How to pick a random number from 1-10 • Hacker News Board

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#61

Post by hackerbabz » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #56

> The easy thing to do is to ask someone “Hey, pick a random number from 1 to 10!”. The person replies “7!”. Seven factorial is way bigger than 10. Just kidding, sorry. But what I was actually going to say was, when I read the title of the post, before clicking through, I decided to think of a number myself and I chose the number seven. So it was fun to see that same number in the article. 10% chance in theory and in…

I think 7s feel more random because they are so uncommon in normal life. We want to avoid multiplying or dividing by 7 whenever possible. Imagine if "a dozen" were 7 instead of 12.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#62

Post by Tagbert » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:20 AM UTC

lerax wrote: post #54

Tagbert wrote: post #44

I usually just look at my watch and use the last digit of the seconds value. 0=10 reasonably random

Very easy to predict.

how so? if you ask me for a number from 1-10 and I use my watch, how do you have any predictive information? Even if you looked at your watch there is no reason it should have the same seconds value as mine.

Obviously this is not really something you could automate and if you were to use a clock on an ongoing basis you might be able to predict likely numbers, but that was not in the original scenario.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#63

Post by the_pwner224 » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #12

RandomBacon wrote: post #5

0-9: Look at the second hand on your watch, what is the last digit? odd/even or heads/tails: is the seconds odd or even?

I bet that has sample bias as there’s a small amount of choice in when they reply

Only if they know the time.

For binary selection, keep the watch and tell them to make an indication (say something) in a few seconds. Note down whether the seconds were even or odd, then hand them the clock and swap roles. Keep the watch hidden until the moment you need to inspect it; record the time as soon as you can see the watch. Merge the two notepads to get the final stream of randoms.

For last digit of seconds, wait a few minutes between each query (making sure they can't see the clock during the rest period). "A few minutes" is imprecisely measured by you, who does not have access to a clock. They delay would foil any attempts at them keeping track of the time in their head. Bonus for distracting them to help with that. And instead of asking them for the last digit, have them flip the watch and then record the time that you [both] first saw.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#64

Post by jldugger » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

rland wrote: post #41

I actually laughed out loud when I saw the image of the human RNG distributions. 7 is a random number. Who knew?

I feel like you could probably 'fix' it by the following protocol:

1. Ask your participant to write down a random number. 2. After they've written that number down, inform them you will guess at their number, and give them a dollar if you guess wrong. 3. Ask if they'd like to change their random number. 4. Allow them to write down their new number.

The before/after would probably change the distribution, and pretty much demonstrate that people can be more random when motivated.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#65

Post by iambateman » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:25 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #56

> The easy thing to do is to ask someone “Hey, pick a random number from 1 to 10!”. The person replies “7!”. Seven factorial is way bigger than 10. Just kidding, sorry. But what I was actually going to say was, when I read the title of the post, before clicking through, I decided to think of a number myself and I chose the number seven. So it was fun to see that same number in the article. 10% chance in theory and in…

I was going to pick seven as well.

Personal guess for why it’s a favorite... 1. I want to signal that I’m creative. If you say “random, between 1-10” picking 5 feels amateur. 2. You said “between 1-10”, which is inclusive of 1 and 10, but you positioned me to not choose the poles with the word “between.”

3. It feels random to iterate through options and settle on one. I iterate by counting up. Since 5 is out, that leaves 6,7,8,9 in my big pile’o’random.

From there, for whatever reason 7 tends to stand out.

Crazy how predictable we are.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#66

Post by cheerlessbog » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:30 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #56

> The easy thing to do is to ask someone “Hey, pick a random number from 1 to 10!”. The person replies “7!”. Seven factorial is way bigger than 10. Just kidding, sorry. But what I was actually going to say was, when I read the title of the post, before clicking through, I decided to think of a number myself and I chose the number seven. So it was fun to see that same number in the article. 10% chance in theory and in…

Think of a vegetable. I predict you think of a carrot.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#67

Post by earenndil » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

hackerbabz wrote: post #61

codetrotter wrote: post #56

> The easy thing to do is to ask someone “Hey, pick a random number from 1 to 10!”. The person replies “7!”. Seven factorial is way bigger than 10. Just kidding, sorry. But what I was actually going to say was, when I read the title of the post, before clicking through, I decided to think of a number myself and I chose the number seven. So it was fun to see that same number in the article. 10% chance in theory and in…

I think 7s feel more random because they are so uncommon in normal life. We want to avoid multiplying or dividing by 7 whenever possible. Imagine if "a dozen" were 7 instead of 12.

We see 7 all the time, though, in a week.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#68

Post by stOneskull » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #10

umvi wrote: post #4

Or just use digits of pi; most people have at least 10 digits memorized, some have 20+ memorized. There's also a formula you can memorize for calculating the nth digit of pi, so you have infinite random numbers without memorizing an esoteric algorithm with a bazillion corner cases. That said, I still thought this was an interesting article and I loved the animated bar graphs.

I'm not sure that most people have memorized the first 10 digits of Pi. I know 3 for certain, any more than that and I can look them up.

I think most would know the first 5 because it's pretty accurate making 3.14159 into 3.1416 and you forget what's after the 9

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#69

Post by oarabbus_ » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:41 AM UTC

Am I missing something, or is this a textbook case of overfitting? It's a neat project, but at the bottom he prescribes what to do if the person says 1-3, or if they say 4 or 5, etc. Therefore, it's completely overfit to the Reddit data at the top.

Re: How to pick a random number from 1-10

#70

Post by stOneskull » Sun, Jun 30, 2019, 3:42 AM UTC

How about 1 person labels 10 people 1 thru 10 and another person not knowing how they're labeled chooses 1 of those people

edit: the first person labels the 10 in a jumbled up way, then the 10 people not knowing how they are labeled then jumble themselves up