How do make a function that creates a sequence of nrandomnumbers?

[Robin Munn]

Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
> Robin Munn wrote:
>> 
>> Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> wrote:
>> > Tony Meyer wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > > Thanks, everyone. Also, I'd really like to know how to remove the
>> >> > > lowest number from the sequence.
>> >> > Now this really sounds like homework.
>> >>
>> >> OT, but if you were a teacher assigning homework like this, wouldn't you
>> >> read c.l.p to see which of your students asked the homework questions?  (Or
>> >> at the least, google through the list when the homework is handed in?)
>> >
>> > Given that most people, and almost always those posting questions about
>> > homework or how-to-write-spamsoft, either use fake email addresses, or
>> > hide behind cute "handles" and generic web-mail accounts, there's little chance
>> > that a professor will actually be able to match the request with an
>> > actual student, I would think.
>> 
>> Oh, I can think of one way: make another fake E-mail address (or a rea
>> but pseudonymous Hotmail account) and answer the student's request on
>> Usenet, giving a full and complete solution that happens to be
>> deliberately wrong. Then see if the student even bothers to test the
>> answer they copy and paste.
>
> Oh, nasty. :-)  Unfortunately slipping that past some of the people in
> this newsgroup would be very difficult.  Maybe a direct email would be
> better...  and maybe it's already been happening and we just don't know it.

The other solution I thought of was to put comments in that have a
deliberate spelling mistake. That would be less likely to get corrected
by the Python experts in here, but OTOH, it would also be hard to prove
that the student didn't happen to make the same spelling mistake...

Anyone remember which Tom Clancy book it was where Jack Ryan uses a
technique like this to figure out who's been leaking classified
documents to the press? They put together a document that looks like
juicy government gossip, with a couple paragraphs that are just too good
not to quote. Each copy of the document has a slightly different wording
in those juciy paragraphs. Then they keep track of who got which copy,
and watch the newspapers to see the wording of the quotes on the
front-page story. IIRC, Clancy called this the "smoking typewriter"
method.

-- 
Robin Munn
rmunn at pobox.com