Avinashsing Sunkur

Just a link to my technorati profile. Let’s see if the spiders can find it. If successful, might as well know if the html tags are working in the ‘edit post’ feature of my site. Technorati Profile

In an attempt to predict the lottery numbers, i have created a small program that generates numbers for the National Lottery Lotto, EuroMillions and the Thunderball. Having done a research on the actual subject, i am very inclined to say that the numbers generated follow a certain pattern although not a highly predictable one.

People, in general, like to play numbers that correspond to birthdays, lucky numbers or numbers that have a special meaning to them. These people are less likely to win because these numbers are not random. Previous draws have shown that people doing lucky dips win more than others.

The program that i created is just a random number generator but i plan on adding more intelligence to it as i gather relevant information. On Friday 20th of October 2006, my generator showed me 5 main numbers that were actually were drawn for the EuroMillions. I was skeptic to play those numbers and now i regret it fully because i would have been a millionaire today!

My next step is to draw a version of the EuroMillions draws for this year by making each unique number a unique colour. This will allow me to see the pattern of the draws and infer some logic from it.

Here is my Lottery Random Number Generator if you want to have a go at it. Good luck!

After my last unsuccessful attempt to build a Flashing LED Sweetheart, i was really upset that two and a half hours of hard work was wasted because of a silly mistake – creating a short circuit while soldering the pieces of the kit on the copper board. However i’m finding the excitement to build another of these electronic circuitry again today. I usually get the kits from Maplin store (http://www.maplin.co.uk) as they cost between £5 to £15 each. I’ve actually set my eyes on two starter kits. The first one (pictured above) is a Roulette kit and the second interesting one i’ve come across is the Running MicroBug kit. The roulette is fairly straightforward ie it picks a number at random. But the Running MicroBug is quite appealing as it crawls towards a light source. With two open chassis sub-miniature motors and a light sensitive device attached to its body, it is a very nice little gadjet to play with.

We all got family all over the world (umm i think so!). And International Calling Cards are a cheap way to keep in touch with them. Is it really though? Not long ago – about 5 months back – i was using Sonic calling card to call my family in Mauritius and if i was to dial the local number, i would get about 240 mins. I’m not kidding, 4 hrs talking for just 5 pounds (£5).

Too good to be true? Well nowadays, Lycatel Ltd, company that supplies these calling cards, has decided to be even more generous. You buy a five-pounds Sonic calling card and you get either 6 or 7.5 pounds worth of calls. Huray!!! Not really – there’s always a catch in all too-good-to-be-true deals. What happens now is that when you buy a £5 calling card, you can actually make £6/7.5 worth of calls but the cost per minute has significantly increased. On the one that i usually buy, i get 120 minutes now which means that the call rates have doubled.

And that’s not just it, each time you call a destination number, you get charged a connection fee, a post call fee which is dependent on the duration of the call and on top of that a maintenance fee which is applicable daily from the first time you use the card. So if you had £2 left on your card and havent used it for a while, dont be surprised to see that you aint got any credits when you try to call.

Bottom line: Which international calling card is the best to use for Mauritius?