#sleuth2k7

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.

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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.

With the first one, rogha had a baseline of his friend and his friend broke the baseline - that is the main way that rogha was able to deduce that his friend's baby had been born.

To make that deduction, the baseline must have been that rogha's friend is an active Twitter user - it is uncommon for him to not be active on Twitter for a day. So, when he was, rogha could have asked: what could cause him to be occupied enough to not be on Twitter? If he is normally active on Twitter daily, then normal, daily activities like work/school/etc. would not be the cause. So *something* not typical happened to rogha's friend that day - something that took up a significant portion (if not all) of the day.

This is where knowledge about his friend helps - his friend has a heavily pregnant wife, who could go into labor at any time, so his wife going into labor is a likely reason for his friend to not be on Twitter.

Of course, a different *something* could have come up, so there was some risk involved in this deduction, but rogha turned out to be right.

With the second one, baselines are not really involved. Instead, rogha is relying on an understanding of the culture & typical behavior of where he and his friend live. In their environment/culture, "pumpkin" is a very popular Halloween costume for infants (and toddlers) - so it is easy and readily available to buy (Note: I know from my experience how popular a costume "pumpkin" is and has been for several decades in the U.S., so for the purposes of this post I'm assuming this is the United States).

Of course, just because the costume is popular does not mean every couple with a baby dresses their baby up as a pumpkin - there are outliers. But is rogha's friend likely to be an outlier? This requires rogha to have knowledge of his friend and what other sorts of costumes are possible. One possible costume route is what I'll call the nerd route - while pumpkin is a popular costume in general, for nerdier people, dressing up as a character from a piece of media for Halloween may be the preferred choice over a more "popular" or "standard" Halloween costume (think pumpkins, cats, witches).

a student mentioned that another professor (Prof A) (a fairly new one who has taught just 1 class, which I took) had mentioned a theory related to what this professor (Prof B) was talking about

and Prof B looked surprised for a hot second? and then stammered just a tad and said something along the lines of "huh good for her" (not those exact words but that's the vibe I got) and then pivoted with an "anyway" which mmmm was weird

like typically if someone says "huh good for them" in that sort of way, they're indicating dislike but being sort of polite about it right (at least in my experience in the U.S.)

came home after class and someone had tidied up the inside of the fridge - since it wasn't me, it was either my mom or a specific sister

but! I knew it was my sister right away because right now we have 3 coffee creamers - one of which I've been using in my mom's coffee for the past week, and she's said she likes it and I've told her which I was using, showed the bottle to her etc.

(inspired by @studies-in-the-art-of-deduction and the airport deductions he's done this year)

The reason I first noticed him was his leg bouncing (starting pretty soon after he sat down), since I wanted to try to deduce if he was just stimming in a "has trouble sitting still" way, or if he was nervous about something (and if he was, what).

Okay appearance: he was wearing a dark blue sweater (with a bigger coat folded on his lap), blue jeans, black socks, and gray Nike's. Brown hair was short and not styled or anything. Young white guy. Right pocket of his jeans had big bulge. The Nike's didn't look worn/old, and there wasn't any dirt/mud on the sides. Overall clean shoes. He also had a ring on his left ring finger. The typical groom silver band type. He had an iPhone - I'm not super familiar with iPhones but it was one with the 3 big camera lenses, with a clear flimsy-ish case.

So I kept an eye on him for the 2 hours of the flight (sans me almost falling asleep and also reading my book) and in addition to the bouncing, he was touching his face a lot too, rubbing his neck and doing the thing where you mess with your mouth with your hands but play it off as just resting your hand on your face. The bouncing and face touching behaviors weren't a one off thing either, both were consistent and also happened alongside the taking off (more on that in a sec).

He was also very focused on his phone. Before the plane started moving, he was texting someone on Instagram, with long messages (the only message I saw him get back was a heart). Once the plane started moving, he switched to looking at something, a screen of text with yellow highlighting at the top. He stayed on that same text but scrolling up and down for a bit. He also pulled out the safety card when the safety demo was happening (something very few people did), and opened it but mainly went back to his phone. I'm very familiar with doing ~nothing~ on a phone just to keep my hands busy, and this seemed like what he was doing.

When the plane actually started moving, went off the ground, and hit a few bumps right away, his leg bouncing came back (it stopped and started throughout the whole flight, like he'd forget about it and atop and then be reminded where he was and start bouncing again).

The first time he wasn't looking at his phone I saw him do what sort of looked like the prayer thing where you touch both sides of your chest and then up and down (but he only did the horizontal part, so I'm hesitant to try to use that in any deductions).

He was polite to the flight attendant, got a diet coke and the pretzels everybody gets. He also poured the soda into the cup, didn't touch it for a few minutes, then topped it off with more soda before drinking it. He continued the bouncing leg with the tray table down (this made ME nervous lol). When he mostly had finished eating, he pulled out a nintendo switch (like a full size, not the handheld) in a switch case and played on that for the 2nd hour of the trip. I couldn't see the screen, except for a second where I saw he was playing a figure that turned into an animal and then back again.

While he was on the switch, and during landing (after he'd put the switch away), there was notoceably less leg bouncing.

deductions (I was mainly just curious about the leg bouncing, but ive included a few other thoughts here too):

- married, 23-30ish

- he has anxiety about flying, but more so with takeoff than landing - the timing of the bouncing with the takeoff/turbulence and the additional face touching and keeping himself busy points more to flying anxiety than just stimming (like i was stimming throughout the flight but not to that degree or timed in the way his was, and I love flying so I used that as a sort of baseline comparison).

- it's December 29, he's married, but not traveling with his spouse (he was sitting alone, got on after me, and I didn't see him interacting with any person as though they came together but had split up seats) - so tbh, I'm not sure what he was doing?? he was traveling from a big city to a smaller one, 2 hour flight - I'm thinking either something for work or more of an emergency family visit. I didn't have enough info to figure that out.

- he's decently well-off: one of the newer iPhones, a full size Switch, clothes/shoes that looked clean and not super worn (none of his clothes had any sort of wear or tear from what I could see, and everything fit him well).

- he games (I also thought it was interesting that he didn't pull out the switch at the start, like immediately after takeoff finished when they announce that larger devices can be used - my thought here is that again, takeoff/initial part of the flight is what causes the most anxiety, and the game wouldve required a level of focus he wasn't capable of during the first half of the flight, thus the more mindless scrolling around on phone).

“‘Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house,’ said the French scientist Jules Poincare. In house building, it’s essential to have an overall plan, and not just heap up stones randomly. Similarly, in research, it’s important to have a theory, a framework into which to place the pieces. If they do not fit, then the old theory has to be abandoned, and a new one proposed. But how can the stones be structured, when it’s unclear what kind of building is under construction?

Sometimes, an intermediate stage is needed, before a full plan is possible. An architect starts by asking basic simple questions, such as: ‘What is the building for?’ An answer such as: ‘To provide shelter from the weather’ leads to other questions, such as ‘What kind of weather, hot or cold?”, “How many people must it shelter?”, and so on.”

two things with this:

1. the theory thing, the framework: you can’t just collect observations and then toss them together however you want, since their meaning isn’t up to your personal creative interpretation - that’s why knowledge bases, logic, etc. are important - you have to not only collect the stones but also have the knowledge of how to put them together, or else you just have a pile of stones