26Aug/096
Psychic
by Jeff
Image text: You can do a lot better than 1% if you start keeping track of the patterns in what numbers people pick.
That's two easy ones in a row. My only question is, what about the other 99% of people that you try this trick on? Is it worth it for 1% of the people to think you are a psychic and the other 99% think you are a dope?
August 26th, 2009
This is the basis of a classic scam. Fora few weeks in a row, you put predicted outcomes of sporting events on a slip of paper on someone’s windshield or mailbox, or whatever. You diversify as much as possible and do the same thing to a few hundred independent people and keep track of which ones turn out to be right. Eventually, you’ll hit enough in a row to convince one person that you know something, and that they should pay you for your next prediction.
October 14th, 2009
Also a common scam for stock market predictions.
October 15th, 2009
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right.
October 16th, 2009
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right.
December 29th, 2011
>Is it worth it for 1% of the people to think you are a psychic and the other 99% think you are a dope?
The comic explicitly says it is. TOTALLY worth it.
February 3rd, 2012
Magicians use tricks like this. They’ll impose conditions like “odd digits, but not the same two digits,” constraining choice more than it casually seems they are, then guess “37.” High enough success rate to do the trick, and probably they have a joke or distraction prepared for failure. When magicians do this with random pedestrians on TV, the ‘trick’ is editing out the failures.