Month: October 2010

Tax for the poor and mathematically challenged

lotto simulator

The Lottery: another way for the government to tax the (typically tax-exempt) poor.

As much as I’d like to shy away from yet-another-“greed is evil” post, recent circumstances have led me to mingle with people who still think spending money on the lottery is a good idea. So instead of being a jerk IRL, I’ll just post the arguments against the lottery here online.

The first argument against the lottery is that the odds are stacked waaaaay against you. Anyone who has even the basic knowledge of Combinatorics and ROI knows that the lottery is a loser’s game.

Don’t believe me? Why not try this little app I made using Rails 3 and a dash of jQuery. You could even check the source code to see if the drawing algorithm is sound.

(It’s not an original idea, though. I just based it on a Hacker News link last week.)

The second argument is that the people likely to win the lottery are the people least likely to have the financial literacy to handle such a large amount. But I guess you already knew that.

Keeping your goals to yourself

It’s been a very busy week so I wasn’t able to write a post last Thursday. I’m still pretty busy with a bunch of stuff so this will just be a quick post.

Here’s a TED talk about what happens when you announce your goals to the world:

This has happened way too many times earlier in my life, back when I was still a hyperactive (yet introverted) loudmouth. Fortunately I learned to shut up about my goals about the time I got into college.

One good example: in my past job, there was a gym fad going around a few years back. Those who were actively announcing that they were to lose weight didn’t follow through with their gym plans, while those who just kept quiet about the whole thing (e.g. me) had the most visible results.

And that’s why I’m not talking about the stuff that’s keeping me busy these days.