Why?

I learnt to program in BASIC on a 8-bit computer. Truth be told I learnt all the basics of programming in BASIC on an old fashioned paper book.? My uncle had a series of books on programming that he graciously lent me despite of the fact I did not have a computer at the time. Since he didn’t either, it never seems to be a big deal to me. I just want to learn about computers. They seemed way far more interesting than video games: I could control my environment using actuators, communicate with other people, play games, and even start/stop another thermonuclear war. What is not to like?

One of the great articles in one of the books was on random numbers, sequences and generators. I was fascinated by it. The text (and associated code) explained not only that computers are unable to generate random numbers (they only seem to do so) but also that we, human, can’t do a better job at that either. I was baffled at this revelation since I thought, as most people do, that come up with a random number after the other is nothing but a trivial task. Anyone, if asked, can come up with a fairly large sequence of numbers that are random. Or are they?

Consider the following exercise. Let a set A of three elements r, p and s. And let f be a function where f(r, p)=p, f(r, s)=r?and f(p, s)=s. If you are paying attention you might recognize this. It is a mathematical formulation of the basis of a very well known (and fun) game called Rock-Paper-Scissors. The players are completely free to choose any element (r, p, s) they want to use at each iteration (match). The question is, can the human choose it randomly? The article argued that the answer is no. That we, humans are not a quite good sequence random generators as we imagine. That we are biased. To prove this point it asked the reader to type and run this very long BASIC listing. Maybe Today I would think twice but at that age, all you have is time. So I virtually begged my father for what I didn’t have: a computer. Any would do. One day I was interrupted in my reading adventures by the arrival of a second handed (but in impeccable condition) ZX Spectrum that was connect to my TV in such a short time that would defy the laws of special relativity if I could have recorded the fact. I was then ready to verify the big claims that by using technics like Exponential Smoothing the computer could actually forecast my “random” moves and, in the long run, beat me to it. And it did.

I was hooked. I mean, I was already hooked at that point. What I meant is that I was really, really into this thing, and I absolutely knew it, I would be for the entirety of my life.

It took a while for me to come to write about computers and it took a friend to put me to it. I never thought I’d like to do it. There are tons of other people doing it and I saw no reason to add to the crowd. Except that I realized that when you do it, when you write about something you internalize it better, you really, really start to understand the subject you are talking about. For that reason only I think it is a valuable effort. If someone else benefits of it even better. I may do it as long as I enjoy it? && there is something left to say.