You Know My Methods

One other one for How: “how could this be exploited by someone acting in bad  faith?” Closely coupled with a What: “what are the limits on the ill-effects this could produce?”

“The Note”

To demonstrate the building theory we’ll use what i think is one of the most impressive and most elaborate deduction  in the whole Sherlock series. The note deduction from The Lying Detective (this also includes the deduction about Faith’s suicidal tendencies, as they are relevant to the note’s deduction)

i will now paste the whole explanation of the deduction as made by Sherlock in the show and then we’ll break it down

SHERLOCK (pointing down towards her feet): Your skirt. Look at the hem of it! That’s what I noticed. Those markings. Do you see them? You only get marks like that by trapping the hem of your skirt in a car door but they’re on the left-hand side, so you weren’t driving; you were in the passenger seat. FAITH: I came in a taxi. SHERLOCK: There is no taxi waiting in the street outside. That’s what I checked when I went to the window. And you’ve got all the way to the door and not made any move to phone for one, and look at you. You didn’t even bring a coat – in this rain? Now, well, that might mean nothing, except for the angle of the scars on your left forearm; you know, under that sleeve that you keep pulling down. (Looking down, Faith reaches across and pulls her left sleeve down.) FAITH (looking up again): Y-you never saw them. SHERLOCK: No, I didn’t, so thank you for confirming my hypothesis. Don’t really need to check that the angle’s consistent with self-harm, do I? FAITH: No. SHERLOCK: Then you can keep your scars. I want to see your handbag. FAITH: Why? SHERLOCK: It’s too heavy. You said I was your last hope and now you’re going out into the night with no plan on how you’re getting home … and a gun.

SHERLOCK: You see the fold in the middle? For the first few months you kept this hidden, folded inside a book. Must have been a tightly packed shelf, going by the severity of the crease. So obviously you were keeping it hidden from someone living in the same house at a level of intimacy where privacy could not be assumed conclusion: relationship. Not any more, though there’s a pinprick at the top of the paper. for the past few months it’s been on open display on a wall. Conclusion: relationship is over. The paper’s been exposed to steam and a variety of cooking smells … So it must have been on display in the kitchen. Lots of different spices. You’re suicidal, alone and strapped for cash, yet you’re still cooking to impress. You’re keen, then. The kitchen is the most public room in any house, but since any visitor could be expected to ask about a note like this, I have to assume you don’t have any. You’ve isolated yourself.

FAITH: How did you know my kitchen was tiny? SHERLOCK (showing her the paper): Look at the fading pattern on the paper. It’s not much but it’s enough to know your kitchen window faces east. Now, kitchen noticeboards … (He walks a few paces into the road and draws a rectangle in the air.) By instinct we place them at eye level where there’s natural light. Now look: the sun’s only struck the bottom two thirds … But the line is straight, so that means we know the paper is facing the window. (He turns and walks a few paces away from the floating imaginary board. He draws another rectangle. He turns and walks back to the noticeboard, which now has sunlight streaming onto it.) But because the top section is unaffected we know the sunlight can only be entering the room at a steep angle. If the sunlight was able to penetrate the room when the sun was lower in the sky then the paper would be equally faded top to bottom. But no. It only makes it when the sun is at its zenith, so I’m betting that you live in a narrow street on the ground floor. Now, if steeply angled sunlight manages to hit eye level on the wall opposite the window, then what do we know about the room? The room’s small.

FAITH: Sex. How did you know I wasn’t … getting any? SHERLOCK: It’s all about the blood. (Close-up of the bloodstain on the paper, which Sherlock now gestures to.) This one comes from the very first night. You can see the pen marks over it. I think you discovered that pain stimulated your memory, so you tried it again later. I’m no expert, but I assume that since your lover failed to notice an increasing number of scars over a period of months, that the relationship was no longer intimate. FAITH: How do you know he didn’t notice? SHERLOCK : Oh, well, because he would have done something about it.

Great, so we have the deduction, let’s break it down.

Materials: Observations

Faith

Marks on right side of hem of the skirt

No taxi outside

No move to phone taxi

No coat

Pulling sleeve down

Handbag too heavy

Note

Note with compromising message

Severe fold in the middle

Pinprick

Exposure to steam

Exposure to various cooking smells

Fading pattern, straight line, affected bottom 2/3

Blood stain, pen marks over it

now to start building

Base: Simple deductions/Observations

Faith

marks on right side of hem of skirt = passenger

pulling sleeve = hiding something

handbag too heavy = unusual object

no coat + no taxi = unprepared

no move to phone taxi = doesn’t care

Note

Fold = hidden

pinprick = on display, eye level

Severity = months, inside book

1+3 = No privacy = relationship

Steam + cooking smells = kitchen, keen cook

Fading pattern + straight line = facing window on opposite wall

bottom 2/3 affected = light comes in at a steep angle

Blood stain + pen marks = first night

now to the next level

Level 1: elaborate deductions/escalation from base

Faith

hiding something on sleeve = scars (probability, backed up by unprepared)

unprepared = no plan to get home

Note

hidden to displayed = relationship over

compromising message + displayed on kitchen (public space) = no visitors, isolation

light comes in at an angle + doesn’t affect top part = sun can’t reach it at a low point in the sky

level 2: escalation from level 1/complexity increases

Faith

scars + no plan to get home + doesn’t care + isolation = depression, suicidal

scars + blood on note = pain stimulates memory

Note

sun can’t reach it at a low point in the sky = obstacle, just reaches window at zenith

level 3: close to ending, escalation from level 2/complexity increases

Faith

depression + no plan to get home + doesn’t care + unusual object in handbag + suicidal = gun

pain stimulates memory + increasing number of scars + no action taken by partner = not aware of scars, no sex

Note

just reaches window at zenith + obstacle = narrow street, ground floor

“The Building”

And so we finally get to the lesson that makes everything fit together to build (pun intended) an elaborate and complex deduction, so if everyone is ready, let’s get to it, shall we?

The best way i’ve found to understand and explain the different stages of deduction is to compare it to a simple building. when deducing you slowly start your building. Now, obviously you can’t start a building by making the roof, or the middle levels, no, buildings have an organised structure, the more elaborate this structure and the better quality the materials used to build it are, the longer the building will stay standing. And that’s what we want, to keep our building standing

So how do we build it? how do we build a deduction? well like with any other building, the first thing you have to do is get the materials, after all, you can’t make bricks without clay. The better quality these materials are, better quality our deduction will have, and the longer this building will stay standing. These materials are, of course, observations, all the information we can gather about the situation, person, or object being deduced by using our senses

Now we have materials, good, but how do we actually build anything? For starters, any structure needs a base, some place it can rest all its weight on, so we start there. This base will be the “obvious” deductions, the basic ones, combined with the observations we make, such as “right handed”, “dark clothes”, or “worn out shoes”. With these simple deductions we lay out the base of our building, every deduction we’ll make from here up will treat all of these statements, be it a deduction or an observation, as a fact, as these well be what will hold up all our other deductions.  

We have our base, now what? This is where the concept of this whole metaphor, and this whole lesson for that matter, starts. Much like a building, every deduction can be broken down into levels (floors) each of these levels have an increasing level of difficulty and number of factors affecting it, as you go up through these levels you build your deduction into more complex conclusions, therefore giving you more information. Back to the building metaphor, This is when you start making the simple, yet useful deductions, such as wet coat means rain, or under coat collar is wet means strong wind

So this is good, so far you’ve built a base and a first floor, in other words we have a bunch of facts and small, basic deductions, so let’s take it one step further and make a decent, elaborate deduction, a second floor. Now, obviously this floor isn’t just resting on the base as the first one is, it’s resting on the first floor too, so we have to take this into account, base the next deductions on the ones we’ve made for the first floor, just as we did with the base, after all, when we deduce we’re using logic to gather the maximum amount of information possible on whatever it is we’re focusing on. So it only makes sense if we take these as facts, it also just makes our job easier. Now all we have to do is deduce from these facts, just as we would from any observation, if its been raining and the coat is reasonably wet it means the person has been under the rain for a reasonable amount of time, which means she hasn’t been in a car, which depending on the hour could tell you where she works or where she lives, or many other stuff. But you see the point, escalating is key, and for that you just have to treat your deductions like another observation, adding more levels to the building. The third level would be harder, it could personal knowledge, and mix it up with Deduction by Knowledge,these deductions would escalate from level two and so on

Now we know a building will be as tall as you allow it to escalate, the deduction can be as big and detailed as you allow it to progress, you can build a simple, small building with 3 or 4 floors. Which would mean a small, basic, general deduction, nothing too fancy.

Or you could have a tall, elaborate, fancy building, that stands out from the rest of the city

I’m the new member of Amateur Deductions, i have a lot of ideas for future posts, and definitely a lot of surprises to help the deduction community, i’m exited to help develop this skill. Just some stuff about me, i’ve been practicing deduction for 4 years now, i’ve been a member of The Deduction Network since it’s beginning (it has helped all of us to get so much better), i also have a main blog dedicated to deduction called sherlockholmes1928 so i’ll do everything i can think of to teach, learn and develop the science. I’ll do my best to answer any and every question both in this blog and on my main one, that being said, let’s get to it then

-MT

Big Five via Wikipedia: “The Big Five personality traits, also known as the five factor model (FFM), is a model based on common language descriptors of personality. When factor analysis (a statistical technique) is applied to personality survey data, some words used to describe aspects of personality are often applied to the same person. For example, someone described as “conscientious” is more likely to be described as “always prepared” rather than “messy”. This theory is based therefore on the association between words but not on neuropsychological experiments. This theory uses descriptors of common language and therefore suggests five broad dimensions commonly used to describe the human personality and psyche.[1][2] The five factors have been defined as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, often represented by the acronyms OCEAN or CANOE. Beneath each proposed global factor, a number of correlated and more specific primary factors are claimed. For example, extraversion is said to include such related qualities as gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions.[3] “

In short it is a model of personality traits divided into 5 Groups: Openness to experience ( O ) , Conscientiousness ( C ) , Extraversion ( E ) , Agreeableness ( A ) and Neuroticism ( N ). This builds the acronym OCEAN. Normally a test is used to get the results. These get compared with a average value in the group. So you can make a graph and see what your personality is. To use this in day to day life for example for deduction I use a method which I call the “To 10 Method”. Its is as simple as it sounds I give every group a value from 0 to 10. Zero in O is for example no openness to experience and vice verse for every group. So now you know how I do it but what about is every group? I getting into every group one at the time. 

Openness to experience: + curious, open to emotion, willing to try new things + general appreciation for art, creativity, awareness of feelings + full of ideas, quick understanding of feelings

- not interested in abstraction, not good at imagination - difficult in understanding abstract ideas

Conscientiousness: + self discipline, act dutifully, control, not impulsiv + planning, always prepared, attention to detail

- leaving belongings around - make a mess of things

Extraversion: + engagement with the external world, surgency + active, like to talk, assert themselves + center of attention, comfortable around people

- don’t talk a lot, think before speak - don’t like attention

Agreeableness: + social harmony, getting along with others, generous trusting + they get considered kind, soft heart, feel others emotions + make people feel at ease

- insulting people, not interested in others - little concern for others

Neuroticism: + stressed out easily, upset easily + frequent mood swings

- relaxed most of the time, seldom feel blue

Summary:

Hello.. So I’m posting more tips because I don’t know what else to post.

IMPORTANT I just wanted to start off saying that you don’t need to force yourself into deduction, there are so much more areas like psychology, abduction, induction, etc. You should do what you want to do, because it’ll help a lot while you’re developing.

Observation

I don’t really have much tips on how to be more observant, because I naturally am already, BUT, you can control what you can identify. For example, you see a white stain, you should go further into it, and identify what it is. Is it toothpaste? Sunblock? You get my point.

Thought process

To be honest, I think that you should first try to understand yourself, and spend time in your mind. This way, you can get to know your mind, and you can identify your thought process. This is important because it is scientifically proven that no two minds are the same. So, if you try to fit someone else’s thought process into yours, it won’t be as effective.

During deduction, I like to try and disprove my deductions, just keep disproving and disproving until you can’t think of more defenses. Don’t be too confident with yourself, and DONT EVER be biased. Ever.

Conclusions

When you conclude, you have to make sure that it isn’t too out of the box. Make sure that it is realistic, and then review your deductions to make sure they all line up.

Try to make your own technique if you can. But, keep in mind that you have to respect the process of deduction, and stick to the process.

Cause and effect

When you look at it, ultimately deduction isn’t more than very educated guesses. But there’s something deduction has that guesses don’t quite cover, deduction has a certain process, it doesn’t just consist of saying the first thing that comes to mind. Deduction has a beauty to it, it follows the collection and processing of facts and evidence to get to the conclusion, while it also does integrate more steps and aspects to it such as observation or balance of probability, these are the two steps we’re focusing on today. Recollection of facts, and drawing conclusions

Everyone learning or practicing deduction has to understand, it’s just a matter of cause and effect, if you learn to understand and play with these two terms there’s virtually no limit to what anyone can know. In traditional deduction, the one we see in most episodes of shlock, and the one we have to learn to deal with first, these two terms are inverted. When presented with a situation in which you want to deduce as Sherlock, you have to realise, everything you’re observing is an effect, and as any effect, it has a cause. The point of deduction is to work back to how this effect came to be. sometimes its obvious like smelling spices and realising an object spent a lot of time in the kitchen, other times there’s a bit more reasoning to it, but an example for this would be too long, so instead you’ll realise what i mean in a minute.

So how does one work backwards if all you have if the outcome of an action? well the same way you can know it’s rained by looking at the floor instead of the sky, there are some clues that are unique to certain objects or scenarios, isolate those. These are simple things, that when combined give a bigger picture, and narrow down your search for a cause, for example wet means there’s a liquid involved, pin breaks mean display, spice smell means lots of spices around. and these alone don’t get you very far, but if you combine them you can think of the following. Spices usually mean kitchen, display with a pin means the object was displayed at eye level, which also means it was easy to see, and how does an object get wet hanging at eye level in the kitchen? steam, so we know the object in question was displayed in the kitchen, very visible, very close to where this person cooks, and it’s important because they need to see it daily at eye level every time they cook. this was an incredibly small example, but i’m using it for a reason, next lesson we’ll look at Sherlock’s note deduction in “The lying detective” as it’s a great example for the next topic. 

Something i always recommend is always assume your deductions and conclusions are correct, and treat them as facts, no matter how small or big they are. Not because they’re aways going to be right, but because if you follow a logical train of thought they shouldn’t be wrong. Also because these deductions are not the last step, there’s still things to work with. You don’t have to think you’re always right, it’s just hard to operate under the opposite assumption, thinking you’re right and acting on it will get you places, thinking you’re wrong will just lead you to be wrong because you’ll look for other possibilities or conclusions

Some time has passed since we launched the network, and it’s been an interesting journey, we’ve all had fun, we continue to learn from each other, and we’ve all gotten to know each other a bit better by now. Below is a list of all the members. Some people have left, others have joined, over all, it’s always fun to have new members around. Note that the two usernames under amateur-deductions are the admins.

@amateur-deductions  @somuchstufftodo @xavierwilliams @thedeductionnetwork @astudyinpictures @mad-hatter-of-the-mind @tinydetective21 @sherlockholmes1928 @astudyinscarlet @the-c0nsulting-criminal @anotherpracticingdeductionist @christhemindguy @drspencer-reid @justaboredmind @thescienceofabduction @thescienceofdeductionsh  @penny-and-dime @harrlson-wells @deductionjournal @theartoftheconsultingdetective

It’s nice to see this community grow and practice the science, it makes everything a little easier, and way more fun

We always welcome new members, don’t be afraid to join, if you have any questions you can always contact me or send a message to the network blog. It’s a great opportunity to learn deductions, doesn’t matter how experienced you are, we all range in abilities and we learn from each other, and since the network started, we’ve improved tremendously.

“Obviously”

Okay, so we’ve learned about the concept of Deduction and about observation and what to look for, time to start drawing conclusions. This is when things get fun. It’s also when people start making a ridiculous amount of mistakes, so i’m going to give all you some precious advice to guide you in the right direction when you start

How many times has anyone heard Sherlock say “obvious”? Think about it, he uses this word pretty loosely. Think about every time you’ve read or heard a deduction, be it from me, Sherlock, or any other deductionist out there, think about how unbelievable and confusing the deduction sounds. Now think about  the moment when the deduction and the thought process are explained, you should notice both the way it all fits together, how everything has an explanation and a logic basis that leads to a conclusion, and, specially, the simplicity of the facts and connections that lead from one conclusion to another. 

Why specifically? because this is exactly what this lesson is about, the main problem when people start learning deductions is they overcomplicate themselves. They see how Sherlock or any other deductionist achieves these amazing and huge deductions, which sometimes appear completely unrelated with the facts and evidence given to them, and they want to replicate these results, without realising there’s an extremely long chain of thought connecting facts, deductions, conclusions, probability, and many other factors, just to get to that single amazing deduction that is presented to whoever’s listening. Now you have to understand, long doesn’t mean overly complicated, after all deduction is, at it’s core, just logic. 

All you have to do is go for the logical and probable conclusions. Once you observe the evidence think of questions like “how’d this get here?” “what does this mean?” “why did this get here?” etc. and answer them in a logical, obvious way, this will get you further than you may think here’s an example from Sherlock’s deductions

(A Study in Pink, 1x01, Jennifer Wilson (pink lady) deduction)

fact: her coat is wet

why is it wet? she probably was under the rain

fact: there’s an unused umbrella in her left hand pocket

why not use her umbrella if she’s under the rain? something probably  isn’t letting her use her umbrella, what is it? it could be any number of things

fact: under her coat collar it’s wet

why would it be wet under a coat collar which is usually turned down? obviously because it wasn’t turned down, why? probably because of strong wind, which would explain why she didn’t use her umbrella

fact: her coat is wet, no rain in local area recently

we know she probably was standing under heavy rain and strong wind, we know those conditions haven’t been present in our local area, so she’s obviously not from there, but we know she can’t be from very far away because her coat is still wet, and a wet coat would take approximately 2 or 3 hours to dry, all we need to do now is to check the weather within the radius of 2 or 3 hours of travel time, this would tell us where she’s from

(Bold = facts and deductions)

You can see how from little pieces of information we fill out blanks until we end up with way bigger chunks of information. and this continues, as these are new facts, which in turn could trigger more deductions, giving us even more information, but more on that on the next 2 lessons. Now you have layed out how we get from seemingly unrelated facts, to crazy and unexpected conclusions, not by making huge leaps, but with little steps and following trains of thought. it’s extremely important to remember this, if you don’t you’ll find yourself jumping to conclusions that are usually total nonsense. NEVER JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS, always have evidence and a logical and at least fairly obvious reasoning to ALL of your deductions. 

Observation

I’m sure most of you have already read a lot of posts about observation, and are now thinking “God, not this again”. but i’ll try to make this one as different as possible, let’s go through the basics quickly. Observation is the first step in deduction, it consists on gathering as much information about the situation or object at hand as you possibly can, that’s why i don’t just mean looking at something, but listening, touching, and sometimes even smelling and tasting. Now most people tell you focus on getting all the small details about everything, and don’t get me wrong, this is incredibly important and you should try to focus on any small detail you can find, the more details you find the more “clay” you have to build your “bricks”, but ultimately this will come naturally as you progress in deduction.

But i know the frustration of being told to observe and not knowing what to look for, i’ve been there myself. The answer to that question is everything, and this is what people don’t tell you. There’s nothing specific you gotta be looking for, this is just observation, this is just getting the clay for your bricks, and it’s as simple as thinking “what can i see?” (or smell or touch, etc.), it just consists of raw information. For example, statements like the man has a red tie or the tie has a small coffee stain at the bottom. And that’s all you have to do while in the stage of observing. my advice would be, don’t overcomplicate it, you have to observe, just do that, no conclusions, no deductions, nothing, just observing, just gathering data. But obviously, you’re not a computer, you can’t store unlimited amounts of observations and information all in 30 or 40 seconds, not even in 5 minutes. If you try to observe and take note of everything you can possibly see or smell or touch, etc. About an object or person or situation, you’ll end up very confused (unless you’re actually writing them down). So my recommendation is, take it step by step, object by object, if you’re looking at a tie, stick with the tie, if you feel you can move to another object without getting mixed up and remembering all the things you took note of, then go ahead, but don’t mix more than 3 objects together, this will come later on in the process of deduction. you should take it bit by bit, observe 3 objects, deduce from them, move to the next 3, deduce from them, and so on. Until you’re more experienced in the process. Obviously for now just observe the objects and don’t deduce, because we still have to cover a lesson on drawing conclusions.

Assumptions

Don’t try to do it quickly, take your time, the quicker you try to do it the more you’re going to jump to conclusions, as much as Sherlock does it in seconds, you’ll learn to get to that level with practice. When we observe our brain starts jumping to conclusions automatically, this may be quite dangerous as it they, more often than not, are wrong, but you must remember, there’s always a base for these assumptions, your brain is making some kind of connection between something you’re seeing and a piece of information you already have, and this base may be able to lead you somewhere. As for the actually assumption, it is after all an idea, and you can’t kill an idea, unfortunately. What you can do though, is disprove it. When faced with an assumption, don’t try to forget about it, it only makes you think about it more, like telling you not o think of a pink elephant. Instead try to look for evidence that points towards or away from said assumption, if the evidence doesn’t point towards it, just discard it, mark it as incorrect. This is good, as it lets you eliminate the impossible and organise the improvable.

Biases

The nightmare of every deductionist, a bias is basically your emotions and opinions playing a part in the logical process. While there is a part of deduction that requires emotion, the logical aspect of it must be kept away from these, how do you do that? create a “bubble” of sorts, around your bias. Every fact and deduction that favours that bias, must go through a “moisturising” process to go through that bubble, this would mean, checking the facts to see if your deduction or observation is being affected by said bias. Following the example of the tie, if you think said tie is ugly, you have to check the facts, is this tie ugly just for me, or do most people think it looks stupid? if it’s just me, i can’t incorporate that as a fact, it’s just my opinion, and in a deduction it has no value Therefore getting rid of the bias. There’s a chance that the bias may lead you somewhere, if you’re not the only one that thinks said tie is ugly, then you can use this to a certain extent as a fact, stating that this tie is considered ugly or stupid by most people. Giving you a proper observation

Introduction to Deduction

So as we all know, deduction is the process of gathering evidence and data to come to conclusions about anything and anyone. But what makes it so special and impressive is the ridiculous amount of information you can get from every day items, people don’t seem to think it’s possible to get so many facts and and such accurate conclusions just by looking at people or objects. But you have to understand, it is after all, just a method of reasoning and processing information, and it is possible to get to Sherlock’s level and even further.

Now, let’s break down deduction to make it easier. You can break it down into two types, Deduction by logic, and Deduction by knowledge. While both of them are very important to make the most out of your deductions, one of them is impossible to teach, that would be Deduction by knowledge, as there’s no process, just gather information and about anything that may seem important and relevant to a scenario, and use it.

Deduction by Logic

My personal favourite, it consists of anything you can deduce about a person, object or situation, by using no more than the  common knowledge you have and, as the name suggests, logic. The process is relatively simple and very effective, it can be applied to any and every situation and you’ll always be able to draw accurate conclusions if done correctly. A good example of this is the scene in “A Study in Pink” where Sherlock notices john is tanned, this obviously means he’s been abroad, but there is no tan above his wrists, meaning he didn’t go sunbathing. You can clearly see how simple the reasoning is, and how little amount of special knowledge it took to get there, but it does get you to an important conclusion. This on a larger scale will give you very impressive deductions.

Deduction by Knowledge

This type of deduction is simply based in any fact you have stored in your memory, as a deductionist, i usually use a mind palace to store large amounts of information and facts that are later on useful in deduction. Sherlock did this too in “The Hounds of Baskerville” you can see him cycle through various subjects and pieces of knowledge related to said case, that he had stored over the years or over the process of solving the case. This type of deduction is very effective and it may lead you to conclusions that could be hard or impossible to reach via Deduction by logic. But it’s only downside it’s the fact that it’s limited to the amount of knowledge you have about the topic at hand when the deduction is taking place, and if the knowledge stored is not enough you may need to resort to Deduction by logic, as Deduction by knowledge won’t get you far, and your deductions may be incredibly limited.

You should always try to keep these two as balanced as possible to make the best out of your resources at the moment of deducing. i like to think of both as a scale from 1-10 they should both be at the same rating, if possible. If this is not the case, you should always have one compensate the other, for example Deduction by knowledge being at a rating of about 3 and Deduction by logic at a rating of about 7, that way you always keep it balanced. how to measure it? I usually compare both of these ratings to other deductionists. you may find your own method, if you feel like it’s more effective, don’t be afraid to share it, i could always improve myself.

Okay…? I’ll make sure to contact Abacus…?