Why a Book of 1 Million Random Numbers Sells for $68

Get a free trial of Skillshare Premium by being one of the first 1,000 to use this link: skl.sh/halfasinteresting10201
Get a Half as Interesting t-shirt: standard.tv/collections/half-...
Suggest a video and get a free t-shirt if we use it: halfasinteresting.com/suggest
Follow Sam from Half as Interesting on Instagram: / sam.from.wendover
Follow Half as Interesting on Twitter: / halfinteresting
Discuss this video on Reddit: / halfasinteresting
Video written by Adam Chase
Check out my other channel: / wendoverproductions Written by Adam Chase @adamhchase

[@halfasinteresting]

If we had a book of infinite random words, somewhere in there would be the perfect, holy grail of HAI topics, but unfortunately we don't. If you have that holy grail topic, though, suggest it to us, and we will reward you with one whole HAI t-shirt if we use it (shipped out once per quarter. Terms and conditions apply or something idk I'm not a lawyer.) Submit your topic here!: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUdlvw6YgU44J8AnM2U_ZvRMyvh_CUM51LYSqF5nYJB9d1-w/viewform?usp=sf_link

[@AVeryRandomPerson]

No

[@fortune3911]

Hey you

[@dakshbhatt811]

I've submitted 25 suggestions in the past 2 days!!!

[@anniversarynotice1838]

Today, October 2nd, is Senior Citizens' Day. It is a statutory anniversary established in 1997 with the aim of promoting national measures, along with awakening public interest in the issue of senior citizens. And it is also the birthday of Allingsong (Gk), a Liverpool soccer player

[@nuclearfox210]

but... this book exists

[@Skeke]

The book's price should be random for each buyer

[@nitehawk86]

So, Amazon's pricing system?

[@madwax4771]

According to my previous random chances in life, I would have to pay atleast 1M dollars for it

[@gameseeker6307]

@@nitehawk86 what?

[@skilledskeleton3124]

It should be 69$ they ruined it

[@sweeflyboy]

That one guy who gets an impossibly high price...

[@Lukusprime]

“Used that information to steal millions from casinos” no, he earned those millions

[@RGC_animation]

Yup

[@ShadowPlay1919]

I just discovered this channel and I was about to subscribe but his views are scary

[@RGC_animation]

@@ShadowPlay1919 Ya should

[@Sydney-Casket-Base]

hell yea he did!

[@kenenigans]

I was looking for this comment

[@CompletelyNormal]

If you buy a book that says "Rand" on the front, honestly a million random digits is a best-case scenario.

[@highviewbarbell]

damn that's funny

[@magic8ball237]

Truuu

[@michka841]

and it's the one that actually makes the most sense

[@andybaldman]

Idiots who don’t get Ayn Rand.

[@xwtek3505]

The worst case is Atlas Shrugged

[@valentinoamatsaleh6563]

Her: What is your occupation? Author: Im a writer Her: Really?!?!! What kind of books do you write? Author :It's complicated

[@kari7403]

"It's complicated?" Or, "I dunno. Random stuff."

[@Tigerskunk]

@@kari7403 or it's both or neither. Its all just a random answer.

[@kari7403]

@@Tigerskunk a complicated random answer? Maybe? 😁

[@davidt8087]

It's so pathetic that you morons fall for this whole "limited time only" scam. Almost ALL youtubers when they say "buy my merch now because it's only for a limited time" is always lying. It's NEVER for a limited time ever ever. You can check YEARS later and something that was supposedly only available for a week is STILL AVAILABLE AFTER 4 YEARS. You people are too dumb to read between the lines, and realize it's a scam and a lie to create a false sense of urgency to get you morons to Immeadiately waste your money and pay up to buy some stupid shirt with a stupid design/logo that if you wear it outside and someone sees it they'll think your a nerd or geek or just so pathetic for buying a youtubers shirt who does nothing but go on Wikipedia and copy and paste the contents in an overly drawn out video with stock footage to make money and you people idolize skmeone like this. How is it the young generation are so dumb they always fall for this scam of "limited time" only? Seriously are you people that dumb you can't open your eyes and sense that he's creating a fake sense of urgency to get you to buy the shitty merch right away?

[@joeblow5178]

@@davidt8087 You typed ALL that ? Hehehe hahaha

[@FantFrei]

reminds me of the first class every semester when the professors say something like "and if you wanna prepare for this class i suggest THESE books" then they share links to their own overpriced terrible books because a life as a professor seemingly doesnt pay enough

[@harsh3624]

Source : Why books are so expensive? Price : $1000

[@tylerr2126]

Lol

[@diasturien]

Well, trust me when I say it really really doesn't pay until you're 20-30 years in and have tenure. Source: finishing my PhD now, and very much broke.

[@Djuntas]

Meanwhile in Denmark we have high school teachers after 10 years at the same school making good salaries, whats up USA :p

[@DavidUtau]

@@pasdpasse439 congrats you posted cringe

[@bracco23]

4:30 it's literally "some russian name" in russian lol

[@coleslater1419]

I was going to comment the same thing

[@harsh3624]

"Some English name" in English.

[@leslaw1979]

I was looking for this comment hha

[@NevermindFlame]

Did he stutter ... ?

[@pierreabbat6157]

@@coleslater1419 Я тоже

[@dalethepalemale6855]

It's actually super interesting how true random numbers are generated using thunderstorms, lava lamps, or even just kinetic energy from the atmosphere.

[@economicsinaction]

1:07 Wait what.. this isn't stock footage!

[@Dmanthepowerful]

Heresy!

[@pulkitmohta8964]

Are you sure it's not?

[@Ethan5I5]

Sam is the guy that makes stock footage (satire)

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

That's gotta be at least three quarters as interesting!

[@pasatorman8294]

@@davidt8087 if you dont like a youtuber just dont watch them because its really annoying when people like you open videos just to say how bad they are

[@SignificantNumberOfBeavers]

I love half as interesting. Random facts, stock footage, and sarcastic jokes.

[@harsh3624]

Not so good puns too.

[@DiracComb.7585]

Broderik Craig facts nearly as random as the numbers in this book

[@Laittth]

Said Sam's secret alt account

[@K9nn9th]

And bricks!!

[@economicsinaction]

Perfectly balanced

[@astralityyy]

i read the title as “why a book of random numbers sells for $68 million”

[@xexpaguette]

PLOT TWIST: THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL TITLE BUT HE CHANGED IT

[@astralityyy]

@@xexpaguette omg imagine

[@BlackGoldSaya]

Same

[@kari7403]

I saw it say something like, $68 800k. Only the 8 looked kinda weird. Took me a minute to realize it said *book* and not 800k. Lol

[@rockyhermitYT]

Same

[@AdamSmith-ig5bu]

1:07 A small peek in the HAI office.

[@neelima6460]

"Adam Smith was wrong" J Nash

[@AdamSmith-ig5bu]

@@neelima6460 why am i wrong, i don't get it ?

[@neelima6460]

@@AdamSmith-ig5bu , It's a quote from movie beautiful mind.😄

[@Hano..]

When are they gonna make the sequel: 2 million random numbers

[@equaius893]

Cant wait! I've read the first one over and over and am waiting so see where it goes next!

[@tonyman1106]

I know right that 2248373672 was the best part

[@zarinjanis]

I read like first 400 pages but then 25339 came and it ruined the whole story.

[@FrozenBusChannel]

Why not make it into a series: *A Random Number of Random Numbers*

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Okay but they should have different numbers in each edition of it.

[@569C]

My stats teacher had this book and flexed it on the whole class

[@harshitarao2225]

Lol

[@harsh3624]

How much pages was it? Did you find the number of pages as a random number in the book?

[@naufalap]

yeah would be hard to flex if it has too many pages

[@alyandthecats]

The textbooks only ever had like half a page of random numbers at the back, and that was usually good for a whole year of high school stats lol

[@davidt8087]

It's so pathetic that you morons fall for this whole "limited time only" scam. Almost ALL youtubers when they say "buy my merch now because it's only for a limited time" is always lying. It's NEVER for a limited time ever ever. You can check YEARS later and something that was supposedly only available for a week is STILL AVAILABLE AFTER 4 YEARS. You people are too dumb to read between the lines, and realize it's a scam and a lie to create a false sense of urgency to get you morons to Immeadiately waste your money and pay up to buy some stupid shirt with a stupid design/logo that if you wear it outside and someone sees it they'll think your a nerd or geek or just so pathetic for buying a youtubers shirt who does nothing but go on Wikipedia and copy and paste the contents in an overly drawn out video with stock footage to make money and you people idolize skmeone like this. How is it the young generation are so dumb they always fall for this scam of "limited time" only? Seriously are you people that dumb you can't open your eyes and sense that he's creating a fake sense of urgency to get you to buy the shitty merch right away

[@GriffinStorm]

I got a copy of this from my university's free book event about 6 years ago when they were downsizing their catalog at the library. I sold it on Amazon for somewhere between $50 and $80.

[@danijelandroid]

4:30 Let's be honest. Stealing from a casino is like stealing your money back from a thief. Casinos have 'stacked the deck/the house always wins'. It is never a fair 'contest'.

[@pegeonpera]

"Just as today's reddit memes can predict tomorrow's Instagram memes" Sam is a redditor confirmed

[@anniversarynotice1838]

Today, October 2nd, is Senior Citizens' Day. It is a statutory anniversary established in 1997 with the aim of promoting national measures, along with awakening public interest in the issue of senior citizens. And it is also the birthday of Allingsong (Gk), a Liverpool soccer player

[@kjellvin1004]

I can smell him from over here

[@forkrunner2208]

It’s the other way around.

[@Cemtexify]

You couldn't tell from his orange man bad jokes in every video?

[@matthewe919]

@@Cemtexify orange fan sad?

[@PrimeMinus]

The guy over at Wendover Products is so weird.

[@clayheinzerling1852]

Yeah almost as weird as the guy at Wendover Productions

[@harsh3624]

Weird like the guys at Half as Interesting

[@PrimeMinus]

Yeah just as weird as him

[@stormyhot4945]

Yeah but wendover has longer vids and talks about planes

[@teunboskers7114]

what a complete nerd

[@casey6556]

Tom Scott literally did a video about a company that uses lava lamps as random number generators LMAO

[@AlessandroRodriguez]

HAI: framing your friends for tax evasion _as a prank_ Me: Oh, sure, sure _as a prank_ .....

[@grahamturner2640]

Trump joke?

[@mud4309]

Yup, thats the joke.

[@neeneko]

heh. Years ago I worked on a gambling machine, and determinism was actually a big part of getting past regulators. I literally had to create a table of random seeds to their eventual outcome, and then embed the whitelist in the machine so that we could guarantee that any random play's results would fall within a certain range. We even had the ability to switch between tables so operators could control what payouts would look like.

[@phxcppdvlazi]

I read that gambling is actually strictly regulated in Nevada since it is kind of the lifeblood there. Did the machines you worked on use a microsecond stopwatch to pick a seed?

[@neeneko]

@@phxcppdvlazi Yeah, Nevada and New Jersey were both nightmares to develop for, with Utah being a close second. Though in this case the project I was on was for a UK machine. As for our seed, I think we just used system clock based entropy and some install time salt.

[@NaudVanDalen]

Can't you use a random number generator card you can plug into a computer? I assume all slot machines are connected to a server to track all revenue and outcomes.

[@maximusprimus2313]

Ive actually read this book. I got a copy very old copy from my library. I was studying computer games and went down a rabbit hole about random numbers. In one of the texts mentioned this holy grail of a book had my library do a search and they found another library willing to lone it to me. I graphed, explored mapped compared sections to the stock market migrating geese and really enjoyed the book. I learned there is no true random except what time i got up. Lol

[@darshilmashru8479]

Loan*

[@deadmg3746]

Processors actually generate *true* random numbers from random quantum fluctuations. Their supply of these is limited but more than enough for a slot machine or a cryptography key every now and then.

[@joermnyc]

4:30, takes the time to translate: “Some kind of Russian name” instead of figuring out how to pronounce the actual name... and that’s why we love HAI. 👏 👏

[@lx4302]

Huh? Are you trying to be sarcastc?

[@candidentertainment335]

The name literally means "some Russian name"

[@Andersl201]

If this book has even a single copy of itself, the numbers are no longer random. They would become the numbers of that book.

[@kaboomwinn4026]

The number in book is different when the book is printed and not a copy of it self. The page can be at random order.

[@rogehmarbi]

my head hurts bad now

[@jeroenstrompf5064]

What a wonderful idea!

[@Plumbump]

It ceased to be random the moment someone finished proofreading it.

[@jamescollier3]

yes. thank you. lol right!!!

[@ScottCalvinsClause]

I knew a guy whose life long hobby was trying to find patterns in that book. He was one of those corn farmer, genius types. He had a small, isolated corn farm in the grain belt and I would occasionally visit him to buy/sell "herbs". He played classical violin and would often have jeopardy playing in the background. He would correctly answer the trivia, mid-sentence without missing a beat. He told me that he was was pretty sure he would never find the equation to debunk the randomness but kept trying for " fun and entertainment ". His copy of the book was so worn, I had to believe him.

[@bruce4139]

This is the type of guy that I would love to nerd out with and just listen to everything he can teach me

[@jclown5938]

"$68" *We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close*

[@altoclef4249]

The fact that the price is just 1$ off annoys me to death.

[@CosmiaNebula]

I agree, 67 is just better, since it's a prime number.

[@chixenlegjo]

yeah I love primes.

[@connorml]

@Janice Hajadi r/whoosh

[@kkai8935]

the writer : oh sorry, i'll increase it for $351

[@Zachyshows]

@@kkai8935 increases by 2694 BFDI reference that people probably won't get

[@pianomanhere]

I heard it has a great cliffhanger in the middle, a climax 3/4 through and a great ending. As codified in a commonly-used book, the numbers are no longer random in practice, but merely in original plan and compilation.

[@pulkitmohta8964]

That green coloured tick that was made at 5:18 was just so satisfying

[@tw7321]

Not really, it didn’t go right through the corner 😭

[@nonyabissniss7526]

Philosophical question: since those numbers are printed in a book now, in an order, can they truly be called random anymore?

[@phxcppdvlazi]

How is that a philosophical question? Yes, of course they're random, why wouldn't they be? Randomness is more a measure of entropy or signal-to-noise ratio. Not sure what weird definition of random you're using.

[@mizlia]

@@phxcppdvlazi I think what the original commenter was thinking of was more like uniqueness or novelty or unpredictability - concepts that are usually associated with randomness. If I were to use this book to create passwords or something, would those be harder or easier to guess than newly generated random passwords?

[@dailysacrificedoublee]

4:48 I, for one, have very predictable emotions. These will be my emotions for the next week: This concludes my list. Specify which teenagers in particular next time.

[@bryanfolkert2854]

This is one of the most relatable jokes I’ve seen

[@akhilalot]

I think this is true even for non teenagers in 2020

[@JrottenOlm]

What a teenagery thing to say.

[@Alchemydude667]

Feels like a book like this would be a good double cipher. Cipher one translates to a page number and line, cipher two decodes the numbers into letters

[@AVeryRandomPerson]

Now I'm going to start all my random number sequences with 5, and exclude 1.

[@samh151]

you madman

[@aqdv25]

then its no longer really random because you have set constraints? it will now be easier to guess the numbers that you will pick, statistically speaking.

[@harsh3624]

Then it is not random. Humans are truly bad at picking random numbers.

[@disorganizedorg]

The lack of initial "1s" is related to Benford's Law, I'd guess.

[@insightfultoaster2965]

@@aqdv25 Its a joke

[@MoritzvonSchweinitz]

The amazon reviews for the "1 million random numbers" book are hilarious! Another important aspect of this book if that it is a source of "no aces up my sleeve" random numbers: if I were to publish some research that requires random numbers, I can say "I am using random numbers starting at page X of the book", and other researchers can replicate my methods using the same, but still random, numbers.

[@gteixeira]

It is much easier to use a known pseudo-random formula with a seed. Any future experiment can just change the formula or the seed.

[@tomkandy]

@@gteixeira That's only true it we trust you not to have cherry picked the seed. In situations which are adversarial, like random numbers used in cryptographic algorithms, you need to prove you haven't generated something that weakens the algorithm. That's where the Rand numbers are useful, although using things like digits from pi is more common.

[@gteixeira]

@@tomkandy You can also cherry pick the page of the book, so it goes the same.

[@tomkandy]

@@gteixeira there's a lot less opportunity to cherry pick with a few hundred pages than with an entire 32bit or whatever seed

[@gteixeira]

@@tomkandy If there is any suspicion of seed tampering, then get one that no one will believe is tampered, like 0, 11, 69, 0xBADDAD, 0xFACED1CC, ...

[@Michaelonyoutub]

Reminds me of when I was working on research with my professor for one semester and I had to program in C a monte carlo simulation which requires millions and millions of random numbers and we had the problem of having to produce those random numbers. There is a default random number generator in C which produces random numbers but they are only really random when you look at any one individual number, when you use many consecutive random numbers some patterns can emerge which would make it no longer random. We had to use a new method of generating random numbers where we used a few random numbers from the default generator to seed our new generator which involved a more complex function to generate random numbers which wasn't as likely to have patterns over many consecutive numbers. Moral of the story, default randomness is pretty bad but randomness on top of randomness on top of randomness, can be good enough.

[@Cutest-Bunny998]

Yes the C++ default since I think like 1997 (or at least sometime in the 90s) uses a Mersenne Twister psuedorandom generator that is pretty flawed, and the C standard library uses a very flawed psuedorandom generator in most implementations of the specification. Most psuedorandom generators are also not properly seeded and as a result become even more predictable than the best-case scenario for that implementation of a generator. For anything needing a more random number series you want a random generator that relies on either a cryptographically secure psuedorandom generator whose cycle is longer than your use-case cares about/whose seed is from a more random source usually provided to you by the operating system, or if it's truly needed a truly random or effectively random equivalent hardware source can be exploited, including such things as audio recordings of atmospheric noise or user input based generation. The holy grail of random though is quantum phenomena like radioactive decay, which are the only real sources I'm aware of that cannot be considered psuedorandom (in terms of the pure theory of algorithmic determinism) because the Bell inequalities imply no hidden variables exist, which means that decay can be used safe from any prediction/inference attack, even by an attacker who knows the entire state of all content in all realities (likely an overestimation as just really knowing the entire state of reality within the light cone of the random generator, assuming superluminal information transfer is truly forbidden, is enough) to the maximum allowed/possible accuracy (that being incomplete since the Heisenberg uncertainty principle fundamentally means certain information about reality is mutually exclusive since momentum and position cannot both be measured to a high precision because quantum fields and the waves that move them can never support both values simultaneously independent of measurement) due to the decay being one example of what we believe is a non-deterministic quantum phenomena. Though, of course there is always a chance we are wrong about everything, so I'll add there is a that even quantum sources might have some weakness to this we just dont know about due to us having a fundamental misunderstanding about seemingly incontrovertible aspects of quantum phenomena.

[@denn1222]

He has the same name from the dork at Wendover Productions, Sam

[@DerVolman]

Wow! That's amazing!

[@denn1222]

George W. Bush thanks bush

[@Michael_Chater]

What a fascinating, unfavourable and influential discovery!

[@harsh3624]

This discovery will change the world.

[@anniversarynotice1838]

Today, October 2nd, is Senior Citizens' Day. It is a statutory anniversary established in 1997 with the aim of promoting national measures, along with awakening public interest in the issue of senior citizens. And it is also the birthday of Allingsong (Gk), a Liverpool soccer player

[@freezedeve3119]

Those numbers stopped being random numbers when they printed them as book.

[@sagarock5528]

Most random thing i heard today: being called idiot by HAI 2:33

[@dennism3586]

4:19 This snippet would spit out a syntax error as the parentheses are not matched up

[@ethanlust6305]

you are one of the only channels that uses a rly clickbaity title yet the video always lives up to it

[@harsh3624]

I don't think the video is living. It is not a living being.

[@ethanlust6305]

Mamta Baranwal wow

[@yesitsmojo24]

Random number generator website: "Hold my beer"

[@harsh3624]

I have held your beer and drank it. Oddly enough it tastes like a drink full of binary code.

[@mghq-mobilegamerzhq2533]

Rand function, Figt me

[@ETXAlienRobot201]

i'm really surprised he didn't mention random.org, actually

[@seansola6708]

Gordon: *"Where's the Lamb Sauce."*

[@kaiiorg]

4:20: Expected ")", found "EOF"

[@pyromaniachimbo]

:O he didn't close the second bracket!

[@farrelwaso5044]

Nice

[@lx4302]

ok

[@daandanx]

4:09 OMG that guy is so quirky and *random!*

[@kakarroto007]

The *Rand* company publishes a *Random* number book? How appropriate!

[@cantstopthebear]

"Just as today's reddit memes can predict tomorrow's Instagram memes"

[@DrewNorthup]

Put more succinctly, and correctly, no closed system can generate true randomness; randomness requires an unbiased open system.

[@randomobserver8168]

Is the universe even an open system? And if our knowledge of it is sufficient even to answer that either way, and the answer it yes, is it the only open system?

[@b33thr33kay]

4:16 Aaargh, close that parenthesis!

[@daofficalbagelboi548]

The RAND corporation sounds like some evil tech company in a superhero movie.

[@Bacopa68]

There's a reference to it in Dr Strangelove. They call it the BLAND corporation.

[@hi_melnikov]

As a какое-то русское имя I am offended by you not spelling my name correct

[@acebalistic1358]

Oh hello some Russian name, I’m dad

[@TheMask-ch3gw]

How

[@jsl151850b]

Fun Fact: Robby the Robot's *second* film appearance was for the somewhat juvenile SciFi movie 'The Invisible Boy'. One of the meetings that the grownups were having was to determine the next project for their super computer. Random numbers table was a candidate project. Not a bad guess for 1957.

[@artstsym]

My 101 STATS book had about 4 pages of random numbers at the back; it was genuinely pretty exciting the first time I realized this.

[@jackfromdublin8683]

“$68” *So close , yet so far*

[@kingants4644]

Indeed

[@kingants4644]

68.99 should be a closer price

[@harsh3624]

I will sell it to you to the specific price. Just give me your credit card information.

[@economicsinaction]

I see you are a man of great culture

[@Infomaniac_Moment]

LAUGH IT'S THE FUNNY SEX NUMBER LAAAAUGH

[@fqidz]

The author who used the google number generator to write his book:

[@zman90]

I hate you for being called "N" and profile is of m

[@niharoad4483]

Loved that Wendover Production mention❤️

[@NolePTR]

Again, voltage tube fluctuations can be used today for random number generation. Or radioactive decay. All you need is some sensor that's prone to error (an unfiltered sensor), to generate them.

[@yokowan]

i love how the russian text is just "some kind of russian name"

[@harsh3624]

"Some kind of English name"

[@giosworkshop475]

*PROCEEDS TO SELL PI*

[@TheNamesSnek]

technically, that entire book is contained within the digits of pi

[@fakestory1753]

@@TheNamesSnek that is not true

[@SFSAtlas]

@@fakestory1753 are you sure

[@fakestory1753]

@@SFSAtlas no , but if one knowledge themselves something like BBP formula , it will actually help understand how can you solve a problem(more efficiently) like this rather than just claiming something without proof

[@Someone-ej7kd]

@@TheNamesSnek hmm ok

[@EMOTIONOGRAPHY]

"And yes, George Soros did pay me to tell that joke." How many Sorosbucks did you get? (Also, amazing joke.)

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

How does one apply for Soros bucks? The COVID hoax has been hard on my job.

[@EMOTIONOGRAPHY]

@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive You're already ineligible.

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

Not sure about the other applications, but for cryptography, you absolutely positively must not use random numbers that have been published or previously used. It would completely annihilate any pretense of Perfect Forward Secrecy. You need fresh, secret, previously unknown and unused random numbers.

[@sergei_gruntovsky]

Modern computers absolutely CAN generate a true random numbers, which are used when the predictability can cause security issues. Google /dev/random vs. /dev/urandom

[@ReaperUnreal]

Ehhhhhh, kinda sorta. It really depends on how you measure what you mean by random. Cryptographic random functions pass a suite of tests that guarantee that it's random enough. Whether or not that constitutes "true" randomness is basically a philosophical debate at that point, but the argument could be made that because it was generated by an algorithm and not a non-deterministic process that it's not "truly" random. That's where hardware random number generators come in, they'll measure something like shot noise, photon quantum effects, nuclear decay, things that are definitely non-deterministic. Those have an issue in that the events can have biases, but there's really complicated math that I don't fully understand that can combine sources of randomness to get rid of bias. So you can kind of see where the "sorta kinda" comes from. It depends on how you define "true random."

[@sergei_gruntovsky]

@@ReaperUnreal yep, exactly. /dev/random requires a certain amount of entropy (hardware rng), and otherwise blocks, waiting for it. It is as close to "true" random as that book (which also basically takes the data from a hardware rng).

[@qingyangzhang6093]

the problem with these is they are too slow for many uses, and people would rather take pictures of lava lamps to generate randomness instead

[@sergei_gruntovsky]

@@qingyangzhang6093 true :) Still better than a book though.

[@danielwright4987]

As an engineering student I normally pay twice that for a book full of numbers

[@RedFlag12]

If the numbers were 6 digits, this could be a book of the “holy numbers”

[@kawabatayuri]

YESSS, But its quite risky tho, because u could get a degenerate genre

[@bazoo513]

As you mentioned, for the vast majority of uses a pseudo-random number generator will do. For the vast majority of _remaining_ applications (such as gambling machines or seeds for generating PKI key pairs) just a bit of additional entropy is needed, such as a human reaction time, hand tremor or somesuch (for example, PGP key generator asks the user to move a mouse around or type some random characters - of course, the _timing_ of keystrokes is used, not characters themselves). The only application that comes to mind where true randomness would come handy is one-time pad cryptography with large key size. And nowadays, for most applications one million digits is far too little.

[@sammythebest9520]

why did I click on this

[@jaredsnow6557]

Because you have to

[@fortune3911]

Because you have hands

[@KingHarkinianMah21]

To find out why a book of a million random numbers sells for $68, obviously

[@Omar-cw5gg]

4:25 Half as Interesting has become wholesome Chungus 100

[@frackert]

"Lava lamps", I'm pretty sure this is what Cloudflare uses for encryption keys. Very cool

[@user-rj4vr2sc2d]

1. Take a 10-sided dice 2. Put it on a plate with a rod attached at the bottom 3. Attach the rod to a motor and have it randomly shoot the dice up in the air 4. Scan the number Boom. Random number machine.

[@comradesmile]

This book: *exist* Nhentai sauce finders: it’s free real estate

[@rparl]

When I went to MIT, we all bought the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. It was very thick, even though it was printed on extremely thin paper. Since it was published by the Chemical Rubber Company, we called it the CRC book. Much later they realized that the Mathematics portion was the really popular part and came out with the CRC Mathematical Tables, which I also bought, as it was so much more convenient. I still recall the many pages of both base 10 and natural logarithms. This was way before hand calculators.

[@howdyhamster]

3:20 "No wait, you weren't suppose[sic] to find out about this super secret code!!!"

[@catholiccontriversy]

I find that last part about "the book of random numbers in not the random numbers we thought they were, maybe even more random than originally thought" made me laugh more than it should have. I think it's because I had to do random sampling as part of a project in college and my professor kept rejecting my methodology because the way I was assigning randomness was not random enough.

[@123sendodo4]

You could maybe talk about how everyone in the universe could violate the Hong Kong national security law

[@Waiel]

Or you could just say “hey Siri, give me a random number”

[@piedrostone4246]

4:07 VERY important. Thank you for including.

[@TakeWalker]

I love the stock videos they use in these things. Take, for example, the one that's supposed to suggest being chained to a computer. Ignoring the fact that there is no obvious lock on the chain, it extends from one of the man's wrists to the other. He's not actually chained to anything whatsoever, he just can't move his hands more than a foot or so apart. He can get up and leave at any time! And yet it somehow conveys a message.

[@johnladuke6475]

My takeaway from the stock footage is that every nerd in the world is a pretty girl, but you can tell she's a nerd because she wears glasses or owns a big book, or maybe both.

[@carbonn9172]

The chances of seeing 69 or 420 in there must be impossible

[@bragapedro]

Hmm... No? Since it is (supposed to be) truly random, it can happen

[@carbonn9172]

@@bragapedro Good point

[@harsh3624]

The chances of you being born are one in a trillion yet it happened. ; )

[@greenbin3028]

@@harsh3624 i wish i was unluckier

[@avi8365]

Chances of seeing 69 randomly at one glance=1% Chances of seeing 420 in a random glance= 0.1% If you have taken 100 glances then chances of seeing 69= 63.4% 420= 9.6% In 1000 glances 69= 99.996% 420= 63.3% So not impossible

[@ludwig4029]

read the title as "why a book of 68 random numbers sells for $1 million"

[@shargo498]

The best thing about this channel is your horrible jokes I love it

[@KobKoi]

I know this book, its quite handy for encoding samples on consumer tests with some 3-digit codes. Surely you could just make 3x 3-digit codes that _look_ random for 3 test samples, but eventually there will be some sort unconscious formula that you're following without even realising it. Its lot easier, better, and quicker (which is most important thing and the most surprising part for some that its actually quicker), to just open this book randomly, point your finger somewhere, and just use the numbers which are there.

[@AliceDTRH_]

Doesn't "opening the book randomly" defeat the purpose of trying to get random numbers? You might still have an inherent bias in where you're getting the numbers from.

[@jeremychan9799]

HAI: we all know what will happen next, the couple reunites... Me who just finished Noughts and Crosses: *surprised pikachu face*

[@parzh]

4:35 "Steal millions from casinos" - yeah, except it was $250,000 bucks in a week

[@askreddit2431]

Ten weeks 2.5 millions?

[@parzh]

@@askreddit2431 I mean, the whole endeavor was going on for only one week

[@aidansunbury9341]

The humor is by far the best part of the video

[@ashmanideep6253]

**INTENSE COMPUTING OF DIGITS OF PI IN BACKGROUND AND PICKING RANDOM NUMBER WITH RANDOM DIGITS**

[@gustavofring4788]

Who would win? An expensive book or import random

[@pugz3230]

Fun fact: There is a quantum random number generator at a university in Australia.

[@aravindvissamsetty]

This has to hold the HAI record for the sheer number of burns

[@reihanboo]

Okay so, here's how I do 'true randomness'. Google random number between 1-9. Pick 5 numbers. Add 1. So, 22222 -> 33333 Google random number between 1-9, again. Pick 5 numbers, times 2, add the number from before. 44444*2 -> 88888 + 33333 -> 122221. If you need 5 numbers, pick off any numbers. 122221 -> 12222 If you need more than the total number, in this case 6, add numbers from google random number generator in a random place. For example, I need 8 numbers. 11823212. Not random enough? Pick a random number within and replace it with google's random number.

[@CubicCreeper7914]

Was the price randomly generated too? If so the randomiser was so close yet it failed.

[@claytonp.4725]

"George Sorros paid me to say this" earned the like by itself

[@Animotion1000]

"Charmingly shadowy" I love it.

[@D-Man_Jam]

I bought the book, and gave the cashier a $1 tip.

[@liambohl]

Syntax error: unmatched '(' on line 4:20 Warning: unused variable "variable"

[@somniad]

"steal millions from casinos" It's only considered "stealing" because casinos want people to see it that way. He understood the world and leveraged that knowledge. It's hard for that to ever be cheating. Good video besides, though! Thanks for all the neat stuff.

[@larkwong7925]

that is the definition of cheating in most casinos. pretty absurd world we live in tsk tsk tsk

[@somniad]

@@larkwong7925 indeed. It's an incomprehensible definition.

[@dan-tv1kp]

There are a bunch of secure RNGs online. I know of one that measures observed zero-point energy in a vacuum, one that performs permutations on the data of highly variable video feeds, and some really good psuedo-RNGs involving large feedback shift register networks. If you don't feel comfortable using ones on the inet, just generate a whole bunch of them, and XOR them. Still would be cool to have a book w/ random numbers guaranteed secure by RAND Corp. though. Oh, and the standard deviates thing is a neat feature.

[@peteraleksandrovich5923]

Figuring out how to predict a slot machine isn't stealing, it's figuring out the game.

[@JPTQJR]

As soon as I heard Rand i knew this video was about Statistics

[@hannesproductions4302]

Ayn Rand...

[@jackwtanderson4679]

Could you not tell by the title of the video that it was about statistics?

[@JPTQJR]

@@jackwtanderson4679 It's been a long while since I saw this book for Statistics class so I forgot the title of the book

[@jonasdatlas4668]

How random! I love it.

[@MH-wo4be]

So the question I have is this. If I buy two copies will let's say page 55 of both books have the same numbers or is every copy truly random?

[@presau]

Just had to mention how perfect the checkmark at 5:17 is.