Derren Brown Cheating Too! :(

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labirint said:
Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:

Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?
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Derren Brown explains at the start of all his shows that he uses a mixture of magic, misdirection, trickery and showmanship in his performance. This wasn't done in the Ukraine show.
 
labirint said:
Hey, guys! Could you explain me the following:

Why did you create such a big scandal from "Ukraine's got talents", some of you even suggested banning Maxim on WCA, but here most of you justify Derren and discuss about "how tricky he is that he managed to cheat"?
Click to expand...

Because:

1. Derren Brown isn't a speedcuber, nor does he represent speedcubing, unlike Maxim.
2. Maxim actually lies about his BLD abilities on the show. He claims to be using techniques that he is not using, and because of his he is making it seem that 11x11x11 BLD can be done in a matter of minutes by almost anyone. 11BLD will not be accomplished for years, yet.

We're not defending him or attacking him yet. We don't know enough about the trick, it's just a rumour. We're speculating.
 
Thank you all. I guess I misunderstood the idea of the first post in this thread. Anyway, to make the situation more clear, could anyone give me a link to the show we're talking about?
 
labirint said:
Thank you all. I guess I misunderstood the idea of the first post in this thread. Anyway, to make the situation more clear, could anyone give me a link to the show we're talking about?
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I don't know if there is any video, but there's a blog about it here.

Doesn't mention anything about 4x4 or BLD though.
 
These things really irk me. I realize that he is a magician that acts like he memorizes specially shuffled deck of cards in <20 seconds and now 4BLD in less than a minute. It's really entertaining for the audience, but If I end up in his audience somehow, then I would challenge him to beat me at either one because both of his "tricks" are not going to be reproduced on a random state.
 
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A Leman said:
These things really irk me. I realize that he is a magician that acts like he memorizes specially shuffled deck of cards in <20 seconds and now 4BLD in less than a minute. It's really entertaining for the ignorant, but If I end up in his audience somehow, then I would challenge him to beat me at either one because both of his "tricks" are not going to be reproduced on a random state.
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A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds. That is real. His 4BLD, however, isn't. If you challenge him you will definitely lose, looking stupid. As they are the master of cheating and deception, it's their job.
 
KongShou said:
A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds. That is real. His 4BLD, however, isn't. If you challenge him you will definitely lose, looking stupid. As they are the master of cheating and deception, it's their job.
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And this is what everyone is worried about happening with BLD! No, the only people that can memorize a deck of cards that fast at the moment in the world are Simon Reinhard and possibly Wang Feng. They may like magic, but that is a fallacy that performers have tricked you into believing. Btw, the current official WR is 21.19 sec, but magicians magically do it all the time with pre-made decks. There is a ridiculous amount of effort involved in this that performers fake all the time.

http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/discipline.php?id=spdcards
 
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A Leman said:
And this is what everyone is worried about happening with BLD! No, the only people that can memorize a deck of cards that fast at the moment in the world are Simon Reinhard and possibly Wang Feng. They may like magic, but that is a fallacy that performers have tricked you into believing. Btw, the current official WR is 21.19 sec, but magicians magically do it all the time with pre-made decks. There is a ridiculous amount of effort involved in this that performers fake all the time.

http://www.world-memory-statistics.com/discipline.php?id=spdcards
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Ok fair enough, sorry :(
 
KongShou said:
Ok fair enough, sorry :(
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With that said, Darren could probably still beat me at memory events. I respect that he is a very talented and practiced mnemonist and is capable of doing these tricks properly. I would still like to see what he is capable of without the smoke and mirrors, but the high road does not sell tickets as well.
 
AvGalen said:
No, as you say yourself his confessed way of working is misdirection and trickerty. So he is not misinforming the public about genuine blind solving.
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Ollie said:
I'm not bothered how he does it unless he claims to use a memory technique similar to ours.
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Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUQzO9VjJY
He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.

KongShou said:
A good magician can remember a set of cards within 20 seconds.
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Sets don't have an order, so that might not be what you meant.
 
Stefan said:
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUQzO9VjJY
He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.



Sets don't have an order, so that might not be what you meant.
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So basically he is saying at the beginning of the show "I am going to trick you", then later in the show he says "I am now going to do x by using y". There is no reason to trust him at this moment because that could be a misdirection like he actually said he would use. If a magician says "these are ordinary rings" I am certainly not going to believe him! (and there IS a rabbit in his sleeves)
 
Stefan said:
He's not just doing the trick, he claims to use the "techniques" of photographic memory (many people believe that exists) and photoreading (there are "non-magician" books about it, check amazon), so even despite his disclaimer at the start of his show (which isn't included in the above video!), people might believe he's not using trickery but legitimate techniques here. And he might do the same with the cube.
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"It took me just under 20 minutes to do that - to learn that dictionary."

Yeah, right. How did you turn the pages that fast? Or maybe it works on the closed book? Wow, that's a powerful technique.

I guess this is what makes what Derren's doing a little better than what Maxim did, or than what Mythbusters did - his lies are just obvious if you look for them, so at least intelligent people will be able to tell he's fooling them. But of course, the problem is unintelligent people.

"I'm lying about everything. Even that."
 
AvGalen said:
So basically he is saying at the beginning of the show "I am going to trick you", then later in the show he says "I am now going to do x by using y". There is no reason to trust him at this moment because that could be a misdirection like he actually said he would use. If a magician says "these are ordinary rings" I am certainly not going to believe him! (and there IS a rabbit in his sleeves)
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Sure. And yet, I'm sure many people *will* believe it. Just because he does use trickery in general, doesn't mean he uses trickery all the time in every feat. He could for example include some non-tricked blindcubing in his show. And again: many people will be persuaded by the terms photographic memory and photoreading because they think those are real (and if they were, they could be legitimate explanations).
 
Mike Hughey said:
"It took me just under 20 minutes to do that - to learn that dictionary."

Yeah, right. How did you turn the pages that fast?
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Huh? That seems rather easy, and not fast at all. How long do you think it would take you to do it?

Mike Hughey said:
his lies are just obvious if you look for them
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They're not obvious. Flipping through the book that "fast" shouldn't be a problem for anyone, and if you check http://www.photoreading.com/ you will for example read "the Ferrari-style of reading called PhotoReading. It blasts printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page a second. You actually "mentally photograph" the page at 25,000 words a minute."
 
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Stefan said:
Huh? That seems rather easy, and not fast at all. How long do you think it would take you to do it?



They're not obvious. Flipping through the book that "fast" shouldn't be a problem for anyone, and if you check http://www.photoreading.com/ you will for example read "the Ferrari-style of reading called PhotoReading. It blasts printed materials to the brain at phenomenal rates, a page a second. You actually "mentally photograph" the page at 25,000 words a minute."
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I would have difficulty flipping pages in a physical dictionary for 20 minutes, and sustaining a "1 page per second" rate also seems hard.
 
BillyRain said:
Really? I would imagine that not being too much of a challenge.

Also I'm sure he probably used a rubber thimble thing.
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Maybe our definition of flipping is different, but to flip a page so far that I could read the next left and right page it seems impossible for me to do that for 20 minutes with 1 flip per second (not even close actually)

I had to laugh at "rubber thimble thing". I could guess what it means but just to be sure I used an image search (that gave some relevant images), but wikipedia disagreed with what a thimble actually is and actually said it would protect you from papercuts
 
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