[Beowulf] OT: public random numbers?

[Mark Hahn]

>>> After posting I thought of one other source of more or less random
>>> verifiable numbers - the scores of sporting events.  These are not

I immediately thought of another widely published stream of immutable noise: 
the congressional record.  sorry, no smiley ;)

> Then pop it into your favorite AES-based or threefish based RNG, or cook
> up something yourself with even more rotors, spin it a while, and out
> comes your lottery winner

sorry, I don't understand your emphasis on flatness.  why does the
distribution of the seed (entropy source) matter, as long as it's 
reasonably large and not predictable before publication date?
the crypto hash takes care of whitening, doesn't it?

thanks, mark hahn.