Tanaka did something good

Hey guys, remember our old friend Tanaka - well he posted an item in the rec.puzzles newsgroup. I answered him of course - imagine he was here for months and never learned how to spell A LOT. What an idiot, anyway....the magic site he linked to is FANTASTIC - it does a trick on the web. It worked 4 times in a row for me.

Anyone know how it is done?

Tomoyuki Tanaka wrote:

Tanaka, Even though I hate your constant racist comments in other newsgroups and 'alot' is two words, not one, I must say that magic web site is fantastic. Mike

Um, Mike? The trick is as flimsy as most of Tanaka's arguments.

Take a REAL GOOD LOOK at the cards before you select. NONE of them show up two screens later.

Dave a �crit dans le message : [email]...

Still ..I had fun with that at work today .Thanks Mike

Mo

"The News Guy(Mike)" wrote:

I just figued it out - now I feel stupid - very simple but fun.

Please enlighten us!!! I have no clue how this could work, and it's creeping me out. Jeremy

Just got it! Jeremy

I didn't see the post or go to the web site, but from the description, I'm guessing it has to do with picking a card and having it magically removed, as if the web site could read your mind.

If so...

I got a kick out of it, too. It's a good one. But they should have shuffled up the cards a bit, so that when you reload the page, not only the same set are displayed (I noticed an absence of lower number cards for some reason). But maybe the cards they *did* use have a psychological "edge" for recognition, etc. Or maybe they just didn't expand the idea of having... well, I don't want to be a total spoiler...

When trying to goad others into thinking about the answer, I figured:

(1) How can the computer know which card you picked?

(2) What if four people were viewing the site on the same monitor, and each picked a different card. Would it work for all of them?

(3) So that means...

(4) And from there it follows, that...