How can you generate random bits? Some people think it’s not easy, others will tell you that it’s pretty damn hard, and then there are those who wonder if it is possible at all. Of course, it is easy ...

The eye diagram, one of the best figures of merit for evaluating robustness in a digital data link, shows a single bit window (bit N), preceded by a random-value bit (N-1) and followed by a ...

[Ian] had a need for a lot of random numbers. There are dozens of commercial offerings when it comes to RNGs, but there are also hundreds of different ways for an electronics hobbyist to shoot random ...

“This is a marvelous step” toward more efficient random number generation, says Rajarshi Roy, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park who was not involved in the work. Random number ...

There are several ways to conveniently generate random data on Unix systems. One popular way is to make use of Perl’s rand function. Another is to employ the /dev/random or /dev/urandom pseudodevice ...

A behind-the-scenes blog about research methods at Pew Research Center. For our latest findings, visit pewresearch.org. Identifying causal relationships from observational data is not easy. Still, ...