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The story.

It seems that everywhere I look on the tubes today, I see a link to this NY Times article about a "boot camp" for internet-addicted kids in South Korea. Is it somehow meta to continue this internet meme on internet addiction? Or ironic? Meta-ironic?

Took long enough. Hope it doesn't suck.

As you might imagine, the /. thread on this news is even nerdier than usual.

Earlier this month:

The Lottery began using computers to generate random numbers on July 28 for all of its lottery games, including Cash 3, Cash 4 and Lotto 5. ...

"I don't like it," said Richard Brymer, 51, who's played the Tennessee Lottery since it started. "I'd rather see the drawings live because of the excitement of the live drawings." ...

"I don't trust the computerized drawings," he said. "Possibly someone could do something to compromise the computerized drawings."

The Tennessee Lottery changed its drawings to keep up with industry trends, said Kym Gerlock, a spokeswoman for the Lottery. ...

"The security and integrity of our games is of utmost importance," she said. "There's no reason to doubt these drawings or question the integrity of how we do the drawings."

This week:

A computer programming error has prevented any number from being selected more than once in Cash 3 and Cash 4 drawings over the past three weeks, the Tennessee Lottery said Tuesday.

The error meant that no winning draw included duplicate numerals, so any ticket holder who had bet on a number such as 2-2-1 or 7-7-7-7, or Johnson's 909, wasn't going to win. ...

A news release from the lottery blamed the problem on "a human error made by an outside, third-party vendor."

Hargrove said a programmer for the vendor, New Jersey-based Smartplay International Inc., made a keystroke error when setting the parameters for Cash 3 and Cash 4, typing a "u" for "unique" instead of an "r" for "repeat."

A second third-party vendor, New Jersey-based Gaming Laboratories Inc., also erred by certifying that the drawings were random and complied with the rules of the games, Hargrove said.

This pleases me to no end. I'm pretty skeptical of the virtues of a scholarship-funding state lottery (i.e., bilking mostly ignorant "players" to send mostly well-to-do kids to college), and I love to see the lottery people eat crow like this. On the bright side for those who chose repeating digits during the last three weeks, they can get a 200% refund on their tickets (or two free plays if they still want to press their luck). Not bad, considering the longterm payout for Cash 3/Cash 4 is merely 50%.

If you play long enough, you're bound to hit it big. Right? Right??

Sometime in a previous incarnation of this site, I wrote about the fantastic indie game Darwinia and the less indie but still wonderful Galactic Civilizations 2. It's been a while, and I've found a number of gems since then, many of which were nominees or winners for Independent Games Festival awards (a virtual treasure trove of cool indie games). Here's a quick rundown:

Vince Young has been chosen to appear on the cover of Madden '08. So much for a Titans playoff run this season. With Pacman suspended for a year and Young facing an imminent season ending injury, maybe letting half of the veteran players go wasn't such a bad move after all.

Robin Williams makes a sporling

Chad Warren explains why the PS3 is better than the Wii and 360 and don't forget Chad Warren don't give a shit about hundeds, baby.