavern Bat – participation Preacher of the Schism – Top 8 Virtue of Persistence – Winner wpn.wizards.com/en/news/aether…

@TeamMainPhase @mtg_grindcast Have you experimented with overlord of the balemurk at all? I've been trying 2 copies and really enjoying it, but I don't really know if it's optimal

Another solid finish for the bounce master! We’re continuously looking for ways to build on this powerful shell as the meta evolves. Don’t forget to check out Scott’s free guide pinned on our profile and his recent interview with @mtg_grindcast!

@fireshoes That's a really great idea. I'll give it a shot. I've been experimenting with a more midrangey version of bounce and that sounds perfect

All the fastlands and creaturelands coming into play tapped late is really annoying. Maybe someone can massage the manabase a bit to smooth it out, but I think Overlord of the Balemurk will be even better in the Dimir Bounce lists, since they just have 4 fastlands and 2 Reefs.

I didn't make Top 8 in tonight's Challenge, but I did get to try Overlord of the Balemurk in Esper Pixie, and it was awesome! I cut Tithing Blade, No More Lies, Mockingbird, and Underground River for two Balemurk and two Restless Reef, since you want to play a longer game. #mtg

@fireshoes @ChironTheMage Is this going to be a worse era than when GGT was unbanned?

Jund Creativity 5-0s by @ChironTheMage, lethalpapercut, and hyyy1, plus a Mardu Reanimator 5-0 by dabiggestb, each with Faithless Looting + Persist for a turn 2 Archon of Cruelty. #mtg #mtgModern

@ReidDuke At first I read this as "carb titan" and I was wholly confused about why they would care about vintage

Come watch coverage of the North American Vintage Championship! twitch.tv/cardtitan