Log24

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

X-Code

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 8:13 pm

IMAGE- 'Station X,' a book on the Bletchley Park codebreakers

From the obituary of a Bletchley Park
codebreaker who reportedly died on
Armistice Day (Monday, Nov. 11)—

"The main flaw of the Enigma machine,
seen by the inventors as a security-enhancing
measure, was that it would never encipher
a letter as itself…."

Update of 9 PM ET Nov. 13—

"The rogue’s yarn that will run through much of
the material is the algebraic symmetry to which
the name of Galois is attached…."

— Robert P. Langlands,
     Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

"All the turmoil, all the emotions of the scenes
have been digested by the mind into
a grave intellectual whole.  It is as though
Bach had written the 1812 Overture."

— Aldous Huxley, "The Best Picture," 1925

X-Joke

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:00 am

Backstory  The Talented

Lois and the Ice Hole

Related material Parts of a World and Ace in the Hole.

Rated X

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:00 am

New York Times  theater critic Ben Brantley
last night at 10 PM ET on the opening of a
play by Samuel Beckett —

"The cause of this incontinent mirth?
The dirtiest joke of all time. I mean life itself.

No playwright of the 20th century, and quite
possibly ever, has told this joke with the
clarity, simplicity and richness of Beckett."

Related material — This journal yesterday.

See also Lead Balloon.

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