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Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Retiree From Rural Michigan Tells Us The Moment He Figured Out How To Beat The State's Lottery

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-retiree-from-rural-michigan-tells-us-the-moment-he-figured-out-how-to-beat-the-states-lottery-2012-8

michigan

Gerald Selbee was never a big lotto guy.

The 73-year-old retired store owner from rural Michigan who still prefers paper to computers occasionally played Pick-3s and Pick-4s, and even more rarely instant games or scratch-offs.

On Friday, Selbee and a host of others were named — but absolved of any wrongdoing — in a report from the Massachusetts Inspector General's office on how large-volume betters cracked that state's game.

One day in 2003, while buying a soda at a convenience store, he picked up a brochure advertising Michigan's newest lotto game, a pick-5 called Winfall.

The game was structured so that if the jackpot hit $5 million but was not claimed, the money would "roll-down" to those who'd picked five, four and three numbers correctly.

While Selbee was not a frequent lottery player, he had earned a Bachelor's in mathematics and had started Master's degree in the subject.

So it took him "about 4 minutes," he told us from his home in Evart, Mich. to realize that if you bought enough tickets, the odds of taking home money became overwhelming.

"I couldn't believe it," he said.

His first attempt in Michigan was unlucky — he bought $2,400 dollars, and according to his calculations should have had two four-number winners, but only got one.

"So I lost 50 bucks," he said.

The next attempts were much more successful — $6,300 from $3,600 worth of tickets and $15,700 from $8,000 worth of tickets.

He eventually roped in friends and acquaintances to form GS Investment Strategies, LLC, and for the next nine years schooled the system. When Michigan shutdown its Winfall game, he moved onto Massachusetts, where a similar game was founded in 2005.

Selbee estimates that for the period, the group won between $7.5 million and $8 million.

What did he do with his share?

"Two of my grand kids graduated debt-free from the University of Michigan," he said.

And for his personal satisfaction? He bought gold.

"I think devaluation of the dollar is a certainty," he said.

Click here to see the story of how he and others then went on to beat the Massachusetts lottery >

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Scientists Have Discovered A New Way To Predict How Smart You Are

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-may-eventually-be-able-to-scan-your-brain-to-determine-how-smart-you-are-2012-8

brain

New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that 10 percent of individual differences in intelligence can be figured out by looking at the strength of neural pathways.

Specifically, it involves the pathways that connect the left prefrontal cortex — a part of the brain that's linked to personality and cognitive behaviors — to the rest of the brain.

The findings, which were published in the Journal of Neuroscience, establish a new way to understand human intelligence. It's called "global brain connectivity."

It's a brand new model of brain function which could have "important implications" for the understanding of human intelligence, according to WUSTL.

Postdoctoral research fellow in cognitive neuroscience Michael W. Cole, the lead author of the study, explains in the university's writeup:

"There is evidence that the left prefrontal cortex is the brain region that ‘remembers’ (maintains) the goals and instructions that help you keep doing what is needed when you’re working on a task. So it makes sense that having this region communicating effectively with other regions (the ‘perceivers’ and ‘doers’ of the brain) would help you to accomplish tasks intelligently.

“We’re suggesting that the left prefrontal cortex functions like a feedback control system that is used often in engineering, that it helps implement cognitive control (which supports fluid intelligence), and that it doesn’t do this alone."

NOW SEE:

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Here's How The Poor, The Middle Class And The Rich Spend Their Money [INFOGRAPHIC]

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-rich-and-the-poor-spend-money-2012-8

NPR's Planet Money recently posted this cool infographic showing the differences between how the poor, the middle class and the rich spend their money. It might also reveal how they budget.

Turns out everyone's rent is way too high, as each demographic puts more than 25 percent of their monthly income towards housing. Each group also spends a lot on transportation & gasoline—the poor spend 20.4 percent, while the middle class drops 21.3 percent—not to mention a lot on food and healthcare. The poor spend the most on the latter category, with 8.2 percent going toward health care and health insurance expenses.

Interestingly, the rich are doing a much better job at saving for retirement, beating both the middle class and the poor by socking away 15.9 percent of their incomes each year. The poor fare worse on this front, only squirreling away 2.6 percent percent. They also fall short when it comes to education, saving slightly more than the middle class (1.5 percent versus 1.3 percent), but significantly less than the rich (4.4 percent).

Check out the figures below from the Consumer Expenditure Survey:

Virtual HR Company TribeHR Scores Another $2.5 Million In Funding

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/virtual-hr-company-tribehr-funding-2012-7

Joseph Fung of TribeHR TribeHR, a company that provides virtual HR services, just announced it has raised $2.5 million in funding, bringing its total to $3.6 million.

The company provides HR software to small and medium-sized businesses. It provides support in recruiting, managing vacation days, remembering salary history, and other tasks. The price range from $2 to $10 a user per month.

The round was led by Relay Ventures with Matrix Partners also participating.

"This new round of funding will allow us to enhance our solutions by adding both social and mobile features which will lead to increased effectiveness of the HR manager,” said TribeHR CEO Joseph Fung.

TribeHR is based in Kitchener, Ontario. The company had previously raised a seed round from Matrix Partners.

Fung cofounded Lewis Media, an online provider of website-building tools.

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House of Lords wants UK TV to go fully online and leave airwaves clear for cellphones

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/house-of-lords-internet-tv-spectrum-plan/

The UK House of Lords' Communications Committee has suggested that all broadcast TV should be moved to the internet to free up wireless spectrum for cellphones. In its report, the panel found that whilst such a network would be cheaper and more efficient in the long run, it would also require extensive re-building of the country's archaic communications infrastructure. Given that the analog-to-digital switchover is currently in progress, it seems unlikely that a further transition will be timetabled -- especially since there are still concerns over the cost of bringing fiber-optic broadband to rural areas. Any change in the plan will need to be rubber-stamped by Government, but perhaps it'd be more amenable if they saw how good 8K video looks on one of those connections.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Internet