Hmmm.. Jihad?

There were enough people that picked those numbers that the pay off was low? That is sick.

Why is this rubbish worth reading or thinking about?

Feh.
Sounds interesting, but kind of a stretch, and that sort of thing is not worth stretching for...

Londongirl: Hear, hear.

pick #'s for ticket (lottery) = beer money
pick #'s for ticket (plane) = no more beer ever.

hrmmm
note to self, before next plane flight, buy lottery tickets with flight # on them.
Oh, and stock up on "polygamy beer".

?????

DUMB!

Nostradumass predicted this!

Who rushes out after a plane crash to use those numbers in a lottery game? Answer: New Jersey.

If I don't get the lottery winnings, the terrorists have already won.

Oh great. Just the kind of thing to encourage numerology morons.

Londongirl: It is Fox reporting.

and in 49 other states it wasn't the winning number.

NJ in the Housee.

But tostfeld, numerology is real.
if you take your posting time: 11-13-01 12:08:17 and add the numbers, you get 42, which in hex is "b".
If you then take Fb- posting time 11-13-01 12:07:48 , you get 92, which, when divided by 2 (the second post from the bottom on my screen) you get 46, which is F. So the 2 posts above this submission read 'Fb' which means that Fb- is the antichrist. See, it is real. And then i said weee.

But if you take the time this message was really posted, then you take the time fark *says* my message was posted because it contains the words "boobies", divide by the number of posts already in the thread (16), add the cosine of the letters and divide by my age...

...um, I forget the rest but numerologists are crackpots.

The numerology morons are already afoot, even on Fark. You saw it yesterday with the proclamations that it must be a terrorist attack, there's no way an aircraft would just happen to crash near NYC this close to the 11th. Probability theory says that "history" doesn't have any place in truly random events, so yesterdays airline crash doesn't reduce the probability that an airplane will crash today, even over New York city.

When the American hostages were released from Iran, a ton of people in NY played the date, which was the winning number, the next day. It paid about the same, a buck and a half.

You'd be amazed how many people play "000", too. That came out once and didn't pay squat.

This might sound a bit weird, but I had a feeling that this sort of article would appear on Fark today.

I'm going out to have myself burned as a witch.

Farked
already

kiss a girl where it smells - take her to New Jersey!

its polygamy porter!!! not polygamy beer!!!

I get on my mother's case every so often about constantly playing 7-14-21-28-35-42. Even if your numbers are picked, you get jack shiat because so many other people pick those numbers.

Best way to pick lotto numbers is complete random. Don't use quick picks. I have a conspiracy theory that quick picks give you numbers from the weighted ball pool. If you work at a convenience store or someplace that sells lottery tickets, write down all the numbers that never get put on quick pick tickets and there are your winning lotto numbers. Also remember me if you win. Thanks.

Why on earth would anyone play a common number if the payout is determined by the revenue earned, not the odds? The payout is usually asinine to begin with, but receiving $16 on odds of 1 in 1000 is totally ridiculous! Talk about negative expectancy

If the lottery is a tax for the math challenged, NJ must be the most challenged place on earth

Substrate: History does not affect numbers, true, but it affects people. It changes how they act from that point on.

Yes, it's always *possible* that one plane a day will crash in Rockaway, Queens, but the likelihood has been siginificantly reduced because the *probability* of such a large-scale catastrophic event happening again in so short a time is microscopic. Like lightning striking twice in the same place.

This might sound a bit weird, but I had a feeling that this sort of article would appear on Fark today.

Whoa, I know it sounds crazy, but I knew you were going to say that.

Well then you're going to have to come and have a burn with me, then.

It wasn't even the same farking number; the digits were in a different order.

Mitch - It's parimutuel wagering. The pot is the same, based on the money taken in. If only one person bets on the winning numbers, they get it all. The ghouls betting the flight number have to share.

I think this is a message from the terrorists, telling us that 'our base are belong to them'... or something like that...

We should ground all the planes that have next week's numbers, when they're picked... But it might be too late, so then we should either bring ALL the planes down or ban the lottery... Or we can move the lottery to before planes leave... Or we could hold the lottery on board the planes, kinda like a life lottery, if your plane's number's don't get picked you will live!!!
sothenisaidweeeeeeeeeeeeee

*deep breath*

ohmygodtheendishere!!!!!
everybody run for it!

and if that's not enough 5 + 8 + 7 = 20!

and 20 / 2 + 1 = 11!!!!

Fun with Probability:

Assuming that there are 50 "Pick Three" drawings (some states may not have any, other states, like Illinois, do a Pick Three twice a day, I'm not going to bother looking up exactly how many are done each day in the U.S.) taking place each day, the odds of a given three digit number coming at least once that day are about 1 in 20. If you look at the day of the event and the following day, it climbs to about 1 in 10.

The odds of the first draw not picking the number is 999/1000, or .999. The odds of the second draw not picking the number are the same. The chance that both draws avoid the number is .999 x .999, or .998001. The chance of a third draw avoiding the number is .999^3. By the time you run through 50 draws, you get down to .951206. Run through a hundred draws, and you get .904792. If you give it a week, you end up with about a 30% chance that one of the draws will come up with the number.

If you are a little less strict, and just need the three numbers that make up the flight number, in any order, you get about a 14% chance that they will show up the first day, about 26% that they will show up the first day or the following day, and a 65% chance that they will turn up sometime in that week.

If you look for the flight number to appear in a similar number of pick 4 games, your odds get much, much better: Out of 10000 picks ou have 10 that start with the number (XXX0 through XXX9) and 10 that end with the number (0XXX through 9XXX), so your odds of avoiding the number are 9980/10000, or .998 instead of .999 on each draw.

Your odds of some lottery getting a pick 4 number either starts with or ends with the exact flight number (50 draws per day) are roughly 10% the day of the event, about 18% on either the day or the day after, and more than 50% by the end of the week.

...so then Noah says "Holy crap! Talking snakes!" and he beats them to death with a stick.

Yup, too bad you have to buy tickets for each of those draws in order to benefit from the increased odds.

For fun, I'll throw a little troll meat into the circle here. I propose that the crash of the airliner in NY supports the theory that there is no GOD. Here's why:

Let's assume that God is real. And that God is just. The simplistic argument is to ask why. Why would God allow such a senseless destruction of life for no apparent good reason. Terrorist or otherwise. The people of this neighborhood suffered already with September 11th. How could any just God see fit to allow more suffering to the same group of people?

Fundamentalists might argue one of two ways. First, that God's will is not always easily understood, and that attempts to interpret it are futile at best. Second, God's wrath at our wickedness is felt upon us all, and by being so blatant in his retribution, then we must clearly see the message and all repent for our sins. These are interesting, if cryptic theories, for they rely upon an unproven factor of faith.

Now, several conspiracy minded people pointed out yesterday that the odds of a major airline accident occuring in the NY area so soon after September 11th were so small, that it must mean terrorists took down the plane. But actually, the odds of a mechanical disaster really aren't all that slim. If you factor in the number of major airports operating at that hour, factor in the level of traffic at those airports, factor in all the conditions necessary to potentially create a disaster during the takeoff, then you start seeing the odds become a little better than before. Not something I'd want to bet money on, but not completely improbable. Just highly, highly unlikely.

So which is it? An unjust God who allowed a horrific tragedy to occur without taking any steps to avert it. Or a random event with such an incredibly low level of chance that it almost defies any intervention, human or divine?

Either way, the conclusion disproves the existence of God. If humans are the creation of God, then God must posess the same human failing of bloodlust. Humans like to see things blow up, for fantasy. If an entity called 'God' had a hand in this, it too must enjoy explosions and death as much as we.

But a god is not really a God unless it is revered. How then could we possibly revere a divine entity with the same elemental failings as us? I couldn't, and I'm sure most others wouldn't either. Therefore, if we don't revere this entity, doesn't it then cease to be a God? Isn't it merely some unusual organism that exists beyond our ability to comprehend it's form?

On the other hand, you could argue that if an event of such astronomically low levels of probability were to occur, it must immediately disprove any higher power's existence. We have already established that the odds of this disaster occuring in NY were very, very low. If a higher power does exist, then you would expect a certain degree of order to the universe, and this crash represents a fundamental repudiation of that natural order. Why. Because it just shouldn't happen. A series of events with incredibly low levels of probability leading to a catastrophic breakdown so remote you can't even predict the odds? Hard to believe if there is some cosmic hand controlling the universe.

I'm rambling. Flame away!

Tostfeld, I would shoot myself if you were my lawyer in a criminal case.

You've made so many assumptions, it's disgusting. I don't believe in god either, but I'ld be a retard to believe all the crap you just spewed.


...and scene!

Actually, I do believe in God. But your point is noted.

"Don't believe the hype."
-Flavor Flav and Chuck D

The Lottery - A tax upon people who failed mathematics....

43% that was hilarious! :)

Didn't the same thing happen when TWA flight 800 blew up over the atlantic??? Everyone thought it was a terrorist attack. Turned out it wasn't. Next day, those lottery numbers were picked (800) but i cant remember in what state. Lots of people won then too. Now that deserves the "STRANGE" tag.

Oh, boy... Don't let the idiot who started the Q33NY shiat know...