Archives for the Month of October, 2011

Some interesting sorting algorithms

Walking back from Falafels today with CS majors, we somehow began discussing strange sorting algorithms. A good sort to know (not really) is bead sort. Imagine you have a bunch of beads on rods, like an abacus, and cross-wise they represent numbers. If you simply tilt the whole thing over, then gravity will let them […]

git-dude, meet hg-dude

Git-dude is a cool little thing. Given a directory of git repos, it continually fetches updates and displays a popup if you get any new commits. When I first saw it on Google Plus, somebody inexplicably commented, “This is a neat thing and I dont [sic] think there is a mercurial equivalent.” Given that Git […]

Why deterministic encryption algorithms do not satisfy multiple-message

Let’s say you have some private-key (symmetric-key) encryption scheme. It takes a key and a message, and outputs a ciphertext. Nobody without the key can decrypt the message using the decrypter. Is that secure? Not if it’s deterministic.

Steve Jobs: 1955–2011

It’s hard to put Steve Jobs into words, but I will forever remember him as a leader who didn’t let critics stop him from accomplishing so many things. We as a society tend to complain about Apple products being overhyped and to mock Apple’s “magical” and “revolutionary” labels, but the critics are uncomfortable because there’s […]