Is there a good way to generate a pseudo-random number quickly and easily in your head? (i.e., simulate a die roll, or coin toss) If I can do this it opens up a much wider range of possible pen-and-paper solitaire games
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Example idea (adapted from someone else): Pick a word, then do a quick word association (KANGAROO -> JUMP). Compare the second-to-last letters of the two words (O, M). If the first letter comes first in the alphabet, that counts as a coin coming up heads; otherwise, tails.
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Replying to @juliagalef
Seems like you could simplify this, as long as the second word you jump to is reasonably random. E.g.: if the xth letter of the second word is A-M (except for G), 1. Else, 2. Based on letter distributions from http://norvig.com/mayzner.html , this is v. close to random (N-Z+G=49.95%).
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Replying to @Miles_Brundage @juliagalef
(not perfect - haven't looked into whether those letters are more likely to be at particular slots/how word length fits in. Perhaps you could randomize the slot choice based on some letter/other factor, or have a good general purpose choice of slot, for sufficiently long words)
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Replying to @Miles_Brundage @juliagalef
i've tried something like this based on the distribution of initial letters of words, which avoids the particular slots/word length problem
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start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency#Relative_frequencies_of_the_first_letters_of_a_word_in_the_English_language … and divide into N sets of letters with equal total frequency
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(i can look up the letter sets i had for N=2,3,4,5,6 if anyone wants to know them)
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Replying to @VesselOfSpirit @juliagalef
I'd be particularly interested in 2!
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AEIOURTY is about 50%
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as is ABCDEFGHW
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