random

[David C. Ullrich]

On Sun, 3 Jun 2001 19:49:08 +0200, "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com>
wrote:

>"David C. Ullrich" <ullrich at math.okstate.edu> wrote in message
>news:3b1a4ce6.577431 at nntp.sprynet.com...
>    ...
>> a place where I was asked for a definition
>> and didn't give said definition I'll say oops,
>> never mind excuse me. But I don't believe that
>> that has happened. Accusing me of refusing to
>> supply definitions when asked is egregiously
>> insulting.
>
>Reading back on the thread I saw I did not directly
>ask you for the definition, just indicated that the
>definition you (and/or Von Neumann) were using
>was not clear by such "hints" as:
>"""
>If by "perfect" randomness VN meant an infinite amount
>thereof (by Chaitin measure), he might have said that
>"""
>
>But then I never accused you of not giving the
>definition when directly asked to give it -- show
>me a place where I said that? 

Here's a quote from a post a few messages up:

"As you do not deign to define your terms (not even to
USE them, actually -- that 'perfect' was NOT in the
original quote from JVN) unless pushed very hard about
it,"

I suppose that is not _quite_ a direct assertion
that I've been directly asked to give a definition
which I then did not give, but that's certainly
what the "unless pushed very hard about it" sounds
like to me.

>What I meant by
>"not deigning" to give the definition was exactly
>your failure to provide it when I was clearly saying
>that I could not be sure of what the H*** you (and/or
>VN) meant by that "perfect" (I believe you were
>actually the one to introduce "perfect" or "true" as
>adjectives qualifying "randomness"/"random" on
>this thread, but I may be wrong -- I've wasted by
>far enough time on this thread without going back
>for a detailed exegesis of it:-).
>
>You did follow up to this subthread and not offered any
>definition of that "perfect" (or "true") on the follow-ups,
>I do believe.  Am I wrong -- did I miss some message
>in the huge complex of threads?  This has surely been
>known to happen on Usenet news at times.

Whatever. For the record, although I don't quite agree
that it was clear that [this] meant what you say it
clearly meant, nor that it was clear that [that]
meant what you say it clearly meant, you have in
fact clarified what you were getting at.

See, where I come from the phrase "push someone very
hard for a definition" refers to something like...
oh, never mind.

>Alex
>
>
>



David C. Ullrich
*********************
"Sometimes you can have access violations all the 
time and the program still works." (Michael Caracena, 
comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc 5/1/01)