Shit in your hands and throw it on the ceiling. Now you got a whole fuggin fractal, duh....
Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
41–49 of 49 posts
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#42Remove clothes. Begin urinating whilst dancing to Born this Way by Lady Gaga (music in your head). At completion of flow, see which number the splatters on the floor most resemble.
What about people who spin in circles and think everything looks like a 0? It isn't completely random if someone is biased towards a number, especially when the picture is uncertain. A possibly better approach would be to count the number of 'splatters' (or whatever), and mod by some smaller number (i.e., 16).
Good point. I should probably also let people choose their own tune for extra randomness.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#43There is no 'random number'. Perhaps you mean 'a series of (uniformly/normally distributed?) random numbers between 0 and k'?
For a normally distributed series of numbers make a jump and report the length (in milimeters). You will produce a series normally distributed around your average jumping length.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#44Easy. The question is ambiguous and everyone else here isn't being particularly creative, yet. Is the empty room inside e.g: a space station or a rocket? Am I a robot or an alien? Does the undergarment contain any wearable electronics with an antenna? So let's say I'm an alien with an ability to detect the state of my antenna in my undergarment. I'll just occasionally check the level of a very high frequency electrom…
I don't really think it's creative to say "i'm an alien" and then solve the problem with some made up ability. Not to hate on your idea, it's just a bit disingenuous.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#45This is an ill formed problem.
If all you need to do is pick one random number, just pick one: 0 or 1. That will be to any level of proof just as random as any natural method one could devise for a single number.
If instead the question is about generating a series of digits, and making an argument about the randomness of thosee digits, that is a completely different problem, and one that needs more specification about how much random data is needed and what context against which that randomness will be evaluated.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#46This is an ill formed problem.
If all you need to do is pick one random number, just pick one: 0 or 1. That will be to any level of proof just as random as any natural method one could devise for a single number.
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#47This is an ill formed problem. If all you need to do is pick one random number, just pick one: 0 or 1. That will be to any level of proof just as random as any natural method one could devise for a single number. If instead the question is about generating a series of digits, and making an argument about the randomness of thosee digits, that is a completely different problem, and one that needs more specification abo…
Re: Ask HN: You're in an empty room. How do you generate a random number?
#48It shouldn't take to much skill with knot-tying to make a rather useful die out of the undies. Mark faces with embedded, bitten-off fingernails or bodily fluids. Roll to heart's content.