XPost: alt.creative+cooking, alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, rec.   
   port.football.college   
   XPost: rec.food.cooking   
   From: ei@o.com   
      
   "Michael Press"  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.   
      
   Radioactive decay says hi.  Depending on how you measure it, you   
   either have a perfect random number generator, or the most predictable   
   thing there is.   
      
   --Tedward   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)