How to browse this forum randomly

[pier4r]

It may help people that want to read slowly a lot but do not want to keep a list of things to read ready. A random pick may help although over time collision will grow and "blanks" will happens. Well for collisions, "repetita iuvant" especially in forums where the majority of the posts are interesting (if this would be spam valley, it wouldn't help); unless one has a great memory.

Many will find this unneeded, but it helps at least me so I'll share. The same can be applied for other similar digital places where just a number is enough.

1. check the view todays posts, then click one of the links that reports a new thread (most likely something with few reply, although this is not necessarily true). That thread will give you a value near the current upper bound of the threads identificators in the mybb database. See for example: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15724.html , the id is the number 15724.
2. Pick a calculator with a program that returns a random number between 1 and 15724 . Or maybe go over https://www.random.org/integers/
3. get the number and put in the address bar the link http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-<...e>.html
4. rinse and repeat if needed.

Of course one could also make a little program that already provides the link.

For example just testing it, I got an interesting thread: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-15587.html where I remembered the explorations done with DavidM using his LSHUF https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-8555.html and here https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-7955.html (buried somewhere in that long thread). Without forgetting the list processing https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-8209.html .

About vector/string processing . I still have it in the back of my mind, but I didn't started collecting serious problems (ok for the vectors some are already there: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-12424.html but with little interest)