A supposedly authentic Enigma is up for grabs on eBay. The current bid stands at $13.5k, which is strange ‘cos I thought something of this rarity would go for much much more. Millions even. Its the three rotor variety and ships all the way from Germany.
Gah, my day is ruined.
Update: … going twice … SOLD! to the creepy looking fed in the corner for $67,480.29.
Prabath’s recent post on the now infamous City Manager of Tuttle (home of the 2003 Heisman Trophy winner) grappling with the concept of operating systems in a paranoid fit of cluelessness had me in stitches for the better half of the morning. Jerry Taylor, the Tuttle man in question, a self professed computer professional of twenty years, has demonstrated to very good effect how NOT to ask for help.
You gotta give it to Jerry, he’s a bold bold man. Not only did he threaten a leading developer of a well meaning distro, he’s also decided to take on The Register. It all amounts to some very entertaining reading.
A Tuttle - that’s what its called now, and they’ve been filling inboxes the world over for decades. Finally, a name for the beast.
Just finished watching Firefly, and I think its just an absolutely brilliant show. I love the ruggedness, the fusion of the past and the present and of course the cast. Its not your typical run-of-the-mill squeaky clean space opera. In one scene, Captan Mal Reynolds gets into a duel over Inara. A duel, people. With swords. The setting is year 2517. Don’t think I blame the good old Captain, Inara sure packs a whole lot of pretty in that tiny little frame. But I digress. I love the twists, and the plots are beautifully woven, characters are well thought out and developed - I just loved it. Its almost 3am and I feel a strong urge to start watching it again from the beginning. Its a damn shame the show was canceled. Bet the nice folks at Fox were smoking something particularly nasty that day.
Don’t forget to check out the FireflyWiki.
Came across the M4 project a couple of days ago while doing some much needed digging. Its simply a distributed effort to crack 3 enigma messages encoded in (what is believed to be) “Shark”, the formidable naval cipher which uses four rotors as opposed to “Dolphin” that uses just three. You can find a good study of Enigma here, here and and a not so good one right here.
You can download a neat multiplatform client that utilizes your idle cycles to crack Shark. Very much in the spirit of seti@home, with the only difference being that this time around, the effort seems worthwhile. <smirk>
I was hooked on Enigma ever since I first read Singh’s Code Book. Then I just HAD to read Robert Harris’ thriller and of course, watch the movie that came out of it. Loved them all. I don’t know what it is about Enigma, whether its the stories surrounding it, the effort it took to crack it, the genius behind it, but I find it all extremely and excruciatingly fascinating.
Hey there Echelon. Readers, say Hi to Echelon.
As some of you probably already know, I’m a drifter. Every now and then I like to start clean on a fresh slate and get rid of the old baggage. But this time, I’d like to try out something different to what I’m used to. I’m Anuradha Weeraman and this here is my blog.
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