Statistician finds big flaw in scratch-off lottery tickets

Wired has a fascinating story of a statistician who found a fatal flaw in some scratch-off lottery tickets, allowing him to pick winning tickets 90% of the time.

As he points out, the games offer only the illusion of chance.

Srivastava realized that the same logic could be applied to the lottery. The apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie. And this meant that the lottery system might actually be solvable, just like those mining samples. “At the time, I had no intention of cracking the tickets,” he says. He was just curious about the algorithm that produced the numbers. Walking back from the gas station with the chips and coffee he’d bought with his winnings, he turned the problem over in his mind. By the time he reached the office, he was confident that he knew how the software might work, how it could precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. “It wasn’t that hard,” Srivastava says. “I do the same kind of math all day long.”

That afternoon, he went back to work. The thrill of winning had worn off; he forgot about his lunchtime adventure. But then, as he walked by the gas station later that evening, something strange happened. “I swear I’m not the kind of guy who hears voices,” Srivastava says. “But that night, as I passed the station, I heard a little voice coming from the back of my head. I’ll never forget what it said: ‘If you do it that way, if you use that algorithm, there will be a flaw. The game will be flawed. You will be able to crack the ticket. You will be able to plunder the lottery.’”

via Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code | Wired Magazine.

Could the Internet be shut down in US?

Wally Bowen of the Mountain Area Internet Network ponders whether the U.S. could be cut off from the Internet the way Egypt was.

After seeing what some anti-spam servers can do, I can say wholeheartedly that it can.

On National Public Radio last Saturday, host Scott Simon opined that a “central shutdown” of the Internet as occurred in Egypt was “unthinkable if not impossible” in the United States given the “thousands of Internet routes and providers” here.

Simon noted that Egypt’s four primary Internet service providers could be shut down “with just a few phone calls.” But the U.S. has only four companies — Comcast, Time-Warner, AT&T and Verizon — controlling most of our broadband access. More than 90 percent of U.S. broadband users have only one or two providers, a cable or telephone company, to choose from.

via Could the Internet be shut down in US? | citizen-times.com | Asheville Citizen-Times.

Smoking Ban Approved for New York Parks

On the heels of Raleigh restricting smoking in its parks, New York City has banned smoking in its parks and beaches. Times Square is even included.

New York now joins Raleigh, Los Angeles, and Chicago in restricting smoking in its parks.

After a bitter debate over individual liberties and the role of government, the City Council on Wednesday handily approved a bill to ban smoking in 1,700 city parks and along 14 miles of city beaches.By a 36-to-12 vote, the Council passed the most significant expansion of antismoking laws since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pushed to prohibit smoking in restaurants and bars in 2002.

By a 36-to-12 vote, the Council passed the most significant expansion of antismoking laws since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pushed to prohibit smoking in restaurants and bars in 2002.

The Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said the ban was an affirmation of the rights of nonsmokers. “Their health and their lives should not be negatively impacted because other people have decided to smoke,” Ms. Quinn said at a news conference.

via Smoking Ban Approved for New York Parks and Beaches – NYTimes.com.

The value of editing, exhibit A.

N.C. State Wolpfack!


My friend Scott sent in this prime example of the need for editing. N.C. State’s 2010 baseball media guide had an egregious typo right on the front cover.

These media guides are printed in full-color on the highest-quality paper. They cost a fortune to print. And, they’re distributed to journalists: people who have an eye for typographical errors.

“Wolpfack!” Ouch!

Coming of age in America

I have often thought that in America we do a lousy job at bestowing adulthood upon our children. Coming of age rituals for Americans are all over the map, with no rhyme or reason. Instead, we have several milestones scattered throughout various years in a way that leaves kids wondering when they’re officially grown up.

The first big milestone is becoming able to drive. Even that varies in age from state to state but definitely by the age of 16. After one gets one’s driver’s license, there’s another two years before one gains the right to vote and be drafted into the military.
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Email extortion?

Get out of jail free ... err, for $20

Somehow, the hosted server I use for my mailing lists has gotten flagged by Barracuda Networks as being a source of spam. This means I can no longer send email to my neighbors with att.net (or Bellsouth.net), aol.com, or Time Warner email addresses.

The idea that I would spam is of course absurd (as these two RBL checkers can confirm) but because I’ve been working with spam and “realtime black hole” lists for years I understand that false positives can sometimes occur.

What galls me about Barracuda’s approach is their proposed solution: fork over $20 per year per domain and we’ll never accuse you again. It smacks of extortion.

To Barracuda’s credit, they did promptly remove my IP from their “poor reputation” list and this change will presumably percolate to the big-name ISPs which use Barracuda products. Still, it’s an eye-opening example of what can happen to the Internet when resources are concentrated in the hands of a few companies.

Report warns of Iran nuke disaster from Stuxnet

A follow-up about Stuxnet. The AP, citing an intelligence report from an unknown country, says Stuxnet threatens the plant’s (and the public’s) safety.

VIENNA – The control systems of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant have been penetrated by a computer worm unleashed last year, according to a foreign intelligence report that warns of a possible Chernobyl-like disaster once the site becomes fully operational.

Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, also has raised the specter of the 1986 reactor explosion in Ukraine, but suggested last week that the danger had passed.

The report, drawn up by a nation closely monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and obtained by The Associated Press, said such conclusions were premature and based on the “casual assessment” of Russian and Iranian scientists at Bushehr.

With control systems disabled by the virus, the reactor would have the force of a “small nuclear bomb” it said.

via AP Exclusive: Report warns of Iran nuke disaster – Yahoo! News.

GOP fundraiser barely covers cost

And these are the financial geniuses who are supposedly going to rescue America from its fiscal crisis?

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) caught lots of flak earlier this year for hosting a swank, rock ‘n’ roll fundraiser months after his freshman class was swept to Washington after promising a renewed commitment to frugality and economic restraint.

And all that ire was before the nearly $80,000 in expenses was disclosed.

It was a particularly bizarre event, even by Washington standards. Denham invited the media to the W Hotel before the event, where he vowed that “we’re conservatives but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”

The money that the PAC raised hardly covered the cost of the event — it took in $85,000. The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians donated $50,000 to the committee, and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians Native donated $25,000. Blue Shield of California’s PAC chipped in $5,000 and the American Association of Clinical Urologists and a Tennessee-based donor gave $2,500 each.

via GOP rookies’ LeAnn Rimes fundraiser cost nearly $80K – Jake Sherman – POLITICO.com.

Villa Real at Seaboard Station

Villa Real in Feb. 2009, courtesy of Steve Rhoade

A few weeks ago, the family and I stopped in to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Peace Street China, for some take-out dinner. As our order was being prepared, Travis and I wandered over to look at the trains in the CSX rail yard.

As we wandered up to the edge of the yard I saw that the owners of the private rail cars were there, working to restore them. It was the first time since I saw the cars appear almost a decade ago that I’d seen anyone working on them. According to a few web searches, the Villa Real is owned by Herman Page and Al Sauer, though I don’t remember now which owner I met. The baggage car next to the Villa Real was also being worked on and I met the owner of that one, too.
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The value of editors

Big Boss boo boo

I love editing so much that I married an editor. I like to think that I had some natural talent at editing before I met Kelly but I definitely gained a whole new appreciation for the art of editing after watching what Kelly does. I knew that an editor was responsible for making sure all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed, but what I didn’t know before I met Kelly was how much an editor’s role is as much arbitrator than anything else. In the publishing world, anyway.

Blogging is a bit different when it comes to editing. That is, I don’t really do any editing. I love swiftly cranking out a post, following an idea as my fingers fly unfettered across the keyboard, not caring much about the mistakes that might pop up. The reason I can do this is that blogging is extraordinarily affordable. I invest my time in composing my posts but not much else. Should a correction need to be made, I can always do a quick search-and-replace to fix it. I can also post a new post as a correction. Some times I even rewrite my posts after they’re posted when I think I can improve on what I have to say. I guess you could say that I take full advantage of the no-rules frontier that is blogging. Blogging doesn’t have to be perfect because it’s fluid and cheap!
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