It's worth writing about, sure...

Who the f*** decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!

This is a signature from slashdot. But it is true, and I'll tell you all the little things that this statement means to me. It's more than meets the eye.

Yes, the internet is powerful, everywhere, tempting, all encompassing, and defining. What happens on the internet, whether it be 1337 speak, punctuation, or humor (itsatrap!) tends to latch on to us, because it represents the most democratic medium - everyone's voice is there, and the conscience tends to fall toward the center of the bell curve of the participants, hence, society.

The lack of a second space after the period may be the future, and, like the comment says, it might be just one guy who decided when writing html standards. That is the power, and social leveller of the web.

Any english teacher will tell you that the language is constantly evolving. Merriam webster doesn't decide what new words are available. And, the increasing rate of change of things like this on the web are really telling. Who would have thought?

lottery followup

So, two people picked the numbers correctly in that huge mega millions jackpot. I, myself, bought a ticket for the most picked numbers. I also tried one for the least picked. My source was the official database, from megamillions.com. They had 1019 draws over 6 years available to me, so I put together a quick chart. The distribution was as follows:



For those interested, here is the
chart for the "mega" ball.


So, 5,22,32,42,47, and I used the megaball of 3. I had to pick one to leave out, and that was 17.

For the least picked numbers, I used (discarding the numbers above 51 inserted in the past year to lower odds for all of us.

2,19,33,34,41, and 51

Well, the actual picks were

16,22,29,39,42	Mega Ball = 20

So, I matched one number, which wins nothing.

Lottery mentality

To sum it up: I don't want to win the lottery.

Yep, but I do put down the dollar here and there, it's a simple little thing that I can do to enrich my mind. There isn't any chance that anything will come of it - but it keeps you dreaming. Over the last year I have spent maybe $12 on tickets for the bigger lotteries, the multi-state, multi-hundred-million ones, and some for the smaller.

So, why? Well, it forces me to think long term. What would I do with money? What would I do if I didn't have to work? What if there was something I could do about it? And it helps you click things together, piece by piece. I know that I'm not going to win, and I don't give even a second thought to it when I don't. Sure it would be nice to match 2 or 3 numbers and win a few thousand bucks. THAT would help me.

But, $370 million just isn't a great thing if it were to happen to me. At that point, everything is different. Your friends go away, your family would use you. Well, not mine, but you get the point. You enter the place where security is an everyday issue for you, kidnapping is a possibility, and depending on your age, you can't take it with you anyway, so it really just becomes a legacy. You need to avoid lawsuits, driving, shopping, you better keep your sidewalk shoveled.

But, since I'm not running for president, I don't want the money. But playing the lottery makes me aware of the more likely things that could happen to me, like starting a successful company, or inventing something useful to the world. That's the thing, I need to be aware of all of these options, and that's what I'm buying for my dollar. So leave me alone.