RE: Random number access on the i5

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

Jeff,

 A few possibilities come to mind:

1) Random employee drug testing.

2) Samplings of production to be tested for quality control.

3) Creating a test subset of data.  So you might want to extract a 
random 100,000 records out of 50 million.


 -mark


At 2/1/08 11:35 AM, you wrote:
> I have a question regarding random numbers.
>
> I have been doing business programming for 30+ years.  I have never needed a
> random number and simply don't have any idea why one would need such a
> thing.
>
> Somebody enlighten me. :)
>
> --
> Jeff Crosby
> UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
> P.O. Box 13369
> Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
> 260-422-7531
>
> The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of my
> company.  Unless I say so.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Buck
> > Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 11:30 AM
> > To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: Random number access on the i5
> >
> > Mark Villa wrote:
> >
> > > Is there such a thing as a "certified random number"? I
> > would like to
> > > get this behind me and I have not found a methodology I can
> > sign off
> > > on yet. Ideally, any correct algorithm could be multiple
> > platform. I
> > > am under the impression that it should be CPU dependant and
> > a CPU must
> > > support it directly with an instruction.
> >
> > I am partial to Park & Miller rather than the C library
> > routines, see http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/rand31/  A decent
> > explanation of pseudorandom numbers is in the Wikipedia
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-random_number_generator
> > Knuth in volume 2 of The Art of Computer Programming has a
> > long and useful section on randomness.
> >
> > What do you need the random number to do?
> >    --buck