[aflukasz]

Some of you cite your favorite strips. I will too.

Dilbert comes down to the caves where trolls (accountants) reside and gets a tour. The guide points to a troll sitting behind a desk, and mumbling in a stupor: "nine, nine, nine...".

Guide: And this is our random numbers generator.

Dilbert: Are you sure those are random?

Guide: That's the problem with randomness - you can never be sure.

Edit: Found it here: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-quest-for-rand....

And thank you, Scott - many laughs thanks to you.

[judah]

The following[0] is my favorite because my company is hardening security by making everything difficult and painful, especially single-sign on:

[Mordac] "Security is more important than usability. In a perfect world, no one would able able to use anything."

[Asok's computer screen]: "To complete login procedure, stare directly at the sun."

[0]: https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2007-11-16

[pwg]

I especially like this one:

https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-08-24

It has hit home a time or two when the "managers" hire in a "consultant".

[fidotron]

He also covered the opposite extreme:

https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1995-03-25

[airstrike]

This is a classic and probably my favorite https://devhumor.com/media/dilbert-s-team-writes-a-minivan

[teddyh]

Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1995-11-13>

[FireBeyond]

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fe...

Dilbert is trapped in the bowels of Accounting.

Dogbert: I understand you have Dilbert. Free him, or else...

Troll: Or else what?

Dogbert: Or else I will put this cap on my head backwards! Your little hardwired accounting brain will explode just looking at it!

Dilbert: What was that popping sound?

Dogbert: A paradigm shifting without a clutch.

[teddyh]

Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1995-08-25>

[kbutler]

Hardware happiness - I've enjoyed checking in to these specs every few years...

35" monitor 20 megs of ram 1.2 gigabytes of hard disk space

https://web.archive.org/web/20150205042406/https://dilbert.c...

[teddyh]

Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1994-02-19>

[kbutler]

Thanks!

Any bets which link stays valid longer?

I also like this related comic: https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1995-07-12 https://web.archive.org/web/20150309041557/http://dilbert.co...

[teddyh]

Links to archive.org always last longer – that’s the point. But they are not the most convenient to use: The web site as viewed through archive.org is slow, and any external links are also to the old archived version of the linked-to site. Therefore a live link, if such a thing exists, is better.

[teddyh]

Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2001-10-25>

[bayindirh]

I keep this taped on my cubicle: https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2008-02-12

Not because somebody did that to me, but I had to migrate two racks of systems in one night under literal and proverbial heat due to former one.

You can think pointy haired as the embodiment of Murphy of Murphy's laws.

[ja27]

One of my favorites.

Also the one where Wally insists his towel gets cleaner every time he uses it: https://br.omega.com/dilbert/311.html

There's one somewhere where they're eating lunch and I think Wally asks Dilbert if he has any extra napkins and Dilbert says he won't know until he's done eating.

[teddyh]

Better link: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1995-11-24>

> There's one somewhere where they're eating lunch and I think Wally asks Dilbert if he has any extra napkins

This one: <https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1994-10-29>

[profsummergig]

I remember reading this one in the late nineties. Never been able to find it again. It was probably in one of his books:

------------

pointy haired boss making making a presentation: "research shows that customers want high-quality products at low-prices.

but we make low-quality products.

so we are going to sell them at high-prices and call it a strategy"

-------------

If anyone has a link to the original comic, please share it, I would like to see it again. It captures so many themes succinctly, and was very very astute for the late nineties when corps were doing crazy things and calling it a "strategy".

[ghurtado]

That reads like a XKCD comic disguised as a Dilbert strip.

Very nice.

And also, what a cool read that was, thanks for sharing the article.

[ThatPlayer]

XKCD has a different random number: https://xkcd.com/221/

[tarvaina]

Stray thought: Why 4 and 9? Because the joke is funniest if the number is completely ordinary.

0 and 1 are special and so are all prime numbers. 6 is out because it's the maximum die throw. And one figure is more ordinary than two figures, or negatives, or decimals. That leaves 4 and 9.

[grahamlee]

That makes 4 and 9 the only two uninteresting numbers, which is interesting, so they’re out too!

Douglas Adams said the same about 42. It’s the answer because it’s completely banal.

[_pigpen__]

Everyone knows that six is the most boring number. https://youtu.be/G4OTRRmyTAA?feature=shared

[Velorivox]

How come prime numbers are special but squares aren’t? 4 and 9 both being squares seems to be a more striking commonality than your logic here…

[tarvaina]

Yeah. Alternative explanation: I'd say 3 and 7 are out because they often come up in fairy takes etc as magical. 5 is out because it's half of ten and the number of fingers. 2 is out because it is too small.

[darkerside]

The perfect squares are the most ordinary?

[dreghgh]

What about 8?

[bee_rider]

Maximum throw for a battle axe in 5e d&d, of course.

I dunno actually. Maybe because 4*2=8? The two picks have the property of not being related really.

[tim333]

8, 16, 32, 64 pop up a lot in computer circles.

[tarvaina]

Oh, right! I forgot about it. I guess 8 would do too.

[bbaron63]

I still have my Etch-a-Sketch as laptop mouse pad.