Mr. Sweepy's Forums

I stand corrected. nelliebean's success disproves the theory.

My two cents is that I think complete randomization is impossible.

In the courts, there were programs to generate random picks of names for people to serve on jury duty. Inevitably, someone would say, "You know, it's probably just my imagination, but I think it is tending to select more of X." The programmer would say "I'm sure it's not your imagination," check and indeed find the X and fix it.

Then someone would say, "You know, it's probably just my imagination, but I think it is tending to select more of Y." The programmer would say, "Thanks, I'm sure it's not your imagination," check and find the Y and fix that. And so on.

I finally said, How do you KNOW it's not their imagination? How do you know you are going to find some quirk? THEY don't even know if they are really noticing something.

He said, some people are just way more sensitive to patterns, and I have learned to trust their instincts. No program can ever be made truly random. Whenever I fix something to be truly random, it just means that someone else will now be able to detect some other nonrandomness in there.

I said, Why can't it ever finally be completely genuinely random?

He said, Because programs are created by human beings and humans are inherently organized, even when they take their very best aim at randomness.

 I find this fascinating. It came up when I idly mentioned that I thought I had found a pattern in a computer game, "but it was probably just my imagination," and he said "NO! It's not your imagination! What have you discovered?"  And it did give him an edge, too, in playing the game.

Sorry about the duplicate posts, it started double spacing and I was trying to make it go back to single spacing.  Then I couldn't figure out how to delete the extra posts, so I turned them into just a period dot.   

Gez, this is all over my head, I just enter when I have the time and I have won in the middle of the night, wee hours of the morning and in the middle of the day.  I know that it is all predetermined and you are competing with less people in the early morning hours but if the time is not "randomly picked" for those hours does it really matter how many people are entering?  I am sure that the answer is all over my head anyway so I will just keep trying and when it is my time I will win and when it is not I will be happy for those who do win.  Good luck to all and God Bless

I should think a sweeps might control the number of awards through any period of time.  They might not choose to do so, however.  That might explain the different experiences you are having.

Secondly, when I was a smart chic, I read an article stating that so-called random tables were not truly random; it just takes near forever--an unimaginably large number of iterations--to complete the loop and start the seemingly-random pattern over again.

 Back to the hunt!  GLTA!

i have been sweeping since early 08 and enter at all times of day and night and have only won one instant.  i am also in the midst of a very dry spell (no wins in 2009) and losing enthusiasm.

What he said was there were fewer players at that time of day and I don't think that is true today.  I have read so many letters saying "the best time to enter sweeps is between midnight and 5 am" and I think we have so many more people entering sweeps today and when I read about their wins that's the time they enter.  So in my opinion, which isn't worth much, there are a lot more people entering in the night than there were two years ago when he wrote that.

 2009 Instants Time Won Central Time

AM TIMES

2:46 AM

2:59 AM
3:50 AM
3:52 AM
4:42 AM
4:59 AM
5:10 AM
7:50 AM
9:34 AM

PM TIMES

1:35 PM
2:15 PM
3:21 PM
5:33 PM
7:17 PM
9:25 PM
10:00 PM
10:41 PM
12:06 PM

 I think if you decide a certain time is lucky, you will do the majority of entering at that time, whenever that's possible.  So your wins will continue to show up in that time frame, and that will reinforce your opinion that that particular time is lucky.