trick01

With Internetelepathy

Are you worried about spyware? Do you fret over internet identity theft? Do you quake in your boots over the prospect of any mis­creant with a laptop hacking the most intimate details of your life? Well, it gets worse because people can read your mind via the world wide web. There are no firewalls to safe­guard you from the spectre of internetelepathy.

The internet is a powerful and amazing thing. Maybe even mysterious and magical. I don’t really know how it works, do you? So, prepare to have your mind boggled. If you’d rather not be boggled, how about amazed or amused?

Here’s a pair of tricks for you in which I will attempt to read your mind via the interwebs. Maybe they’ll amaze. Maybe they’ll amuse. Or not, I make no guarantees except the first will work most of the time. The second is a sure thing. Here goes.

trick02

This first trick has been around for many years. How long and who started it, I couldn’t say.

  1. Think of any number from one to ten.
  2. Multiply that by nine.
  3. Add the two integers together. (For instance, 25 would be 2+5=7.)
  4. Subtract five from the result.
  5. Replace the resulting number with the corresponding letter of the alphabet where 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, and so on.
  6. Think of a country that begins with that letter.
  7. Think of an animal that begins with the last letter of the country from above.
  8. Think of an fruit that begins with the last letter of the animal from above.
hatbacks answers hats

Click on any hat and I will pull out the answers revealing your thoughts with internetelepathy.

Did I get it right? Are you amazed or amused? Or maybe even boggled?

Mouseover for how the trick works

I really don’t know if I got it right, but if you’re like 95% of people I did. That’s because your initial random choice of number becomes not random at step two where you multiply by nine. The integers of any multiple of nine added together will always give you nine or a multiple of nine. For example nine times 2, 3, 4 give you 18, 27, and 36 respectively. As you can see 1+8=9, 2+7=9, 3+6=9. Therefor you always get nine at step three.

Subtract five from nine and get four, which translates to the letter D for step five. At this point everyone has the letter D no matter what number they started with. There aren’t many countries that begin with D. Denmark most readily comes to mind. Can you think of another? Let’s see, there’s Dahomey, Dominican Republic… uh…

Most people go with Denmark so their animal will start with K. How many animals spring to mind starting with K? Kangaroo is the most obvious, but you might go for koala bear, or kiwi, or… what? So most folks have kangaroo and so their fruit will start with O. Now then, what is more obvious than orange?

As you can see, getting Denmark, kangaroo, orange is not really surprising or amazing. Nor magical. It’s a trick. A trick on the mind that sees randomness where there actually isn’t any. Or very little, at any rate.

trick02
base
1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f
back 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f
2a 2b 2c 2d 2f

Choose one of the cards shown, remember it, then click on the green background. I will turn the cards over, shuffle and re-spread them. Then I will reveal all the cards except one. The face-down card will be the one you chose.

Mouseover for how the trick works

Sorry. A world-class magician doesn’t give away his secrets. Though if you email and ask me nicely, not being a world-class magician, I will probably oblige with the explanation.

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