rand vs. random 2592
Amadeus W. M. For any serious statistical work and-or large series Monte Carlo experiments you may want to abandon both in favour of a better algoritm, such as the mersenne twister. You are free to use it , get the source at
dev-urandom should be able to provide a fair initial seed. Using thedev-urandom stream as a direct source quickly exhausts the available random data and not-so random data will be supplied instead, without warning if I am correct.
No, it is not just their fault. It is also the fault of the writer of thedev-urandom man page, which unjustifiably casts doubt ondev...
If you need true random there are better solutions, but these may cost you a lot. Either in money or time to build them, or both. Popular random-generators have been created using lavalamps, radioactive cores of smoke-detectors (low radiation, but still, be careful, it's not intended to be taken apart.), all kinds of electronical circuits producing random 'noise', webcams in completely darkened 'jars', soundcard static or white noise, Geigercounters (there are simple serial-usb versions on the market).
Fun to experiment with, but not per se always random and-or equidistributed, let alone fast. Google should be your friend in case you want to read more on the subject. There are thorough test kits available (software) that can do almost any conceivable test on your random data. Again, Google.
HTH Sh.
No, it was an exageration. Except most users running any program whichusesdev-random will be blocked. He should know what he is doing. He almost never does. People useddev-random in the...
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