failures

Buggy slot machine reports M payout, woman gets

Buggy slot machine reports $40M payout, woman gets $20

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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20

Back in March, Louise Chavez placed a 40-cent wager at a slot machine at the Fortune Valley Casino in Central City, Colorado. When the wheels stopped spinning, the machine told her she’d won the jackpot:

People were coming up to me saying I won $42,000,000, or at least $42,000. Lights were flashing, it sounded like a fire truck, the screen said ‘see attendant.’

The casino claimed it was a glitch, returned the $23 she’d put into the machine, bought her breakfast, and comped her a free room for the night.

Now, per this story in IEEE Spectrum, the Colorado Gaming Division has completed its investigation and determined that the reported payout was, indeed, the result of a bug caused by “two Showcase Showdown awards occurring quickly after each other while the Grand Game bonus feature was already in play.” [Thanks, Glen!]

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What Was I Thinking? Part 4: Hamsterlamp

What Was I Thinking? Part 4: Hamsterlamp

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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4

As an organic chemist, my thoughts went immediately to the idea of somehow sticking them together to make giant molecular models. It occurred to me that if you removed the access cover from one sphere you could fit the resulting opening over the surface of another sphere, glue them together, and have something that looked a lot like a space-filling model of, say, methane. So I bought five of the things–four small “hydrogens” and one large “carbon”–and got in the car to go home.

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What Was I Thinking? Part 3: Barbie skull costume after Dali

What Was I Thinking? Part 3: Barbie skull costume after Dali

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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4

I’ve been thinking about making a skull out of barbies after this famous image of Salvador Dali for a while now. I finally decided that the easiest thing to do would be to stitch the barbies onto a ski mask and wear it as a Halloween costume. But after seeing the final result, it seems like there may never be an appropriate time to wear this.

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What Was I Thinking? Part 2: Hangerhedra

What Was I Thinking? Part 2: Hangerhedra

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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8

In case you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible to strap old plastic clothes hangers together with zip ties to make an icosahedron, I bring glad tidings: It is. I’ve done the experiment. We have the technology. I expect to be hearing from the Royal Swedish Academy any day now…

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What Was I Thinking? Part 1: Light fishture

What Was I Thinking? Part 1: Light fishture

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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24

It’s “Failures!” month here at Make: Online. Throughout February, we’re going to be celebrating the flip side of making, doing, and risking: Sometimes things don’t work out as we plan.

On the other hand, sometimes things work out exactly as we plan, but when the passion of inspiration is gone and we look back in the cold, sober light of morning we come to a painful realization: I just made a giant piece of crap.

Thus it is that I hereby inaugurate a limited weekly series of posts called “What Was I thinking?”

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