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How random is xkcd? (2015)

hardmath123.github.io

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Re: How random is xkcd? (2015)

#11

Post by mjburgess »

mattnewton wrote: post #3

Kind of an aside to the nerd sniping happening here, but I think the fact that people complain about the random button is a sign that the feature isn’t doing what those people really want, even if it is doing what is advertised. Those people _want_ a button biased to return novel ones they haven’t read either in that session or across all time somehow, likely because they are using it to discover new comics.

The term `random` is a relative one, X is random wrt to Y, iff P(X|Y) = P(X)

Random data is highly patterned regardless. The choice of Y=everything-but-/dev/random is has no special status (ie., P(X|/dev/random) = 1).

Better than `random` is set to draw from the long tail of lower-rank-by-view comics. Then Y = the-url / user-preference / ...

Re: How random is xkcd? (2015)

#12

Post by aebtebeten »

mattnewton wrote: post #3

Kind of an aside to the nerd sniping happening here, but I think the fact that people complain about the random button is a sign that the feature isn’t doing what those people really want, even if it is doing what is advertised. Those people _want_ a button biased to return novel ones they haven’t read either in that session or across all time somehow, likely because they are using it to discover new comics.

If XKCD would not be able to have a feature which is technically but not socially correct, then what webcomic may?

The people who learn that random(uncorrelated) is what it is and not what they want are part of today's lucky 10'000

Re: How random is xkcd? (2015)

#17

Post by flir »

thisisauserid wrote: post #6
flir wrote: post #4

> a random stream of bits should have almost as many ones as zeros almost ??

You aren't suggesting that something random should be predictable, right?

I read "almost as many" as "not quite as many". In other words, fewer.

My mental model is that an unbiased random stream of 1's and 0's should converge on 50% 1's and 50% 0's over time, not 49% 1's and 51% 0's.

Looks like it's a language ambiguity thing I'm not quite getting.

Re: How random is xkcd? (2015)

#18

Post by b112 »

flir wrote: post #4

> a random stream of bits should have almost as many ones as zeros almost ??

Yes, almost. They will approach equal as the count approaches infinity.

So if ypu ever see a random pick equate to 50/50, the end of the universe is upon us.

Re: How random is xkcd? (2015)

#20

Post by i_love_limes »

I ran into this too. I run a very silly slack bot for my friends, and it randomly cycles through pictures that we all have created. Initially it was completely random choice per invocation. Had to change it to a randomly sorted list that was then stored and iterated through until the list is depleted, then it's re-randomised. For the same reason, complaints that actual random choice chose duplicate pictures too often
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