104
votes

I am organising yet another lottery and Springer have kindly agreed to donate two copies of LaTeX and Friends (see also).

This year I decided to be the judge of the lottery. The lottery closes when the judge has announced the last winner. The judge's decision is final and there shall be no discussion and/or correspondence about the outcome of the lottery.

To win the book you may guess two numbers in the range 1--250. The first two people that guess the right number win a copy of the book. Please note that the time of arrival in TeX-SX is what counts, not the time of sending.

To give everybody a fair chance, you may submit only one number.

There is one exception to the previous rule. If several contestants submit the same number, the contestant whose submission arrived first is valid. The other contestants may resubmit a new number.

Contestants must have been a member of TeX-SX before 10 December, 2014. (Without this restriction, people may start creating fake accounts and submit multiple guesses.)

Please post your guess as an answer to this meta question; not as a comment. Comments will be ignored. Please only put your guess in the body of the answer.

Guesses will be checked every couple of days and the winner will be announced within a few days after.

I can sign the book at your request. Please note that I won't sign by default because I know some people want to keep their books pencil and ink free.

At the time of writing there were no winners yet. To speed things up, contestants may choose two numbers in total.

** OK It's two days before Christmas and the remaining number still hasn't been guessed. I'm giving you one more try, so everybody may guess three numbers in total. **

Update: the numbers were 126 and 197 have been guessed by mrf and phollox respectively.

Congratulations to Winners !. Thanks all for participating. More luck next year.

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Copy/paste card punch : |◖■◗|

Having difficulty getting by the trivial answer checker (due to including an internal site link, perhaps)? Include this 2x2 pixel image at the end of your guess:

![trivial answer checker avoidance](https://i.sstatic.net/nRgZB.png)
8
  • 12
    People, I don't understand you I think. We've got 14 people wanting a book, and only 6 of them grateful to Marc for organizing this little TeX.SX Xmas? ...
    – yo'
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 20:28
  • 6
    @tohecz To be fair, the customary way of saying 'thanks' on this site is to vote posts up and, by that reckoning, 35 people have said 'thanks', while 52 have answered. Assuming that only those who have answered have voted up, that's slightly better...
    – cfr
    Commented Dec 11, 2014 at 23:09
  • 2
    And people – please stop shaming the 'uninteresting' numbers. All numbers are interesting! Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 3:06
  • 2
    @SeanAllred Isn't there even one uninteresting number? Seems a shame - I'd be interested to know which one it was.
    – cfr
    Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 22:17
  • 2
    I have the book Marc. I want to give others an opportunity hence would pass on this. Thanks for every year lottery at tex.sx. Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 0:59
  • 1
    @texenthusiast Thanks for that.
    – user10274
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 13:23
  • Thanks again for this generous donation to the community. I'm sure we all appreciate it!
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 16:21
  • I'm going to lock here to 'preserve' the question/answers as-is. If anyone needs to edit, ping me in the chat room.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 16:22

137 Answers 137

2
votes

I will go for 2. I like this number.

My secong guess is 130.

2
votes

186 plus some other characters to make up the body length limit.

Second guess: 6

And a third guess: 188

2
votes

120 - its 5!, the symmetry of the icosahedron and of the pentachoron. The largest of the six polyopes in 4D has 120 faces, and ispend a good dealof time getting LaTeX to work in base 120

|◖■◗|

2
votes

My two guesses:

073 and 142

0
2
votes
  1. The minute I posted this (just to generate a random number)

Edit The second number is 204 (just because it is still free)

Third guess 167

2
votes

My guesses are: 132 133 134

Because this was the only consecutive triple left on the same row.

2
votes

My three guesses:
55 Lowest remaining
235 Highest remaining
145 Average of the previous two

(55 + 235)/2 = 145

2
votes

I choose 245 (well, my wife did to me).

Edit:

Ow, just now I discovered that we can choose 2 numbers.

So my second one is 146 because now is 21:46.

Edit 2

So the 3rd number I choose is 058.

2
votes

143, for no reason. 051, also no reason 161, still no reason

2
votes

57 (first two digits of the question identifier)

83 (my second choice)

219 (third choice)

2
votes

I take 010, because the random number generator said so.

Now that two guesses are allowed, my other choice is 066.

My third guess is 178.

2
votes

121

...because it's an integer.

Take two: 103 because it has the same sum of digits as 121.

Third time Lucky: 060

2
votes

47, my dice said so

Second quess: 181 (no dice)

Third guess! 230

trivial answer checker avoidance

2
  • 1
    A 47+-sided dice?
    – user47077
    Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 18:57
  • @nyuszika7h Three 10-sided dice.
    – Tim N
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 19:25
2
votes

My first and only attempt is 079, 080, 092!

2
votes

Update 1: I picked a number which was already taken, so I got 220 now. :)

Update 2: My second guess: 110 (the sum of three consecutive squares).

Update 3: My third guess: 115 because pie. :)

3
  • Hmmm... 1 was already taken.
    – Werner Mod
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 5:05
  • @Werner: was it? Oh my, I'm stoopid. :) Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 9:04
  • @Werner: I got 220, let's see if nobody else took it. :) Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 9:06
1
vote

179 without a valid reason. I'm sure it is wrong.

1
vote

If no one has taken 5 yet, I shall

1
vote

165, because I feel it will be the winning number.

I will appreciate a signed copy.

1
vote

18 because it's pretty much the best number.

1
vote

Hopefully, I will win 0112 = 310 books :)

1
vote

I choose 68 and 112

trivial answer checker avoidance

1
vote

I choose 82 and 171 because they both look good in formal attire.

1
vote
  1. All the cool ones were already taken. Since I can pick two, let's go for 118, the current number of elements in the periodic table.

trivial answer checker avoidance

1
vote

25 + 29 = \hruletrivial answer checker avoidance

2
  • 1
    So you're choosing 25 and 29, not 25+29=54, since 54 is already taken...
    – Werner Mod
    Commented Dec 16, 2014 at 20:56
  • Oh, yes, that was the plan. :)
    – T. Verron
    Commented Dec 17, 2014 at 6:04
1
vote

My guess is 196. I tried to check, and I believe the number has not yet been taken. Also is is a square, has 7 as a prime factor and the number is larger than my age in years, so this must be it!

trivial answer checker avoidance

1
  • This was off by 1 :( And I thought my argument was fool-proof ...
    – jochen
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 14:57
1
vote

I guess 105 and 198, because numbers.

1
vote

I'd like 67 and 185. trivial answer checker avoidance

1
vote

101 and 5 enter image description here

1
vote

21, because nobody is guessing low numbers!

edit: and 11

1
vote

I will try with the numbers 039 and 169.

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