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From: lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: "being" explained
Message-ID: <1072@ihuxr.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-May-84 18:06:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxr.1072
Posted: Tue May  8 18:06:13 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 9-May-84 02:53:45 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 24

My article entitled "being" is the output of a random walk program
on an hp2621 screen. The walk starts at the center of the screen memory
and goes until it hits an edge. The numbers and letters indicate how
many times a given position was visited. The letters are extended digits.

I wrote my program so that it would accept arbitrary strings as srand()
seeds by formally interpreting them as decimal digit strings.  I decided
that it was a "karmagram" generator, and that the shape would give a clue
to ones personality by entering ones name or other tokens as seeds.
A friend of mine suggested giving "0" as the seed, and the result, to
our delighted amazement, was that it spelled BEING in the middle of the
screen. Of course, the manner in which this is accomplished is a sight to
behold.

I then decided that this was proof that zero has Buddha-nature, based
on the string manipulation discussions of the Tortoise in Hofstatder's
GEB.  In fact I sent a note to Hofsdadter c/o SciAm describing it and
he sent an acknowledgment, asking "What next?"

I'm putting this in net.origins because of the monkey-typewriter business
as a case in point illustrating the difficulties of ex post facto evaluations
of probabilities.

	Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew