Well, that's about the dumbest fucking piece of "logic" used to solve a TV show crime

[elfkin477]

Spoilers for last night's Boomtown figure into this rant.





*****Spoiler space******






So the miff-mucher writing staff at Boomtown decided that the biggest clue for revealing who killed the chick (and fuck you feminists who hate the term, btw, I happen to like it. Small, sort of fuzzy, with sharp claws and beaks, sounds like me.) on the show last night was that the fucking mouse was on the god damn right side of her shitty computer. The problem being, according Obi Wan Cop, is that she's a leftie. " A left-hand person, like myself, would have the mouse on the left," he brilliants, which, of course is the clue to knowing that her Dad, former boy-whore (wasn't that a touching scene?) used her computer and saw a video of her screwing the guy she was tutoring, which is what made dear old Dad snap and kill her because he thought she was taking up the family profession. Ok, yeah, her dad did it....

But what the fuck kind of logic is that? Lefties don't always use the mouse with their left-hand (or hands in the case of multiple lefties) you asshats! It makes me sad to think that if I were murdered someone like Obi Wan Cop would deduce that someone had used my computer because of the placement of my mouse. It's on the right side!!! I'm the only one to use it, and I use it with my right hand. I suppose it would blow the writers little minds to know that a lot of lefties also use the mouse with their right hands as well. That sort of thing is common in lefties who learned how to use a computer in school. Why didn't you ask a few lefties before writing the damn show?

Yeah, yeah, it's a show, but Jesus, what's next week, them revealing that a killer can't be a man because the toilet seat was left down in the victim's bathroom??

The writers of this episode should have their mouse crammed where the sun doesn't shine, then observe which hand they use to remove it. And no disinfecting between writer's asses, either.

[KidCharlemagne]

Just for the record it doesn't have to be that all lefties use there left hand to be able to draw that conclusion. You would also know he was left-handed if all righties placed the mouse to their right. Right? Not that they do, just playing Sherlock.

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by KidCharlemagne
You would also know he was left-handed if all righties placed the mouse to their right. Right? Not that they do, just playing Sherlock.

How??

[KidCharlemagne]

Well since we only have two hands if ALL righties use their right hand for the mouse then by deduction someone using the mouse with their left can't be righty and must therefore be lefty. Of course I suppose someone could put the mouse on their left and use it with their right hand but that would be a bit uncomfortable.

[NYR407]

Yeah Elfkin, that is bad logic unless they knew she always used her mouse with her left hand. Did they know that or just assume it? I am also guessing this was her personal computer and didn't share with other people in her household.

FTR, I am a lefty and never use my left hand as my mouse hand. Does that make me left handed and right moused?

[AveDementia]

Originally posted by elfkin477
miff-mucher

What the fuck is that? Are you talking with your mouth full or something?






;)

[Scarlett67]

My dad is right-handed and mouses with his left hand -- because that is the hand with the most fingers (3) that work properly. Rheumatoid arthritis is a bitch.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Another leftie that uses the mouse on the right side. I've only ever known one leftie who used the mouse on the left side -- my former housemate -- and since I had to fix her computer (or use its printer) on occasion, I gave her so much hell for that setup that she eventually changed it. She now lives by herself, and still uses the mouse on the right-hand side.

Sounds like a dumbass show to me.

Daniel

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by KidCharlemagne
Well since we only have two hands if ALL righties use their right hand for the mouse then by deduction someone using the mouse with their left can't be righty and must therefore be lefty. Of course I suppose someone could put the mouse on their left and use it with their right hand but that would be a bit uncomfortable.

Oh, ok, but the point they made was that the mouse was [i]on the right[/b] (not the left) so since it wasn't on the left, even if all righties used it on the right it would prove nothing about which hand she used. I think. Obi Wan Cop knew she was a leftie from her soft-ball picture, then came up with the theory that someone had been using her computer because of the mouse placement, so it's not as if he'd decided from where the mouse was that she was left-handed, just that the mouse's placement was "wrong" for a leftie.

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by Fairblue
What the fuck is that? Are you talking with your mouth full or something?


Ha, no. There's another pit thread about the necessity of coming up with more creative slurs than "asshats." :p

[Ferret Herder]

See, if they'd checked the desk surface and seen the distinct outline of a mousepad in a "leftie mousing position", and some dust under the right-side mousepad, I might buy the "someone else was using her computer" thing. (I assume the prints had been wiped off the mouse by the killer, or was seeing the mouse on the "wrong side" just the mental clue that someone else had been using the computer and seen something?)

I didn't see the episode, so maybe if the detective had out of curiosity checked for those things, I would have understood that line of reasoning.

[KidCharlemagne]

elfkin477,
Rest assured I wasn't backing up the logic of his deduction. And your right about it not proving anything if that's how he came to the conclusion.

[Dragonblink]

Okay, so my left-handed brother put his mousepad on the left side. Years of using his computer made it so that I (a righty) did too. Does that mean if I'd been killed they'd've looked at my left-side mousepad and assumed my brother killed me?

Hmm, there's some sibling revenge ... ;)

[Max Carnage]

You know, it's very possible that Obi Wan (I can't remember the guy's name either..the guy who'll tell you a story if you ask) knew he didn't have anything concrete; just wanted Killer Dad to know he was on to something and hoped he slipped up, which he did. Dad could have said, "Nope, she always used it like that" and then gone on his way, but he wanted to spill his guts.

Though why he'd want to tell about his "love you long time" childhood is beyond me.

[mhendo]

I also watched Boomtown and, being a leftie who mouses with my right hand, was pretty startled that this was enough to convince the cops that the guy did it.

Anyhow, it wasn't a piece of logic, but a piece of Logitech (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=146988) that solved the crime. :) D&R

[amarinth]

Originally posted by DanielWithrow
Sounds like a dumbass show to me. Actually, it's a pretty good show. (Unlike the nightmare that is "The Practice," which just sucks this season) Last night was even pretty good...outside of the stupid "logical wrapup" that the OP's about.
Why on earth didn't they just notice that the DNA was ridiculously close to the victims (they'd done DNA analysis) and find the killer that way?

[Raygun99]

I think you're all putting well too much weight on this piece of evidence and how it fit into the plot. The father was not arrested and convicted on the fact that he had moved the mouse over to the right side of the keyboard. What it was was a piece of evidence that 'didn't fit' and made the father a suspect. Then cobined with the other facts they had observed, they pressed for a confession. At the time that the detective (Donnie Wahlberg -- yes, that Donnie Wahlberg, and how the hell did he get to be such a compelling actor?) moved the mouse over, I thought, "Hmm, that was an odd detail..." so it's completely within the scope that he would remember this being out of place.

Now it could have turned out that the father didn't move the mouse and the daughter didn't use it on the left side. The father wouldn't have known this though and you could still press him to confess to the crime based on this. I would wager that the majority of lefties use the mouse on the left side so playing the percentages makes a lot of sense.

[Kalashnikov]

Another leftie here. I can use the mouse with either hand, but I usually use the right. I like having my dominant hand free to do other things.

[GrizzRich]

Were the left-click/right-click options switched as well?

I dunno..... just had to add SOMETHING to this.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Hey -- here's a real clue they coulda used, on this basis.

My housemate who put her mouse on the left side also reversed the mouse buttons: left-clicking with her mouse was like right-clicking with a normal mouse. I'm assuming this is because you want your forefinger to be doing most of the clicking, since you have more dexterity with your forefinger (?).

So if the cops had discovered that the mouse was on the right-hand side of the computer (an easy change for a right-handed person to make), but that the buttons were set up for a leftie (a more difficult change to make), that might, maybe, have tipped them off.

Of course, that would've been a pretty abstract point to explain in a TV show, and it still wouldn't have been great evidence.

And the show may normally be great. I'm not a big fan of crime dramas, unless they involve vampires, though, so I'll probably never see it.

Daniel

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Dammit, Grizz, howzabout stealing my idea for me? :D

Daniel

[Bricker]

I'm right-handed, but my mouse is on the left-hand side of the computer. Up until this summer, it was on the right-hand side, but after I began feeling pain which turned out to be carpal tunnel syndrome (undoubtedly inflicted as punishment for the years in which I would silently think to myself that all those claiming "carpal tunnel syndrome" were just malingering) the mouse was moved to the left and I've taught myself to use it with the left hand.

I figure I have another 10-15 years before I screw up my left wrist.

:)

- Rick

[Gravity]

I'm a leftie and the only person that I know that mouses with their left hand is my right-handed stepfather. He wanted to set the computer up so that it was on the far right side of the desk. That only left the left side for mousing- and he didn't switch the buttons, either. It makes troubleshooting their computer a bit of an adventure.

I figure that he does it to punish anybody who wants to use his computer.

[clayton_e]

Originally posted by Gravity
I'm a leftie and the only person that I know that mouses with their left hand is my right-handed stepfather. He wanted to set the computer up so that it was on the far right side of the desk. That only left the left side for mousing- and he didn't switch the buttons, either. It makes troubleshooting their computer a bit of an adventure.

I figure that he does it to punish anybody who wants to use his computer.


Jesus...

I have almost the exact same story. I'm a leftie. I do everything left handed except my use of the mouse. I do that right handed on the right side of the keyboard.

And it's my Grandfather who set his mouse on the left side (even though he is right handed) and uses it quite well in that manner simply because he felt there was more space on that side of the keyboard. It's a pain in the ass to troubleshoot for him.

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by amarinth
Actually, it's a pretty good show. (Unlike the nightmare that is "The Practice," which just sucks this season) Last night was even pretty good...outside of the stupid "logical wrapup" that the OP's about.
Why on earth didn't they just notice that the DNA was ridiculously close to the victims (they'd done DNA analysis) and find the killer that way?

I don't know, I liked it at first but I'm starting to lose hope. First two weeks of " s/he would have gotten away with it had someone who liked them not figured it out at the last minute from clues not revealed until then" (the hostage and insurance scam) and now this...the show is getting lamer by the week, which is not a good sign in the 1st season. OTOH, I didn't realize until a few days ago that The Practice was still on the air, so I suppose things could be worse.

[Bryan Ekers]

I, a lefty, mouse on the left at home and the right at work. I've never bothered reversing the buttons because then I'd just make it harder for myself to keep track of which button to use.

That whole left-hand/right-hand whodunnit bit has always annoyed the hell out of me. Jeez, if I really had to kill someone, I'd wouldn't stop to worry about which hand to use. I'd just start stabbing.

[Miller]

Well, that's about the dumbest fucking piece of "logic" used to solve a TV show crime.


Clearly, you haven't been watching John Doe.

[Barbarian]

I'm right handed, and use the mouse with my left, without switching the buttons over. I'm the only person in my office (and probably building) who mouses left, even though there are at least a dozen left-handed people on my floor.

It's damn amusing when people want to use my machine, and cross their arms over trying to use the mouse and keyboard.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally posted by Miller
Clearly, you haven't been watching John Doe.

Actually the single most preposterous TV mystery resolution I've ever seen was on Matlock. Andy Griffith was questioning a witness (a slim attractive woman) and managed to get her to reveal that she was in fact a he, a cross-dressing homicidal lunatic. Now, if the character had been played by an actor or actress that could convincingly play both genders, we might have had something, but the revelation consisted of little more than a shot of the actress on the stand, a cut to Matlock, than a cut back to the stand and an obviously different actor now wearing a dress and five-o'clock shadow and speaking in a much deeper voice. The actor and actress purportedly playing the two "sides" of this character didn't even resemble each other. AAGH!

That was the last episode of Matlock I ever watched.

[ENugent]

In one of my Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid, the hero deduced that both members of a couple were cross-dressing as a disguise, because they sat in a restaurant with the "man" facing the room. How many people even still know that rule, let alone would apply it in such a bizarre way?

[mnemosyne]

The woman is supposed to face the room? I didn't know that was a rule, but you know, thats how I always sit too....I think it's just paranoia of someone coming up behind me (I don't even really like talking to the wait staff), or someone trying to steal my purse if it's behind me, facing the rest of the room. I never noticed if this was something other people do, though....

[Miller]

Bryan: You win.