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The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

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Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#31

Post by mikeash »

okket wrote: post #28
sloppycee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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...

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

This Jargon File entry listing several specific "random numbers" has the same theme:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#32

Post by edmccard »

okket wrote: post #28
sloppycee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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...

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/, hover over the title of a comic, and a tooltip will show the date

EDIT: I see 'mikeash beat me to it.

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#33

Post by s_kilk »

dEnigma wrote: post #6
glorious wrote: post #2

tl;dr: They were down there talking about math one afternoon and the owner of the deli was trying to take the order from one of them and he was a little bit too preoccupied with mathematics to fully engage in the sandwich ordering process.

One actually doesn't have to read more than this tl;dr, since the interview in the article is tedious and takes forever to get to the point

I guess a simple anecdote about math dweebs holding up the line would be less publishable without all the window-dressing.

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#34

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Analemma_ wrote: post #9

Mathematicians can have a focus (and corresponding lack of real-world awareness) that puts even us engineers to shame. Once as an undergrad I was taking a class in the math building, and there was a professor blocking the door because he was reading a flyer taped to it about an upcoming symposium or something. I coughed a little to indicate I was there, and he turned, acknowledged my presence, and then went right bac…

There's the classic/apocryphal story as well of the student who stops a math professor in the hallway and asks a complicated question. Professor gives a long, thorough answer, and the student becomes enlightened. Just as the student is about to leave, the professor asks "Wait, which way did I come from?" Student points out "That way", and the professor goes "Great, then I've had lunch."

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#35

Post by okket »

mikeash wrote: post #31
okket wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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 This Jargon File entry listing several specific "random numbers" has the same theme: http://catb.org/jargon/html/R/random-numbers.html

Thanks. It came up so often during 2008 that I assumed it was inspired by this event, never bothered to check the dates.

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#36

Post by daly »

waqf wrote: post #21
glorious wrote: post #2

tl;dr: They were down there talking about math one afternoon and the owner of the deli was trying to take the order from one of them and he was a little bit too preoccupied with mathematics to fully engage in the sandwich ordering process.

Ok, in future please refrain from ordering sandwiches while standing in the math line.

Sadly Dave's Sandwich was not a Ham Sandwich, said the topolgist.

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#37

Post by Yhippa »

projectramo wrote: post #17

Does anyone remember the story about the famous mathematician at (I think) Princeton, who would always pick 3 as a random number in his examples. ("Let's pick a random number, say 3...") And then he ended up mentoring an entire generation of mathematicians who adopted his habit. And everyone would always "randomly" pick 3. It became a thing. It's kind of a variant on the "let L be a group" because the joke relies ent…

Alice wants to send a message to Bob. However, Eve is listening in...

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#38

Post by madcaptenor »

waqf wrote: post #8
throwawayjava wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, you'd use G when picking a variable name for a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_(mathematics) The equivalent programmer joke might be something like "int str;" or "string array_length;" It's kind of funny in the "oh that's a really bad joke" kind of way :)

"Let ε Or a similar but more blatant telling of the original joke would be "Let ℵ₀ be a group."

In 2005, which had a very bad hurricane season in the Atlantic, (that was the year of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma) they ran out of names for hurricanes and had to use Greek letters. The last hurricane of the season was called Epsilon. Due to my mathematical training I found it very hard to be scared of it.

Re: The story behind the Connecticut deli math sign

#39

Post by majewsky »

madcaptenor wrote: post #38
waqf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let ε Or a similar but more blatant telling of the original joke would be "Let ℵ₀ be a group."

In 2005, which had a very bad hurricane season in the Atlantic, (that was the year of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma) they ran out of names for hurricanes and had to use Greek letters. The last hurricane of the season was called Epsilon. Due to my mathematical training I found it very hard to be scared of it.

Due to my training in parser theory, this hurricane is unnamed.
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