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clo_againRe-tweet, by FiendishThingie: Did everyone tune in at nine for "Derren Brown Explains Shit All About The Lottery Trick, And Is a Bastard"?
This is the general reaction to his explanation on Twitter, but with much hatred towards 'technobabble'. This makes me sad, because the math to me seems pretty simple - simple to the point of suspicious nonsense - and I'm AN ENGLISH MAJOR, so if the math is obvious to me then it must be pretty damn obvious.
What is not obvious to me is how the math he used could possibly give the results he claims it did. Guessing the weight of a cow is not the same as guessing an utterly random lottery number; you can clearly look at a cow and estimate based on appearance. Also, people at a country fair were the cow-guessing comp took place would presumably, for the most part, have some experience with cows and weight, thus making the average of their guesses into something approaching reliable. The connection seems random. Or rather, made up.
Instead of explaining the entire show to y'all (because those of you who're interested probably mostly watched it), I'll briefly explain what I understood as the explanation and then repost my tweets from the whole hour. Apologies to everyone I'm friends with on Twitter; I suspect I was very annoying. I'll move over here to LJ now. :)
By the way, as I type this 'Derren Brown' is the top trending topic on Twitter. #Derren Brown is the third trending topic. Bullshit or not, he certainly succeeded with this trick. Well done, you evil gay wizard.
Derren's explanation used the so-called 'Wisdom of Crowds' theory,; he explained this theory as 'the average of guesses made by groups of people is far more accurate than estimates by experts'. He illustrated this (literally, with a cute little cut-out scene) with the example of the country fair, where there was a contest to guess the weight of an ox (also explained on the wikimlink above). At the end of the day, the owner of the ox added the guesses together and divided by the number of guesses. The result was "the exact weight" (Derren's words) of the ox.
Impressive, if a little unlikely. So Derren being Derren, decided to run with this and got a group of twenty-four people together to try and guess the lotto numbers. He showed them a board, on which was written all the numbers from the last year's worth of lotto draws in nice, neat squares. They each picked a number for each ball, these numbers were added together and divided by twenty-four. These averages were their 'guesses' for each ball.
The first week they tried this, they got one number. The second week, he didn't tell them the average of their guesses until after the lotto numbers were drawn so they'd be 'more relaxed' in the attempt and they got three (or two?) numbers. The next week they tried automatic writing, though I was too busy Tweeting to catch why they tried it. They got four numbers.*
*I think I've got this sequence right. I'll rewatch later and edit as needed.
Up until this point, I can believe that the people genuinely got the right numbers. I'm too suspicious of DB to put all my faith in them getting those numbers *without* his interference but I believe they 'got' some of the numbers.
The next time they did this exercise, was Wednesday. This Wednesday just gone. Derren took their guesses, worked out the averages and sealed them into a tube himself WITHOUT showing either the people who guessed or the TV camera. Suspicious Act 999th. Those 'same' numbers were the numbers he dramatically revealed to us all on Wednesday night.
Now, I don't believe for a second that this is how he got the numbers. I also don't really believe his alternate explanation, that he replaced the real lottery balls with their own fake ones. HOWEVER. His hour-long non-explanation was so gleeful, so full of mice and knives and BLATENT LIES that I love him as much as I ever did. And now, according to Twitter trends, the entire world either loves or hates him passionately. Well done Derren; your first step to world domination is complete. Next week, INFLUENCING US ALL THROUGH THE TV. You do realise, everyone, that if he cn glue us to our sofas? HE COULD TURN US INTO HIS OWN PERSONAL ARMY.
I, for one, am looking forward to being Derren Brown's personal minion. I rather think it will be marvellous. Though possibly not if you're a mouse.
So as a bonus (maybe?) for wading through that explanation of nonsense for anyone who cared/couldn't watch the show/didn't care enough to watch the show but was idly curious, have my progression of Tweets:
1. Derren Brown is about to explain the lotto thing. Getting ready to be amazed! (or embarrased by our own gullibility!)about 2 hours ago from web
2. Oh, they're reshowing the draw and hearing his explanation again is making me wonder if I *was* wrong to believe he wasn't lying. Hm. about 2 hours ago from web
3. Bwahaha Derren Brown has shot up the trending topics. Go Derren! about 2 hours ago from web
4. Interesting that he put 'fix the machine' as 3rd option! Maybe he did 'fix' the machine - not lotto but the tellybox. Why does C4 have ads?! about 2 hours ago from web
5. The person who called Derren Brown "a fab ol' gay wizard?' You are so right. He is fabulous, gay as a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide... about 2 hours ago from web
6. ... and quite probably a wizard! about 2 hours ago from web
7. He doesn't like mice! I love mice. Barnabas looks a *lot* like a mouse. Except more golf ball-shaped. about 2 hours ago from web
8. I've decided to Tweet my way through this by the way, and LJ the results instead of writing a post! You might want to ignore me for an hour. about 2 hours ago from web
9. Aw, I wanted there to be a mouse. about 2 hours ago from web
10. Why does Derren want to terrify the pretty boy? He has pretty eyelashes. At least a knife through his foot won't make his eyes less pretty. about 2 hours ago from web
11. MY PARENTS JUST CALLED. ARGH. TEHEY WANTED TO SEE HOW HE PREDICTED THE NUMBERS. DUDE, CALL AT THE END. about 2 hours ago from web
12. As much as I know this pretty boy isn't going to get a knife through his foot at 9pm on C4? I'm still *twitching*. about 2 hours ago from web
13. Oh Derren Brown. You just enjoy torturing the pretty boy don't you? about 2 hours ago from web
14. Oh holy crap THERE WAS A MOUSE. Risking the pretty boy is one thing Derren Brown, but dude. AN INNOCENT MOUSE?! about 2 hours ago from web
15. Then again, he is Derren Brown. That was probably the safest mouse in the country. about 2 hours ago from web
16. AHAHAHAHAHA. Someone just suggested the Dr Who "EVERYONE WILLS REALLY HARD" thing and now he's *doing it*. Everyone think DOCTOR now... about 2 hours ago from web
17. *Derren isn't mentioning Doctor Who by the way; he used an actual study. I just prefer Doctor Who Skience to actual 'science'. about 1 hour ago from web
18. He could've used a team of people willing him on that time he spent NINE HOURS flipping a coin to get a run of ten heads in a row. about 1 hour ago from web
19. This is reminding me very much of The Millenium Problems book I'm reading, namely the Riemann Hypothesis & predicting prime # patterns. Odd. about 1 hour ago from web
20. Is this bollocks and misdirection? I don't know. It's interesting nonetheless. about 1 hour ago from web
21. I would love to do one of these studies with Derren Brown. I need to live in London and find where he advertises. about 1 hour ago from web
22. Might watch that explanation again in the break. My brain isn't mathematically apt enough to graps it totally first time around, sigh. about 1 hour ago from web
23. I'm annoyed by all the people saying "He's talkin bollocks to confuse us!" Trust me, enough math boffins will watch this to disprove that. about 1 hour ago from web
24. Rewatching the coin explanation has left me running about 30secs behind. Bugger. about 1 hour ago from web
25. I honestly don't believe that crowds can be this accurate. Not to the point of picking one number, never mind six. I think. about 1 hour ago from web
26. Seriously. Am I buying this? I need twenty-three people to get together tomorrow night to test this! about 1 hour ago from web
27. Sad that people are getting pissed at Derren Brown because they don't understand the maths. If I can understand it, anyone can. about 1 hour ago from web
28. Frankly I understand, I'm just not sure I *believe*. about 1 hour ago from web
29. Are they in a Starbucks? Haha, prob not. But it's tempting to sit in Starbucks for a week to see if *I* can guess the lotto numbers! about 1 hour ago from web
30. How cool would it have been to be one of those people behind the scenes though? Seriously. & keeping quiet the last two days... Wow. about 1 hour ago from web
31. Not sure this is for reals. For once I'm suspicious of Derren Brown. Wait. "You may chose not to believe it." Okay QUIT READING MY MIND... about 1 hour ago from web
32. called 'rents to explain it. My dad believed me. Then my aunt took phone and said he's been drinking since 4pm. That'll be it then. about 1 hour ago from web
33. USE YOUR POWERS FOR EVIL DERREN BROWN. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. about 1 hour ago from web
34. Who thinks that Derren Brown didn't explain that at all? Hm. Looking forward to being stuck to my sofa next week though! about 1 hour ago from web
I'm not entirely sure that served any purpose, but I have the sofa (indeed the entire house) to myself tonight and I'm content to sit here and meander a bit. :) Especially when it comes to Derren Brown, who is still excellent even when getting pretty boys to almost stamp on mice as part of a bizarre explanation that seemed to have not-that-much to do with what he actually did in the end. But the boy was pretty and the mouse was cute. Plus Derren. I'm all for that!
Uh. Possibly that could be taken the wrong way. The mouse is cute as in sweet, whiskery tiny animal adorablity! Derren and the pretty boy on the other hand-
Ahem. So. I'm going to watch Jonathan Ross do the silly ab-exercise machine I saw advertised on Aussie morning television now. Keep being a fabulous liar Derren! Looking forward to you ruling the world next week!
This is the general reaction to his explanation on Twitter, but with much hatred towards 'technobabble'. This makes me sad, because the math to me seems pretty simple - simple to the point of suspicious nonsense - and I'm AN ENGLISH MAJOR, so if the math is obvious to me then it must be pretty damn obvious.
What is not obvious to me is how the math he used could possibly give the results he claims it did. Guessing the weight of a cow is not the same as guessing an utterly random lottery number; you can clearly look at a cow and estimate based on appearance. Also, people at a country fair were the cow-guessing comp took place would presumably, for the most part, have some experience with cows and weight, thus making the average of their guesses into something approaching reliable. The connection seems random. Or rather, made up.
Instead of explaining the entire show to y'all (because those of you who're interested probably mostly watched it), I'll briefly explain what I understood as the explanation and then repost my tweets from the whole hour. Apologies to everyone I'm friends with on Twitter; I suspect I was very annoying. I'll move over here to LJ now. :)
By the way, as I type this 'Derren Brown' is the top trending topic on Twitter. #Derren Brown is the third trending topic. Bullshit or not, he certainly succeeded with this trick. Well done, you evil gay wizard.
Derren's explanation used the so-called 'Wisdom of Crowds' theory,; he explained this theory as 'the average of guesses made by groups of people is far more accurate than estimates by experts'. He illustrated this (literally, with a cute little cut-out scene) with the example of the country fair, where there was a contest to guess the weight of an ox (also explained on the wikimlink above). At the end of the day, the owner of the ox added the guesses together and divided by the number of guesses. The result was "the exact weight" (Derren's words) of the ox.
Impressive, if a little unlikely. So Derren being Derren, decided to run with this and got a group of twenty-four people together to try and guess the lotto numbers. He showed them a board, on which was written all the numbers from the last year's worth of lotto draws in nice, neat squares. They each picked a number for each ball, these numbers were added together and divided by twenty-four. These averages were their 'guesses' for each ball.
The first week they tried this, they got one number. The second week, he didn't tell them the average of their guesses until after the lotto numbers were drawn so they'd be 'more relaxed' in the attempt and they got three (or two?) numbers. The next week they tried automatic writing, though I was too busy Tweeting to catch why they tried it. They got four numbers.*
*I think I've got this sequence right. I'll rewatch later and edit as needed.
Up until this point, I can believe that the people genuinely got the right numbers. I'm too suspicious of DB to put all my faith in them getting those numbers *without* his interference but I believe they 'got' some of the numbers.
The next time they did this exercise, was Wednesday. This Wednesday just gone. Derren took their guesses, worked out the averages and sealed them into a tube himself WITHOUT showing either the people who guessed or the TV camera. Suspicious Act 999th. Those 'same' numbers were the numbers he dramatically revealed to us all on Wednesday night.
Now, I don't believe for a second that this is how he got the numbers. I also don't really believe his alternate explanation, that he replaced the real lottery balls with their own fake ones. HOWEVER. His hour-long non-explanation was so gleeful, so full of mice and knives and BLATENT LIES that I love him as much as I ever did. And now, according to Twitter trends, the entire world either loves or hates him passionately. Well done Derren; your first step to world domination is complete. Next week, INFLUENCING US ALL THROUGH THE TV. You do realise, everyone, that if he cn glue us to our sofas? HE COULD TURN US INTO HIS OWN PERSONAL ARMY.
I, for one, am looking forward to being Derren Brown's personal minion. I rather think it will be marvellous. Though possibly not if you're a mouse.
So as a bonus (maybe?) for wading through that explanation of nonsense for anyone who cared/couldn't watch the show/didn't care enough to watch the show but was idly curious, have my progression of Tweets:
1. Derren Brown is about to explain the lotto thing. Getting ready to be amazed! (or embarrased by our own gullibility!)about 2 hours ago from web
2. Oh, they're reshowing the draw and hearing his explanation again is making me wonder if I *was* wrong to believe he wasn't lying. Hm. about 2 hours ago from web
3. Bwahaha Derren Brown has shot up the trending topics. Go Derren! about 2 hours ago from web
4. Interesting that he put 'fix the machine' as 3rd option! Maybe he did 'fix' the machine - not lotto but the tellybox. Why does C4 have ads?! about 2 hours ago from web
5. The person who called Derren Brown "a fab ol' gay wizard?' You are so right. He is fabulous, gay as a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide... about 2 hours ago from web
6. ... and quite probably a wizard! about 2 hours ago from web
7. He doesn't like mice! I love mice. Barnabas looks a *lot* like a mouse. Except more golf ball-shaped. about 2 hours ago from web
8. I've decided to Tweet my way through this by the way, and LJ the results instead of writing a post! You might want to ignore me for an hour. about 2 hours ago from web
9. Aw, I wanted there to be a mouse. about 2 hours ago from web
10. Why does Derren want to terrify the pretty boy? He has pretty eyelashes. At least a knife through his foot won't make his eyes less pretty. about 2 hours ago from web
11. MY PARENTS JUST CALLED. ARGH. TEHEY WANTED TO SEE HOW HE PREDICTED THE NUMBERS. DUDE, CALL AT THE END. about 2 hours ago from web
12. As much as I know this pretty boy isn't going to get a knife through his foot at 9pm on C4? I'm still *twitching*. about 2 hours ago from web
13. Oh Derren Brown. You just enjoy torturing the pretty boy don't you? about 2 hours ago from web
14. Oh holy crap THERE WAS A MOUSE. Risking the pretty boy is one thing Derren Brown, but dude. AN INNOCENT MOUSE?! about 2 hours ago from web
15. Then again, he is Derren Brown. That was probably the safest mouse in the country. about 2 hours ago from web
16. AHAHAHAHAHA. Someone just suggested the Dr Who "EVERYONE WILLS REALLY HARD" thing and now he's *doing it*. Everyone think DOCTOR now... about 2 hours ago from web
17. *Derren isn't mentioning Doctor Who by the way; he used an actual study. I just prefer Doctor Who Skience to actual 'science'. about 1 hour ago from web
18. He could've used a team of people willing him on that time he spent NINE HOURS flipping a coin to get a run of ten heads in a row. about 1 hour ago from web
19. This is reminding me very much of The Millenium Problems book I'm reading, namely the Riemann Hypothesis & predicting prime # patterns. Odd. about 1 hour ago from web
20. Is this bollocks and misdirection? I don't know. It's interesting nonetheless. about 1 hour ago from web
21. I would love to do one of these studies with Derren Brown. I need to live in London and find where he advertises. about 1 hour ago from web
22. Might watch that explanation again in the break. My brain isn't mathematically apt enough to graps it totally first time around, sigh. about 1 hour ago from web
23. I'm annoyed by all the people saying "He's talkin bollocks to confuse us!" Trust me, enough math boffins will watch this to disprove that. about 1 hour ago from web
24. Rewatching the coin explanation has left me running about 30secs behind. Bugger. about 1 hour ago from web
25. I honestly don't believe that crowds can be this accurate. Not to the point of picking one number, never mind six. I think. about 1 hour ago from web
26. Seriously. Am I buying this? I need twenty-three people to get together tomorrow night to test this! about 1 hour ago from web
27. Sad that people are getting pissed at Derren Brown because they don't understand the maths. If I can understand it, anyone can. about 1 hour ago from web
28. Frankly I understand, I'm just not sure I *believe*. about 1 hour ago from web
29. Are they in a Starbucks? Haha, prob not. But it's tempting to sit in Starbucks for a week to see if *I* can guess the lotto numbers! about 1 hour ago from web
30. How cool would it have been to be one of those people behind the scenes though? Seriously. & keeping quiet the last two days... Wow. about 1 hour ago from web
31. Not sure this is for reals. For once I'm suspicious of Derren Brown. Wait. "You may chose not to believe it." Okay QUIT READING MY MIND... about 1 hour ago from web
32. called 'rents to explain it. My dad believed me. Then my aunt took phone and said he's been drinking since 4pm. That'll be it then. about 1 hour ago from web
33. USE YOUR POWERS FOR EVIL DERREN BROWN. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. about 1 hour ago from web
34. Who thinks that Derren Brown didn't explain that at all? Hm. Looking forward to being stuck to my sofa next week though! about 1 hour ago from web
I'm not entirely sure that served any purpose, but I have the sofa (indeed the entire house) to myself tonight and I'm content to sit here and meander a bit. :) Especially when it comes to Derren Brown, who is still excellent even when getting pretty boys to almost stamp on mice as part of a bizarre explanation that seemed to have not-that-much to do with what he actually did in the end. But the boy was pretty and the mouse was cute. Plus Derren. I'm all for that!
Uh. Possibly that could be taken the wrong way. The mouse is cute as in sweet, whiskery tiny animal adorablity! Derren and the pretty boy on the other hand-
Ahem. So. I'm going to watch Jonathan Ross do the silly ab-exercise machine I saw advertised on Aussie morning television now. Keep being a fabulous liar Derren! Looking forward to you ruling the world next week!
