in reply to max random

As far as I know, most perls use drand48, which is a 48-bit PRNG. You can definitively check how many random bits your perl's PRNG has using the Config module:
perl -MConfig -le 'print $Config{randbits}'

Update: The clever PodMaster suggests perl -V:randbits as another way to access the same information.

blokhead