ERDNASE

Discuss general aspects of Genii.
Brad Henderson
Posts: 4546
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 18th, 2018, 12:30 am

lybrary wrote:]We know that generally speaking, but not specifically for anybody. . . Or do you have any historically relevant lists of names who played what game where and when?
.


you know chris, i just looked on the internet and there is no evidence of any individual ever playing cards.

not here

https://www.rightcasino.com/news/10-fro ... wild-west/

or here

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-gamblers.php

and definitely not here

https://www.ibuzzle.com/articles/famous ... story.html

https://www.gamblingsites.com/info/famous-gamblers/

and nothing here:

https://www.onlinegamblingsites.com/blo ... /2071/amp/

you’re right chris, there are NO records that can show any particular individual ever was known to play cards.

though unless i’m reading it wrong, jr seems we have direct citations that can put cards in the hands of Henry VIII and Rene Descartes but not so much with your guy

Brad Henderson
Posts: 4546
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 18th, 2018, 12:40 am

Who would have made a note about somebody appearing as the typical and average gambler? Nobody. The clever cardshark blends in, doesn't make it known he is a winner, avoids to stick out like a sore thumb.


what does being a winner have to do with not being known as a player? and blending in is different from being known. It is one thing to take on the mannerisms which make you fit into a group, but anonymity is not the goal. In fact, you are more likely to be cheated by someone with whom you are familiar than a stranger. It is precisely the familiarity which places them above suspicion. And to think that not being known or visible is the goal, think again. I once had an under cover state police officer tell me he thought the magic was a great cover. It would be the perfect diversion away from the agents actual goal. So it’s not about going unnoticed per se. Many well known cheats were very colorful. But that doesn’t mean their work didn’t blend in at the table.

And the few who knew Erdnase as a cardshark are too few to make it likely that such records survived.


where did i ask for records that proved jen was a card shark. i asked for proof he played cards.

to get as good as erdnase he would have had to play constantly. you’re telling me that in the years he took to master his craft, he only played with a few people?!?


For a 100 years people are searching for Erdnase and no such records were unearthed. But his book was continuously published and sold tens if not hundreds of thousands of copies over the decades. That example alone should tell you that there is a huge difference between the amount of information about the two, writing and gambling/cardsharking.


so your point is the absence of evidence for both means the absence of evidence of of the other is ???? who cares how many years the book has been reprinted? it looks like you are just throwing stuff against a wall now and hoping we don’t actually read what you have written, let alone think about it.

did you?

Bill Mullins
Posts: 5911
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: Huntsville, AL
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 18th, 2018, 1:56 am

lybrary wrote:So you agree that you have no example of an author who wrote a really good first book without any prior writing experience.


J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Bret Easton Ellis, Less than Zero
Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine
Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
S E Hinton, The Outsiders
Christopher Paolini, Eragon
E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Gray
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
Tana French, In the Woods

Bill Mullins
Posts: 5911
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: Huntsville, AL
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 18th, 2018, 2:10 am

lybrary wrote:
Bill Mullins wrote:What it reveals to me is that the DIL may not have known what she was talking about. One the one hand, we have a second-hand account of her opinion that a man she was associated with for a short time near the end of his life decades before was a spendthrift; on the other hand, we have documented facts that he owned a house worth $5000 in 1930 at 5420 Harrison, he bought it sometime before 1920 and it remained in his family until after 1940; that he had a vacation property in addition; that his income was sufficient to support leisure activities like astronomy and book collecting. When they first were married, in 1910, his wife worked outside the home. But later, as he became more successful, she did not. He ran his own company, and was apparently respected in his field. The known facts of his life aren't consistent with her opinion, and don't sound like someone who let money slip through his hands.
Since we do not know how much the head of the Estimating Department at R.R. Donnelley made, nor what his prior employments made, you have no way of knowing how much of his income slipped through his fingers and how much he could save. All we know is that his DIL volunteered the slipping of money through his fingers aspect of his character.

The quote includes, "He couldn't hang on to [money]." The evidence is that he could hang on to money, enough to buy property; allow his wife to stop working; and waste some on leisure pursuits. The Daughter in law was wrong. Erdnase, on the other hand generally spent his "pretty money" "as freely as water."
Bill Mullins wrote:But like I said, you resolve ambiguities to support Gallaway.
I resolve ambiguities based on what I think is the most likely explanation taking everything I know into account.
And somehow all these resolutions conveniently point to Gallaway.

lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:and the fact is, we do know that individuals played cards based on the historical record.
We know that generally speaking, but not specifically for anybody.

We know it specifically for W. E. Sanders, and Edwin S. Andrews. Gallaway is the one who didn't play cards.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 9:05 am

Jackpot wrote:The examples of poetry penned by Sanders's which others have provided cannot be dismissed just because of the limitations of the analytical process which you have relied on.
It is not only the analytical process I have relied on, it is true for any known method to this date. This doesn't rule out that better methods will be developed in the future. But as the state-of-the-art of linguistic authorship attribution stands today, you cannot compare poetry with prose and make any inference about if the author is the same or not. As I pointed out previously, even if all the samples are from the same genre, say prose, differences in topic/subject dramatically reduce the effectiveness of all known methods. In the linguistic research community there has been lately a focus on trying to overcome that problem of source material from different subjects. So far I have not seen any new methods which produce reliable results for texts spanning different subject areas. Linguistic authorship attribution works reasonably well for uniform sample texts, but does not work well for samples spanning different subjects, and doesn't work at all for samples spanning different genres such as poetry and prose.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 9:14 am

Bill Mullins wrote:The Daughter in law was wrong.
Yes Bill, please continue your self-delusion. You think you know Edward Gallaway better than his own daughter-in-law. :lol:
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 9:25 am

Brad Henderson wrote:
lybrary wrote:]We know that generally speaking, but not specifically for anybody. . . Or do you have any historically relevant lists of names who played what game where and when?
.


you know chris, i just looked on the internet and there is no evidence of any individual ever playing cards.

not here

https://www.rightcasino.com/news/10-fro ... wild-west/

or here

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-gamblers.php

and definitely not here

https://www.ibuzzle.com/articles/famous ... story.html

https://www.gamblingsites.com/info/famous-gamblers/

and nothing here:

https://www.onlinegamblingsites.com/blo ... /2071/amp/

you’re right chris, there are NO records that can show any particular individual ever was known to play cards.

though unless i’m reading it wrong, jr seems we have direct citations that can put cards in the hands of Henry VIII and Rene Descartes but not so much with your guy
Compare this amount of knowledge of who gambled to the amount of knowledge we have about authors. There are very few writers from around 1900 who have written a substantial amount and who have gone unnoticed. I am sure there are some, but writing is an activity that is fixed on paper and paper has a good chance to survive for a long time. However gambling is not anything that is fixed in tangible form. That means we know most of the professional writers around 1900 by name, but we do not know most of the professional gamblers around 1900 by name. We know some professional gamblers by name, but that is only a tiny fraction of all the people who gambled professionally. There is a great disparity of information about these two activities. Consequently it is much easier to identify somebody as writer than to identify somebody as gambler.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 9:46 am

lybrary wrote:
Jackpot wrote:The examples of poetry penned by Sanders's which others have provided cannot be dismissed just because of the limitations of the analytical process which you have relied on.
It is not only the analytical process I have relied on, it is true for any known method to this date. This doesn't rule out that better methods will be developed in the future. But as the state-of-the-art of linguistic authorship attribution stands today, you cannot compare poetry with prose and make any inference about if the author is the same or not. As I pointed out previously, even if all the samples are from the same genre, say prose, differences in topic/subject dramatically reduce the effectiveness of all known methods. In the linguistic research community there has been lately a focus on trying to overcome that problem of source material from different subjects. So far I have not seen any new methods which produce reliable results for texts spanning different subject areas. Linguistic authorship attribution works reasonably well for uniform sample texts, but does not work well for samples spanning different subjects, and doesn't work at all for samples spanning different genres such as poetry and prose.


Jackpot is correct and hit the nail on the head.

You're mis-defining the problem as purely a quantitative/computational one. It isn't. The goal isn't to apply a set of comparatively crude tools that work in some cases but not in others. You're familiar with the drunk under the streetlamp anecdote, right?

As a simple example, if two texts refer to the same small piece of information that wasn't known elsewhere or use the same unusual idiom or metaphor, it will not even be detected, yet alone have any significance in any of the crude sorts of analyses you're insisting on. It requires semantic understanding and the application of knowledge to make those distinctions. Close reading and qualitative analysis can make such things obvious that you're just not going to find with the very limited "all known methods" you're referring to.

When Sanders refers to "shell game" and "faro" etc in a poem, that's every bit as relevant as if he did it in prose. Or to take another example, Shakespeare authorship scholars look far and wide for any obscure Warwickshire term to try to tie him to the man from Stratford-on-Avon. You really have to cast a wider net than just the quantitative methods you're insisting are the whole game. They're only one tool of many.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 10:18 am

Bob Coyne wrote:You're mis-defining the problem as purely a quantitative/computational one. It isn't.
What I said is true for purely quantitative methods such as stylometry, as well as qualitative ones such as classic forensic linguistics, which uses the approach you are using, to look at interesting, rare and unique words, phrases, conjunctions, punctuation, etc. to make an authorship attribution. Please show us any work, quantitative or qualitative, where a linguist made a successful authorship attribution across genres. From poetry to prose is one of the most extreme cases one could think of. Even for much less challenging cases such as making a comparison from fiction to non-fiction, there are no cases where this has been successfully done. There is not one successful case in the research literature, yet you say you can identify Erdnase just by looking at some poems. What a genius you are.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 10:24 am

I recently ran across something pretty remarkable that I haven't seen mentioned before. It's from an 1996 letter, among several available online that Bill Mullins pointed me at. Sanders, at the time, was at the Montana Historical Society.

We already know that Sanders’ early diaries and notebooks contain examples of him playing with and rearranging the letters in his own name. To me, that's one of the strongest factors in his favor, adding significant weight to the observation that his name is an anagram of Erdnase's.

In the letter, Sanders writes about the soon-to-be-adopted name for his home state of Montana: “It is a short, sightly, and simple name, and one of much euphonic beauty; one which the people of this state would not care to part with for any possible COMBINATION OF LETTERS.”

What an interesting and revealing way to describe a name! It shows that his predilection for thinking of names in terms of letter combinations extended well into his adulthood. This letter was written close to the time he unveiled his own combination of letters, the anagram S.W. Erdnase.

Brad Henderson
Posts: 4546
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 18th, 2018, 10:26 am

lybrary wrote:

]Compare this amount of knowledge of who gambled to the amount of knowledge we have about authors. There are very few writers from around 1900 who have written a substantial amount and who have gone unnoticed. I am sure there are some, but writing is an activity that is fixed on paper and paper has a good chance to survive for a long time. However gambling is not anything that is fixed in tangible form. That means we know most of the professional writers around 1900 by name, but we do not know most of the professional gamblers around 1900 by name. We know some professional gamblers by name, but that is only a tiny fraction of all the people who gambled professionally. There is a great disparity of information about these two activities. Consequently it is much easier to identify somebody as writer than to identify somebody as gambler.


ergo - was NOT a professional writer.

which is my point exactly.

and this was literally all from the first few references of a single google search of ‘famous card players’. i didn’t look at the history of poker rooms to see if they had tally’s or ledgers. We didn’t look for private gambling journals which people kept. Didn’t search a single newspaper for raids of gambling parlors.

you said we don’t have any evidence of individuals who played cards. one google search revealed that to be nonsense. Further the same search revealed not only that we have those records but we have records of people who were not knows as famous gamblers who can be shown to have played cards.

so you’re left with the ridiculous belief that we would have records of someone who may have written privately who was unknown as a writer in his day. You want to believe that people would have treated the archives of an unknown author of an unknown book as they did the archives of some of the most influential writers of their day.

do you really believe that? or is it your desperate attempt to dismiss the fact that many people have strong first public literary offerings, or only have one and then fade away?

the only reason you believe erdnase had to be a professional writer is because you want your candidate to be erdnase. So you engage in imagining what could be, and not what is.

or perhaps you just think someone could come as skilled and knowledgeable as erdnase from sitting in a room alone in front of a mirror.

sorry chris. your position here is completely groundless.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 10:54 am

Brad Henderson wrote:the only reason you believe erdnase had to be a professional writer is because you want your candidate to be erdnase. So you engage in imagining what could be, and not what is.
Where did I say Erdnase was a professional writer? He was somebody who had extensive writing experience. Doesn't need to be professional.

I have to accept that you do not understand the difference of available information. You think it is just as easy to find out if somebody was a gambler a hundred years ago than it was to find out if somebody was a writer a hundred years ago. I am not here to educate you, just to show that your logic is flawed.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 11:22 am

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:You're mis-defining the problem as purely a quantitative/computational one. It isn't.
What I said is true for purely quantitative methods such as stylometry, as well as qualitative ones such as classic forensic linguistics, which uses the approach you are using, to look at interesting, rare and unique words, phrases, conjunctions, punctuation, etc. to make an authorship attribution. Please show us any work, quantitative or qualitative, where a linguist made a successful authorship attribution across genres. From poetry to prose is one of the most extreme cases one could think of. Even for much less challenging cases such as making a comparison from fiction to non-fiction, there are no cases where this has been successfully done. There is not one successful case in the research literature, yet you say you can identify Erdnase just by looking at some poems. What a genius you are.


Rude and uncivil again. What a delightful discussion.

You're continuing to mis-define the problem. You're clearly focused on quantitative methods: "new methods" "reliable results" "samples spanning" "uniform sample" etc. If you allow for qualitative analysis (which I really don't think you are), then it's less an issue of new methods than of what salient information can be gleaned from historical context, other texts, biographical information, as well as the texts in question. The Warwickshire dialect in Shakespeare is one small example of that.

And regarding poetry vs prose, if you want another example, in Shakespeare, there are verse sections in his plays (Antony and Cleopatra, for example) that match with prose from Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. We know one text was derived from another. And, in this case, it's not only poetry vs prose but also a drama vs an historical account. There are other cases where untranslated foreign language texts are shown to have influence. So there's no need to restrict our domain to identical genres, forms etc. It's only in the limited quantitative methods you're so fond of where things need to be restricted in that way.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 11:38 am

Bob Coyne wrote:And regarding poetry vs prose, if you want another example, in Shakespeare, there are verse sections in his plays (Antony and Cleopatra, for example) that match with prose from Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. We know one text was derived from another.
Asking if one text was derived from another is a completely different question than asking if the authors are the same. Anybody can take a poem and use that as inspiration or source to derive something else, say a novel. Proving that the poem is the source for the novel doesn't say anything about the authors, if they were the same or not.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 1:18 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:And regarding poetry vs prose, if you want another example, in Shakespeare, there are verse sections in his plays (Antony and Cleopatra, for example) that match with prose from Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. We know one text was derived from another.
Asking if one text was derived from another is a completely different question than asking if the authors are the same. Anybody can take a poem and use that as inspiration or source to derive something else, say a novel. Proving that the poem is the source for the novel doesn't say anything about the authors, if they were the same or not.


Completely different? Are you serious? Actually it's a very related question, just with a slightly different context and presuppositions leading to different inferences drawn from the similarities. In fact there is even a theory that Thomas North wrote the plays because of the striking similarities in the texts I've mentioned. Once identifying the overlap, the texts can then be analyzed with historical and biographical information to determine if it's influence, collaboration, or the same author. The same goes for Marlowe/Shakespeare, by the way.

Note how this overlap even comes into play with Gallaway. Although Gallaway's writing is nothing like Erdnase and markedly inferior, it's possible he was influenced by him (we know he had the book on his shelf and used the unusual word "subterfuge"). So even if you think the texts are in some way similar, you have to grapple with the issue of influence vs identity.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 1:28 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Once identifying the overlap, the texts can then be analyzed with historical and biographical information to determine if it's influence, collaboration, or the same author.
Biographical and historical information is not linguistics. Of course other evidence besides linguistics matters, but it has nothing to do with the fact that in general a poem cannot be used to establish authorship of prose, and vice versa.

Bob Coyne wrote:Although Gallaway's writing is nothing like Erdnase and markedly inferior, ...
That is only your uninformed opinion. The expert linguist with decades of experience in the authorship attribution area Dr. Olsson thinks Gallaway writes very much like Erdnase, as do several who have posted here to this forum.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 2:11 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Once identifying the overlap, the texts can then be analyzed with historical and biographical information to determine if it's influence, collaboration, or the same author.
Biographical and historical information is not linguistics. Of course other evidence besides linguistics matters, but it has nothing to do with the fact that in general a poem cannot be used to establish authorship of prose, and vice versa.

Bob Coyne wrote:Although Gallaway's writing is nothing like Erdnase and markedly inferior, ...
That is only your uninformed opinion. The expert linguist with decades of experience in the authorship attribution area Dr. Olsson thinks Gallaway writes very much like Erdnase.


Actually that's my informed opinion. I've yet to read anything of Gallaway's that sounded like Erdnase, or for that matter sounded like a polished writer. What Olsson *thinks* is irrelevant. What's needed are good arguments and analysis. With Gallaway, that's a very difficult task, given that the writing just isn't up to snuff.

You can't make blanket statements about what a poem can or can't do. What can be done "in general" is a red herring. That's just part and parcel with insisting everything conform to the capabilities of quantitative methods. (Again, I'm not against quantitive methods, just pointing out that they have severe limitations.)

As I already mentioned, North's prose/history and Shakespeare's poetry/drama are definitively linked. Ditto for similarities between Marlowe and Shakespeare. Whether that similarity is due to influence, collaboration, or identity is a largely separate question than the relation between the texts themselves. So scholars start with the textual similarities and then make further inferences based on other sources of information (historical, biographical, literary references in other texts, etc). There is no "in general" in any of this.

Jack Shalom
Posts: 1368
Joined: February 7th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: Brooklyn NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » April 18th, 2018, 2:44 pm

The expert linguist with decades of experience in the authorship attribution area Dr. Olsson thinks Gallaway writes very much like Erdnase, as do several who have posted here to this forum.

I would think that an expert linguistic analysis would also need an expert understanding of the work being investigated.

For example, one can do all sorts of linguistic analyses of Shakespeare's work, but it would probably take a theater person to fully understand that the man who wrote those plays *had* to be an actor.

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 3:02 pm

Jack Shalom wrote:
The expert linguist with decades of experience in the authorship attribution area Dr. Olsson thinks Gallaway writes very much like Erdnase, as do several who have posted here to this forum.

I would think that an expert linguistic analysis would also need an expert understanding of the work being investigated.

For example, one can do all sorts of linguistic analyses of Shakespeare's work, but it would probably take a theater person to fully understand that the man who wrote those plays *had* to be an actor.


Great point! And likewise with Shakespeare, it also involves the knowledge he demonstrates of the court and various disciplines like the law, botany, falconry, etc. Understanding texts (and hence authorship) is not a matter of feeding data into some statistical model. One really has to become a subject matter expert (to the degree possible).

And just as importantly, understanding and comparing texts means hearing the "voices" of the authors. For example, I'm sure by now we can all identify different people here purely by the style, content and overall tenor of their posts, even if their names weren't attached. We do that intuitively and automatically, based on background knowledge and experience from having read previous posts. And then if we wanted we could go back and identify what in particular sounds like this person or that.

Putting both of those points together, I'd say it is necessary to fully and repeatedly read the authors in question, over an extended period of time, so as to internalize their voice(s) and integrate the content of what they are writing about.
Last edited by Bob Coyne on April 18th, 2018, 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Roger M.
Posts: 1598
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 18th, 2018, 3:04 pm

Jack Shalom wrote:I would think that an expert linguistic analysis would also need an expert understanding of the work being investigated.
.

^^^This^^^

Unfortunately, this incredibly important observation will be brushed aside by some as irrelevant ... and funnily enough, it will be brushed aside by the very same folks to whom the thinking noted in Jack's comment actually applies.

When some folks claim a deep, investigative and analytical understanding of EATCT - and when those very same folks couldn't do (or even describe) an Erdnase stock or cull shuffle if their lives depended on it ... it's difficult to take anything they say seriously - at least as it relates to EATCT or Erdnase.

EATCT is so much more than a mere assembly of words to be parsed.
99% of the folks posting to this thread understand this in spades ... and (unfortunately) 1% doesn't understand it at all.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 3:52 pm

Roger M. wrote:When some folks claim a deep, investigative and analytical understanding of EATCT - and when those very same folks couldn't do (or even describe) an Erdnase stock or cull shuffle if their lives depended on it ... it's difficult to take anything they say seriously - at least as it relates to EATCT or Erdnase.
This is where we clearly differ. I don't think somebody needs to be able to cull and stack cards to analyze the linguistics of Erdnase. One of the biggest problems of the entire Erdnase research is that it has for the most part been conducted by magicians. That produces group think, which we can nicely see in the arguments and candidates offered over the decades. Very few new ideas. I made a concerted effort to bring in various domain experts to shed new light on this question. This has the magicians here all stirred up. How dare non-magicians, folks who can't do a clean false shuffle, are making comments on our Erdnase. That is a very arrogant and ignorant position. But given all the 'geniuses' here not at all unexpected.

Bob Coyne wrote:Actually that's my informed opinion. I've yet to read anything of Gallaway's that sounded like Erdnase, or for that matter sounded like a polished writer.
I suggest you start with the preface of Expert and the preface of Gallaway's Estimating for printers.

Bob Coyne wrote:What Olsson *thinks* is irrelevant. What's needed are good arguments and analysis.
Yes we know, Bob. You are the ultimate authority when it comes to linguistics. Nobody else, and especially not anybody who isn't a bonafide magician, can be taken serious.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Roger M.
Posts: 1598
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 18th, 2018, 6:38 pm

lybrary wrote:This is where we clearly differ.

It's OK to differ Chris, lots of folks here differ with each other on everything from very minor points, to very major points. But the exchange is still pleasant, and there's always room to learn something new.
But it's the "differing" that often makes the conversion interesting.

lybrary wrote:That is a very arrogant and ignorant position. But given all the 'geniuses' here not at all unexpected.


Ahhhhh, You had me above Chris, thinking that you were giving a reasoned response that might lead to an interesting exchange. It's disappointing to see many (not all, but many) of your posts end with an insult directed at almost everybody else who posts to this thread

Well, there's always hope for next time.

Brad Henderson
Posts: 4546
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Location: austin, tx

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 18th, 2018, 6:54 pm

lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:the only reason you believe erdnase had to be a professional writer is because you want your candidate to be erdnase. So you engage in imagining what could be, and not what is.
Where did I say Erdnase was a professional writer? He was somebody who had extensive writing experience. Doesn't need to be professional.

I have to accept that you do not understand the difference of available information. You think it is just as easy to find out if somebody was a gambler a hundred years ago than it was to find out if somebody was a writer a hundred years ago. I am not here to educate you, just to show that your logic is flawed.


where did i say it would be ‘just as easy’ to find out if some one was a gambler 100 years ago as opposed to a writer?

what i said was, for someone as skilled as erdnase he would have had thousands of contacts with people across the gambling table and someone should be able to at least put a deck of cards into his hand.

My mom had experience writing but i doubt you would ever find any records of it or at least none you could identify as her work.

this idea that we would be able to find records of someone who was never known to be an author in their lifetime is utter nonsense. who would save such documents?


so if i understand it we have two candidates with writing experience and only one of which can we put a deck of cards into their hands - and you are willing to say anything to ignore that.

but hey, keep with the insults. it makes your case look SO MUCH more convincing when you have to resort to that sort of thing.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 7:44 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:where did i say it would be ‘just as easy’ to find out if some one was a gambler 100 years ago as opposed to a writer?
Wonderful, then you agree with me. That was my point. It is much harder on average to find out if somebody was a gambler than if somebody was a writer. Now that you agree let's see if you can follow this thought. If we do not find any evidence of writing, which should be relatively easy to find, it is a bigger problem for a case than if we find no evidence of gambling, which one is less likely to find.

Brad Henderson wrote:this idea that we would be able to find records of someone who was never known to be an author in their lifetime is utter nonsense. who would save such documents?
Now you confuse me. You were just arguing above that one ought to find records of gambling. But not of writing? And then you agreed that finding evidence of writing is easier than finding evidence of gambling. You are all over the place. I have no idea anymore what you are talking about. And you complain that Erdnase didn't explain clearly enough?

Brad Henderson wrote:so if i understand it we have two candidates with writing experience and only one of which can we put a deck of cards into their hands - and you are willing to say anything to ignore that.
I am not ignoring it, but you are misinterpreting the facts. First, back then essentially everybody had a deck of cards in their hands, because card playing was everywhere. Second, Gallaway had a deck of cards in his hands because he was interested in card magic. He owned a copy of Expert. Third, having writing experience is the lowest possible hurdle for a candidate to take. After that comes the linguistic fingerprint. The writing should be similar to Erdnase.

Roger M. wrote:But the exchange is still pleasant, and there's always room to learn something new.
No you don't want to have a discussion, and you certainly don't want to learn something. You reject the input from domain experts in areas you know little about, but you require that only people with card sleight-of-hand skills can offer anything relevant to the discussion of Erdnase. That is the definition of a hypocrite. No, you do not want to learn anything.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 7:52 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:What Olsson *thinks* is irrelevant. What's needed are good arguments and analysis.
Yes we know, Bob. You are the ultimate authority when it comes to linguistics. Nobody else, and especially not anybody who isn't a bonafide magician, can be taken serious.


I'll repeat: what's needed are good arguments, analysis, and evidence. You're the one constantly making both ad hominem attacks and arguments from perceived authority.

Leonard Hevia
Posts: 1951
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Dai Vernon, Frank Garcia, Slydini, Houdini,
Location: Gaithersburg, Md.

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » April 18th, 2018, 8:05 pm

lybrary wrote:This not being able to hang on to the money he made could very well be due to gambling at Faro.


I have yet to see any evidence to back up this twaddle. There is nothing in recorded history that points to Gallaway having gambled for high stakes money in his life. Clearly, evidence to Chris is an archaic bourgeois detail.

Roger M.
Posts: 1598
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 18th, 2018, 8:18 pm

lybrary wrote: No, you do not want to learn anything.


You're making the common error of confusing my desire to learn with my rejection of a teacher who doesn't actually have anything of value to teach.

But perhaps the most difficult issue to overcome when conversing with you Chris, is the fact that you fail now (as you've always failed) to understand that people who disagree with you personally, your research methods, or your general proposal of Gallaway as a candidate for Erdnase ... those people simply disagree with you, and in doing so are in no way, shape, or form rejecting learning something new.

You need to get over the fact that nobody here (save a couple of sock puppets) has ever bought into Gallaway being Erdnase since you began proposing him as a candidate ... at least get over it to the point where you don't feel the need to resort to insults and accusations directed at everybody participating in this thread, and doing so in every single post you make.

Gallaway wasn't Erdnase Chris ... once you get past that, you'll be on the road to much more pleasant relations with folks who post to this thread.
Gallaway remains however, a person of interest in the overall story, but at this point in time ... that's all he remains.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 8:51 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:I'll repeat: what's needed are good arguments, analysis, and evidence. You're the one constantly making both ad hominem attacks and arguments from perceived authority.
Yes, because your statements are so ridiculous and false that no other response is possible. Olsson has written a more than 40 page report. You have my ebook and thus you have his full report. So what are you talking about arguments, analysis, and evidence? There are lots of good arguments, analysis and evidence in his report, yet you state what he thinks is irrelevant. That is ridiculous.

Roger M. wrote:You're making the common error of confusing my desire to learn with my rejection of a teacher who doesn't actually have anything of value to teach.
When the student is ready the teacher will appear. You are not ready yet.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 9:45 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:I'll repeat: what's needed are good arguments, analysis, and evidence. You're the one constantly making both ad hominem attacks and arguments from perceived authority.
Yes, because your statements are so ridiculous and false that no other response is possible. Olsson has written a more than 40 page report. You have my ebook and thus you have his full report. So what are you talking about arguments, analysis, and evidence? There are lots of good arguments, analysis and evidence in his report, yet you state what he thinks is irrelevant. That is ridiculous.

So by the same logic, if someone finds your arguments ridiculous, then they should start insulting you? I'll refrain...

Regarding Olsson, I said that what he *thinks* (i.e. his opinion) is irrelevant. I didn't say his arguments are irrelevant. Those are either convincing/sound or not. Whenever you mention him, it's usually as some sort of authority, but you don't present much in the way of substance. Apparently that's all in your ebook. So yes, I do now have your ebook and believe it or not am interested in reading and evaluating what he says.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 10:05 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Regarding Olsson, I said that what he *thinks* (i.e. his opinion) is irrelevant.
Why is this irrelevant? His thinking, his opinion formed because of the analysis he did. You are rejecting the opinion of an expert, which you apparently haven't even studied, who has taken the time to study the evidence, apply his experience and knowledge, and then write down his analysis in detail. Regardless if you agree with his methodology and conclusions or not, to state his thinking is irrelevant is an insult to any intelligent discussion.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 10:54 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Regarding Olsson, I said that what he *thinks* (i.e. his opinion) is irrelevant.
Why is this irrelevant? His thinking, his opinion formed because of the analysis he did. You are rejecting the opinion of an expert, which you apparently haven't even studied, who has taken the time to study the evidence, apply his experience and knowledge, and then write down his analysis in detail. Regardless if you agree with his methodology and conclusions or not, to state his thinking is irrelevant is an insult to any intelligent discussion.

We're not talking about nuclear physics where advanced training is required to understand, let alone evaluate, the evidence and the arguments. Instead, we're trying to detect a personality behind the words...the common themes, ideas, and linguistic quirks exhibited through texts. The arguments pro and con are all readily understandable. Judging personality through language is something people do every day, though in a case like this it requires being intimately familiar with the texts themselves. If Olsson has additional evidence or arguments to contribute, then so much the better. It can all be evaluated along with everything else. That's how science and intellectual inquiry, more generally, works.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 18th, 2018, 11:18 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:If Olsson has additional evidence or arguments to contribute, then so much the better. It can all be evaluated along with everything else. That's how science and intellectual inquiry, more generally, works.
How amazingly kind of you that Olsson is allowed to contribute, your highness. Your arrogance is mind boggling.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 18th, 2018, 11:32 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:If Olsson has additional evidence or arguments to contribute, then so much the better. It can all be evaluated along with everything else. That's how science and intellectual inquiry, more generally, works.
How amazingly kind of you that Olsson is allowed to contribute, your highness. Your arrogance is mind boggling.

Huh? I was just stating the obvious. You seem to want to give Olsson's opinion special status. The only thing that matters is the quality of the arguments and evidence that he or anyone puts forward.

Leonard Hevia
Posts: 1951
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Dai Vernon, Frank Garcia, Slydini, Houdini,
Location: Gaithersburg, Md.

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » April 18th, 2018, 11:50 pm

lybrary wrote:Olsson has written a more than 40 page report. You have my ebook and thus you have his full report.


That 40 Olsson page report is the cornerstone of your campaign to push more of your Gallaway e-books out the door. It has its limitations and can't cover the glaring holes in your arguments for Gallaway like no evidence of ever having gambled at cards for money. Not even one card game! Ridiculous! The discoveries of a private detective in the hunt for Erdnase are far more convincing than the 40 page report of a linguist for hire.

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:00 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:The discoveries of a private detective in the hunt for Erdnase are far more convincing than the 40 page report of a linguist for hire.
Your detective missed that his candidate is too tall. :lol: You don't need to be a detective to notice that.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 12:13 am

lybrary wrote:
Leonard Hevia wrote:The discoveries of a private detective in the hunt for Erdnase are far more convincing than the 40 page report of a linguist for hire.
Your detective missed that his candidate is too tall. :lol: You don't need to be a detective to notice that.

If Sanders is too tall compared to Smith's recollection of 5'6", then Gallaway is too short. Time to brush up on your math!

User avatar
lybrary
Posts: 1169
Joined: March 31st, 2013, 4:59 pm
Contact:

Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:20 am

Bob Coyne wrote:If Sanders is too tall compared to Smith's recollection of 5'6", then Gallaway is too short. Time to brush up on your math!
Not at all. Smith said no taller than 5'6". Or in mathematical terms <=5'6". My estimate for Gallaway is smaller than 5'6" perfectly in line with Smith's statement.
Lybrary.com Magic & Gambling
preserving magic one book at a time

Bob Coyne
Posts: 717
Joined: January 26th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Charlies [sic]
Location: New York, NY

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 12:34 am

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:If Sanders is too tall compared to Smith's recollection of 5'6", then Gallaway is too short. Time to brush up on your math!
Not at all. Smith said no taller than 5'6". Or in mathematical terms <=5'6". My estimate for Gallaway is smaller than 5'6" perfectly in line with Smith's statement.

That's not exactly what Smith said. Smith was not speaking like a mathematician in terms of inequalities. What he actually said:

I think this fellow was about 5'6", at most 5'7". Could be he was 5'5".

And this was in response to Gardner pushing the 6' 1 1/2" MFA. So Smith was sticking to his guns of 5' 6" but allowing that he could have been an inch taller or shorter, but certainly not tall like MFA. Your best estimate for Gallaway is 5'2" based on the perspective in the photo. That's off by 4 inches. Even your high end, inferior "wingspan" estimate is off by 2 inches.
Last edited by Bob Coyne on April 19th, 2018, 12:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Roger M.
Posts: 1598
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 12:36 am

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:If Sanders is too tall compared to Smith's recollection of 5'6", then Gallaway is too short. Time to brush up on your math!
Not at all. Smith said no taller than 5'6". Or in mathematical terms <=5'6". My estimate for Gallaway is smaller than 5'6" perfectly in line with Smith's statement.


**EDIT** Bob posted as I was writing ... with the same correction for Chris.

Chris's note was what Smith said on Dec 13, 1946, and on May 20th, 1950

But what Smith said (exactly) on July 17th, 1950 was:

"I think this fellow was about 5'6", at most 5'7". Could be he was 5'5"."

In other words, Smith was saying Erdnase could have been anywhere between 5'5" and 5'7".
Whatever error margin you want to add on top of that is up to you, but Smith's final comment on Erdnases height certainly wasn't anything at all like Chris notes above.
Personally I'd put an error margin of two inches, making the final range Smith gave as anywhere from 5'3" to 5'9"
5'3" is getting a bit too short not to specifically comment that the guy was bordering on a midget, so it's likely more like 5'5" to 5'9".

(The above quote directly from #13 - edition of 250 of The Gardner-Smith Correspondence.)
Last edited by Roger M. on April 19th, 2018, 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Leonard Hevia
Posts: 1951
Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
Favorite Magician: Dai Vernon, Frank Garcia, Slydini, Houdini,
Location: Gaithersburg, Md.

Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » April 19th, 2018, 12:41 am

A 2 to 3 inch margin of error in height after 45 years is acceptable given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence surrounding Sanders. A height of 5'8 to 5'9 is still short enough for the 6'1 Smith to have looked down at him. If height is the best anyone can say to invalidate his candidacy, then Alexander, Kyle, and Demarest did their investigation well.


Return to “General”