OK, it looks like we're good to go on the free iPod! The players are: me, Andrea, Ennis, Jimpy, Emily, and Dot.
First question: Dot, are you serious about bowing out? Because you could give that iPod to someone, or sell it on eBay, or whatever.
Second question: how should we pick a winner? If we were all in the same room, I'd just throw a die, but we need an online way to make a random choice. I'm open to suggestions.
| MP3 |
Hrm. Ok ok, I've been convinced, put my name in the hat! I love my ipod, so I wanted to share the love, but I guess I could just as easily share the love with someone around here, too.
As far as choosing between the six, I can't come up with anything that's not super-convoluted, involving birthdays or stock market numbers... Eek!
Comment #1 :: link :: August 17, 2004 06:39 PMThere's this, but who rolls, and who gets what number?
Comment #2 :: link :: August 17, 2004 06:52 PMMy suggestion, based on Mike's IM to me earlier:
Take mod 6 of the lotto number of the day. That will give us a single number between 0-5, and it's wholly transparent.
The mod 6 is the remainder when you divide by 6, and produces 6 possibilities.
Comment #3 :: link :: August 17, 2004 07:48 PMOK then. We'll use the New York Lotto. The Numbers game (the 3-digit number), evening draw, Wed 8/18. The Mod 6 of this number will be used to pick the winner. I've put us in Alpha order:
Andrea: 0
Dot: 1
Ennis: 2
Emily: 3
Jimpy: 4
MEL: 5
Good luck!
1000 is not evenly divisible by 6, so Ennis's solution gives Mike and Jimpy slightly lower odds than everybody else. If you want to be fair, you should probably agree that, if the lottery number is 996-999, you wait and use the next day's number instead.
Or don't; fine by me, since Andrea gets the better odds.
Comment #5 :: link :: August 18, 2004 01:23 AMJay's right, and I should have caught that. Since as there's only a .4% of getting 996+, it makes sense to do over if we get a number in that range. Then again, I too have a marginally higher success rate if we keep the number, so ...
Comment #6 :: link :: August 18, 2004 10:31 AMThanks for pointing that out, Jay. I felt like there was a flaw in the dividing-by-sixness of the plan but couldn't quite put my finger on it so I attributed my feeling to mathematical incompetence.
I agree that we should just wait if it's between 996 and 999. Those of us who have ever bought or been given (ahem) lottery tickets know how totally improbable it is that any given number will come up!
Thus there only remains the question of whether Emily or Ennis comes first, alphabetically. :)
I'm assume we're discussing this here now, not on email?
Comment #7 :: link :: August 18, 2004 10:57 AMMath is hard!
OK, if tonight's drawing comes up 996, 997, 998, or 999, we will use tomorrow night's drawing. (There are actually two drawings a day, but I like to draw out the suspense.)
The revised order, for those of use who like that whole alphabet thing, is:
Andrea: 0
Dot: 1
Emily: 2
Ennis: 3
Jimpy: 4
MEL: 5
Although I will point out that since two of these nicknames are out of order to begin with, but what the hey.
Keep your fingers crossed tonight!
Comment #8 :: link :: August 18, 2004 02:13 PMWell, nicknames or no nicknames, at least we have a definitive order that isn't directly attributable to one of us.
I've never been so interested in a lottery drawing before!
Comment #9 :: link :: August 18, 2004 02:19 PMAnd the winner is...
... drumroll...
Jimpy!
Today's number was 094, which divided by 6 gets you 15 with a remainder of 4. So, congrats to Jimpy! Enjoy your newfound iPod goodness!
Comment #10 :: link :: August 18, 2004 08:06 PM
