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Random seeds may not be random anymore

Posted By: Chase
Date: Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 10:16 p.m.

In Response To: XG 4-ply RO 21S-63 just finished (Nack Ballard)

Nack: Hats off to Xavier for all his improvements to XG. I see that his latest version (1.14) is displaying the seed number in the output even when it is randomly generated.

Me: That's a nice addition. However, I'm still unclear as to whether random seeds are actually random anymore under the latest release of XG. Here's how Xavier described the change in the post announcing the new release:

Random Seed work differently now: Setting XG to use a random seed (seed 0) will now pick a seed between 1 and 1 billion. This seed will stay the same from one time to another.This will allow Rollout posted to be verified.

This sounds to me like the program will select a random seed exactly once, and that number, once selected, will remain static, and will be used as the seed any time the user requests a random seed. In other words, the seed is only random the first time; after that it is set.

I asked Xavier, in the same thread, to confirm my interpretation, but I didn't get a response. However, the "What's New" section of the XG web site says this:

Random Rollout Seed: changed so it just generate a random seed on the computer once.

I'd still like clarification on this, but until then my assumption is that there's no longer such thing as a random seeded rollout in XG (except for the first time, when it is initialized).

Messages In This Thread

• 21S-63 Rollouts?
  Chase -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 9:01 a.m.
  • 21S-63 Rollouts?
    Stick -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 11:39 a.m.
    • 21S-63 Rollouts?
      Chase -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 4:07 p.m.
      • 21S-63 Rollouts?
        Stick -- Monday, 26 April 2010, at 1:21 a.m.
        • 21S-63 Rollouts?
          Timothy Chow -- Monday, 26 April 2010, at 1:44 a.m.
          • 21S-63 Rollouts?
            Stick -- Monday, 26 April 2010, at 1:49 a.m.
            • 21S-63 Rollouts?
              David Rockwell -- Monday, 26 April 2010, at 1:00 p.m.
    • 21S-63 Rollouts?
      Timothy Chow -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 5:56 p.m.
  • 21S-63 Rollouts?
    Nack Ballard -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 8:04 p.m.
    • I'll do XG 3-ply RO for 21S-63 *NM*
      Chase -- Sunday, 25 April 2010, at 8:12 p.m.
  • XG 4 ply is tied after 11,000
    neilkaz -- Thursday, 29 April 2010, at 12:43 a.m.
  • XG 3-ply RO 21S-63
    Chase -- Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 8:46 a.m.
    • XG 4-ply RO 21S-63 just finished
      neilkaz -- Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 2:30 p.m.
      • XG 4-ply RO 21S-63 just finished
        Nack Ballard -- Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 7:16 p.m.
        • Random seeds may not be random anymore
          Chase -- Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 10:16 p.m.
          • Random seeds may not be random anymore
            Stick -- Sunday, 2 May 2010, at 10:48 p.m.
            • Random seeds may not be random anymore
              Chase -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 1:02 a.m.
              • Random seeds may not be random anymore
                eXtreme Gammon -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 1:27 a.m.
          • Random seeds may not be random anymore
            eXtreme Gammon -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 1:19 a.m.
        • How the new Random Seed works
          eXtreme Gammon -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 1:09 a.m.
          • How the new Random Seed works
            Chase -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 1:23 a.m.
            • How the new Random Seed works
              Leonardo Jerkovic -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 4:25 a.m.
          • How the new Random Seed works
            mtuhtan -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 5:31 a.m.
            • How the new Random Seed works
              Neil Robins -- Monday, 3 May 2010, at 12:06 p.m.