Alexander

This morning I have that pain in my back at the hip joint, which I am treating with two ibuprofen, plus some cold or allergies, attacking my throat and sinuses. My lovely wife will make breakfast for the family.

Still reading the history of Rome. I wonder if Alexander the Great ever ventured into Italy after his father suffered setbacks there. The answer appears to be: buk! buk-buk! buk-aa-a-aa-awk!

Today's Doonesbury, which I reproduce here without permission, makes a joke about encryption, and in so doing, uses a mere substitution cipher. If this were any form of modern encryption (like, since Caesar) the string "PXAT" would not appear twice even if the same plaintext were encrypted twice. The encryption algorithm would transform the identical string differently. Further, when Mike responds to "PXAT," that would, in turn, be encrypted and would not appear as "PXAT." Of course, if the publication in which you read this did not have the key to unlock the text, Mike would not notice that Zonk's dialogue was encrypted. I guess though, that such technicalities get in the way of the joke, which I enjoyed.



Left grip is 44 pounds (44, 44, 43), right grip is 95 pounds (95, 91, 90), left leg balance is 5.1 seconds, and inhale volume is TK mL.