XPost: alt.creative+cooking, alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, rec.   
   port.football.college   
   XPost: rec.food.cooking   
   From: rubrum@pacbell.net   
      
   In article , Dutch    
   wrote:   
      
   > Michael Press wrote:   
   > > In article , Dutch    
   > > wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> Rupert wrote:   
   > >>> On Oct 9, 9:55 pm, Dutch  wrote:   
   > >>>> George M. Middius wrote:   
   > >>>>> CheeseHusker dos wrote:   
   > >>>>   
   > >>>>>> I don't the title of this thread - why would anyone want to make   
   > >>>>>> sausage from vegetarians?   
   > >>>>   
   > >>>>> Not speaking from experience, but they're reputed to make a very tasty   
   > >>>>> sausages.   
   > >>>>   
   > >>>> I imagine they'd be bland and tasteless.   
   > >>>   
   > >>> Why; have you tried them before? If not, then how would you know?   
   > >>>   
   > >>   
   > >> It was an attempt at humour Rupert, lame, I know..   
   > >>   
   > >> While I have your attention, do you know of any good layman's text on   
   > >> randomness? I have been curious about the nature of randomness and it's   
   > >> appearance to the human mind for a long time. I take from own experience   
   > >> playing cards that luck appears to be noticeably clumpy rather than   
   > >> following something that I would perceive as random. For example when   
   > >> playing Rubber Bridge it seems most often the case that one player or   
   > >> team will be dealt good cards more or less continuously over a whole   
   > >> evening more often than the luck swinging back and forth from player to   
   > >> player or team to team. In poker streaks of good and bad luck take place   
   > >> over quite long periods, sometimes months, that seems counter-intuitive   
   > >> to me. Also, in almost every hold'em poker tournament I play in there is   
   > >> one wild player who wins hand after hand after hand despite having the   
   > >> odds against him in almost every case. Despite my belief that   
   > >> superstition should play no role in gambling, I feel like I want to to   
   > >> avoid going against such a player even when the odds are in my favour.   
   > >> So far my only conclusion is that human intuition simply doesn't apply,   
   > >> and randomness is inexplicable.   
   > >   
   > > You rely on your memory. You need to record every card   
   > > over that time. Maybe you do not play your good hands   
   > > as well as others do. Maybe people are cheating.   
   >   
   > I have a record of every tournament and can replay every hand. I   
   > occasionally review them. I'm not complaining about my results, they're   
   > pretty good, and I have NO belief that I have more or less luck than   
   > other players. My interest relates to the nature of randomness, aside   
   > from "it has no nature", which seems to be the prevailing view. I don't   
   > disagree with that but in my view anyway, it seems to act   
   > counter-intuitively to what I would expect. Like what would make luck go   
   > by and large against you for weeks or months then in your favor for   
   > weeks? It seems too long.   
      
   That is a subjective judgement.   
      
   > I know there's no logical answer, I just   
   > thought there might be some arcane mathematical theory on it.   
      
   Mathematically, random is not defined.   
   Read _Art of Computer Programming_,   
   volume 2, section 3.5, "What is a random sequence?"   
   Donald Knuth [1969].   
      
   Also   
      
   _The Mathematical Theory of Communication_, Shannon and Weaver [1949].   
      
   One heuristic is that a random sequence is one whose   
   information content cannot be expressed in any more   
   condensed a manner than the sequence itself.   
      
   --   
   Michael Press   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)