Testimonials

I just wanted to learn more about the world. I use numbers from your site to randomly pick 5 countries to pay a little extra attention to for the year. I also use the random numbers to come up with an age and sex for an imaginary citizen in that country and try to think about the country's recent history from their point of view.

—Sylvia Johnson

I am using the random sequence generator to take a 15% sample of the archaeological potsherds I am studying. More specifically, I am studying the ceramic vessels and fragments collected, over the course of eight years, from an early Spanish colonial town in Central America. The town was occupied for only a generation, so there was minimal change through time in ceramic style. For each excavation unit and level, I analyze all potsherds that include handles, rims, painted decoration, unusual clay characteristics, and the like. These are my diagnostic sherds. The remainder do not provide enough information to make analyzing and recording each one individually worthwhile, but I don't want to neglect them entirely, as in certain contexts they make up a high percentage of what we have. So, I use your random sequence generator to help me select 15% of this non-diagnostic remainder for study. Thank you for the help.

—Jeb J. Card, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University