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Algorithm Glitch Voids Outcome of US Green Card Lottery
jayminer writes "Results for the United States Diversity Visa Lottery for 2012 were declared void due to a programming glitch in the random selection algorithm. At first, the results were published as promised on May, 1st. Then, on May, 6th, the results were withdrawn with the web site claiming to experience 'technical difficulties.' Today (May, 13th), it is declared that the results are invalid due to an algorithm glitch; the computer program has been fixed and the lottery will be re-run. The final results are expected to be published July 15th."
After all, we want the lottery to be "fair" for everyone.
Picking 90% of the winners from the first two days of applicants is not great, yes.
Give them credit for owning up to their mistakes, at least. It could be worse -- it's widely believed that the 1969 draft lottery was so un-random that people born in later months were dramatically more likely to be picked for an early draft!
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Wonder if this was offshored to a country that was eligible to be part of this lottery. Could be ironic, paradoxical or just plain funny.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
Wait, what! The visa lottery is real?? I thought it was just SPAM. This raises so many questions.
1. Why?
2. What is purpose of that? Larry Niven style luck evolution?
3. And why are you spamming people about it?
4. Really, why is the US sending out thousands of SPAM emails about it.
5. And last, but not least: WTF?
....to use /dev/urandom rather than the built-in rand() function?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The idea of a lottery for immigration is immoral. They should instead set some standards -- for example, you have to be educated, no pending criminal past -- and approve EVERYONE that applies and meets such standards. No lottery bullshit.
Technically, the results were indeed random. If you get results based on a bug or glitch in your algorithm, those are obviously the results you weren't expecting. Unexpected results are, by definition, random. Who could have predicted the glitch? The results then were not "random" enough because they weren't the results you were expecting? Give me a break.
How would you feel if you got a notice saying you got a green card, but then two days later were told "sorry, just kidding."? The second batch of people might not want to celebrate just yet.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
YAY! My golden ticket to get off the plantation!
You're a free man now
No general, I's expensive!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
http://xkcd.com/221/
and and join the rest of the 9% unemployed.
That probably looks pretty good to the unemployed in, e.g. Zimbabwe.
They had
This is why you always put the constant value on the left-hand side.
So, what they're saying is that the numbers didn't appear random enough to them. Maybe it selected a few too many undesirables for their liking. Sometimes random numbers can appear not to be random. That's the problem with randomness, you can never be sure.
Instead they are saying that:
"A new selection process will be conducted based on the original entries for the 2012 program."
I'm willing to bet that new selection process certainly won't be random.
Bob Slydell: So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.
Bill Lumbergh: Great.
Dom Portwood: So, uh, Milton has been let go?
Bob Slydell: Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/2848/dilberttourofaccounting.png
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
My girlfriend was one of the initial winners. I don't have to tell you how furious/disappointed we both are.
The incompetence demonstrated by the State Department is fucking mind boggling. They have 6 months to draw winners, sample the results -make sure everything is OK. They don't. Instead of drawing 100,000 applicants they draw 22,000 most of which were no randomly drawn, but were among the first to apply. They post the results and after a week shut down the website with no explanation. People email the Kentucky Consular Center to make sure everything is OK before they send in their documents (It can be very expensive for internationally tracked packages, especially from people all around the world-many of whom are not well off.) The KCC emails people telling them everything is fine and to continue sending in documents, even they know at this point that the whole lottery is a clusterfuck. Then they announce that the first drawing was not random and has been disqualified.
Why wouldn't the State Department at least try to request permission from congress to increase the number of VISAs awarded to 75,000 up from 50,000 or randomly draw another 78,000 names to that 78,000 would be random and the initial 22,000 would be less random.
It just seems so unfair to announce winners and then revoke that announcement two weeks later, all the while telling people everything is OK.
Saved the best for last: The State Dept has announced that they will not be taking disciplinary action against anyone involved in the "Incorrect results" being posted. I would like to know of any other job on the planet where you can fuck up 15 million visa applications, blame a computer for what clearly is a persons job to ensure the results are accurate before posting them, and not even receive disciplinary action.
David Donahue should resign in shame and Hillary Clinton should make a public apology at the very minimum
That nobody's made a Debian/OpenSSL joke yet...
Would you be screaming for heads to be cut off?
Your girlfriend was selected in an unfair lottery. It wouldn't be right to let all that stand.
How do you know the KCC was informed the results weren't accurate at the point they were telling people to send in their documents?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Selecting the best would be elitist, and we can't have that.
Granting green cards to every English-speaking non-muslim would be seen as unconstitutional or something, even if it would be practical and go over rather well.
We simply can't pick and choose without being politically incorrect, and thus the lottery.
Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random The Art of Computer Programming, Vol 2 (emphasis in original)
"Hay you want to be a real American? You won! You can has citizenship!"
Then later..."LOL YHBT UMAD?"
Yes, the algorithm for choosing green card recipients is flawed. It should be:
if (applicant.wanted_for_crime = false) then
grant_green_card(applicant);
else
human_review(applicant)
end
On a more serious note, does anyone know what the error was?
If they used the same program as previous years, are they going to "fix" those lotteries too?
If it isn't the same program, I wonder why they wrote a new one. What bugs did the old program have?
can you imagine if a true "random" selection were done, and no women won? or if no blacks won?
yeah, this will not be random.
. . . and dispense with the lottery. To pin one's hopes on a lottery is foolishness.
But how about we just cancel the whole darn thing?
I'm going to assume that most of you here are Americans. And as such, you probably feel like America kicks butt and that we rock and everyone wants to come here (and you'd be correct). You've probably heard how it's REALLY HARD to come to America legally and probably have some view on illegal immigration. What you probably aren't aware of, because you've probably never tried, is just how difficult it is to immigrate to other countries.
These same countries that are condemning our immigration system offer an even more rigid, more unforgiving system. And these are really crappy countries. Countries that, objectively, are the equivalent of a tiny state in the US. 'Hey crappy EU country; you are the size of Iowa and have 1/2 GDP, who exactly are you trying to keep out?'
These countries don't have lotteries. They have standards (high standards). Upper middle class, educated, high paying job? If so, you've got a tiny shot....only if you happen to work in one of these 3 professions and only if you can line up a job while on the other side of an ocean. Anything less? No. Marry a citizen. That's it.
It's harder to immigrate into Mexico than it is the US. Stop and think about that for a second. Screw em. You don't want us? Well, we sure as heck don't want you. /Bitter //Really amazed at how difficult it is ///Will almost certainly be an 'illegal alien' in the next six months
We can't automate a system like this yet properly -- a naive random number generator is nowhere as good as the selection process could truly be.
First, for women: it is to be assumed that all women are here for prostitution and reproduction. Photos of every candidate will be submitted to a masturbation panel; these will be highly paid government jobs. That gentleman from a year or two ago who spent his entire day at his desk job masturbating to and downloading porn on government time is a model candidate. Of these women, the cream of the crop (top 5%) will be given their cards immediately; it is important for America to reward such fine stock with success as they deserve.
The next fifteen or twenty percent will have the option to come in for further screening. The best of the masturbators -- those with the most personality and people skills, as is the case in every hierarchical system -- will meet with them in luxury hotels for trial periods. It goes without saying that they will be penetrated vaginally and anally, and the agent's screening procedures are at the discretion of that particular agent. For example, he could run his own version of "The Apprentice" with the twenty or so at a time he would be charged with. A percent or two of this total pool would receive their cards.
For the men: there will be a more diverse group of these that are eligible to be taken. The majority of these will be STEMs. The ideal personality traits are an eager supplicancy and eternal gratitude to simply work in his field of interest.
A few entrepreneur types will be let in. They will have to be vetted by a board staffed by members of their industry peers. Essentially, priority here goes to implementations that can be loaded up and majority-held with existing funds through the hands of the board members and their associates.
A percent or two of the men and women is saved for miscellany. Most of these particular slots will go to direct bribery and the shemales.
We're talking about computer algorithms here. It's pretty obvious which is the correct usage in that context.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And are somehow still able to get work?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.