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After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

nytimes.com

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Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#81

Post by agos »

elsjaako wrote: post #74
pklausler wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A learning curve is a model for how much you can learn over time. A subject with a steep learning curve is actually one that doesn’t take much time to reach a high level. It’s the subjects with shallow slopes that take more work to raise up to proficiency.

It's a bit of a fossilized error. Like "this begs the question of...", "head over heels", "sleeping like a baby", and "Have your cake and eat it too" everyone should understand what it means, even if it doesn't stand up to technical analysis.

obligatory random mention that the last one is how they caught the unabomber.

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#82

Post by agos »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #75
adastra22 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Magic Circle absolutely does not like revealing the trick. Penn and Teller are all about revealing the trick. They see it more or less as their moral duty to make sure you know THERE IS NO MAGIC HERE. I've always respected them a great amount for that. I'm glad that The Magic Circle finally came around.

Teller has sued at least one magician for revealing Tellers trick

I think it was because they sold the secret as theirs, not for revealing

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#83

Post by x______________ »

the_af wrote: post #13

Penn and Teller: Fool Us is amazing. I went on a binge a year or so ago, watching everything there was to watch on YouTube (which is a lot). I love how genuinely enthusiastic and encouraging of lesser known magicians they are. Always willing to celebrate their strengths instead of mocking them for their failures. And they are excellent magicians, too. My respect for Penn also went up after he realized his hardcore li…

>I went on a binge a year or so ago

I did the same a few years ago and it was one of the few series that kept me hooked, trying to figure out how the contestants try to fool Penn and Teller. I'll need to revisit for some newer episodes that I may have missed..

A bit off topic but no one else brought up Penn's great acting as Hal the system admin in Hackers (1995), a classic movie that everyone should be familiar with (and if not, worth checking out!).

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#84

Post by buu700 »

adastra22 wrote: post #68
simondotau wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of video of Teller speaking. Being mute is a stage performance thing, not a mystical lifestyle choice.

Example (and an interesting talk by the way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5x14AwElOk

It's interesting how that went from a cool magic trick demonstration to a profound lesson on human nature and manipulation tactics.

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#85

Post by osullip »

fenomas wrote: post #51
ohyes wrote: post #24

The thing I really love about magic is that so much of it boils down to “I practiced for years and developed a seemingly superhuman ability to manipulate this object”. I really relate to this because despite being at least ostensibly “gifted” my entire academic career, almost all of my professional success has been because I have been willing to climb steep learning curves at the expense of hours of my life and extre…

A good specific example of this that isn't widely known is the "muscle pass". It amounts to holding a coin in a classic palm position (dead center of the palm), then spending several months strengthening the palm muscles and developing a callus, until you can propel the coin a foot or so without noticeably moving your hand. Random video demonstrating: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJJNULXJT0Q

That's also a trick

Edit: but look, it's a good one. A little bit of reality mixed in so it looks cool

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#86

Post by mark-r »

arkmm wrote: post #33
tcoop25 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to any of their shows in Vegas, he hangs out after the show and talks with the fans. Felt very weird talking to him.

Unfortunately I think they have stopped doing this since COVID.

Maybe Vegas is different, but I saw them just a couple of weeks ago. They were doing a 50th anniversary performance at the place they did their first show together, the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. They hung around in the crowd for at least 20 minutes after the show, talking and letting people get selfies.

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#87

Post by InsideOutSanta »

exe34 wrote: post #77
unanimous wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, that meaning seems to be typical now. The opposite is the original meaning though. > Scores of authors use the phrase “steep learning curve” or “sharp learning curve” in reference to a skill that is difficult to master. . . . Nevertheless, from the standpoint of learning theory, these and other authors have it backward, because a steep learning curve, i.e., a curve with a large positive slope, is associated wit…

Yes, but most people can hold two competing definitions in their head at the same time!

Overlooking your comment, I sanction your opinion.

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#88

Post by zvr »

lisper wrote: post #62
ohyes wrote: post #24

The thing I really love about magic is that so much of it boils down to “I practiced for years and developed a seemingly superhuman ability to manipulate this object”. I really relate to this because despite being at least ostensibly “gifted” my entire academic career, almost all of my professional success has been because I have been willing to climb steep learning curves at the expense of hours of my life and extre…

> so much of it boils down to “I practiced for years and developed a seemingly superhuman ability to manipulate this object”. Amateur magician here (but a magician member of the Magic Castle, so I know a few things). Manual dexterity is certainly a useful skill, but it's just a tiny part of the art of magic. You can be a consummate sleight-of-hand artist and still be a mediocre magician, and conversely, some of the b…

You are absolutely correct.

When teaching this whole routine, Dani spends much more time on the psychological background and nudges that are used, rather than the physical card manipulation techniques.

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#89

Post by [deleted] »

Onavo wrote: post #19

I am not sure why they even bother...they are at the top of their fields and they are household names in America that are synonymous with magic. Not since Houdini has there been such famous magicians in show biz. The professional organizations should be naming prizes after them instead of them begging to be part of the in-group. You don't see Bill Gates, Jobs, or Torvalds begging to join the IEEE.

[deleted]

Re: After 50 years, The Magic Circle finally inducts Penn and Teller

#90

Post by rpdillon »

unanimous wrote: post #73
exe34 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the typical meaning of a learning curve is the path you walk up the hill - some hills are very steep, which takes a lot of effort.

True, that meaning seems to be typical now. The opposite is the original meaning though. > Scores of authors use the phrase “steep learning curve” or “sharp learning curve” in reference to a skill that is difficult to master. . . . Nevertheless, from the standpoint of learning theory, these and other authors have it backward, because a steep learning curve, i.e., a curve with a large positive slope, is associated wit…

Everyone is talking about curves, but no one's talking about how the axes are labeled.

Based on common usage of the term learning curve, I had thought of it much like a power curve where the y-axis is the amount of cumulative effort you have to put in to reach a particular point on the x-axis, which measures mastery. Sounds like the official definition is effort on the x-axis and the total amount you've learned on the y-axis, which would indeed invert the meaning from how I've understood it.

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