Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • "character" is just knowing yourself

    There's a scene in Angeline Boulley's novel Firekeeper's Daughter where the main character, an Ojibwe teenager, describes her coming-of-age "berry fast." She loves berries of all kinds, so she committed to not eating any for an entire year. She otherwise lived a normal life - going to events where berries were served, going berry picking, and so on. She describes how her aunt even tested her by leaving her alone in the berry patch to see if she'd cheat (she did not).

    I have a bumper crop of black raspberries this year. They're coming on fast. There are enough still to ripen, and enough rain in the forecast, that I may have to make jam. I'm not sure I can eat all of these or even give them away. They're a pain in the everything to pick, but they're worth it.

    I was limbs-deep in the patch this morning, thinking about that scene in Firekeeper's Daughter. Thinking about how many mainstream Americans I've met who have told me they would "literally die" if they had to give up a favorite food. Thinking about how allergic mainstream US culture is to "building character" that we've turned "it builds character" into a joke meme.

  • Thoughts on feeling "useful"

    I don’t have a lot of self-confidence.

    I struggled with my job in the past, and do so still, because *I don’t do anything “useful” with it* - Basically, I just write code so my company can earn money by selling products. The products don’t “help humanity as a whole”.

    I like to help out at furry conventions. I also always volunteer as an election worker. 1

    These activities make me happy. Because I do something “valuable”. Also because I enjoy the company there.

  • Space, Symbol, Value

    Language teachers should begin by explain this...

    Language is composed by space, by symbol (without a value), and by (symbol with a) value. This is the foundations to a language.

    In speech, space can be silence, or (not *xor*) it can also be the pauses in-between words. In writing, spaces can be, a space, a newline, an end of a file, etc..

  • The Last Couple Days in Point Form

    * We've got co-workers in from the next province over for annual meetings. There's talk of going for drinks. I've been dry since March (yeah, it's still a thing), but I'll show up, have a non-alcoholic beer or a Coke or something.

  • The rainy season

    We entered the rainy season on Sunday the 7th, and we've had a few rainy days since then. Yesterday it was overcast and rather cool, and not humid at all. Today it's been hot and sunny, but again not humid. I think it's going to be overcast for the next few days. No need to run the a/c just yet, so I am enjoying this before we turn the calendar page to July. Four more months of summer ...

    Earlier this month I read an article in The Mainichi about a woman from Britain who visited Japan in 1878[1]. The woman is Isabella L. Bird and the book is called "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan". I found the quoted passages in the article to be very interesting, so I started reading the book online at Project Gutenberg[2] first, then I bought a physical copy.

  • Molly

    My mind, infatuated with Molly, wanders in all directions.

    The next day after our kiss, I wanted to give her a massage. I setup my mat, and then I went to get her on the dance floor. I gestured that it was time for the massage, she understood, but went to grab her water bottle. She looked at my reaction. I came standing by the dance floor, waiting for her, I would not let her go away.

  • Jackson: dreams and freaks

    Strange dreams about organizing a show. Michael Jackson was to play alongside Jimi Hendrix. I don't think these two ever played in the same show, I told myself. The show was a mess although it was well attended. There was some frustration in the public about scheduling and who plays when.

  • first day setup

    I was planing to spend that weekend at the Kamloops Tattoo show. I planned to make some connections in the tattoo industry, offering cheap website design and hosting for tattoo studios. Meet tattoo artists, maybe receive a tattoo, and maybe meet some tattoo enthusiast, for me to practice on, or maybe just to fall in love with.

• Technology and Free Software

  • PISA Pen-and-Paper Cipher

    In 1999, security researcher Bruce Schneier invented a text encryption cipher called "Solitaire."^ The goal of the cipher was to create an encryption algorithm that could be implemented without computers or codebooks but could withstand an analysis by computers. To use Solitaire, two parties use a shared secret to "shuffle" a standard deck of 52 playing cards with Jokers in an identical manner. The value of the cards in the deck are then used as a "keystream" to encrypt and decrypt text. Schneier proposed that this cipher could be very useful for encryption in adverse conditions, such as pervasive government surveillance: playing cards are innocuous and easy to procure, and if an operator is in danger of being exposed, simply shuffling the deck is enough to destroy the key.

    Later cryptanalysis discovered weaknesses in Solitaire. In particular, the cipher is slightly more biased towards repeating numbers in the keystream than expected, and in some rare instances, different orders of the deck can yield the same keystream. One solution to the bias was proposed in 2019 by Daniel Shiu,^^ at the cost of making the cipher too cumbersome to implement by hand.