Testimonials

I make mixed media animations as a hobby, and have recently been exploring non-sequential abstract patterns, as both a visual ‘static’ effect, and as dynamic planes and surfaces for figures. While sometimes a typological approach appropriate, like taking a photo of a section of every page in the weekly newspaper and running it at high speed so it becomes non-figurative (to be used as an overcast sky), I often need more specific sorts of abstract, and drawing or otherwise generating thousands of frames of images, often for a minute or two of footage can be time consuming. So, I routinely get around this by making a fraction of that amount, and I used to pad the remaining time out by repeating frames in 'random' order, off the top of my own head, results less than impressive. Now, thanks to your random, I generate integers corresponding to existing frames, which eliminates obvious loops and repetitions, creating a much more believable and smooth non-sequential series.

Also, being subject to whimsy, I occasionally include snapshots of said numbers in the odd frame, or even the URL, considering it subliminal advertising.

—Dominic Brown

I am the founder and administrator of 911Lifeline.org.

We are a forum, support, and resource center for public safety professionals who work as telecommunicators at 9-1-1 emergency dispatch centers. We provide our services via our Yahoo group, and our web site. We recently started drawings to recognize and reward our members. In particular, we are holding our first drawing to celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

NPSTW is an annual event that takes place during the first full week in April. It was officially created by a proclamation signed in 1994 by former U.S. president Bill Clinton. If you are interested, you can read the proclamation at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=49952

Our members enter the drawings via email. At first, it was not clear how to fairly pick the winners, but then I became aware of Random.org. Each email is assigned a sequential number as it is received. Your random sequence generator is then used to randomize the entries. The first N numbers in the sequence, typically three, determine the winners.

Thank you for your fine resource, and public service.

Sincerely,

—Michael Wallach, 911Lifeline.org