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I always love seeing clever ways to be random. Hadn't considered this one but it's a pretty good idea, and I'm sure there are even better ways to run with the b

I always love seeing clever ways to be random. Hadn't considered this one but it's a pretty good idea, and I'm sure there are even better ways to run with the basic concept (maybe analyzing color values of recent pinterest or instagram photos). If you can find a private source of community-driven-randomness that'd be even better.

cpeterso 11y ago
Other sources of randomness are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random or https://news.google.com https://news.google.com. The URLs could be parameterized to request a random language, too.
- cooper12 11y ago
  Well for the Wikipedia link you'd just be piggybacking off their random algorithm rather than consuming organic entropy. Regardless, they have some information on how the page is chosen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#random
jdmichal 11y ago
I wonder whether pictures would be a good source. I could see strong leanings towards blue (sky, water) and green (vegetation), and maybe also grey (concrete, asphalt). Would be interesting to do a collective histogram over a wide array of images and see if colors tend to average out or if there's clear peaks.
- ComNik 11y ago
  Maybe relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203144
- bmm6o 11y ago
  There's still plenty of room for enough entropy to power most use cases. Even two people trying to take identical pictures should have enormous differences when analyzed at the pixel level.
ljk 11y ago
maybe that'll be the next in the "twitch plays" series!
ryansworks 11y ago
That's a very intriguing idea, I hadn't considered the possibilities of looking at public/private photos and sampling color values across to get some randomness. Private is certainly the key. With something like Birdseed, the randomness is totally public just as it is when getting randomness from atmospheric data. If someone figures out which wisps of clouds you are sampling or what search term you are using on Twitter, then the jig is up!

cpeterso 11y ago

Other sources of randomness are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random or https://news.google.com https://news.google.com. The URLs could be parameterized to request a random language, too.

cooper12 11y ago
Well for the Wikipedia link you'd just be piggybacking off their random algorithm rather than consuming organic entropy. Regardless, they have some information on how the page is chosen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical#random

jdmichal 11y ago

I wonder whether pictures would be a good source. I could see strong leanings towards blue (sky, water) and green (vegetation), and maybe also grey (concrete, asphalt). Would be interesting to do a collective histogram over a wide array of images and see if colors tend to average out or if there's clear peaks.

ComNik 11y ago
Maybe relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203144
bmm6o 11y ago
There's still plenty of room for enough entropy to power most use cases. Even two people trying to take identical pictures should have enormous differences when analyzed at the pixel level.

ljk 11y ago

maybe that'll be the next in the "twitch plays" series!

ryansworks 11y ago

That's a very intriguing idea, I hadn't considered the possibilities of looking at public/private photos and sampling color values across to get some randomness. Private is certainly the key. With something like Birdseed, the randomness is totally public just as it is when getting randomness from atmospheric data. If someone figures out which wisps of clouds you are sampling or what search term you are using on Twitter, then the jig is up!