Deduction Journal

At a glance, the trained eye could infer the rough location where someone either inhabited or worked. The type of bike they owned. What type of clothes they were wearing. The speed at which they were travelling, and the direction which they were going. All from a bike track.

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Bike types:

Road bikes:

Road bikes tend to have flat wheels. Some may have small imprints or lines, but generally they are smooth, with little to no imprint at all. However, this is not always a down side. For example... If one were too observe a relatively narrow to medium imprint of a road bike tire in the mud. One could assume that the owner of the bike lived in the city. For it is highly unlikely that any sane individual should attain a road bike which has little grip and would be unstable on a country road. Although there is a possibility that the said person could live in the country, but often commute to work in a city/town, etc.

Mountain bikes:

mountain bikes in contrast, have a very distinct pattern/imprint Which makes them the easiest to identify. The patterning is difficult to explain and I would not do it justice, So I will link an image down below. Again on observing a mountain bike tire imprint, you could deduce that the owner either lived in the country or frequently travelled to it. Favourably the former, although (you should never make assumptions without data) it is also possible that even though said person rides a mountain bike they could still potentially inhabit the city, but probably not somewhere, where the roads are very flat and straight. You can also assume that a person is very unlikely to be wearing smart clothes if they are riding a mountain bike.

Racing bikes:

Racing bike tires are almost identical to road bike tires. With the exception that they usually thinner and less common. (obviously)

Multipurpose bikes:

Multipurpose bike tires are similar to mountain bike tires. But they tend to have smaller imprints, and the bumps are closer together. (I will link an image down below) They are quite easy to identify but they do not give much insight on to the owner or their habits. Although you could say that it is not probable for the owner to live somewhere in the city, or somewhere very muddy and rocky. Especially where the roads are very flat. It is more likely that they live either in the country or on the edge of the town. But this should all be taken with a pinch of salt.

Gravel bikes:

Gravel bikes are most obviously used on gravelly country roads. They tend to have a strip running down the middle of the tire that consists of little spots or ridges while the outer edge of the tire is synonymous with a mountain bikes. I cannot bother to explain what deductions one can make from this, because it is so blindingly obvious that you can work it out on your own. (I will link and image down below)

Dirt bike:

Dirt bikes are primarily used off road. There tracks are quite similar to that of a mountain bike. But the wheels are possibly the biggest of all bike wheels, with the front wheel at approximately 18 and 20 inches and the rear wheel at about 17 and 19 inches. This makes them very easy to identify. (I will link an image down below) And with this information on seeing a dirt bike track you could assume that the owner does a lot of off road biking.

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Direction:

If one wished to tell which direction the bike was going, you would simply have to look which way the splatter of mud/water/grit, etc was pointing. If the splatter was pointing to the right, then it mean that the bike was travelling to the left, and Vice versa. Depending on the dampness of the mud and the speed of the bike the splatters will vary. for example... If the mud that the bike had ridden through was very dry there would be little to no splatter, but if the mud was very wet then there would be a considerable amount of splatters. Also, if the bike was travelling at a very slow speed you might not see any splatters, whereas if the bike was travelling very fast, the splatters would be all over the place and there would be quite a number of them. So now not only do we know what direction the person was going but also the speed.

mountain bike link

multipurpose bike link

gravel bike link

dirt bike link

Topic: Room Deductions 1

none of the pictures on my blog are mine by the way

Topics of Discussion:

Explanation of how room deduction blogs will work

Subject 1: Desk Area

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Explanation of How Room Deduction Blogs Will Work

I have been thinking for a while how to best explain room deductions. Other items such as shoes or individual items on a person are easy to explain in words, whereas I am running into trouble on how to explain rooms. Room contain so much information and it is important to understand how to read them. So, what I have come up with is each week that I am doing a room deduction I will add a picture of a room that I have already deduced and explain in detail where I got those conclusions. This will be teaching/explaining through example and is how I learned at the start of my training.

To do this however, I will need the help of my readers. If you could send me pictures of your bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, any room in your living space, I would appreciate it. I will do my best to deduce it in messages to you and you will either confirm or deny my conclusions. I will then make it clear what I got right and wrong in the blog entry as to maintain honesty regarding my own abilities and maybe show you where sometimes things can go wrong even with a seasoned deductionist. Sometimes I get nearly everything right and other times I end up missing things but, “There is no right or wrong. You’re either right or you learn something.”

If you would like to participate please message me privately with a picture. If I don’t have enough variety of pictures I will be forced to move on from rooms and go to the next item on my physical objects list. I would really like not to resort to boring images from google that could possibly be deduced if they aren’t just a stock photo. If I get more pictures throughout this physical objects series I will add another room deduction blog in-between things. I can always do a blog on an individual item and come back to rooms when I have images but please do help me out and send some things!

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Subject 1: Desk Area

Desks is the area I have the most already deduced and confirmed images. Therefore, I will start with that for this week. I will include two here that have been obtained from Reddit, which is a public site (and the pictures were posted publicly) so I feel comfortable including these images here. If either of the people who own these images reads my blog and would like me to remove your image I will. I will only include images that are either accessible through a public sites/domains or that I have been given permission to include.

Example 1:

This is what I sent: You’re a Female, teenager most likely between the ages of 14 and 19. You enjoy art a lot, might even be taking an art class. You’re sentimental and like a semi-clean space, but have trouble keeping it clean. Right-handed and either from Minnesota or you have been there and enjoy it. Do you have an English test coming up? Even if it’s not English you do have something coming up soon that you’re studying for. You use glasses for class work, and this is your main workspace for homework and art projects. You enjoy a more girly style of decor and clothing but isn’t overly girly. I’d say middle class family and because you are still in school you don’t have a job. You care about your appearance and do wear some every once and a while but not often.

The reply: (from her sister) She’s a teenager, 14 to be exact so you got that right. She likes art a lot and used to take classes but doesn’t anymore. I’d say she’s very sentimental, but she’ll deny it. Her room is never clean and yet she can easily find things. She is right-handed and we have family in Minnesota that we visit every blue moon. She had an English quiz a day before the picture went up, so you were also correct on that. She uses the glasses (which are blue light glasses) for school work since it’s all online. She uses the desk for everything. She is not girly and does not want to associate with “being girly” though. She also rarely does her makeup and if she does it’s just mascara and maybe some eyeliner. Good job you got it almost perfectly :)

This one was mostly correct. I only messed up a little on the makeup thing and the girly style. I specifically got the girly style wrong because I was looking at the overall color scheme and not looking at how her personality is in general.

Now to explain where I got my information: I got teenager because of the notecards and study cards on the desk. These are specifically geared more toward teenager rather than early adults in most study settings and I connected that with the other decor style to come up with a relative age range. The art enjoyment came from the cutting board (which is used with an exacto knife) and the multiple sketchbooks. The may have taken an art class or be in an art class came from the fact that someone of that age wouldn’t go out and buy one of those board unless they are dedicated to art, which comes down to either class or just does art a lot and class is the most likely option with the amount of schoolwork someone of her age most likely has. The sentimentality came from the stuffed animals. People who are less sentimental don’t have items like this lying around. Less sentimental people tend to be more minimalistic in their decor and only display things that also have a function in most cases. Of course, there are exceptions but this specific decor screams sentimental. The clean space comes from the fact that the area is in fact clean. This picture doesn’t appear to be posed. So even if they have trouble keeping it clean (based on the slight clutter in the corner) they try to keep the desk clean. Right-handed because most thing that require movement or action are on the right side. Also, the handle of the mug is toward the right. The state on the mug is Minnesota so either lives there or has been there. English test/quiz coming up came from the cards and the word on the top is English related. The glasses are used for class work because they are in a spot where they aren’t grabbed a lot unless she is sitting at the desk. So not visual impairment, just for class work or could’ve been reading glasses. Middle class family came from the entire picture. If she was higher class she would have fancier items and if lower class wouldn’t have some of the items that are there. Of course, there are exceptions to this too, I simply went with the most logical solution. She cares about her appearance because of the mirror sitting there. There are also makeup brushes but no makeup so only used sometimes.

Example 2:

This what I sent: You’re neat, like to keep things in their place. I do think you have a cat. You are short, either late teens or early 20s. You are very interested in technology, specifically robots. I also think you are into video games. I believe that is a robot from the game Portal on the desk. You like art and have done some art. You are also into the retro style just a little bit. I think based on the time on the clock you do not live in Europe, you either live in the US or another country close to the US. You are right-handed and might be a student. I think this is where you do most of whatever work you are doing but like I said you do like to keep the area clean.

The reply: You got pretty much everything spot on! I’m impressed! A few comments- You got the US part right, but the time on the clock is actually inaccurate because it runs too slow, and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. I am no longer a student. And yes, I do prefer for things to be orderly, but I’m not very good at keeping it that way. This is what it looks like after a day and a half of reorganizing, haha. You got everything else right, so nice work!

Explanation of where I got the information: They are neat for the same reason as the last image. This image wasn’t staged, it was already near like this. They did mention the have trouble keeping it this way though so not as neat as I initially thought and they did say this was after a good bit of cleaning. They have a cat because of the cats on the pencil bag. Either they have a cat, or they really like cats and would like one. Short because of the pillow in the chair. They have lowered it as far as it can go and still have to sit on a pillow to be high enough for the desk. Age because of the sort of retro style but they are still younger because of their organization system. People of different ages have different ways they organize things. I explained the video game/ robot thing in what I initially sent so I won’t explain it here. You can tell they have done and like art because of the art pens toward the upper side of the picture. These pens are specifically meant for art and were bought as a set. I based area of living because of the time on the clock relative or the time this was posted and the current time it was where I am. Right-handed because, like the last one, all of the things that require motion or action are placed on the right. This is where they do most of their work because of how many items are on the desk.

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I hope this helps and please send me pictures!

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Next Blog: Room Deductions 2 (if I get pictures) (if I don’t get pictures: Deductions from Shoes)

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Disclaimer: I have been studying these mindsets religiously for a while now and have been practicing memory techniques since I was in the sixth grade. However, I too am still learning. So if you have any suggestions or comments that are helpful to others that I neglect to mention please do so in the comments. I do not claim to know everything there is to know about these techniques and am much better at explaining them than putting them into real life practice at the moment. This blog is for educational purposes for me and the readers.

The best advice I could ever give anyone else seeking to gain these deductive and observational abilities is READ READ READ. There are several books on the topic which I can send you in pm if you are interested.

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.

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!)

Some deductions / new things I noticed

There was a man I noticed in the super market that I assumed works in construction.  His hands where rough and calloused, his boots where, well, boots, and they where caked with mud and concrete.  He was also quite tan, which in Russia requires some serious time outside.  As he was walking away i noticed he was damp, which meant he was outside in the past 30 minutes when it had rained, and that his boots where not only covered in dry concrete, but where trailing a bit of wet concrete as well.  My deduction was later confirmed when I saw the same man with a group of other people on a construction site near by.

  A girl that was walking towards us on a walk rode horses.  I knew this because of her clothes, a long sleeve shirt with elbow pads, and pants with inner padding that horseback riders usually wear.  Her boots also had spurs on them, which I noticed by the clicking after she had passed which kind of seals the deal.  And she rode English style, which was a logical conclusion, seeing as that is the only style taught in Russia. (there are a few places that do teach western style, but its extremely unlikely

Parabon, a forensic consulting firm, generated this composite sketch of [a] suspect using crime-scene DNA.

Hey everyone! Today I wanted to talk aba very onteresting subject that is not very well known amongs deductionists and that is distinguishing different types of paper and it`s quality. It seems like a good skill to have so let`s begin.

Basicaly paper is produced  by pressing together moist fibres of cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets.   Each type of paper has a weight, a processing type and a finish, which determine its transparency, appearance, weight, thickness, level of opaqueness, feel and durability. Now when deducing a quality of paper there are several things you should now and those are:

1.Smoothness- Usually smoother paper is of better quality. The writing on it will be visibly nicer. Now I don`t count magazine paper because it is too smooth and you can not write on it. Often the cheaper the paper is the more pulp it has.  Too much pulp will lead to short fibers that can get picked up by your pen’s point.

2. Feathering-  Feathering is when ink smears on the page, especially at the edges of your writing.  This usually results from low grade or thin paper that absorbs too much of the ink. Higher grade paper, however, will usually prevent too much absorption and ensure ink stays on the surface.

3. Opacity- Paper opacity is highly related with it`s thickness. You are looking for a degree to which ink bleeds through the paper.  Generally, the lower a papers’ opacity is the more the ink will bleed through the other side of the page. In extreme cases the ink could soak into the next few sheets underneath. Anyone who’s experienced this first-hand knows – it doesn’t make for a very pleasant writing experience! Nice quality paper will always have high opacity and little to no show-through.The context here is very important. 

4. Ink drying-  Finally, there’s the speed to which pen ink will dry on the page. This can sometimes be related to the choice in ink, but generally paper can affect the drying time. If ink dries too slow: your writing could be easily rubbed off or smeared before it sets into the page. (This is especially problematic for lefties, whose hands tend to immediately rub up against their fresh writing!) Generally, you want the ink to dry fairly fast!

Its a lot so just jump into it:

Pianists:

Pianist will have on their left and right hand a curved last bone at the middle finger toward the ring finger and they will have used of finger tips depending on how much they play:

7 years pianist with unregular playing now

First picture is the left hand and second one is the right hand. As you can see the middle finger is bend into the direction towards the ring finger. Note that some people have that condition too that dont play piano. I have not found out why they have it but try to use some context and you might like personality and try to combine it to find out if it is likely that the person plays piano. A good indicated that they actually play piano is that the condition is on both hands. People that dont play piano normally have the condition only at one hand.  Pianists will also usually have a thicker connection between the thumb and palm as also seen on the pictures.

Saxophone:

People that play the saxophone will tend to have a crooked thumb. This condition is as a before with pianist also found at people that dont play the piano. Mostly its people who are hyper flexible that get the condition if they dont play the saxophone. Again context is the key. Deduce with other clues and you might be getting on the right track:

2 years training, playing one to two hours a day

As you see the thumb is bend backwards making a curve. I can be more or less and is caused by people that press with the thumb on something a lot.

Clarinet:

Clarinet players have usally a mark on the right thumb. Its due to that they rest their instrument with a thumbrest on their thumb. With causes a mark / callus to form on it. If they use a neck strap the mark is not visible as much and turns into just a bit thicker skin. Might be “bumpy”. Wrong playing of the clarinet can also cause a red mark on the index finger, on the side toward the thumb:

6 years of training, one to two hours a day

There you can see the mark on the thumb under the knuckle. You can also the the mark on the ring finger which is caused by wrong handling of the instrument.

Here is the same hand again but after he trained. As you can see the marks are very visible and red.

7 years clarinet training, 2-3h a week to sometimes 6-9h a week

Here is a person that uses a neck strap as you can see there is just a little visible bump above the knuckle at the inside between thumb and index finger. Here is the other hand that does not have that bump:

Stringed Instrument:

Advanced string players tend to have calluses on their fingertips as seen here:

20 years guitarist, training 15 to 20 hours a week

If they recently trained with the instrument they will have straight marks on their finger tips as seen here:

Depending on the instrument they will go in different directions:

Violin or Viola:

Lines as seen on the above picture. They go from bottom left to top right.

Cello:

Lines the opposite as seen above. They go from top left to bottom right

Guitar:

Lines go straight across the finger tips or in a very slight angly from bottom left to top right like the violin but in a very flat angle.

Depending on how hard they trained the marks can last up to 40 min:

05 min - mildly visible , 07 min - barely visible , 10 min - still visible in good lit areas, 12 min - now only visible on 3 fingers (index, middle and ring), 20 min - seeing it on the index finger (good), barely on the others, 25 min - barely visible on middle and ring finger and still visible on index finger, 28 min - barely visible only at index finger now, 30 min - almost gone at all fingers index is still a bit of a visible mark, 35 min - only visible at the index finger with good light and close looking, 37 min - all gone

*Simulated with pressing on a violin (because it was broken)*

Thats it for my study. It took some time and a lot of people to be able to do this. I am really happy with the results as I can show to most or basically everything at lest one example picture which was important to me. Again here: Thanks to everyone who took part and helped me to make this as accurate as possible. If you have anything to add please hit me up at:  [email protected]

Thanks for reading