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SubjectRe: How can Emacs get a unique ID per Linux reboot?
On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, G. Allen Morris III wrote:
> How about generating a 32bit random number at boot time. There
> is a 1 in 2**32 of getting the same number after a reboot, but
> that should not be a large problem.

That 1 in 2**32 is the chance of duplicating any specific number in the
sequence. The chances of *some* member of the sequence being a duplicate
is much higher. This is called the "birthday paradox" because if you
pick ~30 people at random, it is highly likely that two of them will
have the same birthday.

--Tim Smith


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