
Canada Uses Excel as Random Number Generator for Immigration Purposes - ahakki
https://gizmodo.com/canadas-random-immigration-lottery-uses-microsoft-excel-1826711895
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PredictorY
Excel's pseudorandom number generator is weak: Agreed. The claim that someone,
presumably a well-situated person in the Canadian government, might be able to
put their finger on the scale for this applicant versus the others seems
reasonable. Otherwise, the notion that a bad PRNG, even the one in Excel, will
"favor" one group over another, or one person over others, seems a stretch.

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anoncoward111
Ah yes, North America literally has massive expanses of land just waiting to
be cultivated by small, remote-only startups based in rural areas...

... and we literally block as many people as we can from coming here.

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rarec
That's not exactly honest. There's a reason there's no small remote-only
startups in those massive expanses of land; there's nothing there to begin
with.

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gregknicholson
If you're only interested in growing an economy — as opposed to growing a
society — it makes sense to give that land to businesses who will pay taxes.

