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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Say $2MM in tickets are sold what do you think about the format: [scalar] [si-prefix] [unit]
Honestly, I prefer it. But for one reason or another, MM is the accepted suffix when dealing with money (it comes from mille in latin meaning thousand, not million.)
any idea how it came to prominence?
i guess i has something to do with distancing the field from natural sciences.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hate lotteries and gambling in general. Take from the hopeful, give to the lucky. Sorry, but you've just described the underpinnings of our current winner-take-most societal-wide economic systems. Every day, more and more of our systems are rooted in luck. Being born to the right family, getting into a prestigious university, getting a good job, timing the housing market, investing in the stock market, starting a…
Nope. But even if you are correct, lotteries and gambling have more of the essence of "take from the hopeful, give to the lucky" than any of the things you described.
- 25% hard work (required for most people)
- 75% luck (where you are born + how you were raised/educated + general luck)
It is called life/birth lottery for a reason.
Similar to the guy that bought a fighter jet from Pepsi but they reneged on their contract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc .
I wrote this comment the other day, about something similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36766556#36768937 Like with trading systems, the thing that made it work here was not being smart about the maths. In fact anyone with high school maths would be able to work out when it was worth doing. The thing here was the audacity to try to put together a business around getting it done. Things like getting investor…
I’ve come to believe that this is a universal principle: disbelief regarding feasibility prevents actualization of vision; once one sees that it is done it is as if a mental barrier has been removed.
Person saying it cannot be done, should not interrupt person doing it.
In other words: believe what you will, as long as you don't get in the way of someone who's busy doing what you think is impossible.