Support a good cause & win big prizes

[boognish]

Thank you 0ctane, you are making alot of people happy.

 

Of course, thanks to all who are participating and spreading news of the event. Can you believe that we are nearing $2000 from EL players! Amazing!

 

This is a great community here.

My sincere gratitude to everyone who helped out.

[LoneWolfStrider]

Hello,

I would like to know if you are accepting prize donations (still?).

 

Edit: Just noticed it ends very soon. But if you are let me know.

Edited August 1, 2007 by LoneWolfStrider

[0ctane]

Hello,

I would like to know if you are accepting prize donations (still?).

 

Edit: Just noticed it ends very soon. But if you are let me know.

Yes, ,still accepting prizes. Donations are still coming in, so just PM me if you want to donate a prize or $$.

I forgot to list a time for the event to end, so I will set it at 9 PM Eastern US time, today, August 1.

 

Since there are so many tickets, and the fact Awn/Drakos7 and I are programming geeks (well, he is the geek), we will use a random number generator to pick numbers, where each ticket is given a number. If we can figure out the technical aspects, we might webcast the "drawing". Of course, the webcast would be pretty boring watching me (or maybe one of our kids) hit the "rand" button on a calculator. If the webcast does not work (and maybe if it even does), we are thinking about calling out the numbers at the WSC town-hall. Of course, people do not have to be present to win.

 

For those more technically inclined:

Let T=#tickets bought, P=#prizes. To calculate the winning numbers we will use the publicly available Quantum Random Bit Generator Service http://random.irb.hr/index.php QRand Command-line Utility [v0.2, 2007-07-17]. We will generate an appropriate amount of "winners" (P) as short integers, convert them to positive integers, and take the last three digits that are within the range [0-T] (similar to using a random number table in a statistics book).

 

Example for T=300 and P=4:

. if the first four results are: 5913, -13808, 2401, 12204

. abs() -> 5913, 13808, 2401, 12204

. strip -> 13, 8, 1, 204

 

See post 55 below.

Edited August 1, 2007 by 0ctane

[Raz]

 

Example for T=300 and P=4:

. if the first four results are: 5913, -13808, 2401, 12204

. abs() -> 5913, 13808, 2401, 12204

. strip -> 13, 8, 1, 204

 

I am no programmer, so please excuse my ignorance... but is that fair?

If the first number was 5913, 5813, 5713 etc, it would always give 13.... meaning that any 2 digit number has much more chance of being selected.

 

Should it not be that if the last 3 digits > T - reject and draw again.

[0ctane]

I am no programmer, so please excuse my ignorance... but is that fair?

If the first number was 5913, 5813, 5713 etc, it would always give 13.... meaning that any 2 digit number has much more chance of being selected.

 

Should it not be that if the last 3 digits > T - reject and draw again.

The same number cannot be drawn more than once. So, in the unlikely chance that it did happen, the duplicate would be thrown out.

 

However, the numbers are completely random. There is an equal probability that 91204, -1276204, and 204 will be drawn (again, only the first would count). I will look into your concern though (and pester Awn about it).

 

So, slight modification to make everything more clear.

Picking of winners

Taking the short integer from Qrand (plus 1), dividing by the maximum value of a short int (plus 1), multiplying by the number of tickets and always rounding up would give an individual ticket number. Signed short ints are usually between 0 and 65535, but we will make sure for the OS we are running on. The "plus 1" is to prevent a zero ticket.

 

If the number of tickets, T=400 (which it currently does), and Qrand spits out 0:

0+1 =

1

1

/65536 =

0.000015

0.000015

*400 = 0.006 -> rounds to ticket 1

Other examples:

Qrand -> 65535, ((65535+1)/65536)*400 = 400 -> rounds to 400

Qrand -> 1238, ((1238+1)/65536)*400 = 7.617 -> rounds to 8

 

Again, duplicates will be removed. I think this is completely fair, and remember that this is a charity event anyhow. I will send each person a PM with their ticket numbers once the total number of tickets has been determined.

Edited August 1, 2007 by 0ctane

[TirunCollimdus]

If you are reading this you can make a last minute donation. I got mine done in time. Take the time now to donate. It is uber easy.

 

TirunCollimdus

CoGM of PATH

Perseverance And Tolerance Honored

[0ctane]

Yes, there were a few last minute donations (both of money and prizes).

 

Well, the contest is over, and you all helped raise over $2000!!! I am waiting to hear about a "check in the mail" before I put up the final numbers.

 

Everyone watch their forum inboxes for a PM from me with your ticket numbers. You will get this information before the drawing, Friday August 3 at 9PM Eastern time USA. There is no need to send me a PM (especially since my inbox is 92% full, holding all the donation info).

[TirunCollimdus]

0ctane

 

You are awesome and your donation efforts are the bomb. I think we should post the results on the EL page and see if radu will post on his blog too. We need to get the message out and see if other MMORPGs can follow suit.

 

TirunCollimdus

CoGM of PATH

Perseverance And Tolerance Honored

[0ctane]

The final tally was $2135! That is 427 tickets! Thank you all so very much!

 

So, I have sent all participants their ticket numbers via forum PM (or e-mail for 1 person). If you have not received this information, please contact me before the contest.

 

Again, the drawing is today, Friday August 3 at 9PM Eastern time USA. I am pretty sure that is GMT+5.

[shallara]

yeppers indeedy

[Aislinn]

Again, the drawing is today, Friday August 3 at 9PM Eastern time USA. I am pretty sure that is GMT+5.

GMT -5, although with daylight savings time might be -4 (timezones sux0r)

[shallara]

ok, so my time is EST (eastern US time) and when i add 5 hours to it, i get GMT, so whatever that means lol.

[boognish]

Congratulations!

You were so close there, I had to see you make your goal.

I look forward to the drawing tonight.

[Drakos7]

The Contest is Over! The quantum ether produced the following numbers (in order):

61

35

181

11

238

262

103

107

231

31

342

21

296

55

84

39

30

351

355

225

[0ctane]

Thanks again to the participants! Thanks to Awn for helping with the drawing. Most people know their ticket numbers, but I will be forum PMing the winners in order so that they can choose their prize(s).

[0ctane]

Well, all the prizes were distributed (some time ago). I thought I should post some images from the drawing. So, here they are:

So, my triathlon is this coming weekend, specifically Sunday, September 23. If anyone lives in the Florida area, and you want to come see me participate, I can help you get discounted tickets (only good this weekend). Send me a forum PM.

 

I swam a mile in about 25 minutes on Monday, so I am feeling really good for that portion of the race. Of course, that was in a pool and not with hundreds of other people around me in a lake. Plus, Florida lakes are known to have the Naegleria fowleri amoeba, so I will hopefully come back alive.

 

Thanks again for everyone's support!

[shallara]

Good luck!!

[0ctane]

Well, I am back from the 2007 Walt Disney World Triathlon. My swim was good. My bike was very good (over 18mph). My run was pathetic. The temperature spiked, and I nearly got heat exhaustion. I started seeing some stars, so I had to walk for quite a bit of the "run" (which sucked since my knee was actually fine for the whole race). The water stations were 1 mile apart, so it took a while to get water (which went over my head). Then I was cool for a little while, and could run again (until I over heated again). A LOT of people were walking (not that that is really an excuse). I finished the race just in time, since a line of thunderstorms came in and the officials prevented some people from finishing for fear of lightning strikes.

 

leg distance time (h:mm:ss) rank (out of 89 in age group)

swim 1.5k 0:32:35 39

bike 58k 1:59:36 59

run 10k 0:83:42 74

overall 61

Hmmm... not accepting my text formating. Oh well.

 

No signs of amoeba infection yet (see two posts above).

 

Through this event I was able to raise over $6000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our local chapter raised over $50,000. Nationally, the Team in Training raised over $1 million for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Of the ten people competing from our chapter, three people got medals for their age groups. Thanks for all of your support.

[LabRat]

Well done, we're proud of you

[Cycloonx]

Wow $6k on your own, that's very impressive!

[kailomonkey]

Did I win?

 

Grats