e pur si muove

Here’s an interesting example of how a poorly implemented pseudorandom number generator cost a game show over $110,237 in 1984.

See also this Wikipedia article.

So remember, kiddies - always seed the RNG, even with something simple like RANDOMIZE TIMER.

In 1998, the 5 ‘C’s were:

• Cars
• Cash
• Condominium ownership
• Country club membership
• Credit cards

In 2008, the 5 ‘C’s are turning out to be:

• Censorship [1] [2]
• China [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
• Credibility crisis [1] [2]
• Collective sales (i.e. en-bloc) [1] [2] [3] [4]
• Complacency [1] [2]

Methinks the bonsai needs pruning.

Read the rest of this entry »