[time-nuts] are any time-nuts also random-nuts?

[Scott Newell]

At 01:57 PM 12/24/2009, saidjack at aol.com wrote:
>No need for that, just buy all ~18 million tickets (would cost $18 million
>in the US) if the jackpot is ~$60 million or higher, which it often is...
>
>I read someone from Australia did that in New York, and won..

Yeah, I've read this story before too.  It may have been Virginia:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/25/us/group-invests-5-million-to-hedge-bets-in-lottery.html?sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink


Some friends and I once discussed ways to make money off lottery 
players.  Would they pay for genuine random numbers, generated by a 
true random generator (such as a radioactive or noise source)?  You'd 
want to explain how pseudo-random number generators weren't really 
random, and try and scare 'em.  Or maybe we'd use a Cray 
supercomputer (one of the group has a working collection of low-end 
models) to crunch numbers using super-secret algorithms or simulate 
the draw and charge people to pre-test their picks.  But every idea 
we had just felt too dirty.

Here in Arkansas we've just started a statewide lottery.  I think it 
was $100k for the random number generator package!
http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2009/08/09/news/news080909_02.txt


John Walker (of Autodesk fame) has some good stuff on his site:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/


Our weighing scales use a 24 bit ADC.  I've thought about wiring in a 
high value resistor and digitizing the thermal noise.  Maybe use a 
few of the bottom bits, collect data, and run it through some of the 
noise tests to see just how random they are.


-- 
newell  N5TNL