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| | GiantLavaLamp.com - Lava Lamp Randomness (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30) |
 | | Called Lavarand, the random-number generator is the tongue-in-cheek work of Robert G. Mende Jr., Landon Curt Noll, and Sanjeev Sisodiya of Silicon Graphics in Mountain View, Calif. |
 | | Random numbers are an immensely valuable commodity, not only for the operation of computer-based slot machines but also for computer simulations and for generating the secret strings of digits required to encode and decode sensitive information in cryptographic systems. |
 | | Noll and his colleagues decided that the unpredictably wandering globs in a Lava Lite lamp, operated according to the manufacturer’s instructions, are a more convenient source of randomness than, say, the sporadic decays of a radioactive element. |
| www.giantlavalamp.com /information/Lava_Lamp_Randomness.shtml (511 words) |
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