Random algorithm

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Gentle Rev users,

If you have ever watched any of the History Channels exposés regarding  
this topic, the Las Vegas gerús have come to the conclusion that there  
is no such thing as a random number generator, or they would be using  
it to foil "us". Read all you want, but it is a waste of time to  
expect that you will ever come up with anything that is truly random.  
In my personal use, I have followed the users mouse clicks, used the  
last one to plug into a pretty exotic personal equation that spits out  
a seed number for use. Since the mouse clicks of a user are pretty  
much uncharted, except for being limited pretty much to the  
screenrect, a fairly high degree of unpredictability should ensue. I  
haven't used this with Rev, so I'm not sure how well one can hide the  
personal equation.

My 2 centavos,

Joe Wilkins

On Nov 12, 2008, at 2:06 PM, Jacques Hausser wrote:

> It depends of what you use to reset the randomSeed.  Some papers  
> (reference burried to deep in my memory to be retrieved) suggest to  
> generate an array of random numbers at start, and then to reset the  
> seed each time it's needed with one of these elements, the index  
> being randomly choosen. And the first x random numbers you draw are  
> used to replace the array for the next time...
> But that is only a sophisticated kind of reshuffling.
> I just looked at the Web of Science for "Random number generator":  
> 1252 papers. I do not think there is ONE obvious solution...
>
> Jacques
>
>
> Le 12 nov. 2008 à 22:30, Richard Gaskin a écrit :
>
>> Jan Schenkel wrote:
>>
>>> --- Richard Gaskin <ambassador at fourthworld.com> wrote:
>>>> Mark Brownell wrote:
>>>> > I'm surprised that the random seed was not
>>>> mentioned.
>>>> Me too.  Wouldn't it suffice to do this before each
>>>> run?:
>>>>  set the randomSeed to random(4570422)
>>> In theory, that could result in the same series of
>>> random numbers multiple times, as the first random may
>>> start with the same randomseed as another, thus
>>> resulting in the same random first number, and thus
>>> the same second number and so forth.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure I'm missing something that will make the dim light  
>> in my head brighter.
>>
>> It would seem that resetting the randomSeed each time you use the  
>> random function would only have a 1-in-4,570,422 chance of getting  
>> the same seed as the previous run, no?
>>
>> -- 
>> Richard Gaskin
>> Managing Editor, revJournal
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>
> ******************************************
> Prof. Jacques Hausser
> Department of Ecology and Evolution
> Biophore / Sorge
> University of Lausanne
> CH 1015 Lausanne
> please use my private address:
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