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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 Then, on May, 6th, the results were withdrawn with the web site claiming to experience 'technical difficulties.'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."
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?
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
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.
Probably not the problem... I imagine there are further requirements regarding percentages of people from certain countries, gender requirements, etc. I would guess it was the weighting that was at fault, not the randomness.
Unexpected results are not neccessarily random. You may just have missed some bug that generates very predictable results which were just unexpected because you didn't knew about that bug.
Still, true randomness is hard. While I don't think this applies here, randomness also includes random clusters. People accept these if the process that generates the randomness is very obvious random, but do the same with a computer or by sieving through large amounts of data and they see patterns and don't accept these as random anymore.
Example: There have been discussions about clusters of cases of certain kinds of cancer around nuclear reactors. Can't be random, you think. Well, if you look at many different kinds of cancer and check the distribution of those you'll find random clusters for one or more of them. One of those clusters may be found around a reactor. May still be random, but nobody will ever believe you. In fact, if you sieve the data fine enough and have enough reactors and NONE of these clusters coincide with a reactor, the conclusion would be that nuclear reactors PROTECT against cancer. But explain that to people.
Other example: Apple introduced random playlists on iPods years ago. Now people noticed that some songs got played more than once before all others were played. Can't be random! There's a bug! Well, no. Still, Apple had to modify their software to make the choice actually LESS random (by have no song being played twice) to make it appear "really" random to the users.
Randomness is hard and can be spooky.
Unexpected results are, by definition, random.
Perhaps you should actually look up the definition of random before declaring it?
1. Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements.
2. Mathematics & Statistics: Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
3. Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely, as in the testing of a blood sample for the presence of a substance.
The pertinent definition is the mathmatical one, which needs a probability distribution. It's very easy to observe a data set that does not have an appropriate distribution. Also, definition 3 speaks of have equal likelihood of the outcome, which the discovered bug proved was not. I couldn't tell from the article if they saw a pattern or simply discovered the bug, but it could have been invalidated by the first definition as well.
So *by definition*, it truly was not random.
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
Technically, the results were indeed random.
No, technically your conflating two different things, the random glitch, and the non-random output caused by the glitch.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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
You're using the mathematical definition. The common usage of the word is far less restrictive. To quote Merriam-Webster's definition: "without definite aim, direction, rule, or method". That certainly applies in cases where an unexpected bug affects the results.
For example, if I randomly say a string of ones and zeros, it almost certainly won't be random in a mathematical sense, but it will be in the common usage sense: it won't have a definite aim, direction, rule, or method. This is an analogous situation. When I'm speaking in binary, there's some "bug" with the human brain that makes us really bad at making mathematically random sequences. It's even "bugged" in a predictable manner -- my run lengths will be too short.
As a side point, this isn't the only time that mathematical and common usage definitions differ -- see the word "or".
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)
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
This is not a programming language, it's pseudocode, intended to be read by humans who can infer the obvious intended meaning. Unfortunately Slashdot isn't a good place for that.
Yes, just as immigration distorted the US economy and social structure during the 19th and early 20th century, transforming the US from a backwater agrarian hinterland into the most powerful center of industry and technology the world had ever seen. I fail to see the problem.
You make a clear case for the benefits and moral obligation of immigration, but your description the cost is a flimsy raft tied together with untested assumptions.
Note the word 'theoretically'. It's used in the same sense as in: "theoretically RSA encryption might be vulnerable if someone solves the problem of fast factorization".
In practice, there are no serious attacks on PRNG used in Linux.