Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 40884
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2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

2005/12/6-7 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:40884 Activity:kinda low
12/6    emarkp's little fit below is a good illustration of the "true random
        doesn't seem random" problem that afflicts shuffle-play implementations
        in MP3 and CD players.
        \_ Sigh.  When one value gets 50% of the hits in 200 trials, that's not
           uniform distribution, now matter how many names you want to call me.
           -emarkp
           \_ If this were true, you would be correct.  However, 200 trials
              from a script doesn't mean anything.  What counts is when
              kchang's code re-generates random numbers.  Looking at your
              sample below, it looks like reagan is about 6x more frequent
              than the next closest.  It's improbable, but a uniform
              distribution could have oversampled one item by 6 in the code,
              which comes up as 6/12 item generations.  That's assuming your
              script is distributed evenly across time, and so is his
              random generation code.  Assuming he varies the interval
              between regeneration, then this could be fairly probably.
              between regeneration, your results are fairly probable.
              eg. After nicknames get assigned, wait 1-100 seconds, then
              assign again.  Reagan just got assigned a long wait time, then
              your script oversampled one data point.  Or any variation off
              this procedure.  Done properly, it could give the illusion of
              semi-consistency while remaining truly random.
              -magneto (not "luck of draw" magneto, but "I am Magneto" one)
              \_ Except that several instances of "reagan" occur, then one of
                 (say) hitler or sauron, etc.  After I listed the results,
                 suddenly "reagan" went way down in frequency. -emarkp
                 \_ It's a conspiracy to call you "reagan" and not hitler!
                 \_ Ok, fine. Let's say he hardcoded something so that he
                    called you reagan. What an insult that is! What other
                    nicer villain names listed on his web site would you
                    preferred to be called?
                    \_ I'd like to be Captain Hook.  -!emarkp
                 \_ This is the CSUA. There are numerous algorithms that can
                    do this, biasing results for certain members of the
                    population for given periods of time.  -magneto
2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

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