The only thing you're wearing is 1 undergarment. The room has no windows, doors or any objects inside it.
How do you generate the "most random" number you can using only what you can in your means.
Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
1–10 of 49 posts
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#2place finger nail marks down the wall at your own random intervals, step back from the wall and spit a massive bunch of saliva onto the wall. Spin around in a circle until you are dizzy and bang your head against the wall. While dazzed count the number of nail marks the the saliva has dribbled down past and dont recount if you think you might have it wrong. That is your random number.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#3Bash your head against the wall and count the stars.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#4To generate a number between 0 and k:
0) remove undergarment (I'm assuming a bra because it's simplest, but the same principle applies to other varieties) 1) scratch your arm until you bleed 2) mark one cup of the bra with blood (both inside and outside) 3) stand against a wall 4) set i = floor(log2(k)), goto 11 9) set n i)*x 10) set i k, goto 4 12) your number is n.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#5place finger nail marks down the wall at your own random intervals, step back from the wall and spit a massive bunch of saliva onto the wall. Spin around in a circle until you are dizzy and bang your head against the wall. While dazzed count the number of nail marks the the saliva has dribbled down past and dont recount if you think you might have it wrong. That is your random number.
You could just spray some spit on the wall and count the big blobs.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#6take the button of my boxers and flip it as a coin to produce a random binary string. break it down into even chunks of the appropriate length and convert to decimal.
OR
inspect the threads of the undergarment cloth like they did in "Wanted", except encode each type of thread as a number instead of a character
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#7To generate a number between 0 and k: 0) remove undergarment (I'm assuming a bra because it's simplest, but the same principle applies to other varieties) 1) scratch your arm until you bleed 2) mark one cup of the bra with blood (both inside and outside) 3) stand against a wall 4) set i = floor(log2(k)), goto 11 9) set n i)*x 10) set i k, goto 4 12) your number is n.
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#8Sit down. Pluck as many hair follicles from your body as you can. Arrange the follicles radially around your body. Remove undergarment and sit down on top of it. Choose one follicle, deliberately is fine, move this follicle closer to the undergarment than the other follicles. Stand up and with eyes closed turn as as many rotations as you can without stepping off the undergarment. Sit down. With your smallest finger, push forward from the undergarment outward along the floor. Count the number of follicles between the one closest to the undergarment and the one you pushed outward from the circle. This is your random number, its range is between zero and the total number of follicles you plucked.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#9That's easy. I just say to myself, "Think of a random number between 1 and X.", and then I do. I see magicians do this all the time.
If it's hot out, I remove the undergarment.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#10Take off your undergarment throw it by one wall. Assuming the room has 4 walls this is your marker for wall "0". The rest of the walls going counter-clockwise will be walls "1", "2" and "3".
Close your eyes and spin in the room until you lose your orientation then stop and open your eyes. Record the number of the wall you are facing in your head.
Repeat spin and remember next new number.
Repeat spin and remember next new number.
Repeat, repeat, repeat until you have reached the maximum amount of numbers you can remember sequentially. You will have a sequence like 2,1,3,0,2.
Take your numbers, concatenate them sequentially, and translate from base 4 (ex. 21302) to base 10 (ex. 626)