Random

Random is gayspeak for your partner(s) in a one night stand. Meant to highlight the ease with which gay men can hook up with many different partners.

Example: "Idaho guy? He's just a random I met on AOL. I'm over it."

rainbow series = R = Random Number God

random adj.

1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types." 3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures." "That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular order, though deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen randomly." 6. Arbitrary. "It generates a random name for the scratch file." 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving four extra registers. What randomness! 8. n. A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n. Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. "I went to the talk, but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions". 10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See also J. Random, some random X. 11. [UK] Conversationally, a non sequitur or something similarly out-of-the-blue. As in: "Stop being so random!" This sense equates to `hatstand', taken from the Viz comic character "Roger Irrelevant - He's completely Hatstand."

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Algorithmic Information Theory defines the extent to which a sequence of numbers is random by the length of the shortest algorithm (i.e. programme) that outputs it. So "11111111111111" could be output by a little programme like

for i=1 to 15
{print "1"}

while the shortest programme to output "346357538323523627567" might actually be

print "346357538323523627567"

so the second sequence is "more random" than the first. In fact it defines a "random sequence" as one for which the shortest algorithm is just "print the sequence".
You can make this idea more concrete by considering a Turing machine made to output the sequence rather than just a random programming language.
Note that this ties in nicely with our common understanding of randomness - if there's a nice pattern there, then you can exploit that to compress the sequence into a little algorithm, and hence it is not by this definition random.

A slang term used commonly by Western Australian teenagers, used as a synonym for weird, strange, or even hyperactive. Encounters in message boards with predominatly Californian teenagers have suggested that this term may be heavily used in CA as well.

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Also used in some circles in Perth, Western Australia (and possibly other places) to identify partygoers who are not members of the social group which the host belongs to.

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This term can also can be used to define people found while searching for chat partners on ICQ or MSN Messenger or other IMs.

"Random" was a word that was popular to use for about a decade or so, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Beyond being an oft-used and abused word, it was an entire aesthetic, where incongruous things were matched up with each other. Often these "random" things were not as "random" as they seemed to be, being drawn from a rather limited lexicon of wackyness. See, for example, Mr. T ate my balls. The aesthetic of "Random" was a major force in the early development of the world wide web, with many examples from this site's early years.

I believe that "random" as a slang term has probably receded, although given the psychology and sociology of late adolescence, the underlying idea probably has not. But perhaps randomness can not be seen as that great of a thing where so many ukulele covers of 80s pop songs exist on youtube, and where no less of an arbiter of culture as xkcd has declared it obsolete.

Ran"dom (?), n. [OE. randon, OF. randon force, violence, rapidity, a randon, de randon, violently, suddenly, rapidly, prob. of German origin; cf. G. rand edge, border, OHG. rant shield, edge of a shield, akin to E. rand, n. See Rand, n.]

1.

Force; violence.

[Obs.]

For courageously the two kings newly fought with great random and force. E. Hall.

2.

A roving motion; course without definite direction; want of direction, rule, or method; hazard; chance; -- commonly used in the phrase at random, that is, without a settled point of direction; at hazard.

Counsels, when they fly At random, sometimes hit most happily. Herrick.

O, many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant ! Sir W. Scott.

3.

Distance to which a missile is cast; range; reach; as, the random of a rifle ball.

Sir K. Digby.

4. Mining

The direction of a rake-vein.

Raymond.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Ran"dom, a.

Going at random or by chance; done or made at hazard, or without settled direction, aim, or purpose; hazarded without previous calculation; left to chance; haphazard; as, a random guess.

Some random truths he can impart. Wordsworth.

So sharp a spur to the lazy, and so strong a bridle to the random. H. Spencer.

Random courses Masonry, courses of unequal thickness. -- Random shot, a shot not directed or aimed toward any particular object, or a shot with the muzzle of the gun much elevated. -- Random work Masonry, stonework consisting of stones of unequal sizes fitted together, but not in courses nor always with flat beds.

 

© Webster 1913.