Once upon a time I got into an
argument with my
high school CS teacher about whether the
Turbo Pascal random number generator really generated
random numbers. Being fairly
knowlegeable even as a
freshman, I insisted (correctly) that it really only generated pseudorandom numbers and that no
algorithm could ever generate a truly
random number. She was
fairly incensed, as this was in direct
conflict with what she was trying to teach us at the time.
Now, before you all start dumping on the
Rhode Island school system as being so
idiotic as to hire a nitwit like this woman, I will just point out that she was fired not long after I left, when her incompetency was finally discovered. She then went back to her previous vocation, a franciscan nunnery.
Anyway, she
staunchly insisted that TP could generate real, actual random numbers. So, while she continued with her
lesson, I wrote a little
ditty that would generate a random number, truncate it, convert it to
ASCII, and output it to the line
printer in the corner of the room. I sat for a moment, poised over the "
compile and run" button, and briefly considered what I was about to do. With a mental
shrug and a "
Fuck it", I clicked. The
386 struggled for a moment, then smoothed back out, and the old, decrepit
Epson began shrieking in protest. As Sister Ignorance frantically pushed buttons in an attempt to halt the outpouring of crap, I casually strolled to the printer and examined the output.
"Wow, look at that, recurring patterns!" She glared at me with those
squirrelly little eyes, and I knew I was in for some trouble.
Two hours later, I had time to reflect on my
sins as I cooled my heels in in-house suspension for the first of three days. But my contemplations were
sweet, as I reflected on the last words of our sysadmin as I was dragged from her office, having been thoroughly chewed out for bolloxing the print queue.
"By the way, he's right. They're
pseudorandom."