this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Technology

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[–] SheeEttin 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Fun fact, that concept is used in computer security exploits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOP_slide

For choosing an article, it would be better to just pick a new random number.

Although there are probably more efficient ways to pick a random record out of a database. For example, by periodically reindexing, or by sorting extant records by random (if supported by the database).