Quotulatiousness

December 15, 2011

Google donates to the Bletchley Park restoration project

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Google has made a significant contribution to the preservation and restoration of the famous WW2 codebreaking site:

The centre has won a £4.6million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund but needs to attract £1.7million in outside funding before the big grant can be delivered and the next stage of the development kickstarted.

The £550,000 Google contribution is the biggest single donation that the Bletchley Park Trust has received so far. It was given by the search engine’s charitable arm, which donated a total of $100 million (£64.4million) in 2011.

“It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google’s example to help preserve our computing heritage,” said Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust. “We could then proceed as soon as possible with restoration of the profoundly historically significant codebreaking huts.”

October 5, 2011

The irony of Bletchley Park’s funding windfall

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:47

Cory Doctorow has the good news about Bletchley Park’s recent grant:

Bletchley Park, the birthplace of modern crypto and the home of the WWII codebreaking effort, has received a £4.6m Heritage Lottery Fund grant to fund restoration efforts and new exhibits. Bletchley was broken up after the war and its work was literally buried as part of the Cold War climate of secrecy that prevailed. In the years that followed, neglect and time led to the near-destruction of many of the historic sites. The Bletchley Park trust has since done amazing work on a shoestring budget to restore and preserve Bletchley, creating a fabulous museum and rebuilding some of the most beautiful electromechanical computers I’ve ever seen.

[. . .]

Ironically, the money to restore Bletchley has come from the lottery, a government-run system designed to reinforce and exploit statistical innumeracy of the sort that Bletchley’s cryptographers overcame in order to help win the war.

October 10, 2010

Calculate your odds of winning the lottery

Filed under: Randomness — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:09

By way of the ever-helpful Roger Henry, here’s a site that lets you simulate your lottery habits to determine how much you’ll win and how much it’ll cost:

Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator!

It is really hard to win the Mega Millions lottery. So hard that it can be difficult to comprehend what long odds confront its players.

Why not try for free on this Mega Millions lottery simulator? You’ll be able to try the same numbers over and over, simulating playing twice a week for a year or 10. You’ll never win.

I ran 1040 simulations. It would have cost me $1040. I would have won $243. Not a good return on investment. I actually “win” more by not buying a ticket at all: I avoid the loss of that $797 in ticket purchases.

July 22, 2009

Lottery winner receives extra prize

Filed under: Cancon, Law — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:45

A recent lottery winner in Ontario got an extra on top of the multi-million dollar cheque: a free arrest:

Some guys have all the luck.

That’s what Barry Shell of Brampton likely thought Monday when he went to pick up his nearly $4.4 million jackpot at Ontario Lottery and Gaming headquarters on Dundas St. W.

But after a smiling Shell, 45, had posed for an OLG photo holding his cheque for $4,377,298, he was arrested outside the building on outstanding criminal charges and taken into police custody.

The most interesting part, however, was this statement from the lottery officials:

Asked how a lottery win could result in the discovery of outstanding warrants, Rui Brum from OLG said last night: “A rigorous investigation process is followed any time a prize is claimed.

“Any flags that are raised are immediately forwarded to the OPP Bureau attached to the AGCO (the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario) for further investigation.”

H/T to Jon, who said “come to attention in the media or in some other way, and the state starts looking into you.”

« « QotD: Republican government| Looking for Canadian health stats? » »

Powered by WordPress