Thread: EBT Cards

Originally Posted by CivilWars

Just tell her hot dogs are made of lips and assholes, then you can enjoy some brats.

If you can convince Dr. Oz to say that, that'd do the trick.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Not likely. Your talking about almost 3.8 million square miles containing 254 million registered vehicles. Your better off guessing how many jelly beans are in a jar because it'll be a whole lot more accurate.

cellphones and cell towers

Speeding doesn't even compare to food stamps fraud. Let's assume that we know that X% of people speed. We could even assume we knew the name, make and model of vehicle, and traffic routes of every speeder. We still wouldn't have the ability to catch them all. There are not enough officers and when you put an officer in a location the speeders in that area suddenly aren't speeders. Now let's compare that to food stamp fraud. If we have some formula that says people that do Y are committing fraud. We shut down the cards/accounts of those people regardless of where they are, and problem solved.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Not likely. Your talking about almost 3.8 million square miles containing 254 million registered vehicles. Your better off guessing how many jelly beans are in a jar because it'll be a whole lot more accurate.

Interesting example you pose.

True story:

I'm a junior in college. The cafeteria in the student union is going to start selling swanky coffee. They have a promo table set up with brewed coffee samples, and a "guess how many coffee beans in the jar" contest. Closest guess gets a Krups brewer and a Krups grinder. Second guess gets a grinder.

This, to me, is a solvable problem. I go across the atrium to the bookstore where an ex gf of mine is working. I ask her for a ruler, which she gives me from her desk. I go to the contest table, but the woman there looks at me funny and tells me I can't touch the jar. I take the brewer box and set it next to the jar - it's big, clear glass, cylindrical; like an apothecary jar. Heavy glass lid. I eyeball the height of the beans inside and compare that to the box, then pick up the box and measure the height of the beans, and also the thickness of the bottom of the jar. Then I set the box down in front of the jar and use it to help estimate the width of the jar. Apply ruler. Done.

I go into the cafeteria and buy a quarter pound (least they'll sell me) of beans. I head back to the ex's desk in the bookstore and take the plastic cube she uses to hold paperclips, and then go to the lounge.

Fortunately I don't give a shit that other people are watching. I fill the container with beans, dump it out, and count them. I do that until the average starts to converge, 12 - 15 times as I recall. Then I measure the interior of the cube and get an estimate for beans per cubic inch.

At this point the only thing I don't have an estimate for is the thickness of the jar's walls. Is it the same as the base? It looks thinner, but I can't tell for sure because of the lensing effect of the curved glass. So I calculate two figures for the interior volume of the beans (they weren't to the top of the jar). Multiply those times my estimate of beans per cubic inch and I have two guesses for the number of beans.

Problem: I can only submit one guess. I take the ruler and cube back to the bookstore and tell the story to the ex. She says that she'll put in the second guess.

My guesses win first and second prize.

I also re-discover why I made her my ex: the guess with her name on it is the winner, and she keeps the brewer/grinder combo. I wind up with a grinder (I still have it, too) and additional evidence that a nice body doesn't always make for a nice person.

So yeah, it's often better to guess at jellybeans in a jar because that's a really easy problem to solve. It's 10th grade math and a very tiny little bit of can-do spirit.

This brings me to my point: what the hell is bothering you lately? All you can say is "no", "not possible", and "can't be done."

The poindexters of the world are out there solving problems. Can't do it the easy way? Ok, we'll do it the hard way. Can't get the data you want? No problem, we'll figure out a different method. Can't get a perfect answer? That's fine, we can still get a good answer and show you the error margins. Cut our funding? Fuck it, let's see if we can still hit our goal. They're relying on their training, some creativity and lateral thinking, and some goddamned can-do spirit.


Every car that has a GPS in it is giving a real-time and continuous speed estimate. You think that some of that data doesn't get sampled? Every car that has an EZ-Pass is giving a time and location code whenever they pass a reader. You think that the Mass Pike people aren't looking at trip times? Do you think that traffic engineers don't gather speed and traffic-density data the old fashioned way? It's cheap, and the equipment is long-since paid for. There are cameras up and down the entire length of I-95. I can think of three ways to use those video streams to get speed estimates. This paragraph took me a minute to compose and type. What could I come up with if it was my full-time job?

Cheers,


AetheLove