Recent content by jrtayloriv

Got it -- that's the first time someone has been able to explain it to me clearly. Thanks a bunch!

Mathematical Derivation of Significant Figure "Rules" Let's say I have a scale which can accurately read weights out to ten-thousandths of a gram so it might read 1.0005 g or 0.0005 grams ... why is it that the first reading has 5 significant figures and the second has only 1? Same instrument...

OK, thanks for the responses chroot. It looks like I need to do a bit more reading ;)

I would recommend checking into the Robert G. Brown's 'dieharder' It's the most comprehensive RNG test suite I've been able to find. As far as the compression, I didn't mean taking non-random data and compressing it to try to get random data. I meant taking the random data from an RNG, and...

I have been reading a bit about cryptography recently, and there are a few things that I haven't understood so far: #1) I read that since compression removes redundant information, it is a randomizing function. Does that mean that I would have more high quality random data afterwards if I...