These are very many reasons that Python PRNG is indeed adequate.
Maybe documentation for amateurs and newbies could be improved so that they get the best results possible without knowing how much work it is.
How to call the built in PRNG seems to change a good bit.
As for the hack: I feel obligated to connect to the internet and do research before I speak further.
IF it DOES do 0-9 randomly, even if it is not useful for larger ranges, it may serve by CONCATENATING base 10?
I feel like it’s the punchline to a lame joke now, but thank you all again. I will be reading for weeks.
James Johnson writes:
> The scholars here are referencing white papers and using hardware and
> software interchangeably (?) I am not a randomization expert, and I do not
> seek academic recognition. It's a novel hack is all,
I'm no expert either, but hash functions and PRNGs have been around a
long time. I'm sure this approach has been discovered independently.
Besides the Mersenne twister that Python uses, POSIX systems like
Linux, MacOS, and BSD provide a number of random number generation
facilities, briefly documented in the man pages. BSD man pages for
random and arc4random mention the Fortuna algorithm and the arc4
algorithm. At least the latter is similar to yours in that in "mixes
in" additional entropy gradually as more random numbers are generated.
For sources of "entropy" (random bits) the man page on /dev/random
and /dev/urandom provide nice brief explanations.
Truth causes consequences; consequences bring pain; pain exorcises guilt!