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tkdguy

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Here's what I'm talking about:

The Orientale basin is the youngest and best-preserved major impact structure on the Moon. We used the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft to investigate the gravitational field of Orientale at 3- to 5-kilometer (km) horizontal resolution. A volume of at least (3.4 ± 0.2) × 106 km3 of crustal material was removed and redistributed during basin formation. There is no preserved evidence of the transient crater that would reveal the basin’s maximum volume, but its diameter may now be inferred to be between 320 and 460 km. The gravity field resolves distinctive structures of Orientale’s three rings and suggests the presence of faults associated with the outer two that penetrate to the mantle. ...


(Source: Zuber et al., 28 October 2016 Science)

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Researchers turn glowing E. coli into lightbulb

 

UK researchers have created a lightbulb with genetically modified luminescent E. coli bacteria in a project for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. The E. coli glows when it comes into contact with a heat source or electrical current.

Holy glowing electric poop, Batman!

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Casinos are not charities, and they need to pay for the mortgage/rent, employees, power, games, and so on. All casino games have a built-in advantage to the house. With some games, like single deck blackjack, the advantage is very small. For roulette, the advantage is very big. Most slot machines are usually somewhere in between.

 

Modern slot machines are essentially software running on dedicated computers, and as such, will occasionally crash, or suffer a software glitch, or otherwise malfunction, and that's essentially why all casinos post that "malfunctions void all pays and plays".

 

I'm guessing that this was a progressive machine, meaning that the correct combination on the reels at the correct level of wager would result in an award being paid, which would be the theoretical maximum for the machine. I'm also guessing that what actually happened is that some other combination of symbols on the screen actually displayed, and that the amount was somehow "paid" with a very large positive or negative integer value*. The fact that she mentioned trying to print out a TITO ticket means that the system didn't register it as a hand pay (which is usually required for Title 31 tax withholding compliance), and lock up until a slot attendant could arrive, which also screams "malfunction" to me.

 

 

 

 

*Slots use "credits" to represent the number of coins of whatever denomination are in the machine. That should be an integer value of either 0 or one of the available positive integers, but mistakes in programming can be made.

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