the tarot of the lost purpose began on june 8, 2018, with me thinking:
you know, i like tarot cards, but shuffling is annoying. computers can shuffle, but the problem is that they shuffle things too well. they're way better at it than humans. but what if i made a program that shuffled badly?
but also
man, i really want an excuse to fuck around with rust and react.
sadly, the rust backend atrophied when i decided to do everything on the frontend, but i wound up using it for the asciifier, so hey.
because Lost Purpose actually does store the state of your deck, including whether each card is reversed or not, and actually uses a vague simulation of how humans shuffle, where the RNG is a function of the query you type in.
of course, it would also be possible to just use a real RNG and pick a card at random, but that isn't really fun, is it?
everything is done clientside, including the shuffling and the deck storage. i can't see your queries, the names of your decks, the state of your decks, anything.
in the future i may implement some kind of data sync so you can share the state of your decks between computers, but that will be opt-in, and the queries will never leave your computer.
originally it was called 'skarot', for 'skeumorphic tarot', but i later decided i didn't like that name. then @millenomi, who's the reason i'm interested in tarot in the first place¹ suggested 'lost purpose', both because:
- a skeumorphism is something that's lost its purpose
- tarot is something you turn to when you've lost your purpose
me, personally? nah. the shuffling algorithm is entirely deterministic (modulo a huge lag spike decreasing the number of crc32 stretches). but what i do believe is that the cards you draw can serve as an impulse to view your situation in a certain way, or act as symmetry-breaking for indecision. and i think they're just pretty to look at.
after writing the above, i asked a fresh, shuffled silicon dawn deck whether the occult is real, and it gave me History reversed. history upright "...may be a reminder that the whole deck can just be an elaborate way of talking to yourself...", so i guess reversed means 'yes, i am real, and i will doom you for doubting me'? i'm not making this up because you wouldn't believe me if i did.
if you want to get in contact with me, here are your options from best to worst:
- send me a message on Mastodon
- send me a message on Twitter (public DMs are on)
- e-mail me
¹ and who is also very cute