How's the hair?

just buy the $100 Ferrari raffle ticket and be set. haha.

I called a software company in London a few years ago. The receptionist that answered was very Brittish. She had a really thick accent, and talked really fast. There wasn't a word she said that wasn't English and she didn't use any slang, but I had to think a minute to figure out what she said. In the short time we talked to get transferred to the tech it made my brain hurt.

imagine if she was further north in England! I dated a Stokie for a while. it felt like we spoke completely different languages sometimes.

I've been thinking about it...

Uh oh! I think I just corrupted one of Dave's kids. Informed Dave that his eldest is legal to drink beer in England when out with the parents. Got a message from his son asking about which beer to order first. :D

Have a good time, Dave! :D

Wonder how many of those raffle tickets you would have to buy to win versus the cost of actually purchasing one?

Did some chaos theory math on the lottery and was able to kind of pick the winning numbers 80% of the time. Chaos theory is based on the fact there are so many variables you can't predict the actual numbers but you can get close. The actual numbers are called the strange attractors and the predicted numbers will gravitate towards those strange attractors.

They have the winning numbers available on-line for the past two years. I put all those numbers in a database and graphed them were the x is the date and the y is the possible numbers. This shows the distribution of numbers. The pattern of dots for the winning numbers as you scroll down the dates was very interesting. Instead of looking completely random they look more like water drops running down a window. This pattern shows most of the next numbers were within a few numbers of the last numbers. Every once in a while there would be a big jump, but that is what makes the chaos part of Chaos Theory.

So how do you use this to pick the winning number? You take the pattern and determine the spread from the last winning number to the next closest winner on the next drawing. This makes the 5 last winning numbers the strange attractors and the spread how close the predictor needs to be. So if say a winning number was 5 and the spread is 4 your predictors would be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, or 9. That's 9 possible numbers for each of the 5 balls. That makes 9 to the power of 5 or 59,049 possible combinations, the number of tickets you would buy. The larger the spread the more tickets you need to purchase. The idea is to find the lowest possible spread to have the winning numbers in your set of possible combinations.

You don't include the powerball because it is drawn from a separate set of balls where the 5 balls come from the same set of balls.

Now the logistics of purchasing 59,049 tickets. There are 5 entries per card with 5 numbers for each entry. Say you can mark the 5 entries ahead of time or while the clerk is scanning your previously marked cards. It takes the clerk an average of 30 seconds to scan the card and take your money. For 59,049 entries thats 11,810 cards or 98 hours to purchase the tickets. The longest time between drawings is 4 days. It would take 3 people 9 hours a day for 4 days to buy the tickets spending a total of $120,000. Getting 5 balls wins $1,000,000. To make it all equal each person would invest $40,000 to win $333,333 before taxes. Oh and be sure to keep all the receipts for all those tickets because you can expense them off the winnings to pay less taxes.

Does the fact this was entertaining make me a math freak?

Oh man, that big post made this site really slow.

It's Friday!!!

Why does this make me think of a lawn sprinkler?

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/...if?w=500&h=375

Richard, if your math really worked with the lottery someone would be doing it. Even if all the people involved got a cut it would be lucrative. Just keep playing and make decent money until the system collapses. It has not happened.

Good Friday morning folks!

Oh but there was a corporate group that did it and won. I think I remember there were 3 main backers and they were from Australia. It was a huge effort and they hired people to stand in line and buy the tickets. I remember seeing story about it with people lined up at the stores you could buy tickets. The problem comes with the logistics of the huge number of tickets you have fill out and buy. Thats why the claimed they wouldn't be doing it again.

I haven't checked, there may be a limit to the number of tickets one person or entity can buy.

Finded wheels me likey...

http://www.zipbang.com/955S/HomeRS.jpg

Come from a Cayenne GTS. Maybe I can find some take offs real cheap.

Well, the ticket cost is supporting a local school (sister school to my high school) and it is tax deductible (according to the raffle web page at the bottom) so I figured I would get a ticket. Probably won't win, but what the heck.

They told us the lottery was supporting education, but the schools STILL say they don't have any money. Especially come election time.

We could double the money we give to "education" every year and they would still say they don't have enough. Our school system is only slightly more efficient that the US post office and the US congress. About equal to the US military.

We have 72 counties and 520 school districts. Each district has it's own bloated overstaffed and overpaid administration.

And there are many private schools that take the load off the public schools.

Our school system needs a total overhaul from top to bottom and that will happen right after bigfoot comes out of the woods riding a unicorn with a solution for middle east peace.

morning all, finally back home, doing the washing and the normal stuff.

Reconnected the 911's battery and will let her have a bit of a start up and warm up and take her for a run, its been 5 weeks so will let everything oil up.

Midget wants a haircut, and it was just starting to look nice long, but after being called a girl several times whilst on hols, he wants it gone!!

Do you have that problem Dave? lol

Money money everywhere yet no public service or office ever has any.

The USA is going to heck now. Just heard an ad on TV that the USPS now delivers on SUNDAY!

The post office will deliver on Christmas day as well. It costs a lot but it is an option. I am sure Sunday delivery is not for standard mail.

Uh oh. Some sad news. Spooky is not long for this world.

USAF to Retire AC-130H Spectre Gunships Over the Next Two Years :: Air-Attack.com News