#pseudorandom

[piles-of-numbers]

the amazing feeling of finding a pdf textbook all about the exact subject you need to learn more about quickly

[the-man-in-the-wind]

An experiment: Some images generated by Imagine.ai using the same prompt but different seeds.

Prompt: Cyborg, android, cybernetics, pcb, computers, motherboard, circuit board, blue eyes, technology, cyborg manga, sci-fi, science fiction, SciFi art, close up, amber, aquamarine, futurism, futuristic, bionics, computer science

Images:

[lokirme]

Matrix Reimagined: Crafting Digital Rain with Bash and ChatGPT

Just for fun, and I have no idea why I thought about it, I decided to work with ChatGPT (4) to build a simple bash-based version of the Matrix Digital Rain. I know there’s already better versions, like cmatrix, but we do not do things because they are easy. We do them because we are bored. I’ve asked ChatGPT to heavily comment the code for us so that we can see exactly what’s going…

[theboombutton]

The interesting thing about tmagp episode 9 is that, from one perspective, it's about a pair of dice that kill you if you roll a crit fail. And in TMA that would be very End-coded. Games of chance were End-coded, and death is obviously The End. Open and shut case.

Except it's not, here. The statement giver had never seen anyone roll a 2 before he ran into Gary in that coffee shop, even after thousands of rolls. That's not an End artifact. Those dice are going out of their way not to kill anyone, save those who try to part with them.

The compulsion to roll feels like the Web, but is it? Certainly games of chance can become addicting, but I don't think that's the whole story. The Web is about the fear of the loss of control, yes, but it's also about something else controlling you instead. Here that something else is an embodiment of "random" chance - although again, it's not properly-random, not even pseudorandom. I have thoughts on that but they're best addressed further on.

Weirdly, of all the manifestations of Fear from TMA, this statement seems most akin to Jude Perry's - rolling the dice with other people's lives and fortunes, for the thrill of sometimes devastating them.

Which brings me back to the possibility of AU Fears.

In the Protocolverse, why shouldn't there be a Fear associated with chance and luck and fate and misfortune that happens for no good reason? A fear of lacking control and losing everything, without anyone else necessarily having that control.

This is where the way the dice are rigged becomes possibly meaningful. Their outcomes aren't random - they're what humans expect random to look like. They operate according to the gambler's fallacy, where the longer a chain of bad luck you have the more you're due for a good roll, and vice versa. Snake eyes aren't just a normal outcome of the 1-in-36 chance of rolling 2d6 - they're reserved for when someone is cursed with truly rotten luck. Notably that isn't true of boxcars: those just happen sometimes, without prerequisite.

Logically, a Fear of Misfortune wouldn't operate on the actual rules of probability, would it? It would be shaped by the superstitions of those that feared it.

(Also, I hope this statement puts the "they're not fears they're desires!" theory to bed. This guy didn't want the dice, and didn't especially want to roll them, but seemed compelled to anyway.)

[thewertsearch]

AA: y0u really d0nt understand anything yet d0 y0u AA: and yet y0u bug and fuss and meddle AA: with things m0re danger0us than y0u can imagine

An accurate assessment. Rose is acting on information from the Gods, and it's glaringly obvious that she hasn't been given the full picture. As a result, her plans are flawed and dangerous.

Now, if Aradia would enlighten us as to why Rose's plans are so dangerous, we might actually get somewhere. She seems uncharacteristically chatty at the moment, so my hopes are high.

AA: what d0 y0u want with the s0urce 0f the first guardians AA: what g00d d0 y0u really think c0uld c0me 0f it TT: Do you know about it? TT: The sun?

So First Guardians are created by the Green Sun.

Wait - actually, I think they're created from the Green Sun.

While Bec was being cloned, the screen which originally displayed Nanna and Grandpa changed to a field of flickering green lightning.

It almost looks like the appearifier was pointed inside the Sun itself, which leads me to wonder what would happen if you tried to summon the thing. Maybe some of the Sun's material was teleported into Bec's body, to serve as the fuel for his abilities.

That would certainly explain his astronomical internal temperature - but Bec is basically a god, so he could also just be doing this with his powers.

AA: y0u cant p0ssibly wield its energy 0r put it t0 c0nstructive use

I'm sure it could defeat Jack - although the word 'defeat' falls a bit flat when you're reducing someone to elementary particles.

Using the Sun against him feels like bringing a nuke to a knife fight - it's ridiculous overkill, and will get literally everyone killed.

TT: That isn't exactly my plan.

Well, now I'm stumped. All my theories about how Rose would use the Sun were predicated on the assumption that she wanted to access the First Guardians' powers - or, at least, the enormous energy they wield.

But it doesn't sound like she's trying to empower herself, or convert the Sun into a weapon. What can you do with the Sun that doesn't qualify as 'constructive use', but does contribute to killing Jack?

Well, I suppose she could corrupt it. Maybe the gods want her to transmute it into the Black Sun, and create some eldritch First Guardians to fight Noir.

That said, they'd be hard-pressed to create a Guardian who's more corrupt than Doc Scratch.

AA: y0u w0nt find it either AA: its imp0ssible

The Sun is implicitly connected to every First Guardian, so it's unlikely to be in any specific session. I don't think there are multiple instances of it, like Skaia, because it's not supposed to be an official part of a session in the first place; Rose had to essentially datamine Sburb to learn about it.

I assume, then, that the Sun is somewhere more fundamental than any specific Medium instance. It's probably in intersession space - perhaps even beyond the Furthest Ring.

AA: im thr0ugh with c0nsci0usly c0ntributing t0 inevitable 0utc0mes TT: Well, TT: Aren't you doing that regardless? Right now? AA: 0bvi0usly AA: but im just talking [...] AA: maybe if i behave in a manner s0 rand0m AA: parad0x space w0nt kn0w h0w t0 handle it! AA: blah BL00P blee BLUH!@#$%^&()_+ AA: didnt see that 0ne c0ming did y0u pspace??? + ?rand(413^612)

Well, I don't think you can break predestination with a run-of-the-mill pseudorandom number generator - but I do like where your head's at. Probability might just be the key to fighting fate.

I mean, Vriska is apparently able to alter probability - despite the fact that all Alpha Timeline outcomes should be set in stone.

What's up with that?

[thegreatgodbird]

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Random numbers make up quite a bit of the basis for radiocomputation. Before the boom of entroponetic engineering, inferior pseudorandom numbers were generated using the middle-squared method, soundwave input detection, and timestamp seeds. It was the pale that touched this realm of mathematics and bestowed the blessed gift of infinite truly random numbers.

[hermitsmirror]

Pick a card 🔮 with the Cosmic Wisdom Tarot by Ethony

Set the intention for one of, two of, or all three cards and then take a screenshot or pause the video to reveal three cards from the Cosmic Wisdom Tarot.

(Note that I've included 44 pseudorandom combinations of 12 cards used in this, so it's not weird if you do it multiple times and see cards repeated. Each combination of 3 includes 1/4 of the 12 options. Math is fun!)

What did you get? If you need help interpreting the cards, let me know! And if you're ready to take your tarot beyond the basics of keywords and common meanings, I invite you to enroll in one of my many divination course offerings.

[pelman]

making music is hard but i fucking persist

[taperwolf]

I'm having one of those nights where I'm intensely wanting a dozen or so different Eurorack modules, and don't have the resources for any of them. The system I have is a lot of fun, but I keep thinking that I could do so much more if I just had — and that's where the list starts piling up. More VCAs, obviously; some complex audio sources like a Plaits clone and a sampler; a quantizer and a Turing Machine, or some multitool like the Ornament and Crime that does such things. A multimode filter.

Some things I have in the DIY planning or building stages, like the Baby10 sequencer I've been sort of working on for years, or the pseudorandom sequence generator I have breadboarded, or the Wasp filter on stripboard that's sitting semi-abandoned in a box here. And there are two modules based around Electric Druid chips that I just need to tweak slightly before they're ready to send to a PCB manufacturer.

(See, their STOMPLFO and ONESHOT chips use the same underlying PIC and very similar I/O, so I think I can make the circuit I designed for one also work with the other — and if I can make the layout symmetrical, I can have the panels made flippable, so the minimum order of five pieces would mean I had two different working modules. Just need to get back to kicad to make those tweaks.)

Anyway. I don't mean to feel sorry for myself — or worse yet, to convince readers to — for picking an expensive hobby, even if I've mostly managed to cheap out on it pretty well so far. Too much envy directed at other people's rigs isn't good for me. But there's so much available that would be such fun!

[msexcelfractal]

The Keypad Game A Ritual

The keypad game may exempt you from fate. The keypad game may trigger unlikely events. The keypad game may summon an entity.

A keypad/number pad divides a field into 9 sectors.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Do not perform this ritual outdoors.

Look at the floor of the room you're in. Imagine dividing it into nine equal rectangles numbered 1 through 9. Ensure that the orientation of the numbers around you feels natural. You will need to keep this orientation constant from room to room.

You are mentally ready to play the keypad game.

Pick a random number generator. For example, a set of dice or a deck of cards. The power of this ritual is proportional to the randomness of your generator. Dice or cards are sufficient, but a cloud chamber or photon experiment is much better. Pseudorandom numbers generated by formula on computer chip will cause the ritual to fail.

Write a list of the rooms in your building and number them 0 to n. Keep this list with your RNG device.

You are materially ready to play the keypad game.

Step 1

Choose a positive integer k. For first-timers k=2 is a good default value.

Use your RNG to generate a number between 000 and n*10^k. For example if you have 6 rooms in your house and k=2, you will generate a number i between 0 and 599.

Memorize i.

Look at your list: go to the room given by the leading digit of i.

Step 2

Visualize the keypad dividing this room into 9 equal rectangles.

Stand in the rectangle given by the next digit of i.

If the digit is instead 0, go to a place in the room that the rectangles do not cover.

Step 3

You are standing in a rectangle or other region.

Visualize the keypad dividing your rectangle into 9 smaller rectangles.

Stand in the smaller rectangle given by the next digit of i.

If the digit is 0, stay in the larger rectangle.

If you have more digits of i, repeat step 3.

Step 4

Interact with something at your current location!

Step 5

Return to the location of your rng device.

If you wish, you may repeat the ritual multiple times.

According to some interpretations of quantum mechanics, If your RNG was truly random you have just sent a copy of yourself to every location in your building. Hundreds of identical copies of you: from now on their paths will diverge. Lucky and strange outcomes: you will see them all.

Warning: If any entities are wandering the playing field, this ritual will cause you to encounter them. For this reason it is extremely inadvisable to play the keypad game outdoors.

[piles-of-numbers]

playing with the idea of making a YouTube channel where I explain different things in theoretical comp sci / some of the more mathematical and abstract aspects of what I work with

there’s no solid plans but I’m just looking for things that people might be interested in learning more about? I have a half script in my head about pseudorandom numbers (what they are, what is true randomness, what a distinguished is, some implications about derandomization)

would probably explain some more Turing Machine things, computational complexity classes, maybe go into some more details about things like Cook-Levin (big foundational NP-Complete paper)

As for intended audience … not really sure? I want to break things down into basic terms, so that anyone who is generally interested in the ideas has a starting point?

So help me out maybe, what about theoretical cs would you want to hear more about?

[amarantine-amirite]

Foresight And Foot-In-Mouth

I woke to throbbing pain, pointy branches on bushes, and Mrs. Beeks' disapproving voice. "Hope that taught you a lesson," she sneered. 

Mrs. Beeks was the wife of somebody who, try as I might, I always seem to piss off. The first time I met Mr. Beeks was when my dad was watching a video on his laptop in the living room and I walked up behind him and said “who's that nerd?” and to my horror the nerd on the screen rolled his eyes. It was a video call. The nerd was one of his company's clients, Mr. Beeks.

The second time was a few years later. I reached into a box of free samples outside a chicken restaurant. Only it wasn't free samples. It was him. Holding a box of chicken. His chicken. I tried to steal Mr. Beeks' chicken.

The last thing I needed was his wife witnessing a third mishap of mine. I had no idea what lesson I should learn because I don’t remember how the near death experience even happened. “What?” I asked.

“Tell me,” Mrs. Beeks put her hands on her hips and glared. “what did you see during your near death experience?” The fact that she had so much plastic surgery made me unable to ascertain what she was feeling. Was she concerned or was she upset with me? 

“Um…” I drew a blank

Mrs. Beeks rolled her eyes. “Hopefully something that made you stop being such a screw-up artist”

After working it in my head for an hour, I remembered what I saw during my near-death experience. I saw rebirth on a personal level. A baby being born, a guy dying of old age well as his wife held his hand, and two teenagers who thought it was a good idea to snack on Tide pods, not because of the tide-pod challenge, but because they thought it was candy. A mother got angry at herself and her daughter because the latter got into a fight with a crossing guard and ended up getting hit by a car

I saw the natural order of death and rebirth. Volcanoes erupt, wiping out vegetation at the same time providing nutrients for the new stuff to grow. Hyenas gobbling up a gnu protecting its calf. People covered in scars cowering from an earthquake

I saw a messy future of our universe. Civilizations rise and fall. Our star system died while new ones are created. A big crunch followed by a second Big Bang. The point is that our universe reshapes itself all the time at all scales.

Despite all this, I could only say one thing. I blurted out, “42.”

Mrs Beeks stood there, dumbfounded. “What is that, like the version number for the universe?” she asked. I’m surprised she knew what a version number was.

“No,” I chuckled, “42 is not the version number of the universe, it’s something deeper: a key.”

“What kind of key?”

I looked Mrs. Beeks right in the eye and said, “While I was out, I saw the random number generator that powers the universe. 42 is the thing that seeds the random number generator”

“What does that mean?” she said, unimpressed. 

“If you use a random number generator on a computer, it’s not truly a random number generator. True generation of random numbers is still an unsolved problem in computer science,” I explained, “To beat a pseudorandom number generator, you need the seed, the modulus, the increment, and the scale factor. I know the seed. I can predict future events if I know when they’ll happen. Knowing the seed for the random number generator that powers the universe leads to things like seeing cataclysmic disasters before they happen and Beating casinos and lotteries. You have no idea how powerful this is.”

Mrs. Beeks walked away in disgust

Speaking of seeing disasters before they happen, I had this vision of disaster 100 years from now. None of us will be alive so I’m not going to say anything about it.

That turned out to be a mistake. The time-delta wasn’t in years, but in days.

A hundred days later, the volcano at Yellowstone erupted. Bubbling lava flowed down the slopes, destroying everything in its path. Massive rocks got blown 50 miles into the air. 

Nobody in the states of Montana or Wyoming survived. The rest of the country also took it in the teeth, but not to the same extent. Nobody evacuated because they didn’t think it’d happen so soon. 

Once again, I screwed up. To anyone who hoped that the near death experience would make me less of a screwup artist, you were wrong. Maybe people can’t really change. we can’t become something better than before.

Before my near-death experience, I could only be described as a screw-up artist. I had a habit of putting my foot in my mouth, doing things without thinking, and struggling to put words together. After the near-death experience, I remained the same. 

People can learn, but they can't really change. Old habits can go away, and new habits can be formed, but people don't differ fundamentally from who they are throughout their life.

@prompts-for-every-need

[theorigamiphoenix]

A goofy way of pseudorandom number generation I use when I can't be bothered for anything else is to start a stopwatch on my phone, wait a few seconds with the hundreths covered, and then use those fractions of a hundred for whatever I need. My sense of time for a second isn't accurate enough to bias the results.

[ampedupkaon]

August writing challenge Day 1: Arden/Deldrey

AN: I made up a little writing challenge for myself. I wrote a list of the 7DS ships I ship... and I decided to write a little snippet for each of them where the couple share a bed. The snippets could have happened in or before the series. The order is pseudorandom, 4 ships are on specific days because it's the birthday of half of the ship. This one is for Arden/Deldrey and it takes place after Deldrey is hurt by Grayroad and Fraudrin.

Deldrey is a girl. It's not proper. You shouldn't even be thinking about it. Arden thought, mentally berating himself for what he wanted to do. In that last mission... She'd got hurt. He... he thought she might not make it; the wound was quite severe. And he'd had a nightmare. One where she was bleeding out from that wound, pleading with him to help her. And her eyes flickering closed, breath leaving her lungs. He'd jolted awake and... he couldn't find her. His mind, still reeling, suggested that he might be reliving a memory.

It certainly felt real... He thought, shivering. It feeling real had been why he'd made his way out of his tent and... was now standing outside hers. And was debating crawling inside. Just to make sure she was alive and that had just been a nightmare. The reason he was telling himself off was because that wasn't all he wanted to do. He wanted to... to... join her . To lie in the tent and sleep with her. His mind came up with an image, one he immediately pushed down. There would be none of that. His mother would kill him if he got a girl pregnant and he had no desire to get married this young. Marriage was a problem for older people to worry about.

If you're going to check on her, better do it quick. Before someone else wakes up and catches you doing it! His thought made him creep forward and kneel down, carefully making his way inside the tent. There was a lump under the bedding and a quick check confirmed it was her; he could see her cute face. Cute?! What the? He mentally told himself off for that thought. Deldrey wasn't cute! That was just some nonsense his sleep-deprived mind had come up with. He could see the lump that was her body rising and falling; which meant he had confirmed she was still alive.

Why are you still watching her, you creep? He told himself off. Doing that didn't make him move though. He was admiring her . Like he did with other women. Like he was only just now realising she wasn't just a team mate, but a woman as well. He allowed it for a moment, taking in her form, admiring her apparently cute face. He felt his stomach drop. Her eyes were open.

“Ar... Arden?” She asked, sounding sleepy, her eyelids fluttering a little. She'd caught him. He swallowed, hoping for his welfare's sake he didn't blush.

“Yeah?” He answered her. She didn't look cross and he wondered why. Then again, he had done this before. As had Deathpierce, Denzel and Waillo. Deldrey had a habit of sleeping past when it was her turn to wake up for watch shifts, so they'd all had to wake her up. There was no watch shift for her to be woken up for tonight.

“Why are you here?” He'd expected the question. He also knew he didn't want to answer it. Not with the truth. It made him look like a child; getting all worried about her. He didn't want to lie though, because the only believable lie he could come up with was worse.

“I had a nightmare.” Deldrey smirked and he regretted speaking.

“So... you came to me like I'm your mother?” She teased and he growled.

“In the nightmare you'd... you'd... you know, from the wound. And I was checking to make sure you weren't.” Her jaw dropped, a perfect little O. Then the smirk returned.

“Were you worried about me?” He was sure his cheeks had heated. He hoped he was wrong; he did not need her getting that idea.

“Is it such a weird idea that I might have been? I do care about you, you know.” If he wasn't blushing before, he was now. That had just slipped out! And he wished he could take the words back. Unable to do that, he quickly clarified.

“You know, as a team mate.” It was as more than that, but didn't want her to know about that. That he... had a little crush. He blamed being on missions with her, just her, all the time. And he was a teenager, spending lots of time with her was bound to make him fixate on her.

“Arden... would you like to join me?” She asked. His heart started racing for a completely different reason. He might joke about finding a girl to play with... but he hadn't actually done anything. Not even kissing. And sharing a bed with a girl before marriage wasn't proper.

“I'll get told off.”

“I'm offering. Since you were worried and all.” She lifted up a corner of the blanket and he was starting to struggle to say no. He decided to hell with it and crawled over, joining her under the blanket. He kept away from her, knowing how it would look if they were...

“Do you not cuddle? Is that not a manly thing?” She was taunting him; he knew she was. He shuffled closer and did it anyway, slipping his arms around her, both hands on her back near the top. A thought came into his head with the lack of resistance.

“Is this Love Drive?” He asked. Deldrey shuddered.

“No. I'd never use that on a team mate. Especially not you.” He felt reassured by her words and started to settle. She'd started to settle too and he had the thought of what it would look like if the two of them were caught in bed together. He decided he'd deal with the consequences, if that happened, in the morning.

AN: In the morning, they are both seen emerging from Deldrey's tent by Deathpierce. Who understands why it happened. He tells them not to make a habit of it and that he won't tell their parents. Or Waillo.

[mathmatrivia]

How to do square roots on paper.

I also made an animation with pause and play buttons here. Reload that page to see it calculate the square root of a different pseudorandom number.

I had planned to make a slideshow that walked the audience through the process step by step, but it was over 20 slides, too much text, and just... a lot. If you want to see that, it's here.

[realwizardshit]

My friends, as much as I love them, are not Actual Nerds like I am. Friend A gets frustrated with Roll20 whenever his rolls are bad. I tried to explain to the group about how pseudorandom number generation works, how it basically takes the super precise current time value as a seed. Because that shit goes all the way down to milliseconds on a computer, the least significant digits are constantly changing and so you can do some algorithmic stuff to that number to make it Pretty Effectively Random. They have taken this to mean that "d20s are based on the time you see in the fuckin windows clock" and now if their rolls are bad they wait a full minute or upwards to roll again. Whatever makes you feel better dude