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a-study-in-sepia · 2 months

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Finally posting the update for my 2023 present deductions post. Present #1 (3/3) - Boots - yes Intended for trip - yes Unstructured leather upper - yes. Corrections - none Present #2 (1/2) -

Ornament - yes Sherlock/History related - no Corrections - the ornament ended up being a glass-blown croissant, due to my job at a French bakery. Rather than focusing on my interests, which have not changed much in the past few years, I should have focused on new life events. The ornaments in my househodl have often symbolized events primarily (important ages, trips, etc.), interests secondarily, and things my mother simply thinks are cute tertiarily. My job at the french cafe was the most significant change of 2023, and I should have considered it as such. Present #3 (2/3)

Shipped - yes Opened to check contents - yes Hat - no, this was gloves Corrections - Not too shabby, but gloves, as opposed to a hat. The hat ended up being given to me ahead of Christmas as an open-me-early. Realistically, I should have noted the faint noise, which wouldn't have been present with any sort of relevant hat.

Present #4 (2/2)

Book - yes (lol) Specific book (more of an observation, but alas) - yes Corrections - none note to family - save the see through wrapping paper for the other family members.

Present #5 (1.2/4??)

Shipping box - yes Internal packaging - no, just a bunch of clothes Box inside - no Reenactment dress - no, but it was clothes, so I'm giving myself a fifth of a point and no one can stop me. Corrections - should have kept in mind the discrepancy of what I had for the trip and what was needed. This present was a box full of thermal clothing, socks, tights, and shirts intended for our upcoming trip. Because I knew other gifts were trip oriented, I should have taken an inventory of what was missing (a very important skill for deductionists). Thank you for reading :))

Present Deductions 2023

I was very excited to see this guide from @studies-in-the-art-of-deduction come across my dashboard! The following contains a relatively casual series of observations and deductions pertaining to the Christmas gifts from my immediate family.

Present #1

The size, box structure (lid over base), weight, and movement suggest shoes.

Relatively heavy which suggests boots, possibly intended for our upcoming family trip. There is free movement within the box and I can hear the tissue paper.

The box lid extends over the primary container on 3 out of 4 sides.

My mother knows I like Doc Martens, a quick google shows the doc martens box has two holes on either side, which are present on this gift. Many shoe boxes have holes, but Doc Marten holes specifically extend over the edge onto the top of the box. Given the fact that I own multiple pairs of Doc Martens and have not outright asked for them this Christmas, my earlier theory of boots specifically for the upcoming trip (Christmas in New York) is looking more likely. I have no idea which direction my mother may have gone in terms of style, but I know she has an affinity for soft unstructured leather.

This being said, I have a few notes. Yesterday, my mother and I went out shopping, during this outing she purchased me a pair of loafers. It is possible that she reconciled the fact that loafers and boots are dissimilar, which both supports my boot theory and discredits the possibility of other styles, but this does make me slightly wary, especially because I pitched the loafers with the intention of using them on our trip.

The second issue is that there is the possibility of a box inside of the Doc Martens box. I am not overly concerned with this, as the presence of the Doc Martens box would suggest that she bought Doc Marten shoes recently, and I know that she did not buy them for herself.

Third, it is possible that this box design is common for other shoe brands, possibly one which she purchased recently for herself, which led her to repurposing the box. I searched a few major brands, and none of them had the unique extending holes. The only shoes my mother bought recently belong to a brand that does not sport any box holes. It is possible that this box inside a box phenomenon is due to the heavy soles of the boots hitting the sides of the box. Beyond this, my efforts would be distilled into aimless googling. Aimless googling is an option, but at this time my confidence in the answer is not outweighed by the suspicion that I’m wrong.

Present #2

The lack of movement in the box suggests something relatively fragile. The metallic cling is familiar to that of glass blown ornaments (confirmed by comparing the sound to other ornaments on our tree). My mother has a habit of buying both myself and my brother an ornament each year, it is highly likely that this box contains mine. Due to my interest in Sherlock Holmes and my recent excursions to various historical conventions, I believe this ornament is related to the canon Sherlock Holmes (combines Sherlock with my historical interest), or perhaps Victorian London.

Present #3

This particular present is rather tricky. The top of the box has been cut open and wrapping paper has been placed around it. The squishy feeling of the box is reminiscent of a crude cardboard, which suggests that this present was shipped. The packaging would not be opened if this were the box for the actual product. Given these facts, it can be inferred that my mother opened the box to check the contents when it arrived and wrapped it up. The box is light, and has very little movement within. The sound is very faint. My mother mentioned buying me a hat for our upcoming trip. I am guessing this present contains that hat, as there is no other box that suggests it, and the hat is unlikely to be a stocking stuffer.

Present #4

This present is from “my brother” - ie. a present from my mom that she put my brother's name on. Clearly a paperback book, given the size, lack of box, and bendability. 4 words show through the wrapping paper “serial killers” and “great cons”. The google search “serial killers + great cons + book” leads me to this amazon listing https://www.amazon.com/True-Crime-File-Kidnappings-Survivors-ebook/dp/B09F5JHK16

Cross-referenced with the font and we have a match.

Present #5

By far the trickiest present, this package once again falls into the shipping box category. The box is not light, but it’s also not overly heavy. It’s lighter than the shoe box (Present #1).

I believe there’s internal packaging, perhaps a bubble wrap of some kind. There’s almost definitely another box/container inside, but it’s either a flimsy package or is padded with packaging materials. I am rather excited to say that I have no idea what this present contains. I’m going to take an educated guess and say it might be a Victorian reenactment dress, given my recent increase in that specific interest and the general box size/weight, but I don’t declare that with any level of certainty.

I encourage you all to post your own present deductions, and to check out @studies-in-the-art-of-deduction's guide to inform your endeavors. I look forward to posting the answers to this particular set of gifts after Christmas.

My best wishes to you this Holiday Season!

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a-study-in-sepia · 3 months

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You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

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a-study-in-sepia · 4 months

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Christmas deductions - whose wrapping paper is whose?

This post is coming a few days later than I intended, but it is still December! Inspired by @studies-in-the-art-of-deduction's post about deducing presents and @a-study-in-sepia's post deducing presents under her tree.

Each year, my parents randomly choose a different wrapping paper for the seven people in our house. For the past few years, my parents have had my siblings and I guess whose wrapping paper belongs to who - whoever gets the most correct gets to open the first gift. Not important to the post, but I did win this year, buuuut I only got 3 out of 7 of my guesses correct. For this post, I'm focusing on the 3 correct guesses and how I used observations/deductions to get those 3 right. I say both observations and deductions because I'm including information collected in the weeks leading up to Christmas and also physical examination/deducing of wrapped gifts.

I get Amazon package notifications on my phone as my family shares one account, and I saw a 3D printer pop up in November. I knew that my Dad had wanted one for years and had been collecting the plastic-y materials for 3D printing for years too. So that's his present: I know from this that one of the larger presents must be a 3D printer. But which box is his? There were four larger presents - 3 different wrapping papers, with one wrapping paper being used twice. Related to that, I remembered a conversation with my Mom in November - she had been excited about a present for Sibling Y and told me about it, referring to it as one of the presents in the stack of four large boxes. She then slipped and mentioned that the item was in two separate boxes. I now know Sibling Y's wrapping paper. So I went to the other two large presents and picked both up: one was light and one was much heavier - 3D printers are heavy, so I know what my Dad's wrapping paper is. (Note: I double checked this deduction by looking at whether that wrapping paper had very few gifts, as my Dad typically has the fewest, and that wrapping paper did.) With the last large present, I did not deduce correctly whose it was - but I know why I didn't so I'll explain. Months ago, I was told how Sibling R's suitcase had been broken and how she would get a new one for Christmas. I forgot this conversation, because if I had remembered I would have known the final large box was a suitcase. Why did I not realize this when I picked the box up? Because of a conversation I remembered in November where my mom had told me she wasn't sure how I'd fly back to my place with my gifts. I swear she said that I had a gift or two that was too "big" but she told me post-Christmas that she had meant too heavy, not big. I had taken it as meaning my wrapping had to be the one the fourth large box was, since that was the only box left that would be too big for a suitcase - which is hilarious to me now because it literally was a suitcase. Oops. Lesson learned though: don't look at physical data through the lens of a conclusion you'd come to before looking at the physical data.

Those deductions were made through a combination of paying attention prior to Christmas and physical observations. The third wrapping paper that I deduced right was Sibling N's - I found two presents, deduced what was inside, and based on that knew which sibling that was. Box #1: I shook this box and could hear a liquid sloshing around inside. In the weeks before Christmas, there had been a lot of talk of body sprays and perfumes from Siblings R and N. Based on how the sloshing sounded, this was not a perfume bottle, since the sloshing was too "big" if that makes sense - I could tell the bottle was bigger and there was more liquid than a perfume bottle. Sibling R uses perfumes and doesn't like body sprays, and Sibling N predominantly uses a body spray - so I deduced that this box had her specific brand of body spray. I marked the wrapping so when she opened it on Christmas day, I could confirm that I was right (I was). Box #2: I picked up a few other boxes with the same wrapping as the body spray, looking for any indication of another gift Sibling N would be likely to get. One was a long (maybe a foot (or 2 hands length), rectangular box. I shook it and based on the sound I thought there was one item inside: similar shape to the box, long and rectangular. I deduced that this was a flat iron or curling iron of some kind, since several of my siblings, including Sibling N are always fighting over/stealing each other's flat irons. I confirmed this deduction on Christmas - she had gotten a flat iron.

I may make a second post that includes where I went wrong with the 4 incorrect guesses, but I will definitely do another post like this one next year - it was fun. :)

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a-study-in-sepia · 4 months

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Present Deductions 2023

Present #1

The size, box structure (lid over base), weight, and movement suggest shoes.

Relatively heavy which suggests boots, possibly intended for our upcoming family trip. There is free movement within the box and I can hear the tissue paper.

The box lid extends over the primary container on 3 out of 4 sides.

Present #2

Present #3

Present #4

Cross-referenced with the font and we have a match.

Present #5

By far the trickiest present, this package once again falls into the shipping box category. The box is not light, but it’s also not overly heavy. It’s lighter than the shoe box (Present #1).

My best wishes to you this Holiday Season!

#deduction #sherlock holmes #deductive reasoning #bbc sherlock #sherlock #christmas #christmas gift #studyblr #a study in sepia

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a-study-in-sepia · 4 months

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Deduction Tips #12

Everyone always talks about training to constantly be observant, but no one ever talks about training to constantly appply logical reasoning regardless of how much you manage to observe. being able to constantly and reliably extract information from only a couple of observations is just as valuable as being able to observe multiple details quickly and constantly to then focus on processing them

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a-study-in-sepia · 4 months

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How to deduce presents

So Christmas is right around the corner, and generally this means it's gift giving season, and while i've been very busy (as you can tell from having only posted Deduction tips for a few weeks now, and yes, i've seen the questions i've been sent, stay tuned for the answers tomorrow!) i thought i'd take a moment to write a post that's gonna be particularly useful around this time of the year. Let's learn how to deduce presents!

First things first, what are we looking for when deducing presents? Well we want to gather as much information as possible about what's inside the box, without actually seeing it, so there's a few things we can immediately focus on:

Size and Weight

Let's start with the obvious, the box the present comes in immediately lets us know the maximum size of the object inside. This might seem almost useless but we're gonna need all the information we can get, since we'll be trying to narrow down all the possible things that could be inside the box as much as we can. Weight is another important factor, it narrows down the possibilities a lot more, we immediately get a sense of generally what type of object we're dealing with, and it's the first thing we should notice when we pick up the present, which we absolutely must do, we're gonna be fiddling around with it a lot

Give it a Shake

I mean it, give the present a little shake, gently, we don't wanna break whatever's in there, but we're looking for 2 things:

Movement: Think about it, these presents don't just appear under the christmas tree, they're shipped here somehow, on a plane, a truck, maybe in a car, where it'll experience turbulence, sudden breaks, shifting, moving. So if whatever's inside the box can't move freely we know it was packaged to withstand movement, which means it can break. The more densely packed something is the more they're trying to protect it, so, does it move freely in the box? is it sturdy enough to be packaged freely? or is it fragile and requires bubblewrap or similar protection? this makes the difference between something like jewlery, glass objects, or electronics, vs. clothes, accessories like wallets, or maybe even some books

Sounds: What does it sound like when you shake it? is it hollow? does it clank like metal? does it collide with anything else in the box? maybe it's not even one thing, maybe there's two or three items in there, how many collisions are there? this gives you an idea of material, density, amount of objects, size relative to the box (remember, there's no reason the item can't be significantly smaller than the box it comes in)

Rotate it

If the object is loose inside the box, shift it to a corner of the box and rotate it. This gives you an idea of shape, a square or box shaped object (like another box or a book) will remain against the corner and either fit into it or be held by its own corners until the tilt is too much, at which point it'll firmly rotate along with the box. You can count the amount of sides it potentially has this way and maybe even get a better idea of its size. An object with anything other than 4 sides will roll around the sides of the box that contains it as you rotate it

Know the Person

This is probably the most important point in here. Keep in mind you're not constrained to what's inside the box, chances are you know who's giving this gift to whom, so what's the person giving the gift like? what's their relationship with the reciever? what's their budget? what do they know about the person they're getting a gift from? and how much do they care? all of these are important things to know cause they give you context, someone with a low budget won't buy a new macbook for someone else, someone who doesn't know the recipient much will probably stick to generic gifts, maybe even gift cards, and someone who's very artistic and cares a lot might make a gift for the recipient, something handmade. Context is the most important part of this process

All the information you can get from all of these sources put together can paint a picture that's good enough to eliminate a lot of possibilities, and then with the context you have, and the pool of possible gifts you've mentally mapped out, you can make a pretty educated guess of which item is the most likely one to be contained in this box. This is a very fun exercise to do during the holidays, or really any time presents are involved, i like to keep a record of how many i guess correctly, and using all of this i have about a 70% success rate. Feel free to mess around with the gift in some other ways, see what other information you can extract from the present before opening it. Also keep in mind a lot of this advice assumes the present is inside a box, but variations of all of this can be applied to any format of gifts

So go forth and deduce all those presents, not only yours, try to deduce what others are getting too

Merry Christmas and Happy Observing!

-DV

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a-study-in-sepia · 5 months

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Sherlock & Co.

Small post today for me to scream about my newfound love for the Sherlock & Co. Podcast. I found it two hours ago and have been listening non-stop ever since. I cannot recommend this enough to BBC Sherlock fans, especially those who have been craving a 2023 take. There's even a frequently updated twitter/X by Dr. Watson himself (@DocJWatsonMD). They're making a modern dramatization of the entire original canon!!

The only breaks I've taken have been to literally screech about how excited I am and to write this post.

Spotify and youtube link for those interested!

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5yfvdowY1nFCyXRTD5ITqb?si=5bb581b5624c437a

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@SherlockPod

AHHHHHHHH

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock holmes #deduction

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a-study-in-sepia · 5 months

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Sometimes deduction is noticing the way two people smile at each other from across campus everyday, sometimes it's noticing how someones body language subtly shifts to comfort when their best friend walks into the room, sometimes it's knowing your friend is going to have a bad day even without them saying anything and preemptively getting them a treat.

Sometimes it just helps you see the beauty in the world you'd be unaware of if you weren't paying attention, if you hadn't trained yourself to step back and drink it all in.

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a-study-in-sepia · 5 months

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Proxemics and Deduction 01

Proxemics is defined as the branch of knowledge that deals with the amount of space people feel is necessary to set between themselves and others.

It’s a fascinating field that we, as deductionists, pull from on a daily basis whether we’ve been aware of it or not. If you see two people walking together, how do you gauge their relationship? Lovers, family, friends, colleagues, mortal enemies; all options, along with many more. There are quite a few scenario-specific examples, such as coworkers carrying the same identification tag, or a couple each tending to a stroller, but without fail, as a supplementary measure, or more often, as an introductory observation, we fall to proxemics. We look for levels of comfort, and one of the best ways to gauge that is physical closeness. Proxemics is one of several modes of nonverbal communication, ranging from something as simple as touch (haptics), to something as obscure as use of time (chronemics).

To explain proxemics in its most concrete state, we can reference Edward T. Hall’s interpersonal distances of man.

Imagine four concentric circles, in the center, a person. The first three circles are at 4, 8, and 12 feet respectively. Now add one more circle at 1.5 feet. From nearest to farthest, you have the intimate distance, personal distance, social distance, and public distance. Each of these measurements is used to represent the acceptable levels of closeness in various situations. It is important to note that Hall’s model, and thus Hall’s denoted application, is limited to Western ideals of social conduct. While these same measurements may not fully apply cross-culturally, all human-hosting spaces will model some form of proxemics. There will always be bounds between intimate, personal, and public space, but occasionally, they will be marked at different points. The difference between a friend and a colleague may be a matter of a few inches, and yet breaching that unspoken rule, can cause immense discomfort. Gauging this space, or lack thereof, is a major aspect of social deduction. It’s one of the first behavioral observations we utilize as deductionists, both new and old.

Before marital status, even before handedness, we have social connection. We all see it, I would venture to say we intuitively understand it, so much so that the lines between observation and deduction begin to blur.

The basics are in the textbook application, but there’s much more to proxemics than reciprocal relations. What about the colleague who’s getting a little too close for comfort? The wife who’s preparing for an imminent divorce? The regular with the irrational phobia?

Deduction, in many ways, is best dissected through deviance.

Proxemics sets a baseline for us to observe and through this baseline, enables us to detect changes. These changes speak volumes. To take the first example. You notice two coworkers behind the counter in a cafe. Their relationship status is unknown - simply colleagues, barely acquaintances, best friends - it's unestablished to you. You watch them interact; there’s limited camaraderie, few words exchanged from one, a few too many from the other. Is worker B simply over communicative, or is there more to it? You see B encroach on what would be appropriate for a colleague (social/personal depending on the available space - which is something I’ll touch on in a moment), but A steps away, leaving B in the next available concentric circle. This is something we would likely notice without the knowledge of proxemics, but would be unable to categorize beyond a vague ramble about “intuitive social knowledge”. By referencing an established baseline we streamline the observation and solidify it in the process, creating a new building block to jump off of. “Individual A looks uncomfortable” turns into, dare I say, a mathematical reference point for any and all future behavior.

It is important to acknowledge that this particular example is not representative of Person A’s baseline. It is also important to acknowledge that not every person follows the same baseline, and that certain situations will inherently alter expected baselines. Let’s take the example of a very small area behind the counter in this imaginative cafe. Informal colleagues will likely be forced into what would be considered personal or even intimate space. Proxemic expectations change not only cross-culturally, but by environment. The best way to understand proxemic norms in non-standard situations, is to spend some time observing many people who are exposed to that specific situation. If you simply go off how you would feel in that situation, you are setting a baseline with a possible bias. People tend towards environments they're comfortable with. There is, after all, a reason they’re behind that counter and you’re not.

Now, one might argue that if the proxemic standards are constantly changing, the applications of the specific measurements are all but useless. While it is true that the baselines are constantly changing by environment, there is an overarching standard. When the space is provided to do so, people will revert to defined patterns. And in situations where the space is not available, using this model, you can deduce a whole host of things with the proportional proximal input and subsequent behavior. Personality, relationships, levels of comfort and discomfort are all vital bits of information.

One interesting morsel I feel like throwing in here is the fascinating subject of lines. Lines, queues, whatever you want to call them are one of the best places to observe shifting proxemics in action. As more people enter the queue (when the space is confined) the spaces between individuals will decrease until they reach a social breaking point, at this point the line will turn, often veering out of the designated queue area. Onto another cafe example (can you tell I got coffee this morning). One person walks up to the register. At this point, the only proximal opportunity is between the cashier and the patron - which is generally defined by the width of the counter between them. Now, another person walks up and starts a line - depending on this individual’s personal proxemic preference, the standard in the line is set. The next person who joins the line will tend to follow the set amount of spacing, and the next person, and so on, as space allows. The patrons up ahead, uncaring of what’s going on behind them, will typically not adjust their positions, leaving a continuous theme of compression as the line progresses, until someone breaks and opts to turn the line. If there is no way to turn, that same slinky effect will move its way back up the line as people become aware of the discomfort behind them. I observed this in action this morning while waiting at my local cafe. Because there is continuous movement, the comfort of the line is rarely at the forefront of anyone’s mind; their priority is to reach the front, not be optimally comfortable while waiting. If, for example, people were queuing onto a bus (which for some reason didn’t have seats) and had to stand there for a couple hours, everyone would evenly disperse. In scenarios with movement, one person’s typically insignificant social preference has a domino effect on those behind them. There’s an observable push and pull of conscientiousness and the introversion-extroversion spectrum. We adjust subconsciously to the line’s collective consciousness, bow down to the social conduct overlord, and occasionally get squished in the process. Take some time to observe this phenomenon next time you’re waiting. Be a menace and try standing too close or too far and watch how uncomfortable you, and possibly others, get. Next time you're first in line, set a weird tone, but remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

The last topic I’m going to be touching on is something I can find absolutely no research on (great intro, I know), so bear with me. I’d like to discuss proxemics in terms of the inanimate object - something that I’m very poorly defining, but I believe works in the context of this article. I’ve been taking notes on this subject for some time, but only in my own geographical area. It’s proved wildly effective at predicting where people will go, so I took some time this morning to watch live CCTV footage of city walkways in other cities, both in the US and nationally (London, Oxford, and Tokyo). This is simply anecdotal, but through this limited observation it became clear to me that people will walk in the middle of their perceived space, cross-culturally. This sense of available space changes depending on the presence of a roadway, varied storefront structure, as well as other people. If there is no one coming towards them, people will tend towards the middle of the walkway, often veering slightly towards the right or left side (driving/passing side of the given country). Individual patterns can answer questions about openness, day to day activities, and conscientiousness. For instance, a person on a walkway with no one coming towards them who is walking distinctly on the right side (in a right-driving country) may be very high on the conscientiousness scale, and/or their typical routine involves walking among many people. These sorts of deductions can be further parsed using other observations.

If we accept the premise that people tend towards the middle of their perceived space (which, if other people are approaching, may be one side of a walkway - effectively leaving their “middle” veered to one side), then deviance will usually stem from moving towards, or away from, something. There are a lot of fun applications to this, for instance, deducing how much of a hurry someone is in based on how likely they are to go for the most acceptable path or the quickest path, at baseline. For example, I tend to opt for the most acceptable/safest path, I have high conscientiousness and high neuroticism according to the OCEAN model. But today, I jay-walked through a busy street to get somewhere before my order was ready. This is an example of considering the safest path. Considering the most acceptable path has some predictive applications. As I was taking a break between shifts the other day, I noticed that people who wanted to walk into a store changed their path relatively far in advance. In this case, they were heading towards something. I was able to easily predict which store someone might go into well up to a block away, when utilized in tandem with other observations.

Early on in my research journey I found that in videos of people walking on the street oncoming individuals were encouraged to veer away from the person filming. I prioritized finding CCTV to avoid this, but found it to be an interesting example of people changing course to avoid something. There were also a few people who veered into the camera's view. Something as simple as this may give clues to an individual's level of openness and extraversion.

In public situations where a person must veer into an oncoming flow of people to cross to their desired destination, they will often wait until they’re near adjacent to it; in a more desolate walkway, they’ll veer much earlier. Possibly charting their whole course along the less-acceptable pathway.

I label this idea as the proxemics of objects because when walking, we seem to assign objects their own personal bubbles. We don’t walk near the table line of a restaurant unless there’s a specific reason to. We tend not to encroach on their space, in the same way we consider people. Perhaps it’s more for our comfort than the objects’, or perhaps we’ve all been traumatized by the videos of people dressing up as bushes. Either way, I found it interesting enough to throw in here, and if you’re seeing this, you found it interesting enough to read (yay). I’ll be further exploring the topic of object spatial awareness in a future article I have planned.

Thank you for reading - below are some relevant articles -

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11826_Chapter8.pdf

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/understanding-personal-space-proxemics/

Hall, Edward T., et al. “Proxemics [and Comments and Replies].” Current Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 2/3, 1968, pp. 83–108. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2740724. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.

#deduction #deductive reasoning #sherlock #a study in sepia #sherlock holmes #social science #proxemics #social psychology

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a-study-in-sepia · 5 months

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Deduction Tips #9

Comfortable shoes don't always suggest someone spends a lot of time walking, but uncomfortable/overly fancy ones almost always suggest the opposite

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a-study-in-sepia · 7 months

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Binaries Addendum

It has come to my attention that my Binaries post is a bit confusing, so i thought i'd make an addendum to clarify some stuff.

First of all i wanna make sure we all understand that the tools i provide in that specific post are not supposed to, on their own, lead you to a massive, multilayered deduction. They're supposed to be tools used when trying to make progress in specific parts and stages of a larger deduction, in order to narrow down information and possible conclusions, or reach the next steps in your deduction easily. They're meant to be employed on a case by case basis, and whenever you feel you require them in your deductive process.

Trying to make an entire, big deduction using simply the concept of binaries, while i guess techincally possible, is not a productive use of time and mental capacity, it's a slow and clunky process meant for processing small chunks of information because sometimes it's easier to answer overly specific questions, than to look at everything that could potentially be a question, and trying to apply it to more than that is probably not feasable.

The tools i give you in that post go against some of the advice you're gonna recieve as a deductionist, even from me. Most advice you'll recieve boils down to: You have to observe everything and make sure to stay free of any opinions, assumptions, or anything that could damage your objectivity, you're meant to observe first, and then derive information from those observations, not come into the deduction with prestablished notions and questions to be answered, and this is for the most part correct. The reason these tools are useful and fine to use in the right scenarios is because they allow for the simplification of the information gathering process, they're small shortcuts in the big roadtrip that is building a big deduction.

And now time for an analogy, because i use those a lot and this one seemed to be helpful to some people: Think about it like having a bunch of puzzle pieces scattered in a table, all belonging to 5 different sets of puzzles, but no pictures of what each set will look like when done. Yes, you should go one by one arranging them and building them carefully and methodically, and if you're careful and smart about it you will manage. But if i come to you and tell you that i can give you a brief look at what one of the puzzles looks like, you'll be happy to take that opportunity to separate the pieces you can find in that brief time, and organize them quickly and easily. Finding a moment when you can accurately get a binary question to extract information from, is like getting to look at the final picture, and separate some puzzle pieces

Hope that clears up potential questions. If you have anything else you wanna ask just hit me up

Happy Observing!

-DV

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a-study-in-sepia · 8 months

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Chess and Deduction

Okay so, this blog is meant to be the place where i put a lot of my more fluid ideas, things like rants about a specific concept or theory in deduction, or posting some deduction that i made. I tend to use @amateur-deductions for more article-like posts explanations so here's a bit of a rant for you about what deductions can look and feel like.

So recently i've been answering questions about how to squeeze information out of the things you observe, how to break down what you see into information that can constitute as actual deductions. And while i was in that mindset to make one of my last posts, my Youtube feed blessed me with videos of Levy Rozman, (Gothamchess on youtube for those of you who don't know), and i've started to draw some parallels between chess and deduction.

Now, i'm by no means an amazing chess player, i've been more into it recently since i have time, but it's not really something i dedicate a lot of practice to. That being said, Levy said something in one of the videos i watched that caught my attention: As he was explaining very basic chess concepts, he mentioned how once you start pushing your pieces forward and entering the middle-game, the moves you make in the opening start tying together.

Essentially what he pointed out is that, once the opening is done, your pieces start to naturally intertwine with each other, they protect each other and take control of a plethora of squares, so many that sometimes you don't realize it until the game starts to develop more. You start to notice that the knights you moved in the opening can attack a certain way because the rooks that you also moved in the opening are conveniently in a position where they can cover the attacking pieces. Or you notice that as the opponent pushes pieces to attack you there's no reason to panic because a piece you'd moved during the opening is conveniently guarding the area the opponent is pushing into.

Now, you may be wondering what the hell does this have to do with deduction. Well in the same way that you don't always have to think about every single little implication about your moves during a chess opening, and even if you don't, you still can start formulating a plan in the middle-game with what you built during said opening, in deduction you're not necessarily always looking to make a "plan" from the beginning, or to set up your observations a specific way to get to a specific conclusion.

The way that deduction works a lot of the time is, you just start observing, maybe drawing small conclusions like someone's handedness or their extraversion level, and then as you start piling onto these conclusions you start to realise that a lot of them conveniently tie together, you start to notice that you can make forward progress because a new conclusion that you might consider happens to be supported by an observation or conclusion you made in the "opening". In the same way that, in chess, as you start to get into the middle-game you realize you can attack with certain pieces because other pieces are now set up in a way that can defend them. You're looking to realize that you can push forward in your conclusions because previous observations and simple deductions have been set up to defend these conclusions.

So taking a deduction from Sherlock for example. As you look at someone's phone and start to realize that it's expensive, and that it has an engraving and scratches, you start to draw small conclusions, like "huh, this is a gift because this person is clearly not in an economical position to buy this", or "huh, this has had a previous owner". This could be considered the "opening", you're sort of just going through each piece, developing it, getting control of the center of the board, and just scanning around for your next moves.

Once you have a solid footing, once you have a solid opening position, you start pushing forward, and start realizing that the pieces that you've set up can start moving and tying together, so you make a move that looks optimal with the piece set up (the information) that you have, something like "well if the phone was given to him by a previous owner, and that previous owner is a close family member, why not move in with them? hm, maybe they don't get along". And as the deduction goes on you try to keep making these optimal moves, moves that are supported with what you've already uncovered.

And like a chess game, yes, sometimes you blunder pieces, sometimes you reach a conclusion that isn't supported by any evidence, and it leads to you loosing the game. Sometimes you make a counting error and you realize that your pieces are not as protected as you though. Translating this from the example, sometimes you think every conclusion you're drawing makes sense and is fully supported, only to be corrected and realize that you didn't account for something, or that there was another, simpler explanation for what you've found, and this leads to loosing the game.

And when this happens the next move is to plug the chess game into an engine and see what you did wrong and what you did right, did you blunder anything? did you make a move that was horrible but the opponent didn't notice? did you miss a mate in one? or in 3? or in 5? In other words, did you reach the right conclusion with the wrong reasoning? or did you miss a clue that would have led you to a massive deduction? or did you just jump to a conclusion without a good base for it? As always the goal is to analyze this and make sure these are not mistakes you make in your next game

Here's where i'll leave this rant, i do hope it was informative (hopefully it wasn't confusing). If you have any questions feel free to send them over in my asks.

Happy Observing!

-DV

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a-study-in-sepia · 10 months

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Deduction Exercise 2: "Playing Police"

OBJECTIVE: FIND AND RECORD AS MANY VIOLATIONS OF LAWS AND SIGNS AS YOU CAN FIND

Details: Go out to a public space, anywhere that has a lot of people, even just the middle of the street. While in this place keep in mind the rules and regulations attached to it (eg. the driving laws of your country if you're walking down the street, if you're at school then rules and regulations like "No phones in the classroom" or specific dress code regulations, the laws for smoking indoors if you're at a cafe). Also make sure to look around for any location specific signs that enforce a certain behavior (eg. "No Smoking" or "No Parking"). Make sure that these rules and regulations are at least partially official, not unspoken rules or social norms, but actual regulations that are probably written down in some code of conduct at the location you find yourself in (eg. a workplace).

Now that you're in this headspace and are keeping all of these in mind, look around a record as many instances of people breaking these rules as you can find. Anything from someone clearly smoking in a non smoking area, to a car not using their blinker, or not stopping at a stop sign when they technically should have.

Play devil's advocate as much as possible and don't be afraid to stick to the "technically" argument (eg. "technically he should've stopped at that stop sign", "technically those shoes are not appropriate according to the dress code"). The point of this exercise is not to call people out, but to

Train yourself to observe the world around you in a more careful manner

Train yourself to observe people's behavior and the differences between people who follow rules and people who don't

Arguably most importantly, train yourself to look for things that are marginally out of place or missing, things that should be different, but that mostly go unnoticed

Now, go try it out

Happy Observing!

-DV

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a-study-in-sepia · 1 year

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Manually Decoding DTMF Through A Spectrogram

While working on a recent CTF, I came across a challenge that required participants to extract a credit card number from a recording of a touch-tone telephone. If you pull your phone out now, turn on your ringer (because it’s almost definitely off), and click on some random numbers on the phone app keypad, you’ll hear the product of what’s known as DTMF, which stands for dual-tone multi-frequency.

I won’t go into the specifics of DTMF and why it exists — the important thing to know is DTMF uses a combination of two distinct tones to create one sound. There is a low tone and a high tone. Today, I’ll be showing you how to decode DTMF by sight through a spectrogram. There are decoders available for free online, so if you come across a problem like this in a CTF, or otherwise, I highly recommend using one of those, purely for speed and convenience. All that being said, this is an interesting process, and just generally a cool thing to know about. It’s the equivalent of converting binary to hexadecimal by hand instead of using an online converter — basically useless — but a great party trick (in the event of attending one, which I highly doubt given you’re reading this — so yeah, basically useless… on that note (or should I say tone (my musically inclined friend has informed me that I should not)), on with the article!)

Note — Standard DTMF — two tones, four levels per tone.

As of iOS 15.7, this tutorial is still relevant. I am looking for more samples (other phone brands and software models) to determine how accurate this is cross-platform. If you’re interested in contributing, there will be some information at the end explaining how.

I’ll be using this audio file - https://voca.ro/1dr1J1gbyw5B

(This is from the CyberSoc Wales “personalbanker” challenge)

The first thing I did was put the recording through a spectrogram program. There are plenty available for free online; personally, I like using Academo, because it includes lines that will help with quick sight-reading later on. (https://academo.org/articles/spectrogram/).

You may be better off downloading software (Audacity is fantastic), should you require a spectrogram for a longer recording. Academo is not scalable beyond 10 seconds, so you can use it, but you’re going to be taking quite a few screenshots.

The first thing I did was drop the recording from the challenge into Academo.

A spectrogram is a visual representation of the frequency content of an audio signal as it changes over time. In the image above, I’ve isolated the beeps produced by the clicking of the phone keypad. This section of the recording is longer than 10 seconds, so I also spliced together two screenshots. Any discrepancies you may notice in the image above are a product of that.

Each vertical line of dots represents one beep, and thus, one number. You’ll notice that there are two horizontal rows per beep, this is the magic of DTMF. There are 8 total frequencies involved in the DTMF system. The original DTMF keypad was laid out in a 4x4 format (below). The letter keys (A, B, C, and D) are no longer used for personal telecommunication. For digital decoding purposes, you will almost certainly not come across the letter keys, although they are still used by amateur radio operators, payphones, and the occasional equipment control system.

I was starting from scratch, with no knowledge of how a spectrogram worked with DTMF, so the first thing I did was create two recordings of myself clicking each number in my phone app (I am using iOS 15.7 on my iPhone XR).

What you’ll begin to notice is that each number has its own combination of low and high tones. If you want to try to figure out the system on your own, now is the time.

Each variation in height represents a tone at a specific Hz. In order to decode this manually, you do not need to know the specific Hz of each number, you just need to understand the relational position of each tone, informed by its Hz.

I ended up throwing the original audio into Audacity so that I could create my own lines on the spectrogram for demonstration purposes.

First, I’m going to turn down the contrast to make it a little easier to see.

Now, I’m going to add some lines to match up the similar tones.

At this point, we have 6 layers of lines, there are no 0s present in this recording, if there were, we would have another line just above the bottom three. The use of the original DTMF structure with the ABCD keys would give us another line above the top three.

The simplest way to proceed is to categorize each set into Low, Medium, and High. You could choose any system — 1, 2, 3; a, b, c; whatever works for you. I recommend the LMH system because it’s visual and easy to keep track of.

I filled out the table below to show each numerical combination.

Two letters per number, each representing Low, Medium, or High (ultra High in the case of 0).

The first letter represents the top layer, and the second letter represents the bottom.

The corresponding Hz are listed in the third row for your reference.

I’ll walk you through the decoding process for the first two and then you can try the third.

We’re going to look at the first column of tones (boxed in yellow).

This represents one number.

The first tone is crossed by the lowest of the top lines, it is marked L.

The second tone is crossed by the medium bottom line, it is marked M.

Together, they are LM — which, upon referencing the chart, is 4.

The second one is MM, which is 5.

Now try the third. (full answer at the end, scroll up now if you’d like to try it on your own — try it with lines or without!)

Once you get a feel for this, the process becomes much faster. The lines are purely for demonstrative purposes, with a little practice you’ll be able to quickly do this without lines.

And that’s how to decode DTMF manually through a spectrogram! Is it useless? Yes! Is it fun? That’s debatable!

If you’d like to help me compare cross-platform DTMF signaling, take a screen recording that captures you pressing 1234567890 on your phone keypad. Send the file to me through one of the methods outlined below. Please include your phone model and its latest software.

Discord — Adler#7210

Email me — [email protected]

If you’re seeing this on Tumblr, send me a DM!

Medium link - https://medium.com/@adler7210/manually-decoding-dtmf-through-spectrogram-562e4b0b99c3

The final answer to the CTF challenge — 4562 6598 4585 2366

Anyway, thanks for reading, enjoy decoding!

#osint #ctf #ctftool #ctfwalkthrough #deduction #a study in sepia

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a-study-in-sepia · 1 year

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Hi!

I recently came across your blog since I was looking up micro expressions. Do you know of any books or trainings (the ones I have found are US based and since I’m not from US they are a little expensive for me) that could help out a beginner who’s trying to understand and learn about micro expressions, body language and deduction?

Hello! sorry for the late response, i've been busy. Unfortunately resources are very scarce when it comes to deduction as a topic, but if we look at any topics that make up deduction as a whole there's a lot you can find online. Tumblr and Youtube are gonna be your best friends tho, blogs like mine are the best source for deduction specific information (even ones that may be innactive now, try looking through old reblogs from Amateur Deductions, you'll find a lot of innactive blogs that still have their resources and posts, blogs like The Art of the Consulting Detective, Tiny Detective, The Brain Attic, The Deduction Page, Analytical Deduction), and there are some youtube channel that also have good information in the (check out The Art of Deduction on youtube).

When it comes to books, for microexpressions your best bet are Paul Ekman's books and the FACS, if you can get your hands on them (i'm not telling you to pirate them, but i'm definitely telling you to pirate them). For body language i recommend starting with What everyBODY is Saying by Joe Navarro. And for deduction specifically as a whole subject (in order of complexity) The Deduction Guide by Louise Blackwood, Snoop What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

Also for a beginner i recommend taking a look at the training program Amateur Deductions put out a few years ago, it was never finished, but the sections on Observation do a great job at training the skill quickly and efficiently (quick link for it here). Not to toot my own horn but my two blogs (Amateur Deductions and this one) have a lot of deduction content are are still active (although admittedly i have periods where i don't post much)

A brief note on Microexpressions: it's come to my attention that there are people that would call them a scam, i've had conversations with at least one of these individuals and i've come to understand that the reason they have this stance is because there's "no evidence that they are a good indicator of when someone's lying". This stance comes from a study that they've sent me that i have read. As an attempt to try to appeace anyone who might have a problem with you using microexpressions for that purpose i would like to clarify that the purpose of microexpressions is not to help you discern lies. Microexpressions are physiological cues that point towards basic emotions people are feeling, this information can then be used as a tool (along with others) to discern if someone's lying, but it's by no means a given that if you learn to use microexpressions you'll learn to tell if someone's lying. You have to learn to use them in context and know how a person's emotional state affects if they're lying or not in any specific situation, this is one of many uses of microexpressions, since it's one of many uses of being able to tell how someone feels. This same reasoning applies to body language as a whole, so keep that in mind when learning about them.

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a-study-in-sepia · 1 year

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Beginners Materials

Hello! It has come to my attention,( and to be honest I’ve wanted to expand upon this for a while now), that people new to deduction are often confused. There’s a lot of information, a lot of choices, and that can and has hindered some people’s understanding, love, and drive for this subject. Here’s a list of what I’ve found to be the most essential bare bones things. Start here if you please, and research further my friends! (please note this is not ALL resources, this is a minimal list I’ve compiled, for hopefully minimal confusion. I don’t mean to offend, or upset anyone if your blog, book, or you tube channel isn’t on here! )

YouTube; The Art of Deduction- This channel has a large range of topics, mostly you’ll find its focus on physical/psychological deduction. You’ll also find an in depth explanation of what deduction is, and a beginners playlist on this channel for deduction overall. Observe- This channel focuses almost exclusively on body-language, and its analysis for whatever reason (whether lie detection or just understanding people). Ben Cardall- This channel ranges from physical deductions to memory training, to psychological deductions of all kinds, and includes free training material as well as additional private tutoring and purchasable resources on his website. https://www.bencardall.com/ Mind reader Podcast- A podcast by deductionists for deductionists, here Observe and Art of Deduction converse on wide topics such as the ethics of deduction, and observation, mind palace creation and much much more. Nickliss- A channel that has videos about awareness and observation, as well as one on impostor syndrome which I highly suggest checking out if you’re feeling like you’re not the deductionist you want to be Practical Deduction- A channel focused on a wide range of subjects, but mostly deduction stories and deduction puzzles. However there are just as many videos on divers topics and their explanations such as mind palace building, card memory etc. Thinking Like Sherlock- This channel is filled with videos on topics such as memory techniques, specified studies, and a cryptology series.

Blogs on here; Looking Glass- The looking glass is an in depth blog on psychological, physical, and language profiling as well as posts on logic in general.

The Mentalist 221B- Ben Cardall’s blog, here you’ll find a plethora of follow up looks at things mentioned in his videos and some additional material. Science of Logical Reasoning- Here you can ask any question you wish to see answered, and get a response that will allow you to further your research into the topic, as well as some physical deduction materials. Deduction Journal- Resources on the physical profiling of people and places, also a lot of interesting takes on the original Sherlock books, and how materials from them can and can’t be assigned to our everyday lives today. An Aspiring Detective- An aspiring detective is a blog that goes extremely in depth in all fields of deduction, physical, psychological, and body language. This blog also has resources from studies and such on different topics mentioned in it.

Books; The Monographs by Ben Cardall- An accumulation of all that Mr.Cardall has learned, starting from 15 years to now, and a kind of deduction bible. It covers everything and more on physical profiling, a bit on psychological profiling, and has a lot of useful information on memory systems of all kinds. How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova- quite literally a book on how to think like Sherlock. This book is all about mindset an your brain, and how deduction affects it. If the Monographs is the how, this is the what where and why. A Guide to Deduction by Hanna Rogers- A book filed with small specific deduction facts, organized in an easy to digest manner. The sheer amount and range of them, and small size of the book makes it easy to take around as a kind of field guide for on the spot questions.

What every Body is Saying Joe Navarro- A book detailing all kinds of body-language from an FBI agent, lots of deception detecting tools, and just a good book to read to be able to understand people and how they tick a bit better.

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You by Sam Gosling- A book with in depth explanations on how your things end up reflecting your personality, and how we interpret the world around us. This is a useful read for the physical profiling of places and things, as its quite literally dedicated to it.

Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life by Amy E. Herman- Visual intelligence is about just that, seeing whats in front of you and analyzing it accordingly. A book focused on observation training and the understanding of blind spots and why they happen.

Reddits; -https://www.reddit.com/r/DesktopDetective/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/scienceofdeduction/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/firstimpression/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/roomdetective/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/deduction/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/thescienceofdeduction/ -https://www.reddit.com/r/howtobesherlock/

Kinds of deduction/most common first topics and whats most useful to get started (some things won’t be in the above lists);

Physical deduction;

The art of deduction

The monographs

practical deduction

an aspiring detective

Body-language reading;

observe

what every body is saying

an aspiring detective

the monographs

Room/Object deduction;

an aspiring detective

deduction journal

the monographs

snoop

Psychological deduction;

an aspiring detective

looking glass

the art of deduction

observe

Other research topic it would be useful to look into;

-Awareness training

-How to analyze data

-Drawing inferences from data

-How to self correct

-How to theorize and hypothesis efficiently

-How to quantify your surroundings

-How to remain calm/ emotionally distance yourself from your conclusions, safely

-Critical thinking

Thank you to Big Brother for helping me revise, and his research ideas are essential to look into, and I highly suggest everyone read into them a bit! If you’re still not sure exactly what you want to do in the field, start with whatever seems most interesting, or physical deduction, and that will lead you onto whichever path you start leaning to! Good luck to you, I wish you reliable sources in research, successful mind palace building, and good solid mistakes to build off of and learn from! Fare thee well on your journey! (Again, this is not a complete list of ALL deduction resources and pages, just what I’ve found most useful to begin to understand the rest of this amazing subject!)

*oh and if you are the owner of a youtube channel or blog and the description I made of your content is incorrect, do let me know and I’ll update it immediately

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a-study-in-sepia · 1 year

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[Social Control and the 80/20 Rule]

So I'm about to talk about Social Deviance in my next post and I'll tie that and this into Goffman's theory in their respective posts, but for now let's chat about Social Control and a fun theory my professor exemplified in class called the 80/20 rule. I do want to note here I briefly give examples of religious control through fear and that may be triggering to some with religious trauma so please proceed with caution.

The Two Types of Social Control

Self - Control: This is where we place the responsibility on the individual to follow the rules, and we ensure this through a few different ways, an extremely common one we see all the time is control through fear and we place that fear through things like mysticism found in paganism and christianity, "if you're bad you go to hell. God knows what you're doing and he's judging you right now," it sets the stage for religious compliance and compliance through guilt, karma, and conscience.

Man - Made Control: Control produced by man often seen in the Deterrence Model which is police, courts, jails, etc.

The 80/20 Rule

My professor had a fun little experiment for us, he proposed a question, "If I left $200 in my car with the window rolled down, who would take it?" Most people said no, quite a few cited God or their conscience. 3 or 4 people said that they either would take it or would think about it (for the record I wouldn't have taken it bc there would be too many opportunities for me to be seen). Then he asked, "If it was $2,000 and you could walk away scot-free no one would ever know, would you take it?" As you can imagine the number of people suddenly willing to abandon God's ethics increased but we still had a majority of the class saying they wouldn't take it. This is called the 80/20 rule, we can expect 80% of people to follow the laws based purely on self-control aspects, and for the other 20% we have man-made social control, especially for a $2,000 reason someone's morals might take a hike.

How Does This Tie Into Deduction and Goffman's Theory?

Remember that Goffman proposed that we are always displaying Latent personas to some degree and in my last post I said we could try to figure out why someone is putting up a front and where that front ends. It's no secret that people may pretend to be a little more morally upright then they are, and finding out if someone is controlled through the self or through man-made social control can lend us a bit of an insight into their internal motives. Internal motives can make a world of difference for deductive continuity. Example being someone sorting a series of books because their mom wants them to vs. bc they are deeply attached to those books. If we just look at the books and decide someone is a tidy person based off that alone we might try to start cramming other info to fit into a tidy-person box when the person isn't actually tidy at all, they're just doing it bc of the repercussions if it isn't done, then we've got a whole bunch of incorrect deductions. Bit of a ramble but I found this experiment interesting and thought it could be useful to keep it in mind. Social deviance is up next!

-Graham

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