I've been playing with this one (live bets, not paper tracking), $1 or $2 a day, it's been kicking back 2 out of 5 a few times - $1 payoff, break even, and an occassional 3 out of 5 for $10, and has been coming close to 5 for 5. 

Just for fun (this is Illinois Little Lotto, a 5/ 39 game) Take the previous day for your state, all the drawings.

Example Illinois Dec 20 '07

Pick Three Midday:   967

Pick Three Evening: 752

Pick Four Midday: 4107

Pick Four Evening: 9257

Little Lotto: 5 23 26 35 38

From the above:    967 = 9 + 6 + 7 = 22

752 = 7 + 5 + 2 = 14

4107 = 4 + 1 +0 +7 = 12

9257 = 9 + 2 + 5 + 7 = 23   

Little Lotto- here's what I do, above you have 12 14 22 23 - usually the lowest number drawn is in the 1-9 or 1-10 range, so I take the highest two numbers from yesterday's Little Lotto and subtract them, in this case

38 - 35 = 3

So the play would be   3 12 14 22 23 I played that tonight, the results were 3 22 25 28 34 So it caught the 3 and 22 for $1 (break even).

It's a real easy "paper and pencil" workout for dollar players. You just have to "tweak" how you get the low number and what numbers you use to get it. Good luck.

For those who know about the Mayan calendar, we're now five years out.  

For those who haven't heard about it, might make something interesting to search the internet for.

Briefly, the Mayan calendar just stops on Dec 21 2012.  

A friend e-mails me quotes often, some could be tweaked just a wee bit and fit a lot of the discussions that go on here.  

I'll blog some:

Came across this, considering the many thread about jackpots, etc... though it moght be apropos!

 The love of money grows as the money itself grows.

- Decimus Junius Juvenalis

 c. 55 - c. 130

Roman Satirical Poet 

A man is driving down the road and he breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?" The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes on his merry way.   Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks again accept him, feed him even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man says, "All right, all right. I'm dying to know. If the only way I can find out what the sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?" The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk." The man sets about his task. some forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, "I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 231,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth." The monks reply, "Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound." The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, "The sound is right behind that door." The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. He says, "Real funny. May I have the key?" The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, amethyst. Finally, the monk says, "This is the last key to the last door." The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door is amazed to find the source of that strange sound. But I can't tell you what it is because you're not a monk.

From the book Signs Symbols & Omens

by Raymond Buckland



4   9 2

8   1 7

3   5   6

Square of Saturn



4   14   15   1

9   17   6   12

5   11   10   8

16   2   3   13

Square of Jupiter



11  24  7  20  3

4   12   25     8   16

17   5   13   21   9

10   18   1   14   22

23   6   19     2   15

Square of Mars

Wikipedia edits traced to CIA, Vatican AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE - SAN FRANCISCO — A hacker's homemade program to pinpoint origins of Wikipedia edits indicates that alterations to the popular online encyclopedia have come from the CIA and the Vatican.

Virgil Griffith's "Wikiscanner" points to CIA computers as the sources of nearly 300 edits to subjects including Iran's president, the Argentine navy and China's nuclear arsenal.

A CIA computer was the source of a whiny "Wahhhhhh!" inserted in a paragraph about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plans for the office.

"While I cannot confirm whether any changes were made from CIA computers, the agency always expects its computer systems to be used responsibly," CIA spokesman George Little said in response to an AFP inquiry.

Wikipedia is a communally refined Internet encyclopedia that taps into the "wisdom of the masses" by letting anyone make changes.

Mr. Griffith, a graduate student and self-described hacker, said his software matches unique "IP" addresses of computers with Wikipedia records regarding which machines are used to make online edits.

"I came up with the idea when I heard about congressmen getting caught for whitewashing their Wikipedia pages," he explains on his Web site.

Most edits listed at Wikiscanner involve minor changes such as spelling. Some alterations involve removing unflattering information, adding facts or inserting insults.

Wikiscanner's roster indicates a Vatican computer was used to remove references to evidence linking Ireland's Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to a decades-old double homicide.

Someone at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee changed a description of conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to replace "comedian" with "bigot" and dub his listeners "legally retarded."

"We don't condone these sorts of activities, and we take every precaution to ensure our network is used in a responsible manner," committee spokesman Doug Thornell told AFP.

A Republican Party computer purportedly was used after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to change "occupying forces" to "liberating forces" in a Ba'ath Party entry.

Someone using a Senate computer altered a profile of veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas to complain she "interrupts" and is annoying.

A computer belonging to Reuters news service is listed as adding "mass murderer" to a Wikipedia description of President Bush.

But Mr. Griffith still considers the Wikipedia model to be reliable.

"Overall — especially for non-controversial topics — Wikipedia already works," he said.

"For controversial topics, Wikipedia can be made more reliable through techniques like this one ... to counteract vandalism and disinformation," Mr. Griffith said.

 http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070819/NATION/108190047/1002 

By Matthew Philips
Newsweek

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/

Take a birth date of Dec 16, 1955.

12 = 1 + 2 = 3

16 = 1 = 6 = 7

1955 = 1 + 9  + 5 + 5 =  20 = 2

So that person's lucky 3-digit number is 372.  

That's all there is to it.

(This is an absolute disgrace, read on):
__________________________________

       How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

Jon Town has spent the last few years fighting two battles, one against his body, the other against the US Army. Both began in October 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. He was standing in the doorway of his battalion's headquarters when a 107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among the rubble.

"The next thing I remember is waking up on the ground." Men from his unit had gathered around his body and were screaming his name. "They started shaking me. But I was numb all over," he says. "And it's weird because... because for a few minutes you feel like you're not really there. I could see them, but I couldn't hear them. I couldn't hear anything. I started shaking because I thought I was dead."

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.
Continues: (lengthy)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/kors
   

Planetary Society Offers $50,000 Prize for Asteroid Tagging Designs

San Francisco , CA, —Today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, The Planetary Society announced the launch of their Apophis Mission Design Competition, which invites participants to submit designs for a mission to rendezvous with and “tag” a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. Tagging may be necessary to track an asteroid accurately enough to determine whether it will impact Earth, and thus help facilitate the decision whether to mount a deflection mission to alter its orbit. The Planetary Society is offering $50,000 in prize money for the competition.

Apophis is an approximately 400 meter near-Earth object (NEO), which will come closer to Earth in 2029 than the orbit of our geostationary satellites. On that pass, the asteroid will be gravitationally perturbed to an unknown orbit, one that could cause it to hit Earth in 2036.

"While the odds are very slim that this particular asteroid will hit Earth in 30 years, they are not zero, and Apophis and other NEOs represent threats that need to be addressed," said Rusty Schweickart, Apollo astronaut, head of the Association for Space Explorers NEO committee.

Bruce Betts, The Planetary Society's Director of Projects said, "With this competition, we hope not only to generate creative thinking about tagging Apophis, but also to stimulate greater awareness of the broader near-Earth object threat."

Very precise tracking may be needed to determine the probability of a collision in 2036. Such precise tracking may require “tagging” the asteroid, perhaps with a beacon -- a transponder or reflector -- or some other method. Exactly how an asteroid could best be tagged is not yet known, nor is it obvious. “Learning how to do this is the point of the competition,” added Betts.

The Planetary Society is "betting" $50,000 that someone will devise an innovative solution to the problem. The prize money was contributed and competition made possible by Dan Geraci, a member of The Planetary Society Board of Directors, together with donations from Planetary Society members around the world. Geraci stated, “The time scale may be unknown, but the danger of a near-Earth object impact is very real. We need to spur the space community and indeed all people into thinking about technical solutions.”

(A lot more info):
http://www.planetary.org/about/press/relea...0000_Prize.html

Competition Rules and Update:
http://planetary.org/programs/projects/apophis_competition/

 

From our local news tonight ( 6-6-07)

New house-jacked details
By: Kathy Sweeney

SIKESTON, Mo. - There's new details on property owners in the Heartland having their homes stolen right out from under them.

As the criminal investigation continues, more and more homeowners are coming forward, claiming they've fallen victim to this house-jacking scam.

Sikeston attorney Jim Robison tells Heartland News he's taken countless calls since our first house-jacked report aired.

All his clients make the same claim, that someone forged their name on a deed in order to sell their property right out from under them.

While this may be new to us, it's not a new scam.

In fact, Robison has tracked cases as close as Kansas City, Missouri and as far away as Chicago.

In the Kansas City cases, federal investigators broke up a scheme involving 300 fraudulent loans worth nearly $20 million.

In the Heartland, we're following the investigation closely and we'll bring you new details as soon as the story breaks.

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=6623191 

And this:

Tips to protect your house
By: Heartland News

If you own property, there's a deed on file for it at your county recorder's office. 

To check if your deed is authentic you can go into your recorder's office (located in the county seat of your home county) and request to see the most recent deed filed on your property.  Check it with the documents you have. 

If you find paperwork that you did not sign or did not know was filed, you may want to seek legal assistance.

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=6621976