From: zinc <zinc@zifi.genetics.utah.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 95 12:22:22 PDT
To: hardin@cyberspace.com
Subject: Re: Num Rat
In-Reply-To: <9507111813.AA0253@localhost>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.950711131925.3058D-100000@zifi.genetics.utah.edu>
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On Tue, 11 Jul 1995 hardin@cyberspace.com wrote:

> John Young posted:
> 
> >    He's Got Their Number: Scholar Uses Math to Foil Financial
> >    Fraud
> > 
> prices are anything but random. A very heavy concentration of eights (8) &
> nines (9), apparently this company is more into $508.98 (color inkjet printer)
> & $38.98 (well known game s/w) than the old late night TV standby of
> "JUST $19.99!". Of course, this is because of excessively documented
> ad nauseum human psychological tendencies that salescritters, who set at
> least the lsd's of price, have been aware of for millenia. I'd bet, that
> 5(five), 8(eight), & 9(nine) are significantly more represented across
> the board in prices (& thus in amounts for checks & tax write offs) than
> than their random distribution by Benford's Law or more well known tests
> for randomness would suggest. Has Mr. Negrini factored this into his program?
> I guess the lesson is do a few pgp make__random's & convert a few of the
> hex numbers to dec digits for the lsd's the next time one does creative expense
> reporting.

check amounts will also include any relevant sales tax thus skewing the 
distribution in some fashion.


patrick finerty = zinc@zifi.genetics.utah.edu = pfinerty@nyx.cs.du.edu
U of Utah biochem grad student in the Bass lab - zinc fingers + dsRNA!
** FINGER ME for my pgp public key ** CRYPTO FOR THE MASSES!
zifi is a 486 DX4-100 running LINUX 1.2.10, send me all of your RAM now!


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