memes

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some_guy, in Just wash it right off

This was the first actual out-loud laughter of my day. Thanks!

Dagwood222,

You guys have hot water??

XTornado, (edited ) in Just wash it right off

On the shower floor? I don’t fit on there. Maybe if I had money and a modern shower, one of those that half of the water go outside because there is only a fucking half shower glass …

The_Picard_Maneuver,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world avatar

I have one of those, and we got tired of water getting everywhere. I hung a curtain rod.

guyrocket, in I've unfortunately made this mistake at Costco of all places.
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

Protip: Just take a box from a shelf. They give them away anyway.

But the better tip is to always take a cart at Costco. And never expect to spend less than $100.

HubertManne,
@HubertManne@kbin.social avatar

imma just grab a chicken

Signtist,

Unless I know I need a lot of stuff from Costco, I never grab a cart. It forces me to make significantly fewer impulse purchases.

guyrocket,
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

Reasonable strategy.

Mine is to carefully consider the need for "extras". But because prices are better and returns are easy I lean more towards purchasing than not. I am less inclined to purchase at other stores where prices are higher and returns nor complicated.

Signtist,

I’ve bought too many useless things that I never got around to returning to rely on my willingness to make a second trip for returns, haha!

guyrocket,
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

I buy most of my groceries and gas there so I'm there at least weekly so returns are easy for me...when I remember to bring them with me.

dojan, (edited ) in I've unfortunately made this mistake at Costco of all places.
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

What’s special about Costco? Speaking as someone who’s never been.

The_Picard_Maneuver,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website avatar

Bulk shopping, and the place is like a giant warehouse. I once made the mistake of picking up a few heavy things and hauling them around the store with me until I could check out. It was painful.

blargerer,

As it pertains to this post, they specialize in selling in bulk.

expatriado, (edited )

oh, a straight answer, those are rare

dojan, (edited )
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Aah, that’s the context I wanted. Thank you!

They’ve recently tried establishing here in Sweden. Not quite sure where they set up shop but it’s nowhere near where I live, so I’ve not been. Don’t think it’s going great for them. I don’t think bulk groceries is a filled niche here, but I’m also not sure how big that niche even is. As far as I know most people buy groceries for the day, or every couple of days. My roomie and I order in groceries once a week. I think that’s fairly standard.

Might be massive savings in buying in bulk, but then there’s the matter of storing it all too.

afraid_of_zombies,

It’s okay for some things. Like I bake and it’s nice just getting a big sack of flour. If it’s something you are going to use a little of every day and doesn’t spoil go to Costco, but unless I am hosting a party or something the local supermarket is fine.

Pyr_Pressure,

Depends on the items. Things that you don’t typically buy on a weekly basis is the draw, then while You’re there you may as well get your stuff for the week.

We don’t typically go to Costco every week, for us it’s a once a month type trip. Things like dog food, toilet paper, paper towels, meat that you can freeze for later (typically the best quality meat around here), cheese, treats, etc.

Most things that are expensive elsewhere are cheaper there and in a larger size.

uphillbothways, (edited )
@uphillbothways@kbin.social avatar

A lot of Americans don't realize how small European refrigerators are. And, that storage space, in general, is more limited.

Swedneck,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

was about to say, the reason bulk sellers don’t really work here is because a lot of people just shop every other day or so, if not straight up every single day.

weekly grocery shopping just sounds absurd to me, so much more effort than just popping by on the way home from work or just living close enough that you can bike there in 5 minutes.

MrStankov,

Yeah, we don’t really have that whole popping by thing here in freedom land. You’re going to the store in your car, might as well fill up the trunk and just go once a week or so.

afraid_of_zombies,

I can do that I just find shopping annoying. Would rather just know it’s a choir I have to do once a week. There is a store I walk to if I run short of something.

Swedneck,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

i mean yeah it’s annoying because you’re buying a week’s worth of stuff… when you’re shopping daily you’re buying like 3 things at once and it takes all of 10 minutes.

afraid_of_zombies,

Exact opposite of what I said

peopleproblems,

Then what do you do with the random crap you own?

ABC123itsEASY,

Yea you don’t need to have a family of 10 to make use of Costco. You and your roomies can definitely save some money by pooling and getting some stuff together at Costco. You just learn what you can actually use and what doesn’t make sense for your household and buy the stuff you need less of somewhere else. I highly recommend it; learning to shop at Costco has helped me and my partner eat better, cook more, and spend less money.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think we could as the nearest Costco is 2 hours and 40 minutes away. The reviews aren’t great either, seems they mostly sell expired stuff.

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

They sell items in larger quantities, like 24 eggs vs 12, or 3 lbs of cheese vs .5 or 1, or 7 lbs of sour cream vs 1, 2-3 lbs of chips vs 10 ounces (if my goofy American units mean anything to you). They also have good prices on other items like kitchen goods, jewelry, electronics, auto services, alcohol and clothing. One thing that distinguishes them is that their house brand, Kirkland Select, is very good for most items. While they tend to only carry 1-2 brand names for most items, they’re very well chosen in my experience.

Karyoplasma,

(if my goofy American units mean anything to you)

I got the idea after reading “24 eggs”. That strongly implies family size.

afraid_of_zombies,

Just imagine a Walmart that you are not hoping no one sees you in.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

We don’t have Walmart.

afraid_of_zombies,

Ok whatever store your country has that everyone shops there but no one wants to admit it. Or you know just use theory of mind and visualize the concept.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

There’s no such thing here, to my knowledge. Why would you be ashamed of shopping at a certain store?

JustZ, in I've unfortunately made this mistake at Costco of all places.

My buddy did this one time. Ended up stuffing a can of tuna into his pocket without thinking and then got arrested because they thought he robbed the convenience store and killed the clerk, but it was actually someone else just in a very similar car. Gotta be careful.

amio,

I hate it when I have to commit murder for my tuna.

danc4498,

Bro, it wasn’t him! They looked similar and even drove similar looking cars!

jballs,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

You can’t make those marks without positraction, which was not available on the '64 Buick Skylark

JustZ,

He said something too about that there was some old lady that needed news glasses and she got confused and thought he looked like the guy that had shot the clerk.

hobbit,
@hobbit@lemm.ee avatar

Sounds like their lawyer was dead on balls accurate.

JustZ,

I guess, took him five tries to pass the bar.

AdamHenry,

It’s hard to tell if your chances of getting shot by the cops is part of the internet being an echo chamber or if it really is a thing we live with. Regardless, I avoid the interaction with law enforcement and bring the dog in if they happen to be combing the area. An American Bull Terrier on my street named Queenie actually got shot and survived.

31337,

When I was a teenager, a cop drawed on me and my friend. As I pulled into my friends driveway the cop turned on his lights and parked behind my car. Didn’t notice until we were getting out, so the cop drawed his pistol, pointed it at us and yelled for us to get back in the car (was “pulled over” for speeding).

I’ve also been woken up by police carrying AR-style rifles during a raid (not for me, for my previous roommate).

Smoogs,

That last one…did you all get SWATTED?

31337,

No, roommate was out on bail for a pretty serious crime. Detectives found out some stuff during investigation, so judge revoked bail, and gave police a no-knock warrant to retrieve him.

AdamHenry,

Hopefully you’ve made better friends. ✌️

Smoogs,

Robbed the convenience store and killed the clerk…over a can of tuna?

I’m not sure I could call myself a good police officer at that point. I’m not sure I’d think I was cut out for the job of even defining ‘criminals’ at that point.

pubertthefat, in I've unfortunately made this mistake at Costco of all places.

Not using a basket keeps me from buying a bunch of extra shit I probably don’t need.

adespoton, in I've unfortunately made this mistake at Costco of all places.

Just wait until he discovers the store no longer provides bags….

ahornsirup,
@ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz avatar

For free. I have yet to encounter a retail store that won’t sell you a bag of some kind.

Bonehead,

No, they'll still provide bags. But it's the woven cloth ones that cost $1 per bag. I have about 57 of them at home.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

so you're pretty close to being able shop there and provide all the bags you'll need without needing to buy any more.

cm0002,

This is how it usually goes:

I have 57 bags at home

I have 0 I remembered to bring

I now have 58 bags

Or alternatively, if you just get charged a bag tax, you can go through self checkout and lie about the bags you used lol

LetKCater2U,

I keep them in my car for this reason. And I also have one that folds up into a little carrying tote that I keep in my purse just in case.

Bonehead,

Yeah, that's a nice idea until I realize I can forget the bags in the car just as easily as I can forget to bring them from home. Fortunately I don't carry a purse, or I'd forget that in the car too.

RizzRustbolt,

Tote life!

squiblet,
@squiblet@kbin.social avatar

You can grab a cardboard box at checkout.

Perfide, in Don't smoke and ride!

Ok boomer

Ranvier, in Anyways

Irregardless, if a word shifts spelling or meaning like this and is generally understood, even if initially by mistake, than it becomes becomes another correct meaning too. Like, literally.

somePotato,

I will never stop being mad that “literally” got a new dictionary definition that’s literally not literally

FlaminGoku, (edited )

Words matter. Think about life before and after the dictionary definition change.

Changing literally to figuratively broke reality.

It was changed September 2011.

Tlaloc_Temporal,
@Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca avatar

That’s not 2016, or 2020, or 2008, or 2001, or even 2012. Which reality break are you talking about?

Ranvier,

Maybe it would help if you knew there were more? Or maybe that would make it feel worse, but there are more. It’s a pretty common pattern in language for some reason, called “contronyms.” So literally can mean actually or figuratively, but others include clip (cut off or attach), oversight (to overlook, or to scrutinize closely), sanction (approve something or penalize it), or even fast (moving quickly or still, as in held fast). Context is key, people will adapt as meanings are ever shifting.

itslilith,
@itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

or, my favorite, in German “umfahren”

can either mean “drive around”

or “run over”

creditCrazy,
@creditCrazy@lemmy.world avatar

The sands of time really umfahrened umfahren

arandomthought,

In writing, yes. But when spoken the emphasis is different. If the “fahren” is stressed, then you are driving around something (umFAHren). If the “um” is stressed (UMfahren), then you are talking about property damage or murder.

jaybone,

Illiterally

Kernal64,

Irliterally

ImFresh3x, (edited )

thecut.com/…/the-300-year-history-of-using-litera…

The fact that most people understand people are being literally figurative is proof that the word is working linguistically. It’s easy to understand in context which use is being intended, and always has been. The fact that people are bothered by it is the new annoying phenomenon.

Pendants should read books, just once, or twice, at least.

peopleproblems,

That, and then you have my 6-year old who uses “literally” to emphasize his statements. It’s pretty funny to listen for that word at my house. It becomes a game of

Is it Literal?

Is it figurative?

Is it exaggerated?

intensely_human,

In the car with my friend and his mom we used to play 20 questions. Over the years we just kept picking weirder and weirder shit. Like “the end of WW1” or “Freddy Mercury’s mustache’s leftmost whisker” or “this round of 20 questions that we are playing right now”.

This went on from when we were like 6 to maybe 20. I think it’s where I learned respect for the precise meaning of words. We’d always try to look for the tiniest excuse to give a misleading but technically true answer, like he might ask “Is it a type of animal?” and the answer was his dog, which is “an animal” and not “a type of animal”, so I’d say no.

We got really good at ferreting each other out on stuff like that.

It’s a fun road trip game and it exercises your kid’s mind. Highly recommended.

ImplyingImplications,

Exactly. People shouldn’t misunderestimate the power of using a word wrong.

ModsAreCopsACAB,

“then”* it becomes

rockerface,

You are testing the nerves of every descriptivist here

SpaceNoodle,

Anybody who whines about prescriptivism is just lazy.

Thorny_Insight, (edited )

Factoid

A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.

After I heard even Sam Harris misuse this word I just accepted it is now a synonym for a fact despite that the original meaning is the exact opposite.

AdmiralShat,

Is such a fucking irony that factoid itself has become a factoid for “bit of trivia”

intensely_human,

I’d say definitions are “unverified” given there’s no definition of true or false for one. By the commutative property of isness, that means definitions are factoids and we can eliminate one of the words.

See? We’re making plusforward here. Red commits are better than green commits. That oughta be the first definition in the dictionary imo.

Perfide,

You could almost say the evolving definition of factoid is in of itself an example of the original definition of a factoid.

intensely_human,

But you wouldn’t get points in the SAT for it

Buddahriffic,

Some words are poorly designed and IMO that’s one of them. Sure, you can just make up words and give them whatever meaning you want, but it won’t work so well if the word itself causes a bias of assumption towards another meaning, especially if it’s the opposite of what you want it to mean.

Just like inflammable. “In” used in that context usually means “not”. Whoever decided that it should mean “very” in this one case was IMO a bigger idiot than anyone who assumed it’s opposite meaning afterwards. Either that or an asshole if it was deliberate.

PrivateNoob, in It's just the most 100 recently saved songs. The fuck.

Technically right. Computer can’t do actually random calculations, instead researchers have made pseudo random functions, which similarly behaves as a truly random function would.

Empricorn,

That’s true. It also has nothing to do with the topic: only shuffling recent songs (allegedly). The title has more info than the meme image.

DarkThoughts,

Spotify is still the worst in that regard. It even loves to constantly repeat the same ~5 songs or so, at least before I quit the damn thing. Winamp has done this better a couple decades ago already, among many other features.

Fades,

Why the fuck is this downvoted??? They are absolutely right

A link for the uneducated and ignorant: slate.com/…/bridle-ways-of-being-excerpt-computer…

PrivateNoob,

They probably didn’t like my nerdy joke. I see the argument that it’s kinda not the topic, but we are talking about randomness. It sounded fun in my head.

Ultraviolet,

Because it’s not the reason. Pseudorandom number generation is statistically identical to random.

snowe, in It's just the most 100 recently saved songs. The fuck.
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

I don’t know where you heard that but it’s not correct.

…atspotify.com/…/how-to-shuffle-songs/

thisNotMyName,

Interesting read

Stamets, (edited )
@Stamets@startrek.website avatar

I didn’t hear it anywhere, its personal experience. Spotify straight up isn’t shuffling any of my older liked music. Everytime I hit shuffle it always ends up localized around recently saved music and it never changes. Moreover, that’s a blogpost from a decade ago. Spotify changes stuff constantly. I seriously doubt that is the same algorithm they’re using now. ESPECIALLY considering they’ve introduced ‘Smart Shuffle’ which doesn’t only shuffle music you have saved but adds completely new music into the mix as well. That and Spotifys overall quality control has dropped drastically in the past decade.

nyctre, (edited )

I’ve got thousands of liked songs and I get a nice variety of old and recent stuff. From last month to as old as 8 years ago. Sometimes I get too many songs from the same band, sure, but when you’ve got 50-100 songs from the same band liked, that’s bound to happen

emeralddawn45,

Yeah I’ve got like 8000 and there have been times when it feels like it’s focusing on newly added stuff, but older stuff definitely does pop up and I feel like it’s a pretty good mix. 90% of the time I’ve just got my whole library on shuffle unless I’m actively looking for new stuff to add.

Fades,

Personal experience aka anecdotal evidence aka fucking useless

intensely_human,

Oh really? Have you ever eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

geophysicist,

Nope, what’s your point?

snowe,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

Especially when they state it like it’s fact in the title and then can’t back it up at all.

fishos,
@fishos@lemmy.world avatar

While I can agree with others that it might not be that strict and they may get more variety, from personal experience, my 700+ song playlist tends to focus on a handful of songs. Blue - Eiffel 65 gets a CRAZY amount of playtime for some reason. It’s a running joke with my carpool that it’s my car’s theme song. I can sometimes skip it 2-3 times on my drive to work. And some songs seem to never come up. I’ve been having some better luck with the AI DJ lately, although it will throw in an entire chunk of songs I don’t even care about as basically ads.

SlikPikker,

That song is probably cheap for them to play

Virock,

I use Virtual Shuffle to force Spotify to play truly random tracks https://shuffle.virock.org

dangblingus,

Yeah okay, so they use the Fisher Yates algorithm. Then how the fuck in my playlist of 1000 songs am I CONSTANTLY getting hit with multiple songs by the same artist? Once in a while, okay, that’s statistically likely, but not all the time, and not every time.

snowe,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

how many songs by the same artist do you have in that playlist? Your comments here don’t make sense. Repeating the same artist doesn’t make something not random and definitely doesn’t make it “the most 100 recently saved songs”. In fact repeating the same artist makes it quite likely that it is random as randomness is frequently misinterpreted as non-random if you would have read the article I linked you would understand that.

lugal, in Anyways

The therapist should of known better in the first place

arandomthought,

Yeah, and it’s better to be correct then to just leave them in their ignorance.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

then

blood pressure spiking

spudwart,
@spudwart@spudwart.com avatar

Woah, are you alright?

NegativeLookBehind,
@NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social avatar

Than*

2d,
@2d@kbin.social avatar

If we don't, their never going to improve!

Pietson,

People are really making alot of mistakes in this thread

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

their

Me: 💥

Enkers,

*should have

lugal, (edited )

Anyways, shall we talk about your difficulty making friends? Some should of done it a long time ago

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

should of

eye twitch

lugal,

That’s you’re problem, not mine

notabot,

All of the little provocations throughout this thread have been enough to make me twich, but this is the one that pushed me over the edge. I’m this close to printing out your comment just so I can correct it!

lugal, (edited )

Your in you’re write to do this

notabot,

Aaarrgghh! I was just calming down, and now the twitching is back! Nurse! Nurse! I need my dried frog pills, someone is doing terrible things to the English language online.

lugal,

Calm down again! It’s oll wright

jaybone,

Dried frog pills?

Buddahriffic,

Yeah like normal frog pills but different colours. Weird to spell it with that silent r, though.

jaybone,

I think I’m taking frog pills.

thegiddystitcher,
@thegiddystitcher@lemm.ee avatar

You should read some Discworld!

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

Get the pitchforks red pens

Fuctangle,

*shoulda

slackassassin,

Shoulda ftw.

jaybone,

Anyways, about making those friends…

Stamets, in Behold!
@Stamets@lemmy.world avatar

Where’d you get the material?

Bro?

Where’d you get the books bro

I NEED THEM BRO

MeatsOfRage, (edited ) in It's just the most 100 recently saved songs. The fuck.

Reminds me of the old iTunes shuffle thing. When it was first introduced it was actually random but too many people complained it was broken when they heard the same artist multiple times in a row so they rewrote it as a shuffle algorithm that would feel more random than actual random.

Just goes to show, we don’t actually want random, we want variety.

aeronmelon,

Those were the best days of Apple. Steve Jobs literally titled the feature “Less Random”.

whaleross, (edited )
@whaleross@lemmy.world avatar

Reminds me of an article I read long time ago of the need in computer games to tweak percentage chance of success and failure, because if it is true as presented 80% success rate players think it should be “almost always” and complain when one fifth of attempts fail.

aeronmelon,

Me when the weather app says 80% chance of rain, so I go everywhere with an umbrella but it’s overcast all day long. Then it says 15% and I get rained on while walking to the store.

I’m never going to learn.

CobblerScholar,

Well rain chance is a compound probability it’s the probability that it will or will not rain multiplied by the percent of land hit with rain. Like if 50% of an area will be hit and there’s an 80% chance it will rain the number the weather Channel will give you is 40%

qwertyqwertyqwerty,

Chance of rain is calculated based on two things: Meteorologists’ educated guess on the chance of rain, multiplied by the area that will receive rain, in the event it does rain.

www.discovery.com/science/chance-of-rain

Radio_717, (edited )

I found out recently that those percentages actually mean 80% of the local AREA would have rain and 20% would not. Meaning if there is a chance of rain in your town at all it’s likely raining somewhere even if it’s just a tiny drop or two.

So if you don’t want to get wet at all bring an umbrella if the chance is over 0%.

Source: was talking to a meteorologist about this exact thing.

teft,
@teft@startrek.website avatar

It’s a big complaint for new players to Baldurs gate 3. People think a 95% chance to hit won’t fail but it does sometimes. Just the luck of the dice.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

'drop rates' are the same thing. 10% chance doesn't mean you will see it drop if you run a mission or defeat that boss ten times.

LordOfTheChia, (edited )

Or thinking that if you didn’t get the drop in 9 attempts, you’re practically guaranteed it in the next attempt.

Nope, still 1 in 10 chance.

In most simple written RNG calculations, past failures do not guarantee future success.

I believe some games will keep a tally of failures and award a successful loot after x failures to avoid frustrating players.

Cylusthevirus,
@Cylusthevirus@kbin.social avatar

BG3 literally has setting for this.

teft, (edited )
@teft@startrek.website avatar

Don’t use it though. The karmic dice system works for enemies too. So if you enable the system your rolls will fail less often but so will the enemy’s dice rolls. With karmic dice on I find the enemies crit me more. Especially on tactician mode.

bilboswaggings,

Yeah Pity systems are quite common Also used in loot boxes to keep you buying with the terrible odds they have

Rai,

I learned this very VERY well when I played Ragnarok Online in my teens.

idunnololz,
@idunnololz@lemmy.world avatar

Pokemon players are very versed in this. This is why I only use 100% hit rate moves.

slazer2au,

Not to mention Xcom.

Missing a 90% shot 3 times is so dam annoying.

Karyoplasma,

In gen 1 that would be only Swift, Bide and self-targeting status moves because every 100% accuracy move can miss due to a bug (1/256). Fun fact: you would actually be able to beat the game with these 2 moves because Bide, in gen 1 only, bypasses Ghost’s immunity to Normal moves.

idunnololz,
@idunnololz@lemmy.world avatar

Hot take. FireRed > Red so I never need to play gen1 even if I am feeling nostalgic.

Karyoplasma,

Mechanically, the remakes are objectively the better games and they also offer more gameplay-wise with new moves, more logical movesets, abilities, nature, actual EV system. The next big improvement was the physical/special split in Gen5.

I still play the gen1 games from time to time tho. They are hilarious.

Kusimulkku,

There was a huge fight about this on The Battle for Wesnoth

LordOfTheChia,

Same thing happened with the iPhone shuffle. People complained it wasn’t “random enough” and would often end up calling members of the same family and/or household in a row. So they rewrote that algorithm too.

MeatsOfRage, (edited )

Wait, what?! There’s a call a random person feature? What a nightmare

Steve,

Well, yea.

Fades, (edited )

It’s not just about not wanting random, but randomness is actually very hard to create. Every random number is actual pseudo random

Some basic breakdowns of this concept:

slate.com/…/bridle-ways-of-being-excerpt-computer…

The problem modern computers have with randomness is that it doesn’t make mathematical sense. You can’t program a computer to produce true randomness—wherein no element has any consistent, rule-based relationship to any other element—because then it wouldn’t be random. There would always be some underlying structure to the randomness, some mathematics of its generation, which would allow you to reverse-engineer and re-create it. Ergo: not random.

Kid friendly version:

stackoverflow.com/a/633085

Asifall,

For the purpose of shuffling a playlist pseudo random is indistinguishable from truly random in all the ways that matter anyway.

Turun, (edited )

Every random number is actual pseudo random

No, there are true random sources in a computer. Any outside input can be used to generate randomness. Mostly user input, but temperature fluctuations can work as well, if the sensor precision is high enough.

Also the argument is only correct on a technical level for PRNGs. Choose a 65535 sided dice and make the instructions a thousand steps long and you’ll have a pretty hard time to deduce the instructions from the generated numbers. Not to mention how long the list of numbers needs to be for the attacker to start guessing.

Honytawk,

It is all based upon calculations with known numbers.

A computer can’t create a number out of nothing.

That is why Cloudflare uses lava lamps to generate random numbers for their cryptography. And even those aren’t fully random.

vrighter,

Modern cpus actually do have trng hardware built in. So yes, modern computers can create numbers out of nothing, because they have specialized hardware to do so

FooBarrington,

No, CloudFlare doesn’t use lava lamps to generate random numbers, that was a marketing stunt. Using a camera in a completely dark room is a better source of entropy than one pointed at lava lamps.

Also, nobody is saying that computers create a number out of nothing. The environment is a great source of entropy (temperature fluctuations, user inputs and so on) which are then expanded into a larger amount of entropy through CSPRNGs.

Karyoplasma,

Using a camera in a completely dark room is a better source of entropy than one pointed at lava lamps.

Why is that? Naturally occurring or manufacturing-related impurities in the optical chip?

FooBarrington,

All digital cameras are imperfect - there is always a bit of noise, but usually it doesn’t come through since your scene is bright enough to make small amounts of noise imperceptible. In a completely dark room the camera still tries to get data from the photo sensor, but the noise (created by temperature fluctuations, imperfections in the chip itself and so on) is all you get. You may theoretically be able to predict the noise on short time scales, but it’s a chaotic system.

Ultraviolet,

This is an irrelevant distinction for any case where you aren’t worried about someone reverse engineering the algorithm and seed by logging output. Any half decent PRNG’s output will be statistically indistinguishable from true randomness.

grue, (edited )

There are two basic ways of doing “random” songs:

  1. Pick a new song randomly each time a song ends. This is the naive way to do it and can result in playing the same song twice.
  2. Randomly shuffle the list of songs once and then go through the shuffled list in order, guaranteeing that no single song gets played a second time before all songs have been played.

The strategies are different, but I’d argue that they’re equally “random.”

I’ve got a cheap Chinese aftermarket head unit in my car that uses strategy #1, and it’s mildly infuriating.

Bumblefumble,

Yeah, but all modern music platforms use a more advanced random, where it will avoid putting two different songs by the same artist in a row for example. But it’s still based on the second strategy you wrote.

Longpork_afficianado,

This seems somewhat flawed. Lets say you have 90 songs by Vengaboys, and 10 songs by Slayer in your playlist. In order to play every song without playing Vengaboys back to back, you’d need to play Slayer 4x more often than you play Vengaboys.

nottheengineer, in It's just the most 100 recently saved songs. The fuck.

Shuffle uses a limited list that rarely gets updated, but not just the 100 most recent ones. You can force it refresh by turning off shuffle and force closing the app.

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