  The emergence of non-gaussian distributions for macroscopic quantities in
nonequilibrium steady states is discussed with emphasis on the effective
criticality and on the ensuing universality of distribution functions. The
following problems are treated in more detail: nonequilibrium interface
fluctuations (the problem of upper critical dimension of the
Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation), roughness of signals displaying Gaussian 1/f
power spectra (the relationship to extreme-value statistics), effects of
boundary conditions (randomness of the digits of pi).
