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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 09:30:34 -0500 (EST)
From: "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com>
Reply-To: root@chaos.analogic.com
To: wli@holomorphy.com
cc: Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>, wli@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, riel@surriel.com, hch@infradead.org,
        phillips@bonn-fries.net
Subject: Re: 2.4.19pre2aa1
In-Reply-To: <20020312141738.D14628@holomorphy.com>
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On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 wli@holomorphy.com wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 08:33:23AM -0500, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> > This is a simple random number generator. It takes a pointer to your
> > own private long, somewhere in your code, and returns a long random
> > number with a period of 0xfffd4011. I ran a program for about a
> > year, trying to find a magic number that will produce a longer
> > period.
> > 
> > You could add a ldiv and return the modulus to set hash-table limits.
> > ANDs are not good because, in principle, you could get many numbers
> > in which all the low bits are zero.
> > 
> > 
> > The advantage of this simple code is it works quickly. The disadvantages
> > are, of course, its not portable and a rotation of a binary number
> > is not a mathematical function, lending itself to rigorous analysis.
> 
> Would you mind explaining what the point of this is? AFAICT this is
> meaningless noise inspired by the words "/dev/random".
> 
> 
> Bill
> 
Really?


Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.18 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

                 Windows-2000/Professional isn't.

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