Random Number Generators in Portal areas?

[tlc8126]

I was listening to this last Sundays show with Philip Imbrogno and Christopher O'Brien when they mentioned thinking there were specific portal areas where not just UFO activity occurr, but other supernatural/paranormal activity seem to also occurr. Philip mentioned over laying a map of UFO sightings with paranormal events and found separate clustered locations for the two sets of data. Philip then mentioned that these areas appear to be 'ringed' by areas of high magnetism, and how these areas can affect people with headaches, etc.

As I thougth about this, I wondered if there was another way to correlate these areas, and I remembered how the Global Consiousness Project recorded an anomaly in the randomness of their random number generators "just prior" to the attack on the twin towers.

Could this be used in these portal areas? Would it be possible to lay out a number of really good random number generators (RNGs) around these portal areas and see if the data leans toward non-randomness? I don't think they would record the magnetic anomaly, but rather how that anomaly affects our reality. Of course this wouldn't be a valid test without a control, so a similar number of RNG's could be setup to monitor an area where there has been little or no UFO or Paranormal activity, as a comparison.

Just a random thought...

 

[Ron Collins]

I was listening to this last Sundays show with Philip Imbrogno and Christopher O'Brien when they mentioned thinking there were specific portal areas where not just UFO activity occurr, but other supernatural/paranormal activity seem to also occurr. Philip mentioned over laying a map of UFO sightings with paranormal events and found separate clustered locations for the two sets of data. Philip then mentioned that these areas appear to be 'ringed' by areas of high magnetism, and how these areas can affect people with headaches, etc.

As I thougth about this, I wondered if there was another way to correlate these areas, and I remembered how the Global Consiousness Project recorded an anomaly in the randomness of their random number generators "just prior" to the attack on the twin towers.

Could this be used in these portal areas? Would it be possible to lay out a number of really good random number generators (RNGs) around these portal areas and see if the data leans toward non-randomness? I don't think they would record the magnetic anomaly, but rather how that anomaly affects our reality. Of course this wouldn't be a valid test without a control, so a similar number of RNG's could be setup to monitor an area where there has been little or no UFO or Paranormal activity, as a comparison.

Just a random thought...

It depends on the complexity of the code for the RNG as to its randomness especially over time. Computers are not by nature random and it is actually impossible to make them truly random. The "random" portion of an RNG is typically a nested algorithmic formula whereby multiple algorithms are applied in such a manner as to have the appearance of randomness. It is important to point out that the degree of precision accounted for in these algorithms only serves to increase the mathematical timeframe of the cycle. Its all about the precision of the RNG.

To illustrate this you can look at the evolution of the RNG code structures over the last 20 years. Las Vegas Nevada has been the driving force behind most innovations in RNG programming. RNG's are used in video poker and slot machines and have been the core of the payout engine since their inception. The early RNG's were 5 digits and now they are over 30.

In fact, one of the most famous RNG hacks of all time was perpetuated against Las Vegas and Atlantic City and netted 10's of millions before someone in a japanese software company decided to add a more complex algorithm. But before this was discovered and corrected a group of sharp programmers were able to deconstruct the RNG algorithm, then rebuild it and use it to accurately predict the next time the RNG would trigger a winning hand.

They did this by buying a video poker machine and hacked the EPROM that contained the firmware and then ran a decompiler on it. Once they had the source it was a matter of back-engineering the code and then finding the right starting point to predict the cycle. They built a program and installed it on a laptop, then one guy would go play and then use a cell phone to call the other in the hotel room to tell them the hands they were getting. This helped prime the pump for the program using the RNG vulnerability to accurately predict the next winning hand. Eventually they thought this looked suspicious so they built a tiny walkman sized computer and loaded this software on it and came up with an ingenuous morse code type input device. Then they used a pager vibrator motor to alert them when the winning hand was going to come up. This was a scheme in play for years. All because of a simple RNG that was widely distributed throughout video poker and slot machines.

Mind you that this algorithm passed Nevada Gaming Commission tests for vulnerability and prediction for 8 years. In fact only after the discovery of Ronald Harris and was the code questioned. That was a long winded story to say that if a portion of a program is written poorly then the entire systems function can be dubious but if properly written there is no chance that the randomness could suddenly become less so. It's not like flipping a coin 100 times or even rolling dice. I don't see how it would be possible.

 

[Kevin Daly]

Human beings throwing dice or tossing coins might be a better way to measure anomalies in randomness (that's actually a serious suggestion, I'm not being snarky. Just now).

If however the usual (if we can talk of usual) occurrences of such anomalies are caused by the intrusion of human consciousness into the process then you might not get any interesting result from a portal experiment. On the other hand that very possibility might make the experiment more worthwhile, because a positive result might actually tell us something.

 

[Kandinsky]

That was a long winded story to say that if a portion of a program is written poorly then the entire systems function can be dubious but if properly written there is no chance that the randomness could suddenly become less so. It's not like flipping a coin 100 times or even rolling dice. I don't see how it would be possible.

Long-winded or not, it's an interesting account.

Some years ago, I read an article in either the Guardian or Observer supplements (I've moved on since!) about an organized gambling fraud in a major chain of South African casinos. It was cleverly orchestrated and cleverly uncovered.

Apparently casinos operate on fairly strict profit percentages. Over the course of months and years, there's a predictable level of pay-out and profit. If I remember correctly, the profit percentage was 11 point something percent. For a period of time the casinos began falling short of the predicted % by a small, but fairly steady fraction of a percent. It was enough to set off an investigation that took some time.

It turned out an organised gang had planted some schmo in the card manufacturers that supplied the chain and they'd altered the pattern on the back of the face cards. Let's say the back of the cards had a pattern of 250 five petal roses. On the face cards there'd be one flower with 4 petals. The gang hit the card tables and discreetly began to turn a good profit. Without being overtly greedy, it was still enough to raise a flag.

The story was a feature across several pages and pretty interesting to read. My abiding impression of the account was how tight the math and probability equations are in the world of casinos. They exploit the attractions of gambling and carefully adhere to the statistics of probability.