hi gizmo,
regarding randomness I would like to make a book recomendation. if you think this doesn't fit your section just tell me and delete this post. I would than place it in a different section. :)
the book is called "Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense" by Arieh Ben-Naim.
the book is about thermodynamics, probability and the way random processes develop.
pieces of it can be found on google books.
cheers
hans