I...already have an internet connection. It doesn't cost me anything on top of it to watch free shit.

That's cool, but what does that have to do with the subject of the article -- not paying for cable TV?

Modern models will take into account statistical biases in lotteries. For example, here's ChatGPT:

Pick good lottery numbers for the Virginia powerball lottery

Good question. First, a reality check: Powerball is pure chance — there’s no “good” numbers that are more likely to win. Every set of 5 white balls (1–69) + 1 Powerball (1–26) has exactly the same probability.
wwwuat.valottery.com
+1

That said, I can give you a few tips + a sample “random but balanced” pick, if you’d like to pick your own numbers rather than use Quick Pick.

Some tips when choosing your Powerball numbers

Spread your numbers
Try to pick a mix across the range (low, mid, high). According to lottery-strategy advice, not clustering all your numbers in one group is better.
samlotto.com

Avoid patterns
Many people pick birthdays, anniversaries, or sequential numbers. That’s fine—but if you win, you might have to share with more people because these are popular picks.
lotteryvalley.com

Use “due” or “hot” numbers carefully
Some sites (like lottery-analysis tools) track which numbers are “hot” (drawn recently) or “overdue” (haven’t appeared in a while). But remember: past draws don’t change future odds.
m.lottostrategies.com

Mix even and odd
According to some statistical analyses, it’s less likely to draw all odd or all even numbers.
samlotto.com

Play responsibly
Odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are extremely long: 1 in ~292 million.
lotterycritic.com

Sample “balanced” Powerball pick

Here’s a random-but-balanced combination you could use just for fun (or as a basis to tweak):

White balls: 8, 23, 41, 57, 65

Powerball: 12

If you like, I can generate 5 different “smart random” picks for the next Virginia Powerball draw (balanced by probability and number distribution). Do you want me to do that?

It's a damned shame '99942 Apothis' will miss us in a few years

It's not too late to fix that.

The thing is, it very much *won't* be random numbers. It's about as far from a random number generator as you can get.

In a really bad model, one would expect it to likely be "numbers it's seen the most in the context of a lottery". But in a good model, esp. a thinking model, one would expect it to think over which sorts of numbers are statistically over-chosen (birthdates, etc) and avoid them in giving its answers.

The funny thing is, think of how this woman will interact with ChatGPT from now on. ChatGPT could say "Abraham Lincoln was married to John Wilkes Booth", and she'd be thinking, "Okay, that sounds really, really wrong, but on the other hand, it picked the right lottery numbers, so..."

Q. What do you get when you play country music backwards?

A. You get your wife back, your truck back, your dog back, your house back, and your job back. /s

And to really ruin Country Music: Johnny Cash - Barbie Girl (Cover by There I Ruined it) Restoration

--
Path of Exile 2 is a boring, tedious Ruthless Souls-Lite grindfest.

It is not IF you will get hacked, but WHEN you will get hacked.

What is Logitech doing to prevent this from happening in the future?

How many times have people been told to use the Oxford comma and still get it wrong?

Even worse, the use of lists without the Oxford comma is showing up more and more in publications who should know better, creating wording or joins the author never intended.

If this software is just now getting punctuation correct after several years of trying, it's doing just as well as humans.

I'll go with NHTSA and NASA over the "Barr Group" ambulance chasers, thank you. Barr found that it's possible if you get like a cosmic ray to flip just the right bit you could stick the throttle on (but still not make it overpower the brakes). NHTSA and NASA investigated not just the software but the actual cases. In not a single actual case that they investigated did they find that it wasn't well explained by either stuck pedals or pedal misapplication (mainly the latter).

Oh hi, I remember chatting with you earlier :) Sorry to hear about your back. If you're ever planning on visiting Iceland, drop me a line, I can make recommendations. :)

It'll be at least half of that in ten years.

The Zoomers have no interest in cable TV.

Or if you're more cynical, it's like a Collateralized Debt Obligation

Thanks. I was thinking the same thing. And just like a CDO, what happens when someone doesn't, or can't, know the value of the underlying security?

> Why not just build the proper infrastructure with what we know works?

I tried to do this locally. The government allows the pole owner (electric or telephone usually) to charge $50/mo/pole to the startup that wishes to hang wires.

The owner pays $5/mo in property taxes to the town.

There are exceptions for large corporations that are in the state's good graces.

It's just to keep competition limited to the cartel.

Short answer: corrupt government.

This was my first thought as well.

Such marketplace confusion!

There's some fascinating new work on "inverse-vaccines". In the same way that antigens can be flagged as "foreign", they can also be flagged as "non-foreign" by attaching N-acetylgalactosamine (pGal) to them. The liver recognizes that tag and uses it to suppress immune activation against that antigen.

That's not the goal of a vaccine against a dormant virus (destroying B-cells), it's about developing a more capable immune reaction against the virus itself. See for example the shingles vaccine (targets dormant VZV, aka shingles / chickenpox). With a strong immune recognition of the virus, as soon as it tries to reactivate, it's immediately targeted, preventing it from becoming problematic.

Dormant viruses use a combination of (A) techniques to suppress immune recognition of them, and (B) low / no reproduction until your body's immune recognition of them has weakened. Vaccines help deal with both issues.

(BTW, if you're getting up there in age and haven't gotten your shingles vaccine, do so. It's one of the "rougher" vaccines, IMHO (both on my initial and followup doses I had "flu symptoms" for a day, when I normally have no reaction at all to vaccines), but that's *way* better than getting shingles)