Calax

Your assumption is wrong. Odds of one in 1 million are impossible, Chuck will never win the second lottery. I can believe may be odds of 1 in 1000, but not 1 in 1 million. ... *looks at his last post and the odds there* dude, there are 300 thousand reasons each day you're wrong.

Dagon, how many of your dads sperm died so that you could reach your mothers egg? How many of his dads sperm died to fertilize him? etc etc The chances of yours, mine, and everyone else EXISTENCE is infinitesimal compared to the number of possibles that died so that your specific paternity could come to fruition. Using your discussion points here, in this thread, none of us should exist, particularly not in our current form. But the thing is we do... well most of us do, some of us are just digital phantoms born from T.O.M.B.S. to harass and annoy the living The sheer odds of the survival of a single member of our species to meet and reproduce is staggering, and let's not go into the odds of creating a universe (and don't turn this into a philosophical discussion about god creating the universe, I'm using this as an example that odds this astronomical aren't insurmountable by chance. God's creation is moot because we're already here). Or for a better illustration: A man releases, in one ejaculation, 200-500 million sperm. They're all gunning for a single, solitary egg which may or may not be there. There are 340,500 births per day in the world, from the meetings of one egg to one sperm (a 1/200000000 chance). And that's just a perfect petri dish conditions, you toss in possible ovary/fallopian problems, lifestyle, miscarriages, abortions and the like and that number WILL skyrocket probably above the "one-in-a-trillion" mark you're so fond of

How about you Dagon? Humanity as a whole has survived stupidly high odds to become what we are today on the top of the heap. And heck, when a man loves a woman, and she becomes a mommy, it's what a 1 in 16million chance that its' YOU that is reaching the egg? So in theory the fact that you exist denotes your statement as false.

Tim Schafer has retracted his statements about Kotick being a complete Cheney, because he didn't realize the mic was on.

The relief wells SHOULD solve the problem more permanently, pulling pressure from beneath the current one. Requires a PILE of serious drilling to get there (My dad's a Geologist involved in other environmental cleanups atm)

I have an urge to play Civ IV

Disney said that both Lilo and Stitch and Princess and the frog were their last hand drawn animations

Dagon, no... They have the same chance in each contest to win, right? Then why is it impossible for them to win several times? also .000000000000000001 does not = 0 in any circumstances.

They're different games. They're odds aren't dependant on one another she has 1/16 mil of winning each of them, it's not 1/16 mil then 1/32 mill because both lottery pools are thrown together.

I was first in my college probabilty class. It's obviously the dope that's interfering with any logical thinking on your part. You said that the only way it could happen was supernatural intervention or cheating, we're saying that it it's perfectly normal and logical to think that yes, it was probably cheating, but no, divine intervention was not needed. And that yes, there is a chance that she could have gotten it and even if there are minuscule chances, they're still chances. Saying "Little chance won't happen" is to deny the idea of chance in the first place.

Doesn't stop people using it

What about this claim? You know, the one you STARTED THE THREAD WITH!?

Yes, I already said it's not septillion for those reasons. It's still in the trillions though. It's pretty hard to believe we have randomly witnessed an event that only occurs once in thousands of universe lifetimes. If people would rather believe that than a supernatural explanation, it's up to them of course. I'll say that an undetected scam is the far likelier of the alternatives, but I don't believe that explanation in spite of the statistical evidence for it. The reason everyone is bringing this up is because you said "It has to be an act of god or a scam!" and said that us non-believers couldn't accept that chances this high happened. Except that we do, simply because there is so much stuff in the universe. Hell, humanity is one hell of a "chance" that it existed (although that point is moot because we're here) but How many trillions of planets? Billions of galaxies are there? If I wanted to do it I would write a program that deals cards like Calax described many times every minute and see how long it takes for the same combination to come up - but that's really irrelevant. The fact is that just because, as I have said, the chances are low it doesn't mean that something can not happen. It will likely not happen, you could say with almost full certainty it would not happen, but that does not mean that it could not happen. Yes, but you program may have to run for over a thousand years, that's a huge number we're talking about. Not really, in calcualtions per second the computer is REALLY fast.

No, again you are incorrect. It might happen, the odds would just be very, very, very low. Exactly. Of course it doesn't really matter because YOU ALREADY GOT THE COMBINATION! IT HAPPENED! You can always increase the number of cards until you hit the point where you've got odds similar to hers and still get an outcome. Doesn't necessairly have to be a pre-disposed outcome, just an outcome in this case, but it proves, just because something is 1 in umpteen skillion chance doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it just isn't likely. Of course given the odds involved here, it's more likely a cheat but if not grats to her.

Dagon, Do something for me, take a deck of cards, and lay em out in a random order on your desk face up. Then calculate the probability that you got that particular set of cards in that particular string of positions. Hell, do it with 3 or four decks simultaneously and calculate that amount and tell us the probability of getting that particular order of cards again.

wow, no "cake is a lie" comment?

Team Fortress 2

Activision has a new CEO. He still reports to Kotick, but he's the guy who figured out Kevin Butler would work and is awesome.

It was taken in the congo when he was out there doing sound for a documentary crew.

I will slap you both so hard those smilies go right side up!

Well, kinda. It'll happen if only one name is released like this. If there was an overnight conspiracy that had all of these sorts of forums require us put in true names for EVERYTHING I doubt it would happen because real world consequence would appear for everyone rather than the chosen few. But there would still be 4chan.

And have to remind yourself "they are only 15" every 5 seconds. For one of em (the one who's crushing on me) yes. The other two? Not so much... my cousin is a twig and probably wouldn't beat 100 lbs when soaking wet due to a childhood illness stemming from to much loving of her pet stuffed animal. It's even worse because my aunt LOVES to harass me about the crush. Oh, btw, Cousin in Congo photo of epic appearing in 3... 2.... 1...

Given the 1500 page thread on their forums that appeard within 3 days, I kinda expected they'd drop it. Bah, 1500 po.. wait.. 1500 pages? In a single thread? Dear.. god. Yeah, in the time it takes you to post a single item, then refresh the page, there's four more pages added.