S06.E18: The Visions of Norman P. Horowitz

[Efzee]

I really enjoyed this episode yet couldn't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been a whole lot easier for the killer to just look up obituaries, write them in his brother's handwriting (or even better, digital and futz with the date on the doc or plan it in advance) and claim the brother wrote them before his demise instead of, you know, actually killing people?

[snarktini]

1 hour ago, Efzee said:

I really enjoyed this episode yet couldn't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been a whole lot easier for the killer to just look up obituaries, write them in his brother's handwriting (or even better, digital and futz with the date on the doc or plan it in advance) and claim the brother wrote them before his demise instead of, you know, actually killing people?

That's what my Occam's Razor theory was prior to the reveal. Brother wrote those after the deaths, but tells Sherlock they were written prior. Did anything contradict this being possible? That seems a whole lot more plausible than mind control.

[theatremouse]

I thought the bulk of the predictions had been made public before Norman died on the other suspect's website. Terry? So brother's plan only worked because the people who he was trying to convince of its realness (the people in that online community) had the list in advance. Hence he had to make those predictions come true. The book part was to sell to millionaire dude, but the bait on the hook was the stuff that was already online. I think? I don't have it recorded anymore to double-check the sequence, but the proper book on black paper was the endgame to sell, not the original source of Sherlock's (or anyone else's) knowledge that Norman had made the predictions in the first place. So writing new entries in the book didn't matter for the "proover" part of the trick.

[johntfs]

On 8/28/2018 at 4:44 PM, Magnumfangirl said:

I agree,  Sherlock giving away ALL the money was shortsighted and stupid, but I don't like the "Morland and his money are EVIL" crap from Sherlock.  The show hasn't really given us a reason to believe Morland is evil, it makes Sherlock look like one of those trustfundarians that hates daddy just because he needs something to rebel against.

It's not like Sherlock and Joan are destitute aside from the Brownstone.  Hell, if nothing else, recall that in the first episode of this season Sherlock extracted a few million dollar from somebody who (stupidly) thought he could bribe them to drop the case.

[paigow]

On 8/28/2018 at 3:25 PM, biakbiak said:

I have lived in Manhattan and routinely went to Grand Central to take Metro North to my parents house in CT and have never heard anyone use Terminal even though it’s its official name. Everyone I know says Grand Central or Grand Central Station.

The movie Inside Man used the distinction in the following trick question:

Clive Owen: Which weighs more? A: All the the trains that pass through Grand Central Station in a year

                                                        B: All the trees cut down to make the paper that US Currency is printed on in a year

[Ailianna]

Both trick questions whose answers have nothing to do with the way people really talk.

[biakbiak]

6 hours ago, paigow said:

The movie Inside Man used the distinction in the following trick question:

Clive Owen: Which weighs more? A: All the the trains that pass through Grand Central Station in a year

                                                        B: All the trees cut down to make the paper that US Currency is printed on in a year

Thanks for making me rewatch that awesome movie and I believe most Nyers got it wrong hence reinforcing the point that no one thinks of it at is Grand Central Station.

[Clanstarling]

On 8/28/2018 at 12:06 PM, thuganomics85 said:

So, the whole thing about groups of people believing we're all living in a simulation is basically taking the idea from The Matrix way too seriously, huh?  But I'm sure there really are people out there who believe it.  Granted, the case ends up revealing that the murders were partially done thanks to a drug that can almost control people's minds, so always expect the unexpected!

I expect Baskerville is a nod to Elon Musk, who I believe said something fairly recently along the lines that we might all be in a video game. Whether the initial idea of us living in a digital world was something the Wachowski siblings came up with out of whole cloth, or they heard about it and created an awesome movie from that thread of an idea, I don't know.

[shapeshifter]

On August 28, 2018 at 3:11 AM, Vermicious Knid said:

It's Grand Central Terminal.

Having not lived near NYC in decades, "Grand Central Station" is to me a description of a place or situation that is unusually crowded and chaotic.
But having never heard it called "Grand Central Terminal," I did a little reasearch.
Contributors to Wikipedia seems to explain that "Grand Central Terminal" is what it is (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal#cite_note-6 ), whereas "Grand Central Station" or "Grand Central" is what it is called (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal#Naming ).
Oxford English Dictionary entries seem to support this differentiation. Only one entry refers to "Grand Central Terminal," and it is a geographical description of the ediface, whereas 9 other entries refer to "Grand Central Station" in the cultural sense.

The next time I speak to my daughter—who has lived in Manhattan since 2001—I will get her take on it.

[paigow]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

The next time I speak to my daughter—who has lived in Manhattan since 2001—I will get her take on it.

Grand Central Station refers to a USPS facility..that has no train traffic running through it....Russell Gewirtz wrote the script of Inside Man so maybe he can provide an answer.....

[possibilities]

Every time I traveled through it, it was called GSS, not GST.

I haven't been there since the 1980s, but at least at that time, no one I knew said "terminal".

[NYCFree]

I turn 52 in a few days, and have lived in NYC most of my life. I don’t know anyone at all who refers to it as Grand Central Terminal. This includes my father-in-law who commuted to it five days a week for more than twenty years. I went to college north of the city and used Metro North from there to Poughkeepsie and always called it Grand Central Station. 

I love the character points this season. I hope they can keep it up next season.

[Vermicious Knid]

It's because I'm a native New Yorker I know that it's Grand Central Terminal. Official site.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

It's because I'm a native New Yorker I know that it's Grand Central Terminal. Official site.

This is a lot like my father's name. He didn't find out that the name he was called was his middle name until he enlisted in the military, and, even after that, no one ever called him by his "official" first name. He was known by his middle name for 91 years.

That "Official site" has been created by "Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated" (https://www.grandcentralterminal.com/terms-of-use/ ), which is "a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. Our vision is to reimagine the world of real estate" (http://www.jll.com/about ). I wonder if they will be more successful in getting the general public to refer to Grand Central by its official name than the U.S. Army was in changing the name my father was known as.

[biakbiak]

On 9/2/2018 at 10:20 PM, Vermicious Knid said:

It's because I'm a native New Yorker I know that it's Grand Central Terminal. Official site.

That being the official name and what is used by a vast majority of people aren’t the same thing. Many things are colloquially known by different things than their official name.

[basil]

Quote

 I'm sure the taxes on a Brooklyn brownstone are sky high, but not that high. 

The taxes on my brownstone in Brooklyn are about $2,000 a year.

Quote

It's because I'm a native New Yorker I know that it's Grand Central Terminal. Official site.

 

Quote

That being the official name and what is used by a vast majority of people aren’t the same thing. Many things are colloquially known by different things than their official name.

Exactly. When was the last time you heard anyone call 6th ave "The Avenue of the Americas"?

[paigow]

On 2018-09-04 at 5:43 PM, biakbiak said:

That being the official name and what is used by a vast majority of people aren’t the same thing. Many things are colloquially known by different things than their official name.

Just remember the real name if you get on Jeopardy....

[jhlipton]

On 8/30/2018 at 4:58 PM, theatremouse said:

I thought the bulk of the predictions had been made public before Norman died on the other suspect's website. Terry? So brother's plan only worked because the people who he was trying to convince of its realness (the people in that online community) had the list in advance. Hence he had to make those predictions come true. The book part was to sell to millionaire dude, but the bait on the hook was the stuff that was already online. I think? I don't have it recorded anymore to double-check the sequence, but the proper book on black paper was the endgame to sell, not the original source of Sherlock's (or anyone else's) knowledge that Norman had made the predictions in the first place. So writing new entries in the book didn't matter for the "proover" part of the trick.

@theatremouse has the timeline right.

[johntfs]

On 8/30/2018 at 6:58 PM, theatremouse said:

I thought the bulk of the predictions had been made public before Norman died on the other suspect's website. Terry? So brother's plan only worked because the people who he was trying to convince of its realness (the people in that online community) had the list in advance. Hence he had to make those predictions come true. The book part was to sell to millionaire dude, but the bait on the hook was the stuff that was already online. I think? I don't have it recorded anymore to double-check the sequence, but the proper book on black paper was the endgame to sell, not the original source of Sherlock's (or anyone else's) knowledge that Norman had made the predictions in the first place. So writing new entries in the book didn't matter for the "proover" part of the trick.

As I understood it, Norman died.  Then the brother uploaded the predictions onto the Simulation "Theory" (since there's no real way to test it, Simulation Theory is really Simulation Wild-ass Guess, but whatever) from a new user account, at which point they were pretty much ignored even by the community on that forum until the news story broke.   We can figure the predictions weren't uploaded before Norman died because he'd have recognized them since he was the one who'd made them.  Also, Norman was a (presumably active) member of that forum given that the site administrator knew about the Visions book.

[Ceindreadh]

On 6/9/2018 at 7:28 PM, johntfs said:

As I understood it, Norman died.  Then the brother uploaded the predictions onto the Simulation "Theory" (since there's no real way to test it, Simulation Theory is really Simulation Wild-ass Guess, but whatever) from a new user account, at which point they were pretty much ignored even by the community on that forum until the news story broke.   We can figure the predictions weren't uploaded before Norman died because he'd have recognized them since he was the one who'd made them.  Also, Norman was a (presumably active) member of that forum given that the site administrator knew about the Visions book.

According to Doctor Who, random numbers are the way to go if you want to test whether you’re in a simulation or not. 

 

Loved the the quick glimpse of the expression on Marcus’s face when Sherlock said he’d go home and play with the gold in his kitchen. 

Nitpick, Yeats is pronounced to rhyme with dates, not with Keats.