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"Can you help me take down the Texas lottery?" That's what a London banker-turned-bookmaker asked "acquaintances" in 2023, reports the Wall Street Journal. The plan was to buy "nearly every possible number in a coming drawing" — purchasing $1 tickets for 25.8 million possible combinations, since "The jackpot was heading to $95 million. If nobody else also picked the winning numbers, the profit would be nearly $60 million." Marantelli flew to the U.S. with a few trusted lieutenants. They set up shop in a defunct dentist's office, a warehouse and two other spots in Texas. The crew worked out a way to get official ticket-printing terminals. Trucks hauled in dozens of them and reams of paper... [Then Texas announced no winner in an earlier lottery, rolling its jackpot into another drawing three days later.] The machines — manned by a disparate bunch of associates and some of their children — screeched away nearly around the clock, spitting out 100 or more tickets every second. Texas politicians later likened the operation to a sweatshop. Trying to pull off the gambit required deep pockets and a knack for staying under the radar — both hallmarks of the secretive Tasmanian gambler who bankrolled the operation. Born Zeljko Ranogajec, he was nicknamed "the Joker" for his ability to pull off capers at far-flung casinos and racetracks. Adding to his mystique, he changed his name to John Wilson several decades ago. Among some associates, though, he still goes by Zeljko, or Z. Over the years, Ranogajec and his partners have won hundreds of millions of dollars by applying Wall Street-style analytics to betting opportunities around the world. Like card counters at a blackjack table, they use data and math to hunt for situations ripe for flipping the house edge in their favor. Then they throw piles of money at it, betting an estimated $10 billion annually. The Texas lottery play, one of their most ambitious operations ever, paid off spectacularly with a $57.8 million jackpot win. That, in turn, spilled their activities into public view and sparked a Texas-size uproar about whether other lotto players — and indeed the entire state — had been hoodwinked. Early this month, the state's lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, called the crew's win "the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas." In response to written questions addressed to Marantelli and Ranogajec, Glenn Gelband, a New Jersey lawyer who represents the limited partnership that claimed the Texas prize, said "all applicable laws, rules and regulations were followed...." Lottery officials and state lawmakers have taken steps to prevent a repeat. The article also looks at a group of Princeton University graduates calling themselves Black Swan Capital that's "won millions in recent years" by targetting state lottery drawings with unusually favorable odds. "State lottery directors say they are seeing more organized efforts to buy lottery tickets in bulk," according to the article, "but that the groups are largely operating legally and transparently..."

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Somewhere in Montana sits the only coal-fired power plant in America that hasn't installed modern pollution controls to limit particulate matter, according to the Environmental Protecction Agency. Mining.com notes that it has the highest emission rate of fine particulate matter out of any U.S. coal-burning power plant. When inhaled, the finest particles are able to penetrate deep into the lungs and even potentially the bloodstream, exacerbating heart and lung disease, causing asthma attacks and even sometimes leading to premature death. Yet America's dirtiest coal-fired power plant — and dozens of others — "are being exempted from stringent air pollution mandates," reports Bloomberg, "as part of US. President Donald Trump's bid to revitalize the industry: Talen Energy Corp.'s Colstrip in Montana is among 47 plants receiving two-year waivers from rules to control mercury and other pollutants as part of a White House effort to ease regulation on coal-fired sites, according to a list seen by Bloomberg News. The exemptions were among a slew of actions announced by the White House Tuesday to expand the mining and use of coal. The Trump administration has argued coal is a vital part of the mix to ensure sufficient energy supply to meet booming demand for AI data centers. The carve-out, which begins in July 2027, lasts until July 2029, according to the proclamation. In an email to Bloomberg, a White House spokesperson said the move meant that America "will produce beautiful, clean coal" while addressing "necessary electrical demand from emerging technologies such as AI."

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Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 "will come with full support for OEM installations," according to their monthly newsletter, so Linux Mint "can be pre-installed on computers which are sold throughout the World. It's a very important feature and it's one of the very few remaining things which wasn't supported by Linux Mint Debian Edition." Slashdot reader BrianFagioli speculates that "this could be a sign of something much bigger." OEM installs are typically reserved for operating systems meant to ship on hardware. It's how companies preload Linux on laptops without setting a username, password, or timezone... Mint has supported this for years — but only in its Ubuntu-based version. So why is this feature suddenly coming to Linux Mint Debian Edition, which the team has repeatedly described as a contingency? In other words, if the Debian variant is merely a plan B, why make it ready for OEMs? Their blog post goes on to speculate about possible explanations (like the hypothetical possibility of dissatisfaction with Snap packages or Canonical's decisions around telemetry and packaging). Slashdot reached out to Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre, who responded cheerfully that "I know people love to speculate on this. There's no hidden agenda on our side though. "Improving LMDE is a continuous effort. It's something we do regularly." "Any LMDE improvement facilitates a future potential transition to Debian, of course. But there are other reasons to implement OEM support. "We depend on Ubiquity in Linux Mint. We have a much simpler installer, with no dependencies, no technical debt and with a design we're in control of in LMDE. Porting LMDE's live-installer to Linux Mint is something we're looking into. Implementing OEM support in live-installer kills two birds with one stone. It improves LMDE and opens the door to switching away from Ubiquity in Linux Mint."

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When Microsoft announced it would stop developing MS-DOS after 1995, college student Jim Hall "packaged my own extended DOS utilities, as did others," according to the web site for the resulting "FreeDOS" project. Jim Hall is also Slashdot reader #2,985, and more than 30 years later he's "keeping the dream of the command prompt alive," writes Ars Technica. In a new article they note that last week the FreeDOS team released version 1.4, the first new stable update since 2022: The release has "a focus on stability" and includes an updated installer, new versions of common tools like fdisk, and format and the edlin text editor. The release also includes updated HTML Help files... As with older versions, the FreeDOS installer is available in multiple formats based on the kind of system you're installing it on. For any "modern" PC (where "modern" covers anything that's shipped since the turn of the millennium), ISO and USB installers are available for creating bootable CDs, DVDs, or USB drives. FreeDOS is also available for vintage systems as a completely separate "Floppy-Only Edition" that fits on 720KB, 1.44MB, or 1.2MB 5.25 and 3.5-inch floppy disks. Jim Hall composed a detailed introduction to FreeDOS 1.4 here. He also answered questions from Slashdot's readers back in 2000 and again in 2019.

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"A modern free society has an obligation to offer electronic tax filing that respects user freedom," says a Free Software Foundation blog post, "and the United States is not excluded from this responsibility." "Governments, and/or the companies that they partner with, are responsible for providing free as in freedom software for necessary operations, and tax filing is no exception." For many years now, a large portion of [U.S.] taxpayers have filed their taxes electronically through proprietary programs like TurboTax. Millions of taxpayers are led to believe that they have no other option than to use nonfree software or Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), giving up their freedom as well as their most private financial information to a third-party company, in order to file their taxes... While the options for taxpayers have improved slightly with the IRS's implementation of the IRS Direct File program [in 25 states], this program unfortunately does require users to hand over their freedom when filing taxes.... Taxpayers shouldn't have to use a program that violates their individual freedoms to file legally required taxes. While Direct File is a step in the right direction as the program isn't in the hands of a third-party entity, it is still nonfree software. Because Direct File is a US government-operated program, and ongoing in the process of being deployed to twenty-five states, it's not too late to call on the IRS to make Direct File free software. In the meantime, if you need to file US taxes and are yet to file, we suggest filing your taxes in a way that respects your user freedom as much as possible, such as through mailing tax forms. Like with other government interactions that snatch away user freedom, choose the path that most respects your freedom. Free-as-in-freedom software would decrease the chance of user lock-in, the FSF points out. But they list several other advantages, including: Repairability: With free software, there is no uncertain wait period or reliance on a proprietary provider to make any needed bug or security fixes. Transparency: Unless you can check what a program really does (or ask someone in the free software community to check for you), there is no way to know that the program isn't doing things you don't consent to it doing. Cybersecurity: While free software isn't inherently more secure than nonfree software, it does have a tendency to be more secure because many developers can continuously improve the program and search for errors that can be exploited. With proprietary programs like TurboTax, taxpayers and the U.S. government are dependent on TurboTax to protect the sensitive financial and personal information of millions with few (if any) outside checks and balances... Taxpayer dollars spent should actually benefit the taxpayers: Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund third-party programs that seek to control users and force them to use their programs through lobbying.... "We don't have to accept this unjust reality: we can work for a better future, together," the blog post concludes (offering a "sample message" U.S. taxpayers could send to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel). "Take action today and help make electronic tax filing free as in freedom for everyone."

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the termination of multiple IT and consulting contracts with firms including Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen Hamilton, describing them as "wasteful spending." A Department of Defense memo indicates the cuts target the Defense Health Agency's consulting services contract and the Air Force's agreement with Accenture to "re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Services," services the government can "already fulfill directly with existing procurement resources." The terminations also include 11 other contracts supporting "non-essential" activities like DEI programs, climate initiatives, and COVID-19 response efforts. The cuts represent $5.1 billion in spending and will yield nearly $4 billion in savings, according to Hegseth. The funds will be redirected toward "critical priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Military, and Reestablish Deterrence," with Hegseth noting the money would better serve "healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant."

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