3 ms·

https://www.xkcd.com/221/ https://www.xkcd.com/221/

by Avshalom 9y ago

jdmichal 9y ago
Also: http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25
- sp332 9y ago
  This actually has a bit of a point behind it, because the digits of Pi http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.html http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.htm... feature "999999" much earlier than would be expected if the digits were uniformly distributed. So once that sequence was discovered, it took a lot more work for mathematicians to convince themselves that it is completely "random" (or "normal" in the jargon). It still hasn't been proven though! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Irrationality_and_normality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Irrationality_and_normality
sloppycee 9y ago
Is that a reference to the hilariously broken PS3 RNG? For those unaware, the PS3 was jailbroken because their RNG always returned 4.
- okket 9y ago
  The self-inflicted degradation of the random number generator in the Debian OpenSSL packages were the main inspiration for this, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#Debian_OpenSSL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack...
  - mikeash 9y ago
    The comic is from 2007. The Debian vulnerability wasn't announced until 2008. I'm fairly sure this basic joke predates xkcd by quite a while. For example, here's a Dilbert comic from 2001 with a slight variation on it: http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 This Jargon File entry listing several specific "random numbers" has the same theme: http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html
    - okket 9y ago
      Thanks. It came up so often during 2008 that I assumed it was inspired by this event, never bothered to check the dates.
  - edmccard 9y ago
    XKCD 221 came out February 9th, 2007[1], so either Randall new about the bug before details were announced in May 2008, or it's just a joke about randomness not tied to any particular reference. [1] Go to https://xkcd.com/archive/ https://xkcd.com/archive/, hover over the title of a comic, and a tooltip will show the date EDIT: I see 'mikeash beat me to it.

https://www.xkcd.com/221/ https://www.xkcd.com/221/

jdmichal 9y ago

Also: http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25

sp332 9y ago
This actually has a bit of a point behind it, because the digits of Pi http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.html http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.htm... feature "999999" much earlier than would be expected if the digits were uniformly distributed. So once that sequence was discovered, it took a lot more work for mathematicians to convince themselves that it is completely "random" (or "normal" in the jargon). It still hasn't been proven though! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Irrationality_and_normality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Irrationality_and_normality

sloppycee 9y ago

Is that a reference to the hilariously broken PS3 RNG? For those unaware, the PS3 was jailbroken because their RNG always returned 4.

okket 9y ago
The self-inflicted degradation of the random number generator in the Debian OpenSSL packages were the main inspiration for this, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack#Debian_OpenSSL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator_attack...
- mikeash 9y ago
  The comic is from 2007. The Debian vulnerability wasn't announced until 2008. I'm fairly sure this basic joke predates xkcd by quite a while. For example, here's a Dilbert comic from 2001 with a slight variation on it: http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25 This Jargon File entry listing several specific "random numbers" has the same theme: http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html
  - okket 9y ago
    Thanks. It came up so often during 2008 that I assumed it was inspired by this event, never bothered to check the dates.
- edmccard 9y ago
  XKCD 221 came out February 9th, 2007[1], so either Randall new about the bug before details were announced in May 2008, or it's just a joke about randomness not tied to any particular reference. [1] Go to https://xkcd.com/archive/ https://xkcd.com/archive/, hover over the title of a comic, and a tooltip will show the date EDIT: I see 'mikeash beat me to it.