The algorithm starts out by generating a random set of notes that GenJam plays in accordance with what it knows about the piece of music.

ECONOMIST: Musical computers

Catherine Farrell, of the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, said the government needed a "joined-up strategy" for childcare rather than the current "random set of proposals".

BBC: Childcare ratios: We will find way forward, says Cameron

What makes aircraft fatigue such an dark art is that, unlike standard tests done in a laboratory, an aircraft's structure has to endure a complex, mostly random, set of static as well as cyclical stresses when in service.

ECONOMIST: Aircraft fatigue

The snarky character banter is here, along with the buddy-cop dynamic between Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle, the extended sequence set in a random small town dive bar, the almost subtle politics, and of course the self-depreciating macho sensibilities.

FORBES: Review: 'Iron Man 3' Is Best Comic Book-Inspired 'Part 3' Movie Ever

Wal-Mart, after all, does not set up shop at random.

ECONOMIST: Measuring the Wal-Mart effect

And on that very first test, we just had a set of DNAs plotted at random really.

NPR: Pioneering DNA Forensics

So Mr. Romney is to blame because of decisions he didn't make at a business he didn't run that may or may not have set in train a series of random unconnected events many years apart that included Ilyona Soptic's illness.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: The Postmodern President

That second audit has now been questioned on many grounds including the fact that, through a set of careless procedures, the observers could have been duped when selecting a random sample of centres to audit.

ECONOMIST: A bug's life

MessageLabs, the email-filtering company that Symantec acquired in 2008, posted a set of word maps today measuring the frequency of terms in spam emails from a random one-week sampling of junk mail pulled from the most prolific spam-spewing botnets.

FORBES: The Most Common Words In Spam Email