[danso]

I remember in a HN thread someone making the great observation that data without structure is just noise (i.e. not data at all).

[ACow_Adonis]

As a statistician I would strongly object to the proposition that noise is unstructured or not data at all.

[NotAnEconomist]

I would argue the reverse: noise is data we can't interpret.

You're welcome to point me at an unstructured noise source to support your point, though.

[zapzupnz]

Electrical noise and interference.

[NotAnEconomist]

Those are both examples of signals we can't interpret interfering with the signal we're trying to interpret.

However, it's not like the electrical noise came to be by magic -- it's the result of many interactions that have a structure, and hence impart that structure on the "noise", we just lack key facts to be able to interpret that signal.

[philwelch]

/dev/urandom

[NotAnEconomist]

Your example of lack of structure, rather than merely something we can't interpret, is algorithmically generated?

I think we may be speaking past each other.

[philwelch]

Hardware RNG then.