7 ms·

I regularly use randomness to make (small) decisions in my life. I look at my watch and decide based on the last digit of the seconds. (Often, I just want one b

by tikhonj 12y ago

I regularly use randomness to make (small) decisions in my life. I look at my watch and decide based on the last digit of the seconds. (Often, I just want one bit—even or odd.) Without this, I'm indecisive all too often, in the stupidest of places. Choosing what to order at a restaurant, for example, used to be a bit of a pain; now I just select a few acceptable choices and then decide randomly. Similarly, it's also how I vary up my walk home: even, I take a left turn, odd—a right. It's a surprisingly useful little trick!

lotharbot 12y ago
My parents used the last digit on a stopwatch to decide which of the kids got to pick the radio station in the car and similarly trivial decisions. (If 0-9 couldn't be divided evenly among the kids present, leftover digits would result in a re-roll.) This trick takes away two types of pressure: (1) trying to remember past decisions to be fair. Over a long enough period of time, with a fair coin/die/watch, everyone will get about the same chances. Or you'll walk all the routes about equally. Or you'll equally sample all of the acceptable menu items. (2) trying to justify which decision was made. There's no need for explaining why Bob got to sit in the front seat, or why you ordered the chicken, or why you walked on 3rd street instead of 2nd. There's no need for second-guessing whether your decision accounted for all of the information and was really reasoned through correctly. I saw the true value of removing the "justify every decision" step when a friend of mine was suffering from a severe mental illness that made it difficult to make trivial decisions. The result of trying to justify every decision: standing in the kitchen for several minutes because "I want to make a peanut butter sandwich, but I can't decide whether to get the bread or the knife first." By creating an automatic process for making decisions that are only slightly less trivial, we free ourselves to focus on the more important things in life.
- lutusp 12y ago
  > My parents used the last digit on a stopwatch to decide which of the kids got to pick the radio station in the car and similarly trivial decisions. (If 0-9 couldn't be divided evenly among the kids present, leftover digits would result in a re-roll.) Easily solved by taking the [EDIT: seconds digits] modulo the number of children, but I guess that might be difficult while driving. EDIT: People, please try to think this through before posting an innumerate reply.
  - hueving 12y ago
    >Easily solved by taking the last digit modulo the number of children, but I guess that might be difficult while driving. Well it's not fair. Take 4 children for example. random 0 to 9 mod 4 does not have an even distribution over 0-4. It's also more difficult to explain to children.
    - lutusp 12y ago
      > random 0 to 9 mod 4 does not have an even distribution over 0-4. That's true, but only because 4 never appears in the result. The possible results for modulo 4 are 0 - 3. The first child is numbered zero. Shall I explain it in more detail? n n % 4 ----------- 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 0 5 1 6 2 7 3 8 0 9 1 10 2 11 3 12 0 13 1 14 2 15 3 > It's also more difficult to explain to children. And rewarding, unless you want your children to grow up innumerate.
      - aeosynth 12y ago
        if the stopwatch uses base 10, the last digit will be in the range [0, 9], making n >=10 irrelevant. in this range, 0 and 1 appear 3 times; 2 and 3 appear 2 times. if the stopwatch uses hex, then 0-3 will appear equally often in this case
        lutusp 12y ago
        The second digits on my digital watches extend to 59, and if a precocious youngster were to correctly object that a limit of 59 produces a bias, I would extend the range by multiplying the minute digit by 60 and adding it to the seconds (thus reducing the bias). We are, after all, most likely using a calculator to produce the result. > if the stopwatch uses hex ... I think we're safely in the red herring zone now. :) EDIT: Yes, of course -- when confronted by a correct and reasoned reply, downvote it to discourage any such mistakes in the future.
        12y ago
afafsd 12y ago
I'd like a reliably quantum source of random numbers to make certain decisions for me. That way, if the many-worlds model is true, I can console myself that even if my decision turns out to be a bad one, at least many of my parallel-universe counterparts have made the other one.
- RK 12y ago
  The ANU Quantum Random Numbers Server: http://150.203.48.55/index.php http://150.203.48.55/index.php
huhtenberg 12y ago
> Choosing what to order at a restaurant A better way to do it is to pick at random and then consider if you'd be happier with another option. Switch if you'd be, stay otherwise.

by tikhonj 12y ago

lotharbot 12y ago

My parents used the last digit on a stopwatch to decide which of the kids got to pick the radio station in the car and similarly trivial decisions. (If 0-9 couldn't be divided evenly among the kids present, leftover digits would result in a re-roll.) This trick takes away two types of pressure: (1) trying to remember past decisions to be fair. Over a long enough period of time, with a fair coin/die/watch, everyone will get about the same chances. Or you'll walk all the routes about equally. Or you'll equally sample all of the acceptable menu items. (2) trying to justify which decision was made. There's no need for explaining why Bob got to sit in the front seat, or why you ordered the chicken, or why you walked on 3rd street instead of 2nd. There's no need for second-guessing whether your decision accounted for all of the information and was really reasoned through correctly. I saw the true value of removing the "justify every decision" step when a friend of mine was suffering from a severe mental illness that made it difficult to make trivial decisions. The result of trying to justify every decision: standing in the kitchen for several minutes because "I want to make a peanut butter sandwich, but I can't decide whether to get the bread or the knife first." By creating an automatic process for making decisions that are only slightly less trivial, we free ourselves to focus on the more important things in life.

lutusp 12y ago
> My parents used the last digit on a stopwatch to decide which of the kids got to pick the radio station in the car and similarly trivial decisions. (If 0-9 couldn't be divided evenly among the kids present, leftover digits would result in a re-roll.) Easily solved by taking the [EDIT: seconds digits] modulo the number of children, but I guess that might be difficult while driving. EDIT: People, please try to think this through before posting an innumerate reply.
- hueving 12y ago
  >Easily solved by taking the last digit modulo the number of children, but I guess that might be difficult while driving. Well it's not fair. Take 4 children for example. random 0 to 9 mod 4 does not have an even distribution over 0-4. It's also more difficult to explain to children.
  - lutusp 12y ago
    > random 0 to 9 mod 4 does not have an even distribution over 0-4. That's true, but only because 4 never appears in the result. The possible results for modulo 4 are 0 - 3. The first child is numbered zero. Shall I explain it in more detail? n n % 4 ----------- 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 0 5 1 6 2 7 3 8 0 9 1 10 2 11 3 12 0 13 1 14 2 15 3 > It's also more difficult to explain to children. And rewarding, unless you want your children to grow up innumerate.
    - aeosynth 12y ago
      if the stopwatch uses base 10, the last digit will be in the range [0, 9], making n >=10 irrelevant. in this range, 0 and 1 appear 3 times; 2 and 3 appear 2 times. if the stopwatch uses hex, then 0-3 will appear equally often in this case
      - lutusp 12y ago
        The second digits on my digital watches extend to 59, and if a precocious youngster were to correctly object that a limit of 59 produces a bias, I would extend the range by multiplying the minute digit by 60 and adding it to the seconds (thus reducing the bias). We are, after all, most likely using a calculator to produce the result. > if the stopwatch uses hex ... I think we're safely in the red herring zone now. :) EDIT: Yes, of course -- when confronted by a correct and reasoned reply, downvote it to discourage any such mistakes in the future.
        12y ago

afafsd 12y ago

I'd like a reliably quantum source of random numbers to make certain decisions for me. That way, if the many-worlds model is true, I can console myself that even if my decision turns out to be a bad one, at least many of my parallel-universe counterparts have made the other one.

RK 12y ago
The ANU Quantum Random Numbers Server: http://150.203.48.55/index.php http://150.203.48.55/index.php

huhtenberg 12y ago

> Choosing what to order at a restaurant A better way to do it is to pick at random and then consider if you'd be happier with another option. Switch if you'd be, stay otherwise.