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  • Martin Rundkvistmrundkvist@archaeo.social
    Jul 5, 2026, 5:47 PM

    I have devised a method to pick random books off our shelves using dice and a tape measure.

    Today the 4D10 told me that I needed to look on shelf number nine, 17.1 cm from the leading end. This gave me a 756-page anthology of Swedish poetry through the ages, published in 1978. Of course, fatter books are more easily hit by a randomiser that just gives you a distance in shelf millimeters. Looking forward to the read over the next few months!

    #books #poetry

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Replies

  • Martin Rundkvistmrundkvist@archaeo.social
    Jul 5, 2026, 6:32 PM

    Here's the method:

    Assign numbers to each shelf in your house and measure their lengths. Divide the sum total by a sensible number of dice pips. In our case, 2000 pips is good because we have 1817 cm of books, so each pip represents 1817/2000=0.91 cm.

    Create a table of the shelves' endpoints in dice pips. Like so:

    Shelf 1: 152 pips
    Shelf 2: 304 pips
    Shelf 3: 456 pips

    Roll the dice, find the shelf, calculate how many pips from the end you need to measure, multiply by in our case 0.91.

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  • Pseudo Nympseudonym@mastodon.online
    Jul 5, 2026, 8:25 PM

    @mrundkvist nice.

    I was naively assuming the first 0-9 was a shelf, and the next 000-999 was centimeters across, and brign jealous of that many books.

    Cheers.

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