http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1
What are going to do about the third of the population that fervently believes in astrology?
Same way we deal with the bible thumpers when we teach evolution?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Wait...America may not be the best example for that....
Yes, we have 'Freedom of religion', not 'from'. sux dunnit?
Cool article, Minx. Tempted to go blow a few dollars on some scratch tickets and see if I can data mine them now...
Neat stuff, makes me consider studying stat and math in college...
*throws all his money into scratch tickets, only to find out they were all handpicked losers*
Edit:
So, to put it simply. They put the numbers in randomly, and then replaced the numbers until they got the distribution of winning lotto tickets that they wanted. Such an algorithm is something you'd expect a student in a high school programming class to make up over lunch break.
Could this all be an insidious ploy to tempt people interested in the math into participating in the lotto system?
I wonder how many stores really would let you return unscratched tickets, though.
Summer camps in PolandQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
No. They can't use a really random distribution since they have to have a defined number of winners and losers for a lotto system to make sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Don't know about anywhereQuote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
else, but here it is illegal to return tickets. Once purchased, they're yours.