True Random Number Service

Testimonials - Miscellaneous

RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page contains testimonials from users of the service.

Choosing Lunch Venue

From: Doug Fessler from Ellensburg, WA in the United States
Date: 13 November 2008
Thank you for random.org. I use it for several of the reasons other people mention. My favorite use, however, is deciding where my work colleagues and I will go to lunch every Thursday. We tried voting, but we were unhappy with the results--someone would end up disappointed that their choice wasn't picked. So, now we put all of our choices into the "list randomizer" and generate a list that we visit in order. It works great!

Selection of CDs for use in Car

From: Malcolm Lashbrook
Date: 1 November 2008
Dear Sir, Came across your web site some time ago when I was dithering over what cd's to put in my 12 cd cassette in my car. In those days I had in excess of 500 cd's, and could never make up my mind which ones to listen too. I was tending to put just my favourites in week after week. I googled 'Random Number', and your site was the result. I have now well over 700 cd's and religously put in the cd's that the number generator commands. Thanks for the service.

Teaching Statistics

From: Bronwyn Clark
Date: 5 May 2008
Just wanted to say a quick thank you for your random.org service. I was trying to demonstrate regression to the mean to my students and didn’t have access to a statistical analysis program. So I jumped on the internet – and had my numbers within a couple of minutes! Thanks!

Revitalized Love Life

From: Paul Matthews
Date: 27 April 2008
My wife and I hit a lull in our sex life. The solution? We created an "Intimacy List." Basically a list of 8 intimate things we could do on any given night, running the gamut from "cuddle up" to "you know what!" Then every night we go to Random.org and pick an integer from 1 to 8. It's worked like a charm. Thanks!

Ordering Candidates for Board Election

From: Richard and Brenda Cheadle
Date: 9 April 2008
Interesting and useful website. Generated random order series for displaying candidate info for election to the board of a lifelong learning institute at George Mason University in Virginia (USA). Daughter Jessica is a Trinity alum- MBA. Looking forward to returning one day to Dublin. Thanks for the assistance!

Making Life Decisions

From: David Hilton
Date: 6 July 2007
I have found the most fantastic use of your random number generator. I use the first few lines of a 100 number sequence divided into five columns to predict future events in my life as far in the future as 6 - 8 months; for example, whether or not I should I should change careers (yes) or wait for a pay raise in my old job (no), whether or not I should change the engine belts in my car (no) or wait until September to do it (yes), whether or not I should ask my old girlfriend to marry me (no), whether or not I should ask the divorced lady who lives on my street to marry me (yes), if we should elope and get married in Las Vegas (yes), whether or not I should liquidate my 401(k) (yes) and invest in commodities options (accuracy = about 91%), whether or not I should refinance my house and accept fairly high refinancing fees (yes), and which religion is the correct faith (Catholicism scored the highest). I'm looking at some really interestin numerological prophesies right now; for example, the Arizona Diamondbacks will win the pennant but lose in the World Series next October; unfortunately my mother and father are not going to leave me anything in their will when they pass on (they are going to live at least another ten years each anyway), and I am going to be reacquanited with a long lost friend in the next three weeks. This is really great! Being able to predict the future using your random number generator has really helped me and my family make our most important decisions in life.

Assignments of Math Problems

From: Gabriel Lichstein from Los Angeles
Date: 17 June 2007
I use your website to assign random problems to the math students I tutor. Thank you very much. Gabriel

Statistics Study Tool

From: Charlie Probert, Student, UK
Date: 30 January 2007
I found your random number generator really useful in my Maths Statistics coursework preparation for my GCSE so while I was using the web I found your brilliant site to help me along the way and made it easier than using a calculator! Thank you very much!

Simulated Air Traffic Control Clearances

From: Trevor Brooke
Date: 29 November 2006
I am a pilot studying for my instrument rating (complicated procedures used for flying in clouds and low visibility) and I use your random number generator to generate simulated Air Traffic Control clearances. I substitute the numbers in for headings and bearings. It's great practice and I hope I'll ace the exam this way.

Choosing Countries to Study

From: Sylvia Johnson
Date: 31 October 2006
I just wanted to learn more about the world. I use numbers from your site to randomly pick 5 countries to pay a little extra attention to for the year. I also use the random numbers to come up with an age an sex for an imaginary citizen in that country and try to think about the country's recent history from their point of view.

Psychology Research

From: Meredith Blampied
Date: 7 September 2006
Hi, I'm just writing to say a big thank you for creating your lovely sequence generator. It has helped me so much in my area of psychological research, very simply by creating a sequence for me to administer experimental tasks. But without it, my job would have been a lot more difficult. Thank you very much.

Visual Psychophysics Studies

From: Professor Mark Dubin of the University of Colorado
Date: 30 April 2006
Donation: Concern
I use random.org to generate a random order for multiple stimuli used in human psychophysical testing. It's a welcome improvement over the book of random number tables I used in my youth, long ago.

Random Gift Exchange

From: Blair McCulley, Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
Date: 16 January 2006
A group of seniors at my high-school decided to hold a "Random Gift Exchange" on a day that held no religious or political significance, for no reason other than it would be fun! I used the random integer generator (along with my list of gifters) to match people up with their "secret-santa" partners, totally randomly! To make things even more interesting, each gift must cost an exact and random amount, and our price this time is $8.27, which was also randomly selected thanks to the random integer generator. I know our Random Gift Exchange will be a success thanks to Random.org!!

Dithering Audio Files

From: Mr. Spoon from dbPowerAMP
Date: 12 December 2005
Donation: Concern
Thank you for your random number service, I have downloaded your 10MB pre-generated numbers to use them for generating random noise to be added as dither to audio files in our audio products. Dithering works by adding random noise when decreasing bit-depth, such as going from 24 bit to 16 bit, allowing low volume signals that would be normally decimated to still be present, whilst the random signal increases the noise floor it normally remains inaudible.

Random Selection of Entertainment

From: Marcus Stidham
Date: 22 November 2005
I have many movie and sound files stored on my computer, in either groups (folders) or stand alone, and I have trouble deciding which to listen to or watch. Because a random function on a media player doesn't randomly select groups of songs or movies, I decided to find an alternative. Using a random integer generator, I can arbitrarily pick them at random. I use the site daily. Thanks.

Teaching the Order of Operations

From: Peter Fergus-Moore from Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada
Date: 16 August 2005
I am an instructor of adult literacy and used your random numbers to generate questions in BEDMAS (order of operations) for my students. This saved me a lot of extra work and time. Thank you!

Creating Math Questions

From: Peter Fergus-Moore from Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada
Date: 16 August 2005
I am an instructor of adult literacy and used your random numbers to generate questions in BEDMAS (order of operations) for my students. This saved me a lot of extra work and time. Thank you!

Random Film Selection

From: Jeff Sargeant
Date: 13 August 2005
I have a backlog of 40 or so "borrowed" DVDs on my computer, none of which I've seen before, all of which I want to see, and when I feel like watching movie I use random.org to pick which one I'll watch that evening. I like to use a random number because I am afraid if I don't I'll watch all the films I am really excited about first, then be stuck with all the one's I am not so excited about later, but with a random selection I get a nice mix.

Maths Questions

From: Tanya Prestwood
Date: 18 November 2004
Donation: Mads's Amazon Wishlist
I use random.org to generate numbers for questions I am going to ask the kids at school. I'm a maths teacher and often have trouble devising questions (especially for data handling!). It's great to be able to specify what kind of numbers I want, and how many. Thanks for taking a load of work off me!

I Ching

From: Michael Keating
Date: 25 May 2004
I am using your program to generate six random numbers between 6 and 9 to consult the I-Ching, the ancient Chinese book of Changes. The traditional method is to use yarrow stalks in a somewhat complicated procedure. More recently people have been using coins. It would be great if you could add a three- coin -toss to your menu so that the I-Ching values could be determined. It would also be great if you could simulate the look of old chinese coins. Just a suggestion, but thank you very much in any case.

Creating New Words

From: James Worlton
Date: 5 April 2004
In order to avoid creating a lot of words which all sounded the same, I generated some random numbers from your site and formatted them into 6 columns. From these I used a mapping algorithm I developed to convert the numbers in each row into letters. From that I could apply the phonological rules of my constructed language, and create a wide variety of words that I would not have come up with otherwise. Bonno! ("Thanks")"

Grading Student Tests

From: David Webb from the University of Mississippi
Date: 13 February 2004
When giving a quiz or test, I like to allow the students to choose 6 out of 7 (for example) of the questions I ask, so that they can have one "free" one if they don't know it. Invariably, some students answer all 7. Your website makes it so much easier to deal with this problem (and now the students know I use your site and that I won't just let a wrong answer stand for the one they should have omitted).

Spiritual Guidance

From: Viata Maya
Date: 17 November 2003
Thanks so much for your site. I've been using it for several years. As a Romani (Gypsy) I have a personal set of the Drom Romani that functions as a daily guidance system. Working in a stressful job (Financial Aid at a community college), I sometimes need to find some "quickie" guidance. Your page is in my favorites and it is easy to access. I use the first random number in your list. If it is more than 22 (the amount of cards in the Drom) I add the numbers together. Then I match it in my mind to the proper card. For instance, number 14 is E Mara (the Sea) and it tells me to go with the flow, be relaxed, retain a sense of humor! Hope this doesn't sound frivolous to you because it isn't to me. It aids my spiritual development on a daily basis.

Random Holiday Gift Exchance

From: Adam Menendez from Portland, Oregon, USA
Date: 28 October 2003
Hooray for the Rogan Family! My sister Katherine married into this lovely family, and now I get to administer their holiday gift exchange! I use random.org to ensure that the drawing of names is above reproach! A random holiday is a happy holiday!

Multi-Party Virtual Coin Toss

From: Daniel Singer from the Department of Computer Science at Duke University in North Carolina, USA
Date: 2 October 2003
Hello! I am an admirer of the random.org web site! I have implemented a Virtual Coin Toss web page that allows multiple parties in different locations to perform a virtual coin toss which they all can verify separately. On this site, a virtual coin toss (ie, a zero or one) is fetched from random.org once every minute, is stored for some number of days, and can be looked up through a simple form. So, for instance, two individuals can agree to use the toss that will occur at some particular, approaching time; they can then separately view the coin toss as it occurs or look it up later.

Allocation of Tutoring Slots

From: Julia Moore, Director of the English as a Second Language Program at the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University, USA
Date: 25 September 2003
I used your sequence generator to run a lottery for English as Second Language Services at Northwestern University (Chicago Campus). Each year we have more students applying for tutoring slots than there are spaces available, so this year we ran a lottery to determine who would receive a slot. Thanks for making this process easier!

Chore Selection

From: Vicky Barrio
Date: 26 April 2003
Donation: Concern
I stoppped on your web site to look for a random number to help me decide which chores to do first. That led me to your personal webpage. I admire your work and generosity very much!

Grading Exam Questions... Or Not

From: Hughes Goldie, Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Date: 26 February 2003
I use your random numbers to assign grades for students' exams answers. It is quicker than reading them all... No I don't really... just kidding! Actually I use your random numbers to decide which lectures to base the exam questions on, since there is not enough time in the exam to ask an essay question on every lecture.

Video Image Randomisation

From: Ed Williams, Senior Engineer with the Public Broadcasting Service, USA
Date: 20 November 2002
I just found your website and am using it to randomize a group of numbers that define a group of video images to be used in subjective tests to determine the amount of compression through different transmission paths and through multiple compression stages for storage and processing. Thanks very much for this unique and useful service.

Testing of Audio Equipment

From: David Ranada, Technical Editor of Sound & Vision Magazine in New York City
Date: 12 June 2001
I discovered [random.org] due to the New York Times article on random numbers today. I've already downloaded the three pre-packaged 10 MB files and wish there were more of them (at least three more 10 MB files). I'm using them as audio -- interpreted as 16-bit wav files, they form perfect white noise, which has many uses in acoustics and audio-equipment testing, which is my field. Used in pairs, they form perfect, uncorrelated stereo white noise. [...] I've been able to get more use out of the first 3 10MB files by reversing their byte order (the resulting white noise sounds the same) and by using various other audio-editing tricks like concatenating the files to produce long streams). I've also used 1, 2, 3 or 4 bytes at a time to produce different audio wordlengths. Thanks to the 2's complement number system, this latter scheme is particularly effective for audio since you always get equal distributions of data points above and below zero. Your files produce better noise than some pseudo-random schemes I've tried, since the latter can produce an audibly detectable cyclic effects in the sound quality if the sequence length is too short. The ear is an extremely good detector of such patterns. [...] A quick-and-dirty one-time-pad scheme would involve Xor-ing your random bytes with the lower bytes of each 16-bit word on a commercial audio CD to produce the random number table. The recipient would only need your file and another copy of the audio CD. To crack it you'd have to search through every data sample on every CD ever released!