Kikkoman

This is the reason computer geeks get excited about big prime numbers.

It is what SSL uses to allow “two users to exchange a secret key over an insecure medium without any prior secrets.”

I don’t really understand the math, but it is nice to see the equations. The hoopla over quantum computing from a cryptographic perspective is that it may make the discrete inverse logarithm problem that this algorithm relies on for its security easy to solve.

One from me and one from Shawna.

Me first. About a month ago we did a little weekend road trip to Corpus Cristy to go windsurfing with Dan Fernholtz. I was driving, Dan was in the front passenger seat, and Shawna was napping or watching Troy on the laptop in the backseat.

Between the road noise, big trucks, and movie it was hard to hear what Dan was saying. So rather than ask him to speak louder, I found myself inadvertently reaching for the volume knob on the car’s stereo (it was off), ostensibly to turn up his volume. Very wrong.

Shawna’s turn. We’ve been playing World of Warcraft since it came out. The key thing for this story, is that the game is primarily played in 3rd person. Most of the time your view is about 10 to 15 feet behind and above your character, but you can rotate and move your view using the mouse. This lets you look around corners and other obstacles for navigation and to avoid/find bad guys. Right click and drag the view around.

Two days ago, she had a meeting for work downtown on the UT campus, which is not an easy place to navigate. Apparently she found herself wanting to right-click and move her view so she could look around.

Was sitting in Target waiting and watching Shawna. And it hit me. I’ve got a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket, ala the Cake song.