Random is not random...

#0 - Aug. 28, 2008, 8:20 p.m.

And it never will be. A great article I found on wikipedia explains how random number generators work in computers and explains that the numbers are based on certain events and the generators will break over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generator

This, of course, applies to the loot generators in Warcraft. If you understand the concept, you will see that it is entirely possible for your guild to get similar loot every time you raid, because the circumstances are always the same. The same times, the same people, the same guild. Blizzard will tell you their generators are not based on this data. However, it is to a small extent and it is completely beyond their control due to the nature of random number generators, themselves.

Zarhym

#22 - Aug. 28, 2008, 9:12 p.m.

The equanimity of your average tosser of coins depends upon a law, or rather a tendency, or let us say a probability, or at any rate a mathematically calculable chance which ensures that he will not upset himself by losing too much, nor upset his opponent by winning too often. This made for a kind of harmony and a kind of confidence; it related the fortuitous and the ordained into a reassuring union which we recognised as nature. The sun came up about as often as it went down in the long run, and a coin showed heads about as often as it showed tails.

Zarhym

#34 - Aug. 28, 2008, 9:20 p.m.

Q u o t e:

The fact that the whole thing was in italics means it's very complicated and must be true.

Consider:

One, probability is a factor which operates within natural forces.

Two, probability is not operating as a factor.

Three, we are now held within un-, sub- or super-natural forces.

Discuss.

Zarhym

#88 - Aug. 28, 2008, 9:52 p.m.

Q u o t e:

36 illidan kills without a glaive vs. another guild having 4 and 2 shows SOMETHING is wrong somewhere with the system. Every guild has some item they never ever freaking see drop. So no, the coin flip thing is BS. Yes, a coin being flipped could come down heads 36 times in a row, but the odds of it doing so are astronomical.

List of possible explanations...

One: I'm willing it. Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past.

Two: time has stopped dead, and the single experience of one coin being spun once has been repeated ninety-times. On the whole, doubtful.

Three: divine intervention.

Four: a spectacular vindication of the principle that each individual coin spun individually is as likely to come down heads as tails and therefore should cause no surprise each individual time it does.