I generate a random number and then use that number as a seed. I then generate a random number. Then I use that number as a seed. I then generate a random number. I divide that number by a random prime number picked in a similar fashion. I take the last n-digits of the remainder and that’s the random number I give to a user.
That’s already pretty cool! It surely does generate very random numbers. I still think you can take it a step – or a random number of steps, hah! – further by repeating the process a random number of times! Maybe this way we can reach maximum randomness. Probably need to reroll the number until it’s big enough for that.
I would also check if the result is 4. If it’s 4, it should be discarded. 4 is not an actual random number but a joke random number from a comic.
I think what they’re referring to is a company - I think it’s CloudFlare - who use a bunch of physical randomness generators to seed their commercial random number generator. One of those seeds is a webcam pointed at a load of lava lamps.
I get that it’s a comic but this doesn’t feel like a conversation that would ever occur in real life. Granted I don’t hang out with programmers or mathematicians so maybe it’s more plausible than you would think.
My kid is studying physics in university, and she comes home and tells me physics anecdotes which I don’t understand, so I always reply “That’s Numberwang!”.
So I can see these types of conversations happening between math and programming types.
It seems plausible enough to me. Many comp sci undergrads would be dimly aware that floating point arithmetic is notoriously difficult to get right and can often lead to surprising errors if you get it slightly wrong, and also dumb enough to believe that e^π^−π is exactly 20.
Comics are not only meant to present something that can happen IRL :P
That kind of trolls happen occasionally in IT, where not everybody know well about maths and physics, they may easily fall into these kind of traps by taking granted that the maths you gave is more trustful than computer code they wrote (usual kind of joke to make your friend understand that he what was doing something wrong or without understanding)
Also, in Uni, we were all little Satans, trying more to break others students works instead of trying to improve self (that was a true war among IT students). All means were used, this kind of troll (as depicted in this comics) to make the other loose time is truly expected
Classical “type Alt+F4 before saving your code to automatically fix bugs” kind of joke
That’s sort of part of the joke. ACM is the “Association for Computing Machinery” one of the biggest and oldest and nerdiest computer clubs.
ACM hosts all kinds of SIGs (special interest groups) - clubs dedicated to interest in (sometimes deeply esoteric) aspects of computer science. For a few of them, hand-coding a new specialized fast floating point calculation code during a contest could easily come up.
So there’s technically a situation where lying to a peer, on purpose, in a particularly mean context (such as a competition) about a floating point number computation - could actually get someone kicked out of ACM.
Edit: Additonal context that helps the joke - my experiences with ACM have all been super chill , relaxed and friendly. So “I got kicked out of ACM” is also a “you did what?!” setup for the joke.
Thanks for the context on ACM saving me a search. I would like to add that I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘mean’ but moreso trolling them for being unaware of Gelfond’s Constant.
I did a physics degree. The start is the sort of random stuff that would come up down the pub (in the evenings). I could easily see a conversation like this happening (at least the start).
Oh grad school man. Yes it would. I was also amazed that there would be people sitting at the bar who could read hieroglyphics. And random shit like that.
This is totally a conversation that would happen in real life. I’ve watched a friend of mine try to convince someone who had a bit much to drink that the primes are closed under multiplication for an hour. Absolutely hysterical
My biggest pet peeve was working in a restaurant and trying to seat a large group. That hatred has been with me for decades, that I actively refuse to involve myself in dinners larger than 6 people. It’s noisy. It’s too much management. There’s multiple conversations. It’s awful.
Even during family outings in public areas, I assemble little groups and pretend like we don’t know each other.
And before anybody even asks, I absolutely segmented my wedding into different 6-person teams when we went out in public.
It is cringe because the XKCD guy does not know when to stop. The second part of the comic (the white on black part) makes it worse. The graph is the punchline. But then he keeps drawing, and ruins it.
What’s wrong about it? It makes it clearer why 1. The seating is ridiculous 2. Such frustration is ridiculous. How is the graph the punchline? The idea is the punchline.
the problem here is technically not you knowing people but that the people you know can also know people that you don’t know, expanding the graph beyond the first layer that you personally observe.
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