One gerbil in a treadmill and a lava lamp.

java.lang.Random()

can you recommend something?

yeah, i was assuming rand() because the randomness can be truly nutty sometime - he's right, there are much better ways (like the brownian motion device you mention) but I do not have the talent to suggest one.

That being said - if you could dredge up one of the old methods for turning something like a lava lamp into a rand generator using a video camera and IR software, and run the video on the home page, that would be very, very cool

i knew there was something fishy about the randomness of the game. the probablilities I calculated just didnt match up, lol.

maybe you could implement this guys work? http://www.random.org/

while rand() isnt optimal it is NOT responsible for such series like you had.

Look there are dozends of people playing all the time around the clock. It is actually very likely that one in a time gets such an "unbelieveable" series, and then he complains here.

As I calcualted already once here, you actually have a 1:1 chance to get a series of 8, every 10-20th game you do.

Other than that, a hardware quantum mechanics random generator costs 1000,- (dollar, euro) pay it to ryan, he will use it ;o)

HOWEVER pre pepeared that you still will get series of 8, 12 or seomtimes 16. Its just "random" that they DO happen ;o)

random.org, nice service.

However people complaining about series, just get yourself a page of 1 in 2 decisions, to get a feeling about win/loose conditions:
http://www.random.org/cgi-bin/randnum?num=10000&min=1&max=2&col=5

I could e.g. easily spot a 10 series, on the very first page I got. It will stop complaining people about beeing treated unfair from fortuna, and blaming the *whatever* random implementation for it.

but lets all be honest. The rand() function has many inherent flaws. I once did a project on the law of large numbers using java. It was disparagingly inaccurate over small series.

Isn't every random inaccurate over small series?

There is even a formula about this...