Speculations on How Derren Brown does his tricks

Weekend is here so what did I do last week and what's the plan for this week.

I've been watching Derren Brown who is a British Mentalist. He has a TV show in England and isn't that well known in the United States

• Watched Derren Brown the great art robbery which is great. If you like magic, puzzles or are curious you will love this.

I found out about Derren from a Scott Adams' blog post in the comments related to predicting horse races from The System



Now since Derren is a magician everything he does can be called into question as magic is basically lying to people. I've performed magic and it's a weird phenomena that something that seems so obvious to you can fool people.

Saturday March 19 2017

I started the day with this blog. I spent the day doing nothing.My weight started out at 169.8. I seem to be stuck weightwise.

I took my dog to the vet and she's in good shape except for the bill was $450. Ouch! Why is the doctor one of the scam places where the price is given afterwards and no negotiation is done. This should be against the law. It's like going to the store and buying non-returnable items and then finding out the price at checkout. 

When I came home I had a low carb bagel with butter and cheese. I was tired and took a nap for an hour.

I picked up my son from Jamaica Station leaving at 1 PM. At Jamaica I sat drinking a Tim Horton's coffee and there was a group of older men (30s- 40s) that I didn't trust. One was saying how either he or some sucker punched him...  I didn't get to eat lunch at Calda Pizza until 4 PM. I had Chicken a la Vodka and Buffalo chicken.  The pizza as usual was delicious. 

I came home but was tired probably from the pizza (carbs) and had to watch more Derren Brown videos and nap.

I got up at 7:30 pm and went to Vitamin Shoppe where I bought some ceremonial Green Tea for $19.99 there was some for $39.99. 

Got home and my son had a friend over but I felt tired and watched more Derren Brown Videos. Some were short clips but two appeared to be his live show.  His trick are amazing but I suspect there must be some form of trickery, either stooges or ear pieces.  Just as I wrote this there is a video of Derren guessing the amount of money in a wallet and I think I figured out how he did this trick. He could have pickpocketed the wallet, counted money replaced it and then guessed the amount. If you like magic he's very good. The other problem with a show that runs for a few months can't possibly be different each time. Has anyone seen the same show multiple times? 

There were a lot of short clips but there were 2 of his shows as part of the videos. The video says

 "There are no actors or stooges or stooges used in this programme and no research has been carried out on any members of the audience."

I'm doubting this as it appears the only way he could do the tricks he does is with both stooges and/or research. Magic is basically a lie, so why would I trust this opening credits. It is possible that some other method is used, such as hypnosis, maybe some other method but in any case it's impressive.

March 14, 2017 Shortening You Text

Productivity

Up at 5:30 am and working from home due to storm.  

I've been thinking about my current method of getting things done.

In terms of branding I'd like to be known as a "Productivity Expert" kind of like David Allen.

I've been working on a tool for way too long to create a better to-do list. My goal is what I call STS or Smart Task Selection. Currently my tool helps with RTS or Random Task Selection.

I have > 200 items on my to-do list and I need a better way to manage this large amount of tasks. One way is in Excel I use the 80-20 principle. I have two lists of tasks and I try to keep my top 20% in one and the remaining 80% in the other.

A promising thing I'm looking at is the Tony Robbins RPM system for getting stuff done.

One cool feature I just added to my time-monitor software incorporates the A1R2 method.

A1R2 - Add 1 Remove 2

One issue I have is a proliferation of sheets. So anytime I add a new sheet I get a message of how many sheets I have and to delete two of them. I actually archive them to another sheet.

Shortening Text

I just wrote some software that shortens whatever you want by removing spaces and abbreviating words http://t2do.com/shorten.asp

If you call with no parameters it will allow you to tweet the shortened text.

Below is what it would look like.

Up@5:30Am&WorkingFromHomeDue2Storm.I'veBeenThinkingAbtMyCurrentMethodOfGettingThingsDone.InTermsOfBrandingI'dLike2bKnownAsA"productivityExpert"KindOfLikeTDavidAllen.IJustWroteSomeSoftwareThatShortensWhatevrUWntByRemovingSpaces&AbbreviatingWords Http://t2do.com/shorten.asp FuCallWithNoParametersItWillAllowU2TweetTShortendText.BelowIsWhatItWudLookLike

I don't know if this is useful but in theory it could save a lot of energy as you're using about 16% less space.

I want to make it more dynamic as it's currently uses a hardcoded lookup table.

Some possible changes:

• convert 
• "ing" to "ng"
• 
  
• remove unnecessary words
• the
• adverbs (words ending in 'ly")
• actually
• really

March 12, 2017 - Daily Diary

Reading 

• "Impossible to Ignore" so I can give/create better presentations and somehow related to $.

Hiring

A person that's "Good to hire"

• Likes solving puzzles
• Likes numbers

Health

Blood sure very high today

• 131 at 5 am
• 136 at 7 am
• Had mango and real root beer last night

Weight is < 170 which is good. 168.8

Work

Wondering about some bad work habits

• Hard coding
• Lack of error handling

Working on general logic to compare 2 month-over-month files and identify issues.

I'm automating PowerPoint with 3 steps

1. Run SQL and create Excel Files
2. Take the Excel file data and create charts and data
3. Copy the charts and data to Powerpoint

Random Internet stuff

Recently listened to a James Altucher/Tony Robbins podcast that I thought was very good. I've added to look at Tony's RPM method to my to-do list

Productivity

My todo list which is RTS (Random Task Selection) needs some work. I have way too many items on it (195). So I'm thinking about RTS vs. STS (Smart Task Selection).  I need to start moving from RTS to STS ASAP.

New Ideas

• I came up with the idea to shorten tweets which can be seen at http://t2do.com/shorten.asp.
• Custom Presentations
• Ask Q's
• Generate presentation based on answers
• Save and give
• Auto Islam filter
• Any writing I do would automatically convert words like Islam to _islam.
• Knowledge to ...
• I want to create a system that takes a person's knowledge and creates content just by asking questions and getting the answers. 
• Added a % filter to t2do.com where you can show percent counts to filters

Are we in a Simulation?

This is something Scott Adams writes about  and is very interesting. There's a guy who states that there are only 3 possibilities.

1. We can't build simulations
2. We can but choose not to
3. We are in a simulation

Mike Cernovich - Gorilla Mindset

I watched Mike's video on Gorilla Mindset and liked like. The book is also available here. 

Scott Adams

I continue to watch and read his content which is really good. 

Stefan Molyneux

I've been listening to his http://Freedomainradio.com site and his content is usually pretty good.

Derren Brown

I've been watch some videos on youtube on Derren who is a magician that does really cool mental stuff. Highly recommended. I found him from a Scott Adams post and someone posted his video in the comments.

I believe simultaneously somehow I got a book recommendation on his book Derren Brown Trick's of the Mind