the.com/pseudorandomness

chaos with a paper trailevery coin flip secretly a math equation in a trench coat.

means a sequence that looks statistically random but is actually generated by a deterministic algorithm from a fixed starting point.

from emerged with early computing when von neumann in 1946 needed fast randomness for simulations and built the middle-square method, admitting outright that anyone who thinks arithmetic can produce randomness is in a state of sin.

for instance

mersenne twisterpowers python and excel, period of 2^19937-1.

debian openssl bug2008 flaw made ssh keys guessable across thousands of servers.

pokemon rng abusespeedrunners predict seeds to manipulate in-game drops.

linear congruential generator1950s workhorse, still runs inside many old c libraries.

the.com/
what’s happening now · the.com · generated