At 11:13 AM 13/07/00 +1000, I wrote:
>a nifty program called ShapeChanger
>see the typically cheesy
>http://www.willit.com/products/index.html). They have a site at
>http://www.mindsonginc.com/
A pal raised the question off list of whether this gadget's performance is
wholly determined by the seed put into a pseudo-randomiser algorithm. I has
assumed not, and asked Dr John Haarland for more details. He sent me to the
ShapeChanger BB, where I read this:
==========
< Researchers like those at the PEAR Lab have found that a process needs to
be non-deterministically random to be influenced anomalously. We have
attempted to achieve this by mixing the use of a pseudo-random number
generator, with the position of the computer clock and the status of the
Microsoft operating system. Each sample of the random number generator adds
or subtracts a pixel, and after each sample a new random number is
generated for the next pixel based on the thousands-of-a-second reading of
the computer’s clock and the status of the Windows operating system at that
moment. Window’s [ Windows' clock? DB] is constantly adjusting to maintain
itself, and this, together with the generating of a new random number seed
for each pixel sample based on the thousands-of-a-second reading of the
computer’s clock, generates sufficient non-deterministic chance outcomes
(we believe) to be anomalously influenced. See for your self. There may be
certain periods when Windows is not active, which may reduce randomicity
somewhat, but the re-selection of a random number each thousands of a
second (an unpredictable sampling of the computer clock’s 3rd decimal
place) still prevents the full play-out of the pseudo random number
process. An essential element of the non-deterministic randomicity is the
sloppiness of the Windows operating system. >
I don't know if this is sufficiently random to form the basis of a useful
experiment, and in any case
Haarland comments (way too blithely for my tastes) that
>ShapeChanger is a game (not a research tool) intended to whet the users
>curiosity. The MicroREG is a physical source random event generator for
>researchers that costs $425 with minimal supporting software. We have
>prototypes, but no consumer versions available yet, of our consumer
>Receiver/Tuner/Converter which we call DRUM. To date our exploratory
>research has confirmed positive results with humans, animals, and yeast
>cultures. So I am a little bored with computer programmer responses that
>do not consider the biophysical properties of living systems.
>
>A highlight of our US patent claims is shown in the MicroREG section of the
>Discussion with Lu Rudolph.
Damien Broderick
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