{
 "id": "40t6rg",
 "title": "201601132259",
 "title_time": "2016-01-13T22:59",
 "author": "[deleted]",
 "account": "A858DE45F56D9BC9",
 "subreddit": "A858DE45F56D9BC9",
 "created_utc": "2016-01-13T17:59:01Z",
 "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/A858DE45F56D9BC9/comments/40t6rg/201601132259/",
 "arctic_shift": "https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/api/posts/ids?ids=40t6rg",
 "sources": [
  "community-archive",
  "arctic-shift"
 ],
 "body": "01111a2d3313",
 "body_source": "community-archive",
 "body_other_version": "[deleted]",
 "body_hex_chars": 12,
 "bytes": 6,
 "score": 26,
 "num_comments": 21,
 "category": {
  "code": "X",
  "label": "X post-cutover exception: binary, undecrypted"
 },
 "kind": "manual",
 "encryption": "unencrypted",
 "status": "explained",
 "summary": "A Powerball play, 1 17 26 45 51 + PB 19, for the 2016-01-13 draw. Six plain bytes. A pick, not a result.",
 "content_type": [
  "Operational notes"
 ],
 "cipher": null,
 "plaintext": null,
 "word_layer": null,
 "credit": {
  "kind": "explanation",
  "what": "The six bytes are a valid Powerball ticket for that night's record draw, posted before it."
 },
 "decoded_layers": null,
 "guids": null,
 "count_from_length": null,
 "run": null,
 "known_solution": [
  {
   "Method": "6 bytes, no cipher",
   "Result": "Powerball play 1-17-26-45-51 PB19 for the 2016-01-13 draw",
   "Explanation": "Valid ticket format (chance 1e-6); a pick, not a result; the community's 'result' reading was retracted"
  }
 ],
 "tags": [
  "post-cutover",
  "2016",
  "Post-cutover hand post",
  "manual",
  "edited",
  "operational notes",
  "found by this project"
 ],
 "title_zone_hours": 5,
 "title_zone": "UTC+5",
 "writeup": {
  "title": "A Powerball ticket, not a result",
  "markdown": "`40t6rg` (title 201601132259) has long been filed as \"Powerball numbers, community consensus.\" That reading was\nhalf right: the bytes are not the numbers that were drawn, but they have exactly the shape of a Powerball *ticket*,\nposted on the afternoon of the record jackpot draw.\n\nThe post itself is tiny, 6 bytes:\n\n    01111a2d3313\n\nRead byte by byte that's `1, 17, 26, 45, 51, 19`.\n\n## It is not the drawing's result\n\nHere are the real winning numbers for the 2016-01-13 drawing and its four nearest neighbours:\n\n    2016-01-06 (Wed):  2, 11, 47, 62, 63,  PB 17\n    2016-01-09 (Sat):  32, 16, 19, 57, 34, PB 13   ($900M jackpot)\n    2016-01-13 (Wed):  4, 8, 19, 27, 34,   PB 10   (the $1.586B record)\n    2016-01-16 (Sat):  3, 51, 52, 61, 64,  PB 6    (reset to $40M)\n    2016-01-23 (Sat):  22, 32, 34, 40, 69, PB 19\n\nNone of them match. And none could: `40t6rg` was posted **2016-01-13 17:59:01 UTC** (12:59 ET), while the drawing\nwas at 10:59 PM ET, **2016-01-14 03:59 UTC**. The post is nearly 10 hours *before* the draw, so it cannot be\nreporting results that didn't exist yet. This is why the original \"these are the winning numbers\" claim was\nretracted.\n\n## It is a valid ticket\n\nWhat the retraction never asked is whether the bytes have the *format* of a Powerball play. They do, exactly:\n\n- five distinct white balls, `1, 17, 26, 45, 51`, in strictly ascending order (the way tickets print them), all in\n  the 1–69 range;\n- then one Powerball, `19`, in the 1–26 range.\n\nThose are the rules that were in force from October 2015. Six random bytes fit that format with probability\nC(69,5)·26 / 256⁶ ≈ **1 in a million**, and this is the only 6-byte post in the whole corpus, so there is no pile of\ncandidates to fish a match out of. The other big US lottery doesn't fit: a Mega Millions play needs its last number in\n1–15, and 19 is out of range.\n\nThe title fits too. `201601132259` is not the posting time (12:59 ET); 22:59 ET is the drawing's own scheduled\ntime. So the post is a pick for that night's record $1.586 billion drawing, put up about 10 hours ahead of it. A\nticket bought before the draw is not expected to match the result, which is exactly what the table above shows.\n\nThis puts `40t6rg` alongside A858's other topical asides, such as the Washington Post earmarks story in `pegdm` and\nthe BoRG-58 astronomy news around `p5dsk`.\n\n## Not a gap predictor\n\n`40t6rg` is also the last post before a 6.1-day quiet stretch (the next post is `41qg94`, 2016-01-19). Another short\npost, `ljcad`, turned out to encode the exact day its own 42-day silence ended (see that write-up), so I ran the same\ncheck here: every contiguous slice of the 6 bytes, both byte orders, as a Julian Day Number and as a day count since\nthe Unix epoch. Nothing lands near either date. The ticket reading stands on its own.\n\nThe status here is *explained* at the format level: the bytes are a well-formed Powerball play for the draw the title\nnames. Whether A858 actually bought that ticket, or why those particular numbers, is not knowable from the post."
 },
 "page": "posts/40t6rg/"
}