The Seed in the Sketch: Randomised Algorithms, Hashing and Sketches

Deep End Era. Engineering with Sankalp · Oct 28, 2026 · 1h 1m

Randomised algorithms trade certainty for speed and memory: Monte Carlo and Las Vegas algorithms, probability tools, universal hashing, Bloom filters, HyperLogLog, heavy hitters and quantile sketches, reservoir sampling, MinHash and locality-sensitive hashing, the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma, randomness in distributed systems, hash flooding, the Debian OpenSSL bug, and differential privacy. Cross-references: EP22, EP82, ep125, ep148, ep163.

Chapters

00:00:00 Cold open: the audience that grew by itself

00:02:52 Why flip coins?

00:07:23 The tools of trust: expectations, tails and hashes…