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The Art of the Con

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I wrote recently about how deception works best when a magician asks someone to look closely in one direction, while he performs his trickery in another direction, outside one’s gaze.  

(See, The Closer You Look, The Less You See.”  See, also, Techniques of Municipal Distraction Numbers 1-9, Numbers 10-18, and Numbers 19-22.)

A skillful confidence game isn’t merely about tricking someone.  It’s about tricking someone in a particular – highly effective – way.

The most effective – and so worst – confidence game isn’t when a swindler persuades a mark to have confidence in the con artist.  

The worst con is when the swindler persuades the mark that he, the swindler, has confidence in his victim, the mark.  

There’s a line from House of Games in which a con man explains a deeper fraud:

“It’s called a confidence game.  Why?  Because you give me your confidence?  No. Because I give you mine.”

Persuading someone to believe in a confidence man is only a penultimate fraud; persuading a victim to believe in his – the victim’s – own supposed need and ability to overcome that need himself (through the con man’s proposal) is the foundation of the ultimate swindle. 

It all begins with “you really, really need to do this,” “I just know you can do it,” and “let me be the one to help you.”

Seeing what’s coming – for what it is – is the beginning of a defense against it.

Animals, Cats, Politics

Be The Middle Cat

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In a world of polar opposites, e.g., Left and Right, Republicans and Democrats, etc., there’s gain in taking an independent path.

It’s the middle cat that enjoys some meat, while others remain steadfast, but get nothing.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.14.14

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Good morning.

Monday will be cloudy with a high of thirty-eight.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6 PM.

On this day in 1865, Pres. Lincoln is shot:

1865 – (Civil War) Lincoln Assassinated
On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Although no Wisconsin troops were on hand, former Wisconsin governor Leonard Farwell was in the theater and rushed to warn Vice President Andrew Johnson of an impending attack.

On 4.14.1953, the Braves begin playing in Milwaukee:

1953 – Milwaukee Braves Debut
On this date the Milwaukee Braves made their official debut in Milwaukee, at the newly constructed County Stadium. They defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2, in 10 innings. Bill Bruton hit the game-winning home run. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online]

It’s tax-deadline week for most taxpayers, and to mark the occasion, Puzzability begins a new series entitled, Tax Deductions:

This Week’s Game — April 14-18
Tax Deductions
They say there are two things you can’t avoid, but this week we’re avoiding one of them. For each day, we started with a word or phrase and removed one instance of each of the letters in IRS anywhere in the word or phrase, but in order, to get a new word. Both pieces are described in each day’s clue, with the longer one first.
Example:
Those who provide equipment; soft and bendable
Answer:
Suppliers; supple
What to Submit:
Submit both pieces, with the longer one first (as “Suppliers; supple” in the example), for your answer.
Monday, April 14
Long-necked animals; dumb statement, usually made by a politician

Animals, Health

Why It’s Hard to Swat a Fly

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It’s not easy to swat a fly.

Although almost brainless by human standards, recent observations at the University of Washington reveal that flies have “well-developed, rapid-firing sensory motor circuits [useful] in order to register and respond to the visual threat of predators so fast and effectively.” See, Fruit flies show why swatting at flies is often fruitless.

Kate Prengaman, remarking on the academic study, writes that

Much like an airplane, a fly’s body can move in three dimensions: yaw (rotating along a vertical axis to change direction), pitch (tilting the head up or down), and roll (turning the body left or right).

Once the flies detected a threat, they “altered their flight path in a remarkably fast and accurate manner,” the authors found. What’s remarkably fast? Fewer than two wing beats. These flies beat their wings 200 times per second, so that’s less than a hundredth of a second….

In normal flight with no threat detected, the flies tend to turn in the same way an airplane does when it’s using its tail rudder to shift direction while maintaining a constant speed. They manage this by rotating on their yaw axis. But for evasive turns, the flies shift direction fives times as fast. They pitch and roll in a way that would probably make some of the passengers on an airplane reach for their barf bags. The flies rotate their bodies in one direction and then rotate back within just a few wing beats, using torque and counter torque to bank like a fighter jet.

That’s why you can’t swat them. Don’t think brainless bug. Think highly advanced military technology.

Fascinating, yet needless to say, although swatting is ineffective, there are other ways to combat flies. One simply has to find the right method.

Animation, Cartoons & Comics

Sunday Cartoon – Batman: Strange Days

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America has a proud heritage of animation and movie serials. Here’s a recent animated short in the style of a 1930s serial, from Bruce Timm:

A brand new short from producer Bruce Timm featuring a lost tale from Batman’s past, the Dark Knight tracks a strange giant to the mysterious lair of Dr. Hugo Strange.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.13.14

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Good morning.

Palm Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-three. Rainfall will amount to between three-quarters and one inch.

499px-Elephant_Hotel_2007

Statue of Old Bet in front of the Elephant Hotel, a National Historic Landmark in Somers, NY, USA. Via Wikipedia.

On this day in 1796, an elephant arrives to the United States:

The America set sail from Calcutta for New York on December 3, 1795. Nothing of interest appears in Nathaniel Hathorne’s Logbook until Wednesday, February 17, 1796, at St. Helena. “This day begins with moderate breezes . . . latter part employed in landing 23 sacks of coffee . . . took on board several pumpkins and cabbages, some fresh fish for ship’s use, and greens for the elephant.” Below is written in large letters “ELEPHANT ON BOARD.” On February 24, the America stopped at the island of Ascension, where the men got several turtles and saw a large sea lion. The last page in the Log records the sighting of Long Island at 7:00 p.m. on April 11. From the times and distances, it can be estimated that the elephant must have been landed in New York on April 13, 1796.

(The logbook’s author, Nathaniel Hathorne, was the father of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author, who added a w to the family name.)

The elephant brought in 1796 was probably, but not certainly, Old Bet, an elephant that was part of a menagerie. Sadly, Old Bet was killed in July 1816 when a farmer shot her, on the theory that it was wrong to ask poor people to pay to see animals (but not, strangely, as wrong to kill animals and destroy others’ property).

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.12.14

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Good morning.

Saturday will see showers and thunderstorms in Whitewater, with a high of sixty-nine. Rainfall will amount to between a tenth and a quarter of an inch.

How are clocks, phones, and other devices synchronized? Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist for the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Time Services, has the answer:

On this day in 1861, the Civil War begins:

The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.”

City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Economy, Local Government

Is this the city that you had in mind?

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Consider this working definition of crony capitalism:

Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.

Crony capitalism is believed to arise when business cronyism and related self-serving behavior by businesses or businesspeople spills over into politics and government, or when self-serving friendships and family ties between businessmen and the government influence the economy and society to the extent that it corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals.

These preferential arrangements of white-collar welfare are, of course, the dark alternative to genuinely free markets in capital, labor, and goods.

When American parents raise a child, they seldom say, “I hope you grow to be a manipulative huckster, taking so much as you can by manipulating government into preferential deals for yourself and your friends.”  

There are few people – and no honest, decent ones – who would hope this for themselves or their children.  

And yet, and yet, there are such avaricious and undeserving people, with even a few being too many for the damage they cause to a community’s politics and economy.   

Whitewater’s slow evolution has passed from the ‘end of the beginning’ into a middle time, likely to last for several years (as did the earlier, beginning period).  

A debate and battle over cronyism and undeserved, preferential treatment, of attempts to manipulate the city’s politics and her economy for private gain, will occupy much of this middle period.  

No part of that debate will be easy; all of it will be necessary.

Cats

Friday Catblogging: The Cat Café Trend

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Nekokaigi,_a_cat_cafe_in_Kyoto_-_March_16,_2010

Nekokaigi, a small cat café in Kyoto. Via Wikipedia.

Here they come:

A new breed of coffee shop is sweeping west across the globe from Japan, where the hottest place for animal lovers to take their tea is inside a cat café.

The first Japanese restaurant to provide its customers with a roomful of feline companions opened in 2004; there are now hundreds of copycat establishments in Tokyo alone. The craze exploded in Asia, before cafés in East and then Central Europe opened their doors. Last year it was Paris, last month London, and by the end of the year the United States is scheduled to have its first cat café, in San Francisco.

Onerous health and safety regulations, which differ from country to country, have ensured the trend took longer than a grumpy cat meme to go viral, but the thirst for coffee with a side of petting shows no sign of slowing down. Of course the Internet, where the cat is king, has proved a fertile breeding ground for these ventures. The British café raised more than $180,000 online, while a U.S. project successfully crowdfunded almost $60,000. “We were incredibly lucky!” Courtney Hatt, one of the founders of San Francisco’s KitTea, told the Daily Beast.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.11.14

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Good morning.

Friday will be sunny and warm, with a high of sixty-six.

On this day in 1814, Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.

On this day in 1965, tornadoes strike our part of America:

1965 – Palm Sunday Tornadoes Ravage Midwest
On this date six tornadoes, part of the “Palm Sunday” outbreak, ripped across Southern Wisconsin, causing 3 deaths and 65 injuries. The outbreak of 51 tornadoes was responsible for 260 deaths and over $200 million in damages throughout the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. [Source: National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office]

Here’s Puzzability‘s final game in its canine-themed series, Dog Eared:

This Week’s Game — April 7-11
Dog Eared
We’re barking orders this week. For each day, we started with the name of a dog breed. Then, for the day’s clue, we broke it down into a series of words that, when said in order, sounds like the original breed. You’ll probably need to say the words out loud to get the answers.
Example:
Chair, mensch, ebb, hurt
Answer:
German shepherd
What to Submit:
Submit the breed (as “German shepherd” in the example) for your answer.
Friday, April 11
Bore, chuck, ease, wad, herd, hawk

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 4.10.14

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Good morning.

It’s a one-third chance of scattered showers, with a high of fifty-nine, for Whitewater on Thursday.

Today is the anniversary of the ASPCA‘s founding:

…the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh, 54.

In 1863, Bergh had been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to a diplomatic post at the Russian court of Czar Alexander II. It was there that he was horrified to witness work horses beaten by their peasant drivers. En route back to America, a June 1865 visit to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in London awakened his determination to secure a charter not only to incorporate the ASPCA but to exercise the power to arrest and prosecute violators of the law.

Back in New York, Bergh pleaded on behalf of “these mute servants of mankind” at a February 8, 1866, meeting at Clinton Hall. He argued that protecting animals was an issue that crossed party lines and class boundaries. “This is a matter purely of conscience; it has no perplexing side issues,” he said. “It is a moral question in all its aspects.” The speech prompted a number of dignitaries to sign his “Declaration of the Rights of Animals.”
Bergh’s impassioned accounts of the horrors inflicted on animals convinced the New York State legislature to pass the charter incorporating the ASPCA on April 10, 1866. Nine days later, the first effective anti-cruelty law in the United States was passed, allowing the ASPCA to investigate complaints of animal cruelty and to make arrests….

Here’s Thursday’s Puzzability game:

This Week’s Game — April 7-11
Dog Eared
We’re barking orders this week. For each day, we started with the name of a dog breed. Then, for the day’s clue, we broke it down into a series of words that, when said in order, sounds like the original breed. You’ll probably need to say the words out loud to get the answers.
Example:
Chair, mensch, ebb, hurt
Answer:
German shepherd
What to Submit:
Submit the breed (as “German shepherd” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, April 10
Make, sicken, hay, earl, hiss