December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

IP: A nationhood under seige: Is the nation obsolete?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Holy shit. The Fourth Estate figures it out. Of course, the answer to the question, "Omigawd! There's gonna be no nation-states, dude!", is, the same answer to the question "Egad! The Church has no more earthly power!" Which is, "So?". :-). Mort a le infame, as Voltaire used to say... Cheers, Bob Hettinga --- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 06:41:34 -0500 From: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Organization: Unknown Organization MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Subject: IP: A nationhood under seige: Is the nation obsolete? Sender: owner-ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> A nationhood under seige: For 350 years, the world has been governed by the pri A nationhood under seige: For 350 years, the world has been governed by the principle of national sovereignty, but the new global economy respects no national borders, laws, or interests. Is the nation obsolete?< Three and a half centuries after the nations of the world won the power of self-rule, a new force has come along to erode that power and undermine the democratic rights of their citizens. That force is the global economy, which is relocating the economic decisions that frame the lives of citizens far beyond the reach of the voters and their voice. There's a sort of cruel historical irony here, that at the very moment when liberal democracy has finally triumphed over all rival systems of government, the power of markets - the other half of the post-Cold War triumph - has come along to leech that democracy of much of its meaning. This weekend is the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia, a treaty signed in 1648 by the Holy Roman Empire with France and Sweden and, especially, with the princes of the various German principalities. This treaty not only ended the Thirty Years' War, but also severely limited the ability of the Empire and the church of Rome to intervene in the affairs of the German principalities. In other words, Westphalia proclaimed the sovereignty of the principalities, the right of the princes to rule their territories without outside interference. This idea of sovereignty has echoed down the three and a half centuries since then and is the basis both of self-government and of international relations. Considering all the massacres, pogroms, persecutions, gulags and holocausts of the past 350 years, this principle of sovereignty leaves something to be desired. But it's what we have, the magnetic pole of the international system. More important for those lucky enough to live in democracies, Westphalia is the basis of democratic self-rule, the idea that the average citizen has a say in the decisions that affects his or her life. Somebody else may make the decisions, but citizens have the right to cast their votes and state their opinions, confident that these vote and opinions will be heard by the decisionmaker who, one way or another, must pay attention. It's this right and this confidence that are vanishing in the face of the global economy, which is the one really new thing under the sun. The reason is that democracy is national and so are its institutions. Governments are national and their power to make and enforce laws is national. The power of the vote is felt at national levels, but not beyond. But the nation-based industrial economy that underwrote the growth of democracy is being replaced by a global economy, powered by global capital markets and global communications, answering to the needs and demands of global corporations and investors who can and do ignore frontiers. In short, an extremely important part of public life _ the economy _ is going global in a way that politics and government have not, and so is moving beyond any kind of democratic control. As Americans and the rest of the world have learned in the past year, impersonal global markets can and do cast instant judgments on entire societies, dictate the spending decisions of government and unravel the social contracts that used to bind corporations with their employees and their societies. Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management, has written that we are in an ''age of social transformation,'' one of those historical eras that happen ''every few hundred years,'' when, ''within a few short decades, society rearranges itself _ its worldview; its basic values: its social and political structure: its arts: its key institutions.'' Such transformations, like the global economy itself, are not innately evil forces. Instead, they are amoral but immensely powerful movements that change civilizations. But all such movements are created by humans and potentially controllable by humans, for good or for ill. A century after the Industrial Revolution, societies tamed the economic forces generated by this revolution and turned them into the market democracy that enhanced the past 50 years of Western history. No such taming of the Global Revolution _ or even a debate on how to do it _ has begun yet. The old economy was built on a national consensus that economies exist for societies, not the other way around. Over the past half-century, the democracies created social markets _ capitalist structures that insisted the companies share the cost of citizenship. Tax laws required companies to pay their fair share to the places where they made their money. Other laws gave rights to unions, protected worker safety and the environment, and mandated good health and pension plans. Companies accepted these laws, however grudgingly, if only because it cost them no competitive edge: all their rivals, subject to the same laws, faced the same costs. Now, not only capital markets have escaped into cyberspace, beyond the reach of national regulations. There are about 50,000 global corporations who see the globe as a single market and ignore national borders and regulations. These are no longer multinationals, with most of their operations in one country but with a few foreign branches. The global economy is being driven by global corporations who see the globe as a unit. They have their headquarters in one country, research and development in others, accounting in still another, manufacturing scattered across the world, with sales wherever there are customers. These companies have gone global because, with the advent of global communications, they can. But in the process, they have left behind their old home and its laws. Too often, companies now pay taxes and wages where the rates are lowest and the laws loosest. In many countries, environmental or benefits regulations are nonexistent. Many other countries are willing to waive them for companies that will invest there. In this atmosphere, businesses argue they can no longer afford the social costs imposed on them by society, when their rivals may be operating halfway around the world, in a place where the average wage is $1 per day and environmental laws don't exist. Either, they say, they must be allowed to break the social contract, busting unions and negotiating easier regulations and dumping health and pension plans, or they must go abroad themselves. Often they do both. Good jobs go away and the ones that are left somehow pay less, are more unstable and are less likely to come equipped with pension or health plans. Wolfgang Reinicke, a senior economist at the World Bank, has written that this is an attack on ''internal sovereignty,'' the ability of an elected government to really govern. The laws remain intact, but the ability to enforce them disappears. Government exists but its effectiveness and efficiency are eroded. The economy rolls on, but the public's ability to insist that it benefit society is eroded. Elections are held and votes counted, but the power of that vote to promote particular policies wobbles and wanes. The economic rights won by citizens over the centuries, from collective bargaining to decent wages to job stability to pensions, often depending on the power of national governments to enforce them. As this power withers, so do the rights. Small wonder that government is held in such low esteem these days and politics derided. A government that cannot enforce its own laws is a government fit only for scandals and other sideshows. The main event is going on somewhere else, and neither Washington nor its subjects knows where it is. There oughta be a law, a global one replacing the national laws and bringing this economy back under democratic control. In fact, there are laws, lots of them, with more being written every day, but the voters aren't being asked to help write them. Around the world, bureaucrats, experts, lawyers and lobbyists are writing a new web of global regulations, on stock markets, accounting, banking, investment, even auto safety and drug trials. These talks aren't exactly secret but the government isn't going out of its way to publicize them. They are highly technical and, frankly, pretty boring. But they're important. They're writing the rule book for the 21st Century. New global tax laws haven't been written yet, and environmental or labor regulations are barely a gleam in a bureaucrat's eye. But they'll be written someday, if only because the global economy otherwise will be a jungle. But when they are written, they'll look a lot like the regulations already framed. That is, they will be technical exercises, focused on efficiency and the well-being of corporations, not on democracy or the public health. Nations and corporations have different interests. Nations want to raise the living standards of their citizens, while corporations want to raise their profits. The glory of the past 50 years rests on the creation of the social market, with the drive of capitalism tempered by the needs of society, enabling both to thrive. This 20th-Century thrust has focused on the rights of citizens, as individuals or as classes. The new rule-making focuses on the safety and efficiency of markets and corporations. They are making the world more secure and predictable for investment and trade, which is vital for the creation of an honest market. But it caters to the needs of global actors, not the folks at home. De-regulation nationally is being replaced with re-regulation globally. But in the process, governments are giving away power from national bodies to global institutions. But governments exist by democratic sufferance. These global bodies do not. The growth of the global economy requires global governance. But increasingly, as Reinicke has written, this is turning into ''governance without government,'' public functions wielded by bodies with no public control. Pat Buchanan, the commentator and onetime presidential candidate, has called for a ''new economic nationalism'' that, essentially, calls for derailing the global economy with barriers on trade, limits on immigration and an all-around isolationism that, apart from its basic selfishness, is a national solution to a global problem and, hence, futile. The right answer is to recognize that the global economy exists and won't go away, and to tame and temper it with a new social market, composed of new laws and rules in which the public, for a change, has a voice. For a start, the government should never negotiate new global rules that supersede national rules without making a sort of democratic impact statement on what this will mean to the rights of citizens. This is a ''new economic internationalism'' in which American democratic institutions would cooperate with the democratic institutions of other countries to recapture the sovereignty of both. (This is an adaptation of the Richard W. Leopold Annual Lecture that R.C. Longworth, a Chicago Tribune senior writer, delivered at Northwestern University this month.) KRT PERSPECTIVE is a forum for essays by staff writers from contributing papers. (c) 1998, Chicago Tribune. -0- Visit the Chicago Tribune on America Online (keyword: Tribune) or the Internet Tribune at http://www.chicago.tribune.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. AP-NY-10-28-98 0611EST< -0- By R.C. Longworth Chicago Tribune News provided by COMTEX. [!COMMUNITY] [!FINANCE] [!WALL+STREET] [ACCOUNTING] [BANKING] [BOOK] [CONTRACT] [DEMOCRACY] [ECONOMY] [ENVIRONMENT] [FRANCE] [GOVERNMENT] [HEALTH] [IMMIGRATION] [INVESTMENT] [KNS] [LABOR] [MANUFACTURING] [MARKET] [MONEY] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [POLITICS] [RATES] [REGULATIONS] [RESEARCH] [SALES] [STANDARDS] [SWEDEN] [TAXES] [TRADE] [TREATY] [UNIONS] [USA] [WAR] [WASHINGTON] [WORLD+BANK] -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Two ISPs Seized Over Usenet Content
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco, who is running for re-election, is crowing and posturing this morning over having seized two ISPs, Dreamscape in Syracuse, and Buffnet in West Seneca, over the content of the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.pre-teen, thus making a small dent in the distribution of "filth" to ignorant citizen-units. A running gag in abpep-t for the last several years has been for newsgroup posters to identify themselves as various faculty belonging to a mythical "Pedo University" when responding to trolls. Vacco believes this imaginary organization to be a "International Child Pornography Ring" which he has broken up. 13 individuals in various countries were also arrested on various child pornography possession, trading, and promotion charges, related to activity in the newsgroup, and 34 are still under "investigation", according to this morning's AP wire. alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen continues merrily onwards, and is presently discussing the arrests and seizures, minus a few of its regular participants. While the loss of two small ISPs and a dozen or so patrons is unlikely to bring the uncensorable worldwide Usenet to its knees, this appears to be a small first step towards eroding the legal notion that common carriers are immune from liability over Usenet content. exerpts... NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities say they have broken up an international child pornography ring dubbed ``Pedo University'' in which suspects swapped sexually explicit information, pictures and video online. ... Thirteen people were in custody and more arrests were expected. As many as 34 people were still under investigation. New York state police seized two Internet providers, Dreamscape ISP in Syracuse and Buffnet.net ISP in West Seneca. ... Both allegedly carried Pedo University news groups, a type of electronic bulletin board similar to a chat room. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Re: Shuffling (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu (Ian Goldberg) > Subject: Re: Shuffling (fwd) > Date: 29 Oct 1998 16:16:41 GMT > The "7 times" theorem uses the following model of a shuffle: > > o The deck is cut into two parts, with the number of cards in each piece > binomially distributed (with mean 26, of course). > o The resulting deck is then achieved by having cards fall from one or the > other of the two parts; a card will fall from one of the parts with > probability proportional to the number of cards remaining in the part. The only problem I see with this model, re real card decks, is that the probability for a given card to fall to the top of the shuffled pile isn't related in any way to the number of cards in either stack in a real-world shuffle. It also doesn't address the problem of 'clumping' where a group of cards (ie royal flush) stay together through the shuffling. This is the reason that real dealers try for a 1-for-1 shuffle each time. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Interesting Articles... Micro jet engine for Wearable power?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 12:03:26 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 09:50:40 -0500 Organization: Scientific-Atlanta MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Interesting Articles... Micro jet engine for Wearable power? To: "wear-hard(a)haven.org" <wear-hard(a)haven.org> From: Pete Hardie <pete.hardie(a)sciatl.com> Sender: phardie(a)sciatl.com Resent-From: wear-hard(a)haven.org X-Mailing-List: <wear-hard(a)haven.org> archive/latest/5435 X-Loop: wear-hard(a)haven.org Precedence: list Resent-Sender: wear-hard-request(a)haven.org Mark Willis wrote: > single spool turbojet > 12mm OD x 3mm long (Tiny!) Weighs 1 gram... > Rotor speed: 2.4 million rpm > Combustor temp: 1600deg K > Output: 13 grams thrust, or 16W electrical > Fuel: Hydrogen @ 7 grams/hr. > > Fuel for 2-3 hours would fit in a CO2 cylinder sized container or so > <G> They use air bearings, and a *silicon* spool, no nickel metal > sintered exotics here... This little puppy will run a wearable nicely > when it gets to production! (The original is for a small surveillance > aircraft, 16W power budget isn't bad though!) I imagine it puts out > some heat, of course... But that annoying roar and jet of flame..... -- Pete Hardie | Goalie, DVSG Dart Team Scientific Atlanta | Digital Video Services Group | -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" to wear-hard-request(a)haven.org Wear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.ml.org --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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No Subject
by concerned＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oct.30th,1998 Y2K Solution! 8 Pine Circle Dr., Silicon Valley, Calif. OTC Company "TCFG" 21 st. Century Frontier Group has through several members of their administrative research department leaked vital information about their companies efforts. Everyone was tight lipped and interviews were refused, and through un-named sources we have learned that the technology and software solution are in the process of being patented! In over 1640 trials, using various data systems the use of the new technology and software solved the Y2K problem 100% of the time. This small publicly traded company "TCFG" which is just 3 years old is through various sources now negotiating with the "Big Boys"! "TCFG" the letters to look for!

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test
by Igor Chudov ＠ home 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

test

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Re: Shuffling (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 19:22:52 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: Shuffling > For any N greater than two, the random-swap algorithm cannot produce > a perfectly smooth randomization of A[N]. If by 'perfectly smooth randomization of A[N]' you mean that any two members of A[N] have equaly likelyhood to be swapped, and hence any pattern of A[N] members being possible with equal odds then this is incorrect. For that arrangement to be relevant your (P)RNG function must choose any element from 0 to N with equal odds, it's probability curve must be a horizontal line at 1/n for each N. If it ain't you aren't going to randomly shuffle the elements of A[] since each element doesn't have the same odds of being selected in this (or every other) turn. > A perfect randomization of A[N] would give equal probability to each of > the N! (N factorial) possible rearrangements of A. Ah, but there aren't N! rearrangements of A if we are limited to only swapping two elements. There are at best n^2. Allow me to explain... > Each iteration of the random-swap algorithm makes two choices of the N > values to swap. There are N^2 possible ways these two choices could go. Ok, we shoot off our first random number, 1/n. We then shoot off our second random number, also 1/n. The combination is 1/n * 1/n or 1/n^2. Now if we add the stipulation about the i'th and i+1'st numbers not being identical then the odds are 1/n * 1/n-1 (note that this boundary condition is artificial and may in fact be problematic, there is no logical reason to keep i and i+1 from being the same n if we want truly random behaviour). > To calculate the probabilities after an iteration, we try all the N^2 > choices and count how many instances of each arrangement are produced. Huh? What probability are we calculating here, the odds of getting the particular pattern we have now generated? If so that is either 1/n^2 or 1/n(n-1) depending on the boundary condition. > This gives each possible arrangement a probability in the form of > k/N^2, where k of the N^2 choices led to that arrangement. What arrangement, the one we start with before or after the swap? If we start with arrangement I and then swap two elements we get I+1. There are only two ways to get to any particular arrangment. An identical arrangement where we swap i with itself (ignoring the potential boundary condition) and the arrangement where the l'th and j'th elements are swapped. As long as we're only swapping two elements there can only be two possible parent patterns for any given resultant pattern. Now if we swap more than 2 elements it gets big fast. I seem to be reading an implication that given a particular pattern, I, there is some rhyme or reason to the pattern of previous I's that got us here, there isn't. For any given pattern there is a infinite number of potential paths that would get to any particular. Let's say we have: [ 0 1 2 4 3 ] and we shuffle and get, [ 0 4 2 1 3 ] or, [ 0 1 2 4 3 ] Now if the question is how many possible ways could be have gotten to the original, [ 0 1 2 4 3 ], then there are two ways to calculate that, given no stipulation on reptitions we get: n^2 given a stipulation for no repetitions we get: (n)(n-1) We can generalize this somewhat if we let s represent our current sequence and our goal is to determine the number of possible previous states the sequence could have held. s-1 = n^2 or, s-1 = n(n-1) Now if we want to calculate the number of possible parent generations for s-1 *from the perspective of s0* we get: s-2 = (s-1)^2 = (n^2)^2 or, s-2 = (s-1)((s-1)-1) = (n^2)((n^2)-1) Thus, s-3 = (s-2)^2 = ((s-1)^2)^2 = ((n^2)^2)^2 or, s-3 = (s-2)((s-2)-1) = ( (n^2)((n^2)-1) )( ((n^2)((n^2)-1) )-1) = (n^4 - n^2)( (n^4 - n^2) - 1) for the second form only, s-4 = (s-3)((s-3)-1) = ((n^4-n^2)((n^4-n^2)-1))(((n^4-n^2)((n^4-n^2)-1))-1) = ((n^4-n^2)^2 - (n^4-n^2)) (n^4-n^2)^2-(n^4-n^2))-1) (I'm going to stop here trying to resolve this equation, I don't have the time. Note that the relation is i(i-1) for each generation so we only need to affix a relation to i and the generation number. It's worth noting this can be resolved recursively.) These can be generalized for the first form to: C(s-i) = n^(2^i), where i is the number of generations going back. The inverse makes a handy measure of entropy as well as telling you the odds of selecting any particular path from one pattern to another pattern given the number of elements swaps that are allowed. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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No Subject
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can someone do a fill in/summary/recapitulation? I'm not sure I understand all of this and the MIB stuff... -----Original Message----- From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 8:45 PM :[Two letters received by fax on 27 October 1998] : :---------- : :[Letter 1, cover and 16 pages] : :8 September 1998 : :Cover Sheet : :Declan : :The Good News is that I have a pen to write :with, due to the Free Enterprise System being :alive & well within the Prison System. : :The Bad News is that Micro$oft Pens (TM) :controls 95% of the market... : :I am hoping you can share as much of this :communique as possible with the CPUNX, :since my chain is constantly getting yanked :in different directions, making outside contact :sporatic & unreliable. : :Feel free to reserve for your own use any :of the enclosed information you need for your :own journalistic purposes. : :I will try to reach you by phone (automated :collect-call system requiring touch-tone on :your end). : :Thanks for the Mags, : : CJ Parker : :ps# My prison cell mirror now reads, :"Chocolate Skelter." (Brownie & Milk) : :------------------------------------------------ : :[FLORENCE NUTLY NEWS - "I'M HERE BECAUSE I :believe that the KONTROLLERS are taking :actions that create obstacles to the freedom :and openess of the Internet. ~Truth Glaser] : :Declan, : :Looks like you may be receiving the *only* copy :of the Florence Nutly News, since I have, up :until now, been writing on paper towels and :medicine cups, using combinations of blood, :sperm and chocolate (two of which are in short :supply) for ink, and I will soon be headed :to Nutly News Head (pardon the pun) Quarters :in Springfield, Missouri, for Rewiring of :my Brain Circuity.

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No Subject
by informant＠earthlink.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

10/30/98 Y2K Solution! 8 Pine Circle Dr., Silicon Valley, Calif. OTC Company "TCFG" 21 st. Century Frontier Group has through several members of their administrative research department leaked vital information about their companies efforts. Everyone was tight lipped and interviews were refused, and through un-named sources we have learned that the technology and software solution are in the process of being patented! In over 1640 trials, using various data systems the use of the new technology and software solved the Y2K problem 100% of the time. This small publicly traded company "TCFG" which is just 3 years old is through various sources now negotiating with the "Big Boys"! "TCFG" the letters to look for.....

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Re: Random array (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 20:04:57 -0800 > From: Jim Gillogly <jim(a)acm.org> > Subject: Re: Random array > One could modify Greg's suggestion slightly by attaching an auxiliary > array of 256 random numbers to each of the members of the original > array and then using the most efficient handy sort algorithm to sort > those random numbers, dragging along their associated original array > elements. This way it doesn't have a chance to interfere with the > operation of the sorting algorithm, at the cost of an extra array. So you've got a set of arrays that have 256 numbers in them, whether they are random or not is irrelevant since we're going to sort them and break their randomness. It is merely sufficient that they all be reasonably (what the hell ever that's going to mean) different, if they're all 6's for example it isn't going to be very interesting. If I understand the process. Each array would cycle through in parallel sorting 2 elements of each array. Once that was finished we'd then sort the arrays themselves according to some process. From your description it seems to imply that you're going to sort the 1st element descending at that point. This in effect mis-orders each array after every sort. This sort of system is an IFS and could lead to determinism (ie a cycle of sort patterns that repeat endlessly) or chaos (ie a pattern that doesn't repeat). It in and of itself doesn't guarantee any randomness merely a continously munged sort. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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