Technologies

Someone Help Me — I Also Need These Sonic the Hedgehog Magic: The Gathering Cards

Sega’s superspeedster is getting some genuinely awesome cards in a limited drop next month.

Magic: The Gathering hit a goldmine earlier this month when it released its Final Fantasy set based on one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. Final Fantasy was reportedly the best-selling Magic set before it even released, thanks to extensive preorders. Now Wizards of the Coast is hoping to repeat that success with Secret Lair drops themed around video game icon Sonic the Hedgehog, launching Monday, July 14.

Depending on which century you were born in, you’ll either recognize Sonic as the star of 1991’s Sega Genesis video game Sonic the Hedgehog, or as the star of Paramount Pictures’ Sonic the Hedgehog movies. (Or maybe you know him from Smash Bros. or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, or any of the countless other places he shows up.) Now he’s joining the storied Magic: The Gathering card game in a year where Magic is aggressively investing in crossovers with other properties.

Those crossovers started years ago with The Walking Dead, which became an official Magic series called Universes Beyond when it released a Secret Lair drop for Stranger Things. We’ve gotten Magic cards for everything from Street Fighter to Lord of the Rings, The Evil Dead, Jurassic Park and even SpongeBob. Lord of the Rings was the first full Universes Beyond set, but it set the table for Final Fantasy last month, and we’re getting full sets for both Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender later this year.

The new Sonic Magic: The Gathering cards are different from the game’s Final Fantasy set because these are Secret Lair products — limited-run drops of a handful of cards, rather than a full set of hundreds of Standard-legal cards. Like many Secret Lair crossover products, they seem aimed at the casual multiplayer Commander format that lets you build decks around your favorite characters and play with a group of friends.

Sonic being a legendary creature with white mana, blue mana and red mana in his color identity, means that a Sonic Commander deck allows you to include his allies Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose in the deck. Shadow costs red and black mana, which means he doesn’t fit in a Sonic Commander deck, but he would fit in a Dr. Eggman deck.

And, gang, these cards are kinda wild. Whenever Sonic attacks, he puts power-increasing counters on other creatures with flash or haste, which not-so-coincidentally includes all of the aforementioned allies that fit in his deck. And Sonic having the haste ability himself means he can attack the same turn you cast him, virtually guaranteeing one activation. Tails can draw cards when flying vehicles enter — a nice nod to his plane, which first showed up in the late stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Knuckles has a lot going on, including the ability to create treasure tokens that can help you cast spells — or just outright win the game if you have enough while he’s on the battlefield.

There’s also some mechanical synergy between these cards and the new Final Fantasy cards. Amy Rose automatically attaches equipment when she attacks and then can buff the power of other creatures, making her a great fit for the Limit Break Commander deck led by Cloud (or Tifa), which cares about equipment and power stats!

Similarly, Dr. Eggman gets to draw cards at the beginning of your end step — if you also control Y’Shtola Rhul, you get an extra end step, allowing you to draw two cards instead of one for the low, low cost of ending your turn.

All of that adds up to mechanically fun Magic cards that feature a lifelong favorite character for me. And it’ll add up financially if I can get my hands on either the foil Sonic: Friends & Foes collection ($40) or the non-foil collection ($30), the cards in which are less likely to warp from the foil treatment.

There are two other Sonic Secret Lair drops announced, including one that focuses on reprinted artifacts like vehicles and equipment and another that rounds up existing cards that synergize with the new cards. Both will be available in $40 foil or $30 non-foil versions. All three Secret Lair sets go on sale Monday, July 14, at noon ET/9 a.m. ET.

When they do, and I cannot stress this enough, you gotta go fast to get ’em.

Technologies

Harvard Business Review Study Finds ‘AI Brain Fry’ Is Leaving Workers Mentally Fatigued

Study participants reported increased mental fatigue while using AI tools, but less burnout overall.

Workers who excessively use AI agents and tools at work are at increased risk of mental fatigue, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study. In certain industries, more than 25% of hired professionals report increased mental strain due to their role in AI oversight — though these professionals also generally experienced less burnout than peers who aren’t using AI.

This phenomenon — which the researchers refer to as «AI brain fry» — is described as a «‘buzzing’ feeling or a mental fog» that caused study participants to develop headaches and difficulty focusing and making decisions. Individuals pointed to being overwhelmed by large amounts of information and to frequent task switching as the reasons for these feelings.

Studied individuals experienced more brain fry when they utilized AI agents to manage a workload beyond their own cognitive capacity. When participants used AI to replace mundane, repetitive tasks, managing the growing number of tools led to increased mental fatigue.

Crucially, the study found that fewer individuals who used these AI agents reported workplace burnout.

The researchers predict that this is because burnout testing assesses emotional and physical distress. In contrast, they report, acute mental fatigue «is caused by marshalling attention, working memory and executive control beyond the limited capacity of these systems.»

These are the processes that are taxed when study participants use multiple AI tools in their workflow, according to the researchers.

The Harvard study identifies several business costs incurred by workers suffering from AI brain fry. The foremost consequence is that these individuals may end up making lower-quality decisions. «Workers in [the] study who endorsed AI brain fry experience 33% more decision fatigue than those who did not,» the study reports. Workers who report AI brain fry were also more likely to self-report making both minor and major errors at their jobs.

Another recent Harvard Business Review study similarly found that employees who use AI tools «worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks and extended work into more hours of the day,» but warned that «workload creep can in turn lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout and weakened decision-making.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 11, #1004

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 11, No. 1,004.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Once I spotted «ice cream» and «traffic» in today’s NYT Connections puzzle, I had the blue category all but filled in. But that purple category was even more bizarre than usual. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Bring that back!

Green group hint: Fancy ____.

Blue group hint: Think of a certain shape.

Purple group hint: Sounds like…

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Steal.

Green group: Make nicer, with «up.»

Blue group: Kinds of cones.

Purple group: Pronoun homophones.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is steal. The four answers are lift, palm, pinch and pocket.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is make nicer, with «up.» The four answers are dress, jazz, spiff and spruce.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is kinds of cones. The four answers are ice cream, pine, snow and traffic.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is pronoun homophones. The four answers are hee, mi, oui and yew.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 11, #534

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 534 for Wednesday, March 11.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a real mix of categories, but the yellow one came easily to this Seahawks fan. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Super Bowl champs’ division.

Green group hint: Baseball stats.

Blue group hint: Stars on ice.

Purple group hint: You wear it around your waist.