I thought I'd give you a short photoblog with a very important message. Okay, it's not that important. The lesson for today is: Never delete anything unless you have to for privacy or safety. The corollary, keep everything encrypted. The corollary to the corollary, remember the password as long as you keep that data encrypted.
Photoblog of Zürich, Switzerland from 2005
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Feb 16, 2016
For many years I have been learning Japanese as a hobby. I have spent years watching subtitled anime to get my comprehension higher. Anime's often slow and deliberate speech patterns make it fairly easy to grab words. But the pace at which anime goes if you aren't careful you can forget everything you hear. Of course, you'll be more prepared for conversing and remembering if you've heard something 1000 times rather than once, but that doesn't translate into instant comprehension.
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by Javantea
Dec 27, 2015
Today I sewed two holes in two shirts. Both shirts have survived a long time but both had become unwearable. By coincidence both shirts were a few sizes too small. Both shirts were worn hundreds of times despite not being the perfect shirt for the task and that is certainly the reason why they came apart after so many years of service. The blue work shirt was made in India in the previous decade and sold by Gap with their brand on it. My brother bought me it so that I would have one dress shirt that I could wear it to interviews. The white ringer was made in Los Angeles by good ol' American Apparel in the previous decade. I bought it from Scarecrow Video in Seattle in the early 2000's. Both are probably a decade old at least. Vintage surely.
Dec 21, 2015
A certain game reminded me of a cryptography trick that I learned years ago and haven't had the opportunity to share. First, let's talk substitution ciphers. I'll give two challenges, one with spaces and one without.
GZKH YOQU TKP QY QB BKOB Q OATOPY KOWE BZ TXQBE O AZHF QHBXZUSCBQZH TKEHEWEX QV BXPQHF BZ ENJAOQH YZVEBKQHF YQVJAE COHB JEZJAE GSYB YBOXB XEOUQHF TKEXE VP VQHU YBOXBY TXQBQHF
PKCCAMSVCNSLADUYDUCLQUFDTCAFZSGDPFNTFSCCNXSTFKGDTXADUMM SKLSMPODUCLXSFVKPFFZSJNMPFVKMKXMKVZXNISFZSMSPFDJFZSODMC LKYZKTYSOMNFSKJSOPSTFSTYSPFDLSPYMNQSOZKFADUKMSOMNFNTXKQ DUFJNMPFBDZT
The trick for the first one is to look at the list of possible two-letter words. Here is the top 101 words in order of occurrence in AI3.
of in to is as by on at an In or it he be He It no up On fr As es so St if At do An US By No UK uk To TV we If id Dr go BC Mr Of My my OF Jr We me Me CD us Is am Co So Al AD Up DC al io cm Ed FM PC Be Do hi EP Go kg FC NY yo 3D AM DJ SS LP UN co Op ad os Sr Ma SR EU mg CA Or Wu IP MA Oz Oh Am HD un kW
There are plenty of two letter words in both challenges, so it should be fairly straightforward how to solve those. Once you've tried values for the two letter words, see what substituting the rest of the characters does to other words. You might find obvious words. If you have a dictionary on your system, you can use grep to find a word automatically. If you have the AI3 wordlist, you automatically get the results in order of likeliness which improves the search many times. It also contains words that a normal dictionary doesn't have.
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