h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And you are right, technically they are 'cyphers' but the folks who cracked them are still referred to as 'code-breakers' - go figure.

The folks that fascinate me in this area are the Navajo who provided secure communications in the Pacific Theatre. I have been wanting to track down a good book on them for a while.

Ben

Did anyone catch a programme on R4 - a few months ago - about the people, like B's mother, who worked there?
They interviewed a husband and wife who met at Bletchley and married at the end of the war. They worked in different sections and - to this day - have never discussed their war-time work with each other.

Personally, I always rather liked the Navajo codetalkers and their unbreakable cypher.

In response to the multiple posts this morning:

Sol, over here on this side of the pond, the general gist of most programs about WWII is that the Americans swept in and saved the tired, hungry masses in England and France from certain destruction. Of course, if you know anything about the war, it's a bunch of hooey, but that's what the image is.

to Ben's Pa and Lil's dad. My grandfather, still alive and kicking, was at Midway, and if a backhoe hadn't fallen on top of foxhole he and his mates were in, he'd have also been killed. He bought lots of stock in Catapillar!

David, that's lovely news! Congrats on a successful audition!

Teutcher, the reason D needs to gain weight is that she is currently on ADHD medication. When she started in November, she was in the 3rd percentile for both height and weight...in other words, proportional. She is now in the 4th percentile for height and off the bottom of the chart for weight, and she looks it. Her doctor wants her to gain weight for her health. Basically, the medication she's on depresses the appetite, and given the growing disparity between her height and weight, she's got to eat more. This is a kid who at the age of 9 weighs only 46 pounds. It's pretty scary, actually.

That does seem light - I did wonder if the ADHD meds were relevant.
with the eating programme - it can be tough getting a child to eat if they're not hungry.

::raises a to Ben's dad, Lil's dad, and the Salon's own male Jenny Lind, David::

Well, well, well. We were going to have a barbeque at work tomorrow *just because*, but it was cancelled in favor of "Adminstrative Assistants Day" (the tarted-up fancy-schmancy new PC name for the Hallmark holiday of Secretaries Day). Why, I don't know, but now we're going to have pizza instead. Pizza's fine, don't get me wrong, only this company always orders from a nationwide chain whose product tastes like greasy cardboard and whose CEO makes large campaign contributions to extreme right-wing politicians.

I'm boycotting it all in favor of Chinese food.

I tried to find somethihng about the Navajo codetalkers but I can't find the reference that I used to have bookmarked. Some of the codetalkers came form Utah, and I believe that there is some mention of it in a roadside marker some where... I fail to recall where however.

I wonder if my interest in cryptosystems got me in to network security, or my interest in network security led to my facination with cryptosystems.

Having lunch today with a couple of my favorite colleagues, one of whom is in town for her dissertation colloquy (basically, where they tell you if your proposal is okay or not) from the hinterlands of Canada. As unproductive as I've been, I still need this, if for no other reason than to be reassured that really, I do know what the hell I'm doing.

Boycotting eh? I seem to remember someone telling me that they usually pick out a certain kind of pizza and they're usually the only one that eats it...

Yes, well, she's picky that way, Sporky.

I could go for a right about now. It's been a day already.

If you were on the other coast I would invite you over to my team beer fridge MR.

Just got back from talking to my Advisor. I don't have to take one of the classes I had scheduled for Summer Semester. We also tweaked the schedule for the other 3 semesters.

Yes, yes, I like veggie pizza. No one else in my department does. However, I refuse to eat *any* pizza--it could even have feta and sun-dried tomatoes on it--slapped together by this company.

Drinks to all fathers wherever they may be especially Ben and Lils dear departed- Dylan Thomas had it right in 'Do not go gentle into that good night'.....
In a poetic mood, and sparked by Marvs Navajo wind-talkers, there is another very thought provoking poem, 'Do not stand at my grave and weep' that was supposedly attributed to a Navajo prayer?? All very moving.

I have been preparing my Waterproof cassock for the weekend - it is the first qualifying race for the Fastnet in Aug - think nautical thoughts of me on Sat / Sun and pray for calm seas and cool breezes!

My mother would make a good counter-espionage person. She's just posted some paperwork relating to a Thursday in May to me but she's put it in a plain brown envelope just in case fraudulent folk were thinking of intercepting it .

The attempt on my life here at the Atelier was actually on the occasion of my second visit. I had previously popped in and said hello and was roundly ignored - but I wasn't upset and would have tried again at a later date had events not become so interesting.

Whatever happened to that pangolin?

Are you still scared of me, WM? One of the side-effects of having to be scary for a living is that it's hard to turn the skill off.

Today I was scaring young people in a school that is new to me but I knew where the school was because, as some of you will recall, I nearly ended up there a few weeks ago by dint of catching the wrong train. I taught some science, then I supervised a Year 12/13 computer room (I did that yesterday too ) and then I taught A-level biology .

For the rest of the week I'm going to be an English teacher back at the holy school. I haven't been there for some time but surely they're going to twig that I'm not an English specialist, as my agency is claiming . I don't know how this is going to work out.


Have I missed something? Has Marv got a J?

Amy, Marv's roommates are J & J, a married couple.

Raises her glass in appreciation for Lil's dad.

F was in the Army Air Corp during WWII. He was an electrician, assigned to a complement squadron that went in behind the infantry and set up landing strips for the bombers. He was an electrician and was in charge of the lighting for the air strips. He hit the beach at Normandy on D-Day plus two - had to wade ashore over bodies.His squadron stayed about 2 days behind the front all through France and Germany.

He was a natural with languages and also served as an interpreter for the French Underground. F's first language was Portuguese, but in addition to that and English, of course, he also spoke fluent French and Spanish and servicible German. When the war ended, he was used as an interpreter in a prison camp for German soldiers.

He had some wonderful stories. He was a much better story teller than I am. But he never wrote anything down. I really need to do that for him, while I can still remember some of it.

*raises another in a toast to Lil's Dad and Ben's Dad*

MR - if she's not hungry then I suppose it's going to have to be high calorie but well balanced food, which is probably the opposite of what you'll be eating after your Gallbladder op. Give her what she wants to eat but make it with more calories for her.

High fat milk, lots of cheese, add mayonaise to salads, fry things instead of grilling them.

If she eats pasta what about using cheese sauce instead of tomato. That sort of thing. It's probably more healthly than feeding lots of sugar and desert, because then it won't be too hard to get back to normal eating when she's a normal weight.

Ooh and some kids who drink loads of squash tend not to be that hungry because they're always full of liquid. (For younger kids they say that eating together as a family helpes because children will copy what the adults are doing).

Another tip I've heard from dieticans is to involve kids in baking and cooking - if she's helped cook it she'll want to eat it.

Thanks for that clarification, Hyp.

It's 8pm and I have to go off to bed now. This is why I can't teach full time. It takes so much out of me - what with the early start and the confrontational nature of the work - that over a week I have to go to bed earlier and earlier in order to survive. Tomorrow I'll have to go to bed at 7pm and then on Friday I'll collapse as soon as I get through the door and won't come round until midday on Saturday.

MR, none of that, of course, was medical advice.

Check your e-mail, please. Ta.

[GDZ]