Capitol One Bowl Mascot Challenge Week 3

By: vtphoenix on September 16, 2013, 9:09 AM | 23 comments

So, even though it appeared to be 50-50 to the end, they gave us the loss, and we now face Sparty of Michigan State.

http://capitalonebowl.com/#/matchups/3/5

I couldn't watch the game, and my car's steering wheel isn't too happy with me after listening to what I could on the radio during my trip, but at least the team got the 'W'.

Spread the word...the Hokie Bird needs our help. Stupid purple pirate...

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Comments

Griffer | 12 years 9 months #

Buster ass spartan has jumped out to a 60-40 lead !

HorseOnATreadmill

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| 12 years 9 months #

Note:

25 points
What's your mascot's favorite tailgate dish? (Include #CapitalOneHokie)

100 points
Film or photograph yourself eating that dish. (Upload and include #CapitalOneHokie)

Southerners have to win this one. Anyone with twitter is obliged to do these. Turkey legs FTW

ChicagoHokie | 12 years 9 months # ^

Favorite tailgate dish...eating Spartan Cheerleaders. Anyone got a picture of that?

Jhalf | 12 years 9 months # ^

gif

vtphoenix | 12 years 9 months #

Lost 3 percentage points since I've been up this morning. Sitting at 53 Hokie, 47 Sparty. Must...not...lose....

Bump

Griffer | 12 years 9 months #

Damn! 51-49. What the hell?

VPIhokieME

'_'

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| 12 years 9 months #

I'm pissed that the Hokie Bird lost to the Pirate last week...so I'm voting against the Pirate in addition to voting for the Hokie Bird

ChicagoHokie | 12 years 9 months #

I can't believe we lost to ECU. Pee Dee the F-ing Pirate? I hate to lose, regardless of the event. If a Hokie is called out, we must rise to the occasion. VOTE, and spread the word!

hunterhokie | 12 years 9 months # ^

Hokie Bird said we only lost by about 100 votes. When considering how many votes were probably cast it sucks to lose by so little. 100 votes is one freaking picture

vtphoenix | 12 years 9 months #

I go to sleep, it's 51-49 Hokie Bird, and I wake up it's 43-57 Hokie Bird...WHAT THE HELL?

Hokie_x3_Hi | 12 years 9 months # ^

You must mean 43-57 Sparty. Couldn't understand why you would be upset that we increased our lead.

vtphoenix | 12 years 9 months # ^

Hokie Bird = The first number listed, not who's leading.

zomfgbbqhax | 12 years 9 months # ^

But in general when giving scores it's said given the score then whoever is in the lead.

VPIhokieME

'_'

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| 12 years 9 months # ^

agree

Griffer | 12 years 9 months #

Need more people stuffing the ballot box. I have been attempting to recruit people to the cause - perhaps some TKPers on campus will have more luck finding peeps who have the will (and time) to win this thing.

wisec4g | 12 years 9 months #

A good buddy of mine from Tech married a Mich State alum last summer. She's a pediatrician. They both were very upset with that Sugar Bowl, but very happy with the Spartans opening last season with a win over noise state.

VTGuitarMan

🎸OG LEG KING 🎸

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| 12 years 9 months #

Currently getting our butts kicked, 58-42.

vtphoenix | 12 years 9 months #

I wish I knew what to do about that. I've drummed up all the support I can muster, and they're still gaining on us.

Griffer | 12 years 9 months #

Someone with the know how needs to break out Matlab

HorseOnATreadmill

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| 12 years 9 months # ^

I automated this in another way and all the votes I cast must have been removed. I think I cast a few thousand votes but it didn't move the needle.

Griffer | 12 years 9 months # ^

I do not know anything about how it works, but I wonder if an automation consistently clicks on a set time interval it could be detected as an automation. Is it possible to automate with a varied clicking interval?

HorseOnATreadmill

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| 12 years 9 months # ^

Yeah it isn't hard. I think if I were trying to detect automated scripts there would be a few things I would check:

1) Greedy/consistent voting. If there is a vote from the same IP address every two seconds, it's a computer.
2) Nighttime voting. If the same IP votes 24 hours a day on any pseudo-regular interval, it's a computer.

It would be pretty easy to try to automate something along the lines of:

Check time. Time between, say, 8 AM and 9 PM?
Generate random number between 0 and 1.
30 seconds + (Random number * 30 seconds)
Sleep for this amount of time.
Vote.
Start over.

This would generate 60-120 votes per minute, but with the same IP. If could fake the IP sending the click, it would be really hard to track. I don't know how to do this, or even if it is possible. I suppose I could wrap the script in a virtual machine, then rebuild the machine between votes, but that would take a lot of time between votes/voting sessions.

Since you can manually vote as many times as you want, it might work to vote, say, 10 times, then wait for 15 minutes, vote ten times, wait...etc. I don't have any faith that automated voting won't be discounted eventually, though. (Double negative...wait....I DO have faith that automated voting WILL be discounted eventually, good got it).

Anyone ever been involved in validating against automation before? Any strategies to hack around?

hokiemasterson | 12 years 9 months #

Hey, did anybody see the commercial that featured the Hokie Bird, some dog mascot and two dudes from mtv's the challenge: rivals 2?