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Another idea for: "Draw 23 Words Out of the Hat" #89

Open donnlee opened 3 years ago

donnlee commented 3 years ago

I'm too lazy to cut 2048 words with scissors, so I've been thinking of other random ways to pick 23 words from a "hat" with a human. I'm looking for feedback on my latest idea:

  1. Take the 2-page word list, and divide the rows into groups of 4 rows each. This yields 32 "row-groups", photo:

image

  1. Get 32 lego bricks of equal size. I bought 64 2x2 bricks (item #3003) from Bricklink for less than $8 shipped. Number each brick with labels or a Sharpie marker:

image

Bricks are widely available, cheap, durable, and uniform in shape and weight. This makes them good for random selection from a hat.

  1. Put the 32 bricks in a hat and draw a random brick/number. This selects one of the 32 row-groups on the word sheets.
  2. To randomly select a row in the row-group, roll one casino-grade die (dice). This selects rows 1 through 4 within the row-group. If "5" or "6" is rolled, roll again. Now you have a random row.
  3. Using a 2nd set of 16 lego bricks (eg. different color), draw a random # between 1 through 16. The word sheets have 16 columns. This selects the column for the selected row. With the row + column, you have selected a random word. If you don't want to use a 2nd set of 16 lego bricks, you could use half of your 32-brick set.

image

Return the selected lego brick to the hat before selecting the next random number.

Extreme kudos to Michael for this guide and the interview on Stephan Livera Podcast. The interview inspired me to level-up my bitcoin security. ... and also scared the begeezus out of me :)

mflaxman commented 3 years ago

Some alternative methods are referenced in the advanced section: https://btcguide.github.io/setup-wallets/paper-advanced

Hopefully, hardware wallets in the future will come with the 2048 words already cut out. It should add < $1 USD of cost and is so easy a monkey could do it. But advanced users can find other ways.

Gilbog commented 2 years ago

Well, with good scissors and cutting several layers of paper in one cut, it took me less than half an hour to cut the 2048 tiny pieces ... all the other methods aren't that much quicker or easier imo.