TPFH's Journal: 7 9 12 20 27 42

Well, my defrag is now at 96%

It seems like speed disk would defrag in a lot less time, but then the last time I used such it was on a much smaller harddrive, and on a SCSI drive, not a USB drive.

Does anyone else enjoy watching the blocks move around durring a defrag?

At the very least it is hypnotic or mesmerizing or something. Maybe I ought to try it when I'm having trouble sleeping.

The subject is the numbers for last night's Megabucks Lotto drawing. I was buying tickets for a while when the jackpot was way above the odds against winning. I could have sworn I had those numbers at one time. I always get quick picks because the odds of any one set of numbers is the same as any other. I wonder if you did statistics on the numbers that come up if some came up more often than others. It's just funny because these seem to be numbers that I might pick if I were to bother picking numbers. I'd also be tempted to pick 1 2 3 4 5 6.

But I should have won!

Maybe I should sue?

It wouldn't have been the 30 million dollar jackpot that was the final winner, but I'd be happy with 1.6 million or whatever it was.

And I know that the lottery is a waste of money. Part of it was desperation.

I also do have a fascination with probability.

Maybe if I play the lottery again I'll use these numbers. They seem like good numbers. And just because they came up once doesn't change the odds of them coming up again.

Or maybe I'll write a program to get all the numbers and find which ones come up the most and use them.

All I want is 30 Million dollars. Is that too much to ask for?

The defrag is now at 97%

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:But you just said!

[nizo]

I wish I could remember who it was, but some comedian said that given your odds of winning, the odds of buying the winning ticket are probably about the same as the odds that you will find a winning ticket on the street. :-) That said, I always thought about looking at old data and picking numbers that hadn't come up as often (figuring that that would increase my odds of getting the next winning numbers). But I don't buy tickets as much anymore (my personal phrase for buying them is "stupid tax", i.e. I go

Gambler's Fallacy

[TPFH]

I always thought about looking at old data and picking numbers that hadn't come up as often (figuring that that would increase my odds of getting the next winning numbers).

That's the gambler's fallacy. Well, sort of.
I guess the gambler's fallacy is that if you've been losing for a while your luck has to change soon. I suppose it could also be if you are flipping a coin and you get a bunch of heads in a row, it is the idea that it becomes more likely for tails to come up.

I'm proposing the opposite idea.