Statistical likelihood

[Vincent]

Cute little email circulating. Posits the likelihood of several familiar scenarios....

The odds of winning the Florida lottery are 1 in 22,957,480.

The odds of winning the Powerball is 1 in 175,223,510.

The odds of winning Mega Millions is 1 in 258,890,850.

The odds of a disk drive failing in any given month are roughly one in 36. The odds of two different drives failing in the same month are roughly one in 36 squared, or 1 in about 1,300. The odds of three drives failing in the same month is 36 cubed or 1 in 46,656.

The odds of seven different drives failing in the same month (like what happened at the IRS when they received a letter asking about emails targeting conservative and pro Israeli groups) is 37 to the 7th power = 1 in 78,664,164,096. (that's over 78 Billion) In other words, the odds are greater that you will win the Florida Lottery 342 times than having those seven IRS hard drives crashing in the same month.​

I think it was USDA that had a sig line something like "If you lie to the gubmint you go to jail. If you catch the gubmint lying you go to jail". Wonder which Republican congressmen are going to bake for these drive failures.

 

[Stoney]

That is a cute email, but is it accurate? While I am completely convinced that the IRS if full of **** regarding these 'failed' drives, I also know that these types of emails are also often full of ****.

 

[madinsomniac]

EPA is in the same boat right now... massive failing hard drives must be epidemic... the weird part is how its only select hard drives that failed and how the ones in question all failed at the exact same time... there are going to be contempt of congress charges in both cases, I believe

 

[ark steel]

If the probability of a HDD failing really is 1/36 then the probability of seven failing would be 1/36^7, if each probability is, indeed, random and independent. However, what if you bought all of those hard drives were bought in the same batch and that batch had a higher failure rate? What if something was going on with the system where the failures are no longer independent?

It seems pretty clear that these failures are not of the random or independent nature, though.

It seems much more improbable than 1/36^7 that only the HDDs with specific information were those that failed.

 

[MT~Forged]

I think the probability is 100% they were "lost" on purpose.

 

[madinsomniac]

Well sure , I mean in both cases the emails are potentially a gateway to larger criminal charges and politically damning scandals. Just refusing to turn it over with a lie gets smaller more centralized charges that the public wont give a damn about... every admin does it then the opposite party feigns outrage for a bit till they are in charge and doing the same stuff... Nixon's staff erased damning tapes... scandalous... the IRS and EPA erased a bunch of computers with damning emails on them and claimed no backups exist... nothing to see here... ... just save transcripts of all the responses on the CNN articles so you can laugh in a few years when all this is reversed and so are the arguments by the same people and talking heads

 

[ZonaBurgh]

Well sure , I mean in both cases the emails are potentially a gateway to larger criminal charges and politically damning scandals. Just refusing to turn it over with a lie gets smaller more centralized charges that the public wont give a damn about... every admin does it then the opposite party feigns outrage for a bit till they are in charge and doing the same stuff... Nixon's staff erased damning tapes... scandalous... the IRS and EPA erased a bunch of computers with damning emails on them and claimed no backups exist... nothing to see here... ... just save transcripts of all the responses on the CNN articles so you can laugh in a few years when all this is reversed and so are the arguments by the same people and talking heads

These are different times......I seem to remember that Nixon resigned.

 

[Hineswardkickedurpanzyass]

the odds of all of the IRS Hard drives crashing are the same as me finding a winning Powerball ticket at Myrtle Beach, during a Hurricane. And the ticket is in the mouth of a Great White Shark that is being reeled in on 10 lb test line by Coolie and Supe while they are wearing I voted for Obama tshirts.

 

[SteelChip]

These are different times......I seem to remember that Nixon resigned.

View attachment 315

If you ask our top law enforcement officer, it's because of racism...

“There's a certain level of vehemence, it seems to me, that's directed at me [and] directed at the president,” Holder told ABC. “You know, people talking about taking their country back. … There's a certain racial component to this for some people.

Despite the IRS spending $4 billion on IT contracts, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen blamed "declining budget resources" for Lois Lerner's lost emails. Yeah, for another couple of billion he could have lost the rest of them.

 

[bmoritz]

the odds of all of the IRS Hard drives crashing are the same as me finding a winning Powerball ticket at Myrtle Beach, during a Hurricane. And the ticket is in the mouth of a Great White Shark that is being reeled in on 10 lb test line by Coolie and Supe while they are wearing I voted for Obama tshirts.

So you're saying there's a chance!!!

 

[hamster]

Sooooooo. The IRS loses it's emails, right around the same time that SN goes down for a few months. And then DD seems to disappear.
Hmmm.Could be purely coincidental, but then again,.........

 

[Vincent]

Sooooooo. The IRS loses it's emails, right around the same time that SN goes down for a few months. And then DD seems to disappear.
Hmmm.Could be purely coincidental, but then again,.........

Settle down. DD isn't LL.