Re: Ada implementation of Mersenne Twister (MT19937)

[Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com>]

Stephen Leake wrote:
> 
> dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison) writes:
> 
> > Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message
> > news:<3C56D315.85771A75@boeing.com>...
> >
> > > SGI has a system that uses digital images of lava lamps to generate
> > > random numbers. A quick Google search should find suitable references.
> >
> > This seemed to silly to be true, so I tried it. Its true.
> > ( http://www.yak.net/fqa/267.html )
> >
> > ...{shakes head sadly}
> 
> Hmm. Did you actually click on the LAVARAND link? That timed out for
> me. So this is still an uban legend in my book.

Hmm. When I first saw this, it was on an SGI web page. I'm not sure
what's going on now. You can see Google's cache of the page at

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:ejmaLzpX6zwC:www.lavarnd.org/+sgi+lava+lite++%22random+number%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en

(that link may have wrapped on your newsreader). If it is a legend, it
seems to have fooled some major hitters: Science News

http://www.sciencenews.org/20010512/mathtrek.asp

American Cynic

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:-AaDJEpuH64C:www.americancynic.com/07152001.html+sgi+lava+lite++%22random+number%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en

(that link may have wrapped on your newsreader).

IBM

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/security/library/beating.html?dwzone=security

MicroSoft

http://www.microsoft.com/mind/0797/flux0797.htm

American Scientist

http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/Issues/Comsci01/Compsci2001-07.html

Trinity College

http://www.random.org/report/Report.pdf

Drexel University

http://mathforum.org/library/more_info.html?id=5504

and the US Armed Forces

http://www.armedforces.net/search/Computers/Algorithms/Pseudorandom_Numbers/index.shtml

So, if argument from authority influences you, consider yourself
influenced.

-- 
Jeffrey Carter