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HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS WORK

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http://www.larrysface.com/cardtricklarry.htm

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha I am an idiot.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Please call me an idiot someone.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Idiot!

― Mr Mime (Andrew Thames), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

idiot

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

You're a HUGE idiot.

― Allyzay, Friday, 5 March 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

wow.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Thank you. It's 1:48 and I should have finished my thesis proposal an hour ago. Try the veal.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(Note idiotic idiocy justification!)

― Idiot Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha, it got me the first time.

― todd swiss (eliti), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I'm the idiot, I started going through the source code!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

wow.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

fuck off larry.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

cozen OTM (ha x-post)

― Matt (Matt), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer, no :(

― Allyzay, Friday, 5 March 2004 01:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Ally, I did it before I clicked the hat, to see if there was an image map. I'm not that stupid!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:57 (twenty-one years ago)

(Tracer you are wanted on the "Dare You" thread on ILM.)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, I just looked at the link and I don't understand it either.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

OK... I don't get it.

― ModJ (ModJ), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:12 (twenty-one years ago)

So you picked one card and it wasn't there, right?

Try picking two cards.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:13 (twenty-one years ago)

K, just tell me how it works.

― ModJ (ModJ), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:13 (twenty-one years ago)

The Amazing Randi to the thread.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I get it now. Ha.

― ModJ (ModJ), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:14 (twenty-one years ago)

oh my god, michael. yeah fuck off larry.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Look at all the suits. The numbers are the same - the suits change on every card though. No matter what you pick, it won't show up after you click the hat.

For fuck's sake, people. I should con you all for money. Oh wait, I already work for the government.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

not clicking on the link makes this a very weird thread

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Everyone's figured that out, Tom. Hence why Tracer is an idiot.

― Allyzay, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Damn, I was looking at the cards to see if they had the wrong number of diamonds or whatever on them, but I didn't think about that. Duh. I'm an idiot too.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:17 (twenty-one years ago)

And I don't even have a thesis proposal to write to make up for it.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:17 (twenty-one years ago)

the "trick" is taking advantage of your instinct to look at the numbers and colors and ignore the specific suits. If you haven't played a lot of cards in your life it just doesn't hit you right away.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm making your cards, tom.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.ehobbyland.com/CARD/CARD-Gundam-Mobile.jpg

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude the last time I played cards for real was this VICIOUS game of spades at a party. I was the only one doing acid and this guy with very pale blue eyes showed up and demanded we play cards in my room and he just cleaned my clock, whipping cards down with a loud smack and saying things like "caught a piece of your dick with that one!" and "I almost feel sorry for you guys." My friend Mike was on my team and he's a good card player but he wasn't good enough for the both of us. I didn't feel so bad the next day when I found out the blue-eyed guy had spent several months in prison, which is why he was so good. But at the time I just wanted to melt into a corner I was so bad.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Tracer, you should marry into my family, sucking at card games is like the Millars' favorite pastime, besides, you know, drinking.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you have any siblings?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:53 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I am sooo going to bed before you answer that.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:54 (twenty-one years ago)

He's an only child but I hear they're allowing more and more of this gay marriage thing these days.

― Allyzay, Friday, 5 March 2004 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Tracer would make a great blushing non-bride.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:57 (twenty-one years ago)

A similar trick that blows my mind: http://decep.com

Note to Tracer: you might need a calculator for this one!

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean.. how the fuck!

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:02 (twenty-one years ago)

You're only gonna wind up with multiples of 9, right? So I assume it pays attention to your scrolling, since so many of the symbols there can be ignored.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, now that I've done it, that's a way overly complicated explanation I just gave.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:08 (twenty-one years ago)

(i.e.: yes, it'll only be multiples of 9, so all the multiples of 9 have the same symbol, and since you're scrolling, you don't see 2 of them on the screen at once to notice this.)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it does take scrolling into account, because -- naughty, naughty -- whenever I click on the circle first, THEN check the side for the proper symbol, the two symbols never match up.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I got it to guess wrong 10 times in a row by doing the math in my head and checking the symbol after the fact. Not sure exactly how the predictive method works yet. Fuck. Tep beat me to it.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I could've sworn I saw another Flash version of this though that didn't involve scrolling at all.

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

You don't need to scroll, it just uses that as the opportunity to make the symbols below different from the symbols above (the first visible line of symbols are decoys; they aren't possible answers, even 99 and 90, because you can't get them by subtracting the sum of the digits from the starting number. It'd be easier to spot if they started with the first valid answer, which is, what, 81?)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:15 (twenty-one years ago)

(But that would give away the game, too.)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:15 (twenty-one years ago)

(I don't mean "you don't need to scroll" so much as "you don't need to incorporate scrolling into the trick.")

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Tep you madman, lend me your brain. (I need the math, cooking and novel-writing info.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:18 (twenty-one years ago)

81, 72, 63, 54, 45, 36, 27, 18, 9 are always all the same. It resets the symbols each time you load the page. Eh. Bring another one.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:18 (twenty-one years ago)

That's what I said :)

We had to do a lot of these things when I was a kid and good at math. We'd do this and then learn the formula or principle or whatever for what it was we'd just figured out.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:21 (twenty-one years ago)

My mind's still being blown!

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's something useful with math. You can do this with your fingers. It's not even a puzzle, it's just cool and makes you think the entire human race is dumb for not adopting it.

Hold up your right hand. Fingers 1-4 are equivalent to 1-4. Thumb = 5. Now count from 1-9 on one hand. Awesome!

Hold up your left hand. Fingers 1-4 are 10-40. Thumb = 50. Now count to 99 using both hands.

Exactly.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The decep trick seems to work in base 11, so what it must be is that for any two-digit number, the number minus the sum of its digits is a multiple of the base minus one.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:30 (twenty-one years ago)

If you're really dextrous you can get into the thousands using binary, but my girlfriend would hit me, so I'm not going any further.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom's latest e-mail is a winnah.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

(multiple of [the base minus one], not [multiple of the base] minus one)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks Tep, now I'm going to go to work tomorrow (and monday, and tuesday maybe) and try and prove that for hex. Ass.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

The counting thing really is cool, except I always get at least one finger that doesn't wanna do what it's supposed to.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude, it's like the first time I've gotten math right in forever, be happy for me :)

I'll try it in base 12.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Mathists.

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it works for base 12. I wonder why it has to be two digits, or if it does.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think this counts as math or I wouldn't be able to do it, to be honest. I had minor brain damage a couple years ago, I can't even remember phone numbers any more. This is like that other thing.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Otherthingists.

― maypang (maypang), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Universal Shebang:

Call the two digits x and y, call the base b.

So, our number "xy" = x(b) + y

Subtract y, subtract x:

We get x(b) - x.

(x(b) - x) = x(b - 1) eg. x instances of the base minus one.

An English Lit degree put to good use, there.

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Otherthingists.

Well okay :)

(It might be math for Tom, I dunno.)

Three digits. 452. Minus 11, 441, which ... adds up to 9. Ohh. Dude, it doesn't have to be two digits at all, they just don't want you to scroll forever. 3849284980 - stuff = 3849284925, which adds up to 54, 5+4=9. That makes much more sense.

Wait, xpost, how do we put unlimited digits into the equation? I'm no good with equations.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay! You can't put loads of digits into the thing I posted, but you can show it still works, 'cos if xb-x = is a multiple of (b-1) then (x(b^2) - x) must be too, cos whatever b^2 is will totally be something we coulda put in for b in the first equation.

SO, when you've got a big number, say 4567, which is = 4(10^3) + 5(10^2) + 6(10) + 7, and you take away the digits, you get: ( (4(10^3) - 4) + (5(10^2) - 5) + (6(10)-6) + 0), all of which, individually, have to be multiples of (b-1), ie 9! (So, obviously the total will be). Does that make sense?

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:57 (twenty-one years ago)

There we go! Totally. I was gonna lose sleep until I figured that out (which would be funny since I need to be up early for an appointment to get sleeping pills).

I was gonna run out of symbols for stuff before long, it's weird trying to do base-12 stuff on paper.

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Everything ultimately ends up as 9 in this system because that's the highest tolerance of the count. That's how I understand it in my head. Sorta. I never did well in math classes because they wanted me to show my work, and I was just like OK whatever, the answer's right, fuck you.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 March 2004 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

general solution

we have a number x0 + x1b^1 + x2b^2 + ... xnb^n

we subtract digits: x0 + x1b^1 + x2b^2 + ... xnb^n - x0 - x1 - ... xn

to get: x0 - x0 + x1b^1 - x1 + x2b^2 - x2 + ... xnb^n - xn

or, to simplify, we get E (xi) * (b^i - 1) with i: 1->n (E is a sigma)

now, let's look at b^i - 1

we need to show b^i - 1 is congruent to b-1 (gregory is glossing this bit over, or he worked it out in his head)

[b^i - 1] = b^i mod b + (-1) mod b = [0] + [-1] = [b-1] (brackets indicate the congruence class modulo the base)

so, we have a sum, in which each term is multiplied by a number congruent to (base - 1). i.e. each term is divisible by (base - 1). so the sum is divisible by (base - 1), so the sum is a multiple of (base - 1)

(sorry - i had this all typed out and you guys had totally moved on!)

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:45 (twenty-one years ago)

ok totally off base but my fav were the forced choice trix which used all psych and no math where you have someone pick from five cards and only one is an ace, only one is a face card, only one is red, only one has an even number, and the other is like the seven of clubs.

ppl pick the seven of clubs 95% of the time or so since its the "least obvious"!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 5 March 2004 06:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Everything ultimately ends up as 9 in this system because that's the highest tolerance of the count. That's how I understand it in my head.

Yeah, I was thinking last night that if you wanted to sort of describe what's going on with as little math as possible, then you talk about 9 or "base minus one" in those terms: the highest digit you get to before having to jump over to the next column.

vahid, I have no idea what modulo means, but it looks like you've got good math going on :)

I have all these scribbled-on calendar sheets in front of the computer monitor and had put down what symbols I was gonna use for doing stuff up to base 20 in case someone got on my back and said it was coincidental that it had worked in bases 11 and 12. (I'm not sure why I didn't try a lower-than-10 base, wouldn't that be easier? Oh well.)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 5 March 2004 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g56SEaF6Slo

― like having an eternal kazoo in your underwear (acoleuthic), Friday, 18 December 2009 05:32 (fifteen years ago)

InevidibleMe (3 months ago) Show Hide
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Robotic bottom half, he probably had some altercations when he was younger and had from his waist down amputated..

― like having an eternal kazoo in your underwear (acoleuthic), Friday, 18 December 2009 05:35 (fifteen years ago)

oh wait, someone explains it in french, but i can just about understand what he's saying: the footage has been spliced together; the jury are reacting to something completely different and there is in fact no jury present at the magic trick

silly me

― like having an eternal kazoo in your underwear (acoleuthic), Friday, 18 December 2009 05:37 (fifteen years ago)

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