3 ms·
Rejection sampling isn't the best way to go. With b bits you are subdividing the (0,1) interval into 2^b regions, and only need more bits if one of the 9 multi
by frankmcsherry 7y ago
Rejection sampling isn't the best way to go.
With b bits you are subdividing the (0,1) interval into 2^b regions, and only need more bits if one of the 9 multiples of 0.1 land in the interval you've picked. As b increases this probability drops exponentially.
It's a fair point that the number of "numbers" depends on how low the entropy of the source is, but in the link the probability of collision wasn't massive.
- FabHK 7y agoBut the original post described rejection sampling (once you got your bits from the larger/smaller trick).
- frankmcsherry 7y agoAbsolutely! I read the von Neumann extractor and presumed too much. For fun, you can reduce the numbers asked by getting a batch of k people, and if all numbers are dissimilar you get a draw from k! The OP is silly though; if you know the distribution there are way better techniques. They don't seem to worry about how they measure it.