[EdSchouten]

Yeah, GEAR hashing is simple enough that I haven't considered using anything else.

Regarding the RNG used to seed the GEAR table: I don't think it actually makes that much of a difference. You only use it once to generate 2 KB of data (256 64-bit constants). My suspicion is that using some nothing-up-my-sleeve numbers (e.g., the first 2048 binary digits of π) would work as well.

[pbhjpbhj]

The random number generation could match the first 2048 digits of pi, so if it works with _any_ random number...

If it doesn't work with any random number, then some work better than others then intuitively you can find a (or a set of) best seed(s).

[Scaevolus]

Right, just one fewer module dependency using the stdlib RNG.