Hope I am not turning Disaffected Musings into the blog version of Herb Jepko’s Nitecap radio show with today’s post title and lead item, but the Mega Millions lottery has announced some real changes beginning next April. As reported in this CNBC article and elsewhere, the base ticket price is being raised from $2 to $5, but will now automatically include the Megaplier, which currently costs $1 extra.
From the Mega Millions lottery via the CNBC piece:
Here’s a look at the key changes, according to the lottery:
– A randomized multiplier for non-jackpot prizes will be included with every play, automatically improving every win by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X — up to $10 million for matching the five white balls.
– One of the gold Mega Balls will be removed from the draw, improving the odds from 1 in 25 to 1 in 24.
– Larger starting jackpots will grow faster than before.
– No break-even prizes, meaning when a player matches a Mega Ball, they’ll win at least $10, rather than the $2 winners currently receive.
I have known people who have complained about the multi-state lotteries and thought that they should stop offering the big jackpots and, instead, have games with better odds and lower jackpots. Guess what, those games exist but do not receive anywhere near the ticket sales of the big lotteries, especially when those big lottery jackpots get very large.
As I have written, I always buy the Megaplier or Power Play. This is gambling, not investing. I would be sick if, somehow, I had purchased a ticket that matched the five balls without the Mega Ball or Power Ball and literally cost us millions because I was too cheap to pay the extra dollar.
While we do not buy tickets for every drawing, we do buy them for most. I will not reveal the actual cutoff, but when the cash jackpot reaches a certain level, then we buy tickets. We are too old to take the annuity so it’s the cash value that matters to us. I guess most winners do take the cash.
I am certain we will continue to buy Mega Millions after the price increase/game change. Unlike many who sadly buy lottery tickets and can’t really afford them, we are spending a pittance to have some fun and to dream about winning. Remember, if you don’t play your odds of winning are exactly zero, but if you play then those odds asymptotically approach zero.
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I stumbled onto this Wired article from 2018. The title is, “‘Dear Mark, this is why I hate you.’ An open letter to Zuckerberg.”
Here is part of the open letter, the first two words of which should wake you up.
“…And while you didn’t seem to know much about Facebook or how it operates, you did remind me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask. It’s simple. I’d like to know how I can escape Facebook’s surveillance.
I know, I know, you get this question all the time. And you have an answer: if you don’t want to be tracked, just change your privacy settings. When you say that, you don’t really mean it. If someone on Facebook opts out of tracking, you’ll still track them – you’ll just stop letting advertisers target them in creepy, ill-defined ways. But I understand that in order to run your business, you feel the need to retain personally identifying information. And that – although this surely only reveals the bankruptcy of the consent model – your users did in theory agree to your terms and conditions.
But I have a problem: I’m not on Facebook. I’ve never been on Facebook. I’ve never opted into your service. So, Mark, can you tell me: how do I opt out?”
Fortunately, my browser (sure as hell is not Google Chrome, oh I hope Guck Foogle is broken up) has an add-in called Facebook Container that keeps Zuckerberg’s curse on the world from tracking me. The add-in even warns me when Facebook can track me if I enter my email address somewhere on the Internet.
Remember that Schmuckerberg once said in a Vanity Fair interview, “A person can be unethical and still be legal and that’s how I live my life.” So-called social media, it’s neither in my opinion, is a plague on all of us. Muckerberg is one of the arch villains in spreading the plague.
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Yes, I have complained about Fack Fucebook and Guck Foogle ad nauseum. However, the latter’s video minion, TouYube, is literally the only place to access much interesting video content. My mother used to quote a saying in Yiddish or Polish, I don’t remember which, that when translated into English meant, “When you need the thief you take him down from the gallows.”
In my opinion, the best content produced by Todd Deeken and Paul Schmucker of Everyday Driver is the car comparisons between/among cars in which I might have some interest. As I have aged, I have come to appreciate a comfortable 4-door sedan although I hope I will always have at least one “sports car.” This piece from a year ago compares the Genesis G90 to the Lexus LS.
Although both prefer sporty cars with high performance, they don’t forget to take the potential market and context into account. They both offer some criticism of the Lexus because the one they drove was the F-Sport version. To Deeken and Schmucker, that didn’t really make the Lexus a sporty car and was not really appropriate for a “luxury missile” as they call this market segment.
In the end, they both preferred the Genesis G90. Even with its $100,000 price tag, they noted that a similarly equipped Mercedes-Benz luxury sedan is priced at $130,000+. The piece is just 22 minutes long so if you are interested then you should certainly watch.
This picture of a Genesis G90 is from this article at The Drive titled, “2023 Genesis G90 Review: Greatness for a Bargain.” Like the hosts of Everyday Driver, Nico Demattia sees a great car that, given all of its features, is not really expensive. Remember that the average transaction price for a new vehicle in the US is almost $50,000. A six-figure car is not way out of bounds for many Americans.
#MegaChange
#FackFucebook
#GenesisG90