Mark_Friedenbach comments on The Weighted Majority Algorithm - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 November 2008 11:19PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 18 October 2013 04:46:20PM *  0 points [-]

Mersenne Twister is the most commonly used algorithm. It is fast, and generates good results. It is not adversarial secure, but in that situation you should be using a cryptographically secure RNG.

Age of the PRNG algorithm has no bearing on this discussion. (If rand() uses something else, it's for standards-compatability reasons; nobody writing Monti-Carlo algorithms would be using such PRNGs.)

Comment author: [deleted] 19 October 2013 12:38:27PM 0 points [-]

If rand() uses something else, it's for standards-compatability reasons;

Actually the C and POSIX standard impose very few requirements on rand(); it would be entirely possible in principle for it to be based on the Mersenne Twister while still complying to the standards.