Space in review

So a few weeks ago I wrote about how big a billion is. I asked for advice on the topic from the great Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy and he gave some wonderful feedback (while slyly encouraging me to change the football photo to one of his Alma mater). Then today (well technically tomorrow, I wrote a draft on a different topic for the 3rd but changed it on the 4th to this) I go to his blog and find this! Thanks for the shout out Phil!

Suddenly I had many people reading my posting a giving great feedback and ideas that I want to include in future posts on the topic. But there are a couple interesting items that were posted in the comments and e-mailed to me that I wanted to include here:

"Catch22" posted this awesome link visualizing your 1:176 million chance of winning the lottery. Each pixel represents one lottery ticket and each time you roll over one it adds the total spent. Only one pixel is the winner and once you see how large the grid is you may decide it is better to save your money. I spent $15,000+ on this before I found the magic pixel (and wasted 10 minutes of my life). And to put it in perspective, you are roughly 10x more likely to be killed by lightning than to win the lottery. That's why anyone who is "feeling lucky" when they buy lottery tickets should stay indoors during thunderstorms.

Monty Python said the same thing I did but said it when I was just a baby, and far more musically might I add:
Although my intentions in writing the post did not include "convincing an old lady to give up her liver".


Thanks for the great feedback everyone! I'll work up another Science post soon!