From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 10:18:30 -0400 <snip>
Anyhow, I've gotten a jar and put 128 pennies in it. I'll be sure to let you know if I find any patterns in the data from that, too. ;) Dave Well, I've flipped 512 pennies & run them through my base 95 analyzer. :) [EMAIL PROTECTED] cat flips.txt | ./bin2dec.pl | ./dec2base95.pl 7xW#mknuHpMRM*Mp\9R CRM/99HpMz%f>>Hf\Rf/faf9WRpWHH%a\a W4Wu a>zzuppRWa94f\9f4O It's hard to believe the result: it, too, looks non-random. Maybe this is one of those completely "cranial" problems.... Perhaps I'm seeing shapes in the clouds, here. But, just to make sure, I wrote a script to generate *pseudorandom* base 95 integers... #!/usr/bin/perl # output a random integer in base 95 for ($i=0; $i < $ARGV[0]; $i++) { print chr(rand(95)+32); } print "\n"; # end [EMAIL PROTECTED] ./rand95.pl 79 `J/q.?Hneq(&7A?S}y[c(%R<{6J4n3KiS.mb5.m(%SQBNX:1RCG$8/?x$MRzsS`}D$$%U#T;W]|7Ig3 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ./rand95.pl 79 y}=<.'+4J"I.Us}s/B(:+b4=jh=ws-'FVj[t[r1>Y2:(YS?Ol)m&7??$z}}J~X%`f8>i]y1,D!'vKOw [EMAIL PROTECTED] ./rand95.pl 79 aP8*;_6[ead2h78xb_J$([EMAIL PROTECTED]@Vi`xv jSL!{+H&#t%#fQ'Y (gl1^)zE+or^6K^;B [EMAIL PROTECTED] ./rand95.pl 79 UpQ[8IwJs_cJ<RL"|+/~V>~lbS=Zi&{;kjp;Mx]b[EXp$i3W"fy<[EMAIL PROTECTED]:Y+hltpJ~y_~ZkA 0l) These strings look as I would expect them to. They appear much more random that those from /dev/random and /dev/pennies. What in the world?? Have I discovered some new law of nature here? Is base 95 the language of God or something? Why would a PRNG generate output that looks more random than a truly random source? Sincerely yours, Confused _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss