Clearing the tabs
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"Colonnade was a drink manufactured by Holborn pharmacist G. R. Ferdinand following a trip to the United States in the 1890s. While there, he was intrigued by drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, marketed both for their thirst-quenching ability and their supposed medicinal properties."
My friend Tom Wright's new blog on London, psychogeography and history, real and imagined, promises some great reading.
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What patterns recur in this list? Can we extract general cases, or a kind of pattern language for con tricks? How many of these could be turned into (deceptive) design techniques? I love this sort of list. (via Boing Boing)
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Classic software project mistakes: an error pattern language? How many of these apply generally to projects (product design, engineering, political, personal, social, educational…)? Is there a kind of general analysis method for all this? Can things like TAFEI (http://books.google.com/books?id=TZSKZiocMJQC ) be applied on this scale?
Can we extract general cases, or a kind of pattern language for con tricks?
1. Get the mark to focus on a high expected reward.
2. Involve more accomplises and preparation than the mark expects.
3. Have an exit strategy.
4. Involve the mark in something agreeably illegal, so he cannot go to the police later, and will be comfortable with clandestine behaviour.
Example: in 3 Card Monte, the game itself is illegal and the mark knows this, so won’t become suspicious if the dealer tries to hide the game from police. Saying he’s seen the police also gives the dealer an exit strategy. The mark focuses on the high reward and gets suckered in. Shills are often used to give the appearance of winning. The patter (i.e. preparation) can become very refined in order to make the mark bet more.